The latest episode of Brains v Brawns II showed the pros and cons of revealing an advantage or keeping it secret. It also showed how, once again, Australian Survivor’s non-elimination twists get in the way of its own momentum, upending what could have been another major tribal council blindside.
First up, the Brawn 2.0 returns to camp following the double idol play and Noonan’s vote-off, and all eyes are on AJ. In particular, Karin is not happy that her supposed ally kept his idol a secret from her. AJ argues that it’s called a “hidden” immunity idol for a reason, but Karin isn’t buying the excuses and toys with the idea of replacing AJ in the alliance with Paulie. Even though Karin refers to Paulie as a “snake oil salesman,” she finds herself wanting to buy what he’s selling.
Meanwhile, Logan’s Joker smile is bigger than ever as she delights in seeing her nemesis AJ in the hot seat. She is dying to get him out of the game, and with Paulie pitching to be subbed into the alliance in place of the chaotic AJ, Logan suddenly has options ahead of the rapidly approaching merge.
However, the Brawn 2.0 drama has to wait because the Brains 2.0 tank the immunity challenge within a matter of minutes. The boys play dumb, pretending to have no idea why they suddenly lost control of their sticks and let the trough drop. But it’s blatantly obvious to an outside observer that Ben and Jesse threw the challenge, well, unless you’re Kate, I guess, who claims she saw everyone giving their best effort.
Speaking of Kate, this is somewhat of a coming-out episode for the DJ and dancer. She’s mostly operated in the background so far, being a loyal number of the OG Brawns. However, she and her number one Morgan realise that if they merge Brawns strong, they’ll be handing all the control over to the guys, putting them firmly at the bottom of the pecking order. With that in mind, Kate and Morgan approach OG Brains Laura and Zara to form a new alliance: Girls Gone Wild.
With Jesse organising a split vote, with Laura as the target and Myles as the backup, Kate sees an opportunity to flip the game on its head. If she and Morgan vote with Laura and Zara as a foursome, they can control the vote and flip it onto Jesse. Despite her apprehension, Laura recognises she has little choice but to put her trust in Kate and Morgan.
It’s not so simple, though, as Jesse and Ben’s suspicions are raised when they notice the girls chatting a little too much. Ben asks Jesse if he thinks Kate and Morgan are “pulling a swifty,” which I believe means “pulling a fast one,” and not breaking out into a rendition of “Shake It Off.” Jesse believes it’s possible, and so they approach Myles to vote with them against Laura, though their pitch leaves much to be desired.
Myles tells the boys what they want to hear, even coining a name for this potential new guys’ alliance: The Hunkz, with a Z, which is wholly important. Not quite as catchy as Girls Gone Wild. While Ben and Jesse fill PD in on the new alliance, Myles lets us know he much prefers working with Laura than the OG Brawns, so the Hunkz may be dunked before their first performance.
All of this is setting up for what should be a fiery tribal council, that is until Laura finds an advantage, and it throws all previous plans to the wind. There’s some fun editing here, as the audience is kept in the dark regarding what the advantage is. Whatever it is, Laura seems happy about it, but when she chooses to tell Zara, her OG Coven member has a much different reaction. In fact, Zara is so pissed off about it that she intends to blow everything up at tribal.
That’s exactly what Zara does, strong-arming Laura into revealing the contents of her scroll at tribal. It turns out Laura’s advantage was knowledge; specifically, she found out the person voted out that night would not be going home but would instead be heading to the Brawn tribe. It immediately scuppers any Jesse blindside plan and ends up with Zara and Laura pitching for why they should be sent to Brawn.
Both women claim they’ll use their old connections to gather information to bring back to the Brains 2.0 tribe at the merge. But there is lingering concern about Laura’s closeness to Logan, so the OG Brawn ultimately airs on the side of caution, putting the majority of votes on Zara, who is giddy with the excitement of reuniting with her old allies. Meanwhile, Laura is fuming, telling Zara she’d “never have done that to her.”
We’ve had two fantastic, chaotic tribals in a row, and this episode could have given us a third. However, once again, a frustrating non-elimination twist threw a spanner in the works. I know it’s a part of how Aussie Survivor works, and it will never change. But it doesn’t mean I won’t complain about it every time. I wanted to see if the Girls Gone Wild alliance could pull off the Jesse blindside or if the Hunkz had preempted it and initiated a counterattack. But, in the end, I guess the show pulled a swifty on us.
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