48 Comments

  1. I have decided the closest we will ever come to a gross food eating. Hallenge on Australian Survivor is Benji devouring nachos. Sigh. I miss people eating icky stuff.

  2. It sounds like even Mat has a crush on Robbie.

    Meanwhile, how freaking badass is Lydia? She changes tribes and slots into a leadership role on the contenders team … and suddenly, the contenders are total badasses who haven’t lost a challenge since. I know I’m guilty of a little bias, but she seems to bring out the best on Robbie, like, the two of them make a really powerhouse team. It’s kinda just nice to see the contenders winning stuff, they were useless with Zach in charge. Funny that.

    Anyway, I’m still wary of this advertised big twist. Given the foreshadowing at the start of the episode (where the politics of both tribes was on display), I’d say the twist is that *both* tribes have to eliminate somebody.

  3. I think we’ve figured out Mat’s kryptonite. The Champions haven’t had to do the tribal council thing much, so they’re not used to turning on each other … and in two episodes now, Mat’s learned that someone’s mentioned his name, and has immediately turned on them, to eliminate the threat to himself. He’s making decisions emotionally, and I imagine that Shonee and Tegan figured that out on the beach that afternoon.

    • It is interesting that when the boys heard that Brian had been plotting, they immediately assumed that he was targeting Mat. As Tegan stated at TC, they all know who could be considered top dog. What Tegan couldn’t counter, is that Mat is such a benevolent ruler, nobody is unhappy about the situation at the moment. In some ways, he is protecting them until the merge. Steve in particular, is being protected, because otherwise he would be seen as a big threat.

    • I don’t know, I was kind of hoping they’d keep her around. She had such a rough run, but she got saved once already, and I guess her chances ran out.

  4. It was bleeding obvious Benji and Robbie would not save Tegan. It worries me the promo had Fenella saying “now we should be talking to the Champion girls”. You should have been talking to them already, Fenella! With Robbie in Lydia’s thrall she should have been sidling up to Sharn and Monica and dishing on how Benji was part of the bromance and was busted lying

  5. There were some odd decisions at tribal council tonight.

    I think they made a mistake going after Tegan. I think they should’ve taken out Brian when they had the numbers to do so. We all know Brian’s gonna jump ship the first chance he gets, and hell, he even tried to do that tonight.

    Meanwhile, only Heath and Fenella tried to save Tegan. Robbie seems to have thrown his lot in with Lydia (and by extension the champions), but even if he hadn’t, Benji was never going to save Tegan, he’s been wanting to oust her since day dot. I kind of agree with Tegan, though. The contenders shouldn’t be sacrificing one of their own, this close to merge, but I guess it’s a moot point now.

    People give Tegan grief for being a bit too whiny, but I’m quite sympathetic to her. She forms an alliance with Heath, which automatically makes her a target of the shit-stirrer Benji, then she gets blindsided, then stuck on Exile Beach for a few days by herself, then she’s stuck with Anita for a day, then she eliminates Anita (nobody was too sad about this, to be fair), then she rejoins the tribe that didn’t want her, then she gets shunted over to a hostile tribe where she had to scramble twice (and was only successful once) to escape elimination.

    Like, no matter how you cut it, that’s a pretty crappy run.

    Meanwhile, wasn’t Shonee angry that they didn’t save Tegan? If she survives (which is doubtful), I see her siding with the Champions post-merge out of sheer spite.

    • Tegan’s trouble is she was stuck on a tribe that knows it needs to have the post merge numbers. Because if final three has a contender and two champs, the contender could well win because, “Hey, I’m a skateboarder’s wife and you guys are Olympians and here I am sitting next to you, even though I didn’t win a food reward for 20 days”.
      Best part of tribal was Commando’s monosyballic answers

      • Tegan’s problem was joining a Supercouple. Supercouples just don’t work.

        Only one Supercouple, Boston Rob and Amber, has ever won and even then 1. they were the final two so one of them had to win and 2. a somewhat vengeful jury gave the prize to Amber and not to Boston Rob. And that was many, many seasons ago. The most recent example was Jon and Jaclyn in Survivor San Juan del Sur and they crashed and burned. The Supercouple strategy is probably in the same boat as the Hantz Screw Everybody strategy, if it worked it was only ever going to work once.

        Tegan’s effort of declaring war on the rest of the Champions tribe from a base of 2 votes was certainly brave but I am not sure it had a lot going for it. Robbie appears to be developing a Super Eternal Triangle strategy. We will see how that works out.

        • The problem is, any two people showing any sort of affinity are immediately labelled a “super couple”. Heath and Tegan weren’t even voting together as a rule (one of them said that outright), they just found common ground in their parenting experiences. The problem comes when someone else targets one of you to eliminate, then all they have to do is whisper the fatal label. Benji didn’t even have a problem with either of them, he just wanted a victim to prove he could make a big move, and knew that calling a pair a “super couple” would immediately put the target on them.

          Contrast to Mat and Moana on the other tribe, who formed a bond very early and didn’t bother to hide it, yet no-one saw the need to use it against them at all. Fate intervened first.

          I don’t know how you can manage it in this game. If you try to form a relationship with someone you are seen as a threat, if you keep to yourself you are left out of vote decisions and considered an outsider.

          • A Supercouple isn’t just two people who are close. A Supercouple controls a tribe by switching their votes between two larger factions and sneaking down the middle. That was what worked for Rob and Amber and did not work for Jon and Jaclyn. The giveaway was when Jaclyn said she ‘thought we were loved’.

            Benji is good at smiling and smiling and being a villain, but his moves were pretty much defensive if you look at the way the Bromance was whittled down from 5 to 3 in a series of tribal councils. Zach doesn’t count because he talked himself into his own grave.

  6. Tegan was certainly the most unlucky contestant so far. She only got picked on in the alliance with Heath (as do most girls in that situation) because they needed H’s physical strength. She had done absolutely nothing at that point to earn Benji’s ire. Having said that, I think she came out of exile swinging way too hard. It was fine to be a bit bitter and wanting revenge, but maybe if she had hidden that better, and acted humbly (as if she accepted Benji’s boss status) they might have considered her cowed and therefore a possible goat. It was a bit sad that she ended up unwanted by both tribes, without actually being too disliked.

    I wonder from last night how Sharn and Monika are viewing Lydia at this point? We are not hearing much to-camera from Sharn and none at all from Monika. Are they on board with her actions (especially as she is helping to avoid TC) or do they suspect her motives?

    Annoyed that Benji did not seem to be seen going out to the island. Nearly spat my cup of tea to hear Robbie and Benji stating that they hadn’t had to lie so far. Luckily their dementia-moment passed quickly, resulting in schoolgirl giggles about how they had fooled the others.

    What is the deal with Sam and Monika? Quite an intimate little wave at the end of TC last night. Considering most contestants are married/partnered (who is not, I forget?), it must be hard for those at home to watch the connections between some contestants. Lydia and Robbie seemed way too friendly on Monday night, although someone who knows Lydia well may see tactics there.

  7. Might I say, Fenella dropped in my rankings last night with the potty mouth scene. The innocent little girl image is starting to slip.

  8. What do we think about Shane’s double agent strategy? I can’t help but feel that she is playing with fire. On the other hand, I don’t feel particularly attached to her, so if she does sabotage herself, it won’t be a big deal.

    • I feel like Shane’s falling into the trap of thinking that she’s more important to the main alliance than she really is. I think Mat’s convinced her that she’s critical, and he did it so nicely that she believed him, but she’s not at the top of the heirarchy, put it that way. If they have to knife her, at some point in the future, they can do it easily and not lose anything.

      • I think you are right. But Mat is the type to reward loyalty so he might think twice when she has to go, as long as she has continued to be their agent, and not tried to play both sides. Will be interesting to watch in the future.

  9. I don’t like the ones who bitch about it when someone tries to vote them out. As Judge Judy says, “Where did you think you were coming today?” Matt snarking at Brian made Matt smaller in my eyes. What did he think Brian was supposed to do after they blindsighted him and took out Jackie, showing him clearly he wasn’t a member of their alliance. Brian had no choice but to put on Jackie’s dress and reveal his ‘hand’. Brian is starting to play a bit like Lee. It’s fine for him to use Shane like a pawn, just don’t turn spiteful and sooky when you find yourself being targetted because it’s Survivor.
    Tegan just about needed to go for her own sake. She looked a mental and physical wreck. Sharnee, or Shonee was cruising along, according to her, doing no work, and still looking as pink, plump and happy as a cherub, while Tegan had an intense death stare for the last few episodes. She made herself the better choice over Tegan and Shonee by going at it too hard. In the end, you could only worry if she was going to have a breakdown.

    • I can see your point of view, but I didn’t interpret Mat’s reaction as narkiness or surprise at being targeted. It just seemed to me that he was prepared for someone to come at him sometime, and that he was just waiting to see who the first one would be. Mat frequently said that he didn’t trust Brian, so he was half-ready for Brian to do something tricky.

      I am not necessarily exalting Mat above any of the others. He could get very irritating later if the power starts going to his head. But at the moment, he seems very smart about the play, and often a step ahead of events. His downfall may be to trust his cronies too far, especially Steve.

      • It’s just his subtle demonizing Brian as someone untrustworthy. They are ALL untrustworthy in Survivor, including Matt himself.

  10. Well that was a twist. Really thought they would save her. I was hoping they would vote Brian out.
    I thought Benji was going to be sprung walking over to that island when someone got up to tend the fire, but unfortunately they didn’t look over his way. And double damn he found the idol.

    • I think it was Sharn who got up, but because they had built the fence to guard the fire from the wind (presumably Lydia’s idea to improve the camp), she didn’t really look out to sea. Or did she? I would love to find out later that she did see him. Sharn is a canny player, and would use the knowledge well, I think.

      • If someone was missing you would just think they were in the loo, suffering after effects of the roast dinner. Although on HHH Ben used to look for idols in the dark – successfully

        • Yep, Sharn is the high-flying barrister and mum of four, who looks nothing like my perception of a barrister. Shonee is the blonde (can’t remember her occupation) who is trailing along with the girls, Tegan up until this episode. And obviously, Shane is the ex-Olympian. Luckily the three are all quite different in looks and personality.

  11. The one thing that stills pops into my head is that Matt has an idol and i think that is why he is playing the way he is….its like he has this fallback just in case…I am hoping now that Benji gets a little too confident now with his idol and it comes back to bite him…
    Wow…how terribly boring is Commando, as mentioned monosyllabic…i am figuring he is getting a few questions thrown his way and is he really just that boring???
    Really like Sharn, and am totally hoping she saw doofus head over to the island to find the idol…
    Really wishing this was on the 3 nights…Sun/mon/tues

    • No way mate, Steve is playing smart. Boring one liners means Jono won’t ask you questions again…you give away nothing and the tribe is far less likely to turn on you. Tegan on the other hand, utter emotional wreck, she needed to stop talking like 15 paragraphs ago.

  12. I am out of the country and promised I wouldn’t pop in here for spoilers.
    FAIL. I accidentally saw a social media post that revealed the booted players, so don’t need to keep punishing myself.

    Have talked myself into believing that it is the interplay and emotions and strategy repercussions that I’m here for, not the actual results. . . . I am so suggestible.
    Loving the comments here! The good news for me is that when I am back home I can have a survivor fest on Monday during day and then segue immediately into the next week episodes. YAY.

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