It’s Day 8, and the Brains tribe, especially The Coven, are pleased that Kent has gone. Sadly, the fire has gone too, just as Kent cursed for his tribe in his final words. But a Reward Challenge is coming up, and the Brains dream of the gift of flint from JLP.
Logan says they can now send home whoever they like, while AJ wonders if his game is done. He decides it’s not. The editors treat us to a flashback to the night before, where AJ tells Rich he saved him from Logan & Laura, Rich’s “trusted VBs”. Rich is completely taken aback, as he is “the leader of the VBs”, and a trippy night under the Milky Way persuades him that Logan’s ego is in the way of her recognising his superiority.
Rich is going to “flip the table”. He forges an alliance “based in risk and danger” (basically, all the men) and calls it The Bomb Squad. You might want to go to a second draft with that name, Rich.
Over on Brawn, Paulie & Noonan search for the idol that Paulie’s map-kin clue points to. The one that smart viewers will remember Paulie has already found. Paulie tells us that he feels bad about deceiving her. In Noonan’s confessional, she gleefully tells us that if she finds the idol without him, she’s not telling him anything.
The editors are equally generous to us on Brawn beach as they document Nash versus The Hammock. The struggle is real and won’t be the last struggle for Nash in this episode.
At the Reward Challenge, Brawn is surprised to see Kent gone. PD is secretly happy he’s now the only magnificently bald man in Samoa. There can be Only One. It’s a painful balance challenge run in pairs, and it’s not surprising that the heavier men go out before the slighter women. Candy would have aced this challenge; just saying.
When Brains win, they are faced with a dilemma. Take the food reward (a sausage sizzle, or barbecue for our American friends) or get a flint. The twist is that if they give up the food, Brawn gets the snags with all the fixings. After a vote, which looked fairly even, the Brains take the food, arguing they don’t want to feed Brawn before an Immunity Challenge. Also, who doesn’t want a hot, fat sausage? It’s actually illegal in Australia to walk past a sausage sizzle without getting one. Should they have taken the flint? Let me know what you think @sarahcarradine.bsky.social
It’s Day 9, and at the Immunity Challenge, Myles announces, “There may not be a fire at our beach, but there’s a fire in our bellies”. Maybe it was the 30 snags, maybe it was his innate skill, but Myles’s golden foot scores four goals for Brains, assisted by his sausage-filled tribe-mates in the water and in goal. He even gets his own theme music. It’s a beautiful thing to see.
At Brawn beach, the scramble commences with Nash telling his allies that he threw the first Immunity Challenge to force the tribe to play… or something. “I was safe because I had the idol”. Ursula is fuming, firstly because you don’t throw challenges, and more importantly, she copped votes. PD is furious because of integrity. He also questions whether Nash is telling the truth, and frankly, so do we.
Ursula approaches the other side and offers to go with the flow. Morgan asks her pointedly why she’s never approached them before. Ursula uses her scrap of information to show willingness and tells them Nash threw the first immunity challenge.
When Nash realises that his story, true or false, of throwing the challenge has quickly leaked beyond his group of four, he runs into the bushes and finds… something. The editors let us see the paperwork and wrappings of an idol. Paulie also sees Nash’s pantomime of idol finding, and has perhaps the most reason to be surprised as he already has an idol in his back pocket. Or wherever he is keeping it.
Nash now invites his tribe to throw all their votes on him while remaining coy about whether he has an idol. Given he took victory laps of the beach with an idol around his neck from minute six of the game, even going so far as to wear it to a challenge in front of the other tribe, his current modesty is highly suspicious. Still, Morgan & Kate organises a split on Ursula, while Nash declares to all and sundry that he is the best social game player of the season.
At Tribal, Kate calls out Nash for throwing the challenge, and Olympian Morgan is ropable. But according to Nash, it was days ago and they should all get over it. Noonan, a player who genuinely has a superb social game, quietly says she is traumatised by losing the puzzle after telling her tribe she could do it. The blame falls on Nash for that as well.
Paulie, the other demonstrably excellent social player, challenges Nash to “flop it out and let’s see what we’re playing with” if he really has an idol. But of course, when JLP calls for idols, Nash is empty-handed and goes out in a 7 to 2 to 1 vote, he being the sole vote on Morgan.
And so, with Indy, Kent and Nash consecutively treading exits of their own making, the Age of Chaos this season draws to a close. Or, does it?
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