Yet to read the episode two wrap-up? You can do so here.

Sing it with me… AGANOAN down,  AGANOAN down, AGANOAN bites the dust!!

Australian Idol

Finally we see the emergence of a hidden individual immunity idol. When the trailer hinted that there was some sort of twist to the reveal, I was certainly intrigued, although I was worried that Australian Survivor was messing with the tried and true formula too early on in the piece. What we got, to my relief, was the pretty standard honesty/tribe vs deceit/individual dilemma. And didn’t it throw a weevil among the legumes?!

Most everyone tonight agreed that it is a lose/lose situation for whomever chooses or is chosen to find out what the ‘special task’ is. I tend to agree, particularly when you’re so early in the game, and going off with one other person leaves a larger group of people at camp to speculate. I tend to think it’s better to stay with the numbers and solidify your place in the tribe than to potentially marginalise yourself by going off with one other person. Any time that you are seen as having more power or information than anyone else, regardless of whether the rest of the tribe knows what that advantage is, you are seen as a threat. I for one, if I could help it, would not choose to be elected one of the wise.

…just because you’re being honest doesn’t mean people are going to believe you…

This is one of those classic situations that has the audience all thinking about what they would do. For me, the first comment I made to the would-be Survivor widow beside me, was that as tempting as a hidden immunity idol is, I know I’m a terrible liar, and I doubt I could fool anyone. So I would have taken the big bag and just gone looking for idol without the clue. Of course, just because you’re being honest doesn’t mean people are going to believe you, so best not to put yourself in this situation to start with. I can’t think of an instance in previous seasons where a couple actually got away with such a lie. I also can’t think of a time where sharing a clue with the rest of the tribe has worked out well for everyone. Tell me what you would do in the comments below. Regardless, everyone chose to deceive. Some better than others.

The evil forces of…. The Decepti-cants

VAVAU

I actually liked Nick’s idea of coming up with his own clue. A shame he couldn’t sell it. He also had the awareness to realise that his tribe mates didn’t believe him, and did something about it. Another wise move. But who did he tell that he was lying? Craig and Sue for sure, but anyone else? If he then went and told the whole tribe that he had been lying I’m not sure of the wisdom of that. I’ll need more time to think on that. Luckily for Nick, time is one thing he has, as Vavau again escapes tribal council. Here’s hoping that by the time he goes to tribal this transgression has blown over and everyone has forgotten about it.

SAANAPU

Pete is elected wisest on Tribe Pu, and chooses Kylie as his number two (yeah, I went there). The other tribe mates instantly regret this decision, but for the time being they have the numbers anyway. I suspect that if nobody else finds the Pu idol, in coming episodes when next Tribe Pu gets to tribal council, there will be much discussion about whether or not Pete and Kylie have the idol, and if so whom. We may even see a decision to split the votes. Pete and Kylie could and should use this power to attempt to sway maybe Sam or Matt. So far I’m not seeing that they could get their shit together enough to actually pull it off. Tomorrow night’s preview looks like it’s going to be all about the idol for all tribes, so who knows what could happen between now and when Tribe Pu next go to tribal.

Whatever the case, it’s been clear since the last tribal that Kylie is out of the loop, and at least she realises it. So what is her best move from here? Well, she’s started trying to ingratiate herself more with the rest of the tribe already. That’s a good start. My feeling is that she needs to keep that up and just hope that cracks appear in the four (Brooke, Flick, Matt, & Sam) and that Matt or Sam, or even Conner (ha!) try and use her to make a move against the girls.

AGANOA

Firstly, I need to get this off my chest. Chester the egg-laying chicken is a he? Geniuses these ain’t. Also evidenced by the below…

Is that a clue in your pants or are you just happy to… awww shit

A lot happening at Aganoa, I’ll do my best to walk through and break down all the aspects (to quote Rohan) that matter, please tell me if I miss anything.

Clueless

Rohan and Phoebe head off to get the clue. Without hesitation Rohan chooses to deceive and sets in motion a chain of events which sees the downfall of Evan. Firstly, the duo’s performance upon return to camp was highly suspicious. It’s pretty clear that no one believes them. Evan sees this as an opportunity for him to win the trust of the rest of the Aganoa five and goes off to Batman some evidence. Good on him, nice play, and as luck would have it he finds the crotch clue. I only wish he had kissed it, now that would be gif worthy…

What he does with this information is what I’m interested in. Should he have shared the information, kept it to himself, or confronted RohEl? We know that he chooses to share it with El, who goes straight to the one person Evan underestimates the most, Phoebe. Much like last week, it seems his acting skills aren’t up to scratch, as he is unable to hide the excitement that he feels when sharing this information and Phoebe sees, quite astutely, that he is really trying to leverage this information. Had Evan perhaps approached Phoebe in a different way would this have changed the outcome? I suspect not. Already she doesn’t trust him, now she has an excuse to put his name up for elimination with the rest of her tribe. Ultimately, though I don’t disagree with the move itself, it’s Evan’s blindness to the capability and status of his tribe mates that is his downfall. He is not sharp enough to realise that a) he’s not really all that tight with the Aganoa five; and/or b) Phoebe is much more strategic than he is aware of.

Evan let the cat out of the bag (or indeed the clue-budgie out of the budgie smugglers)

Had he kept this information to himself, he has an idol clue, which is just one step away from an idol. Also, he gets to see RohBe freak out when they realise they have lost the clue, and sit back and watch them implode from the sidelines (though I doubt Evan could ever contain himself enough to do anything from the sidelines). His other move is to confront RohBe and tell them what he found without consulting any other tribe mates. I’m not sure how this would play out. Given how Rohan reacted when Evan let the cat out of the bag (or indeed the clue-budgie out of the budgie smugglers), Rohan may have still been out for blood. Still, there’s a possibility that this move could generate a three-way alliance between them, (PhoeRohVan? Sounds like someone from middle earth).

Disproportionate Roh-action

Strategically I actually quite like Rohan’s reaction once he finds out that Evan has spread the fruit of Rohan’s loins. Rohan calls Evan out on deviously trying to undermine him, and this seems to only increase the distrust that the tribe has in Evan. Lee, however seems completely bamboozled that someone’s thrown a googly and something untoward has gone down with his bros. He doesn’t know what to think. I’m surprised that we didn’t see a greater backlash against Rohan for his skullduggery, perhaps a testament to the relationships he has formed, and/or his value to the tribe. Further evidence of this is that we see Evan desperately try to keep the peace with Rohan, perhaps for fear that he does have influence in the tribe and in the five. Which might have worked had he done a better job of this, and had already cultivated a good relationship with Rohan. As it was, it was too little too late. He only needed Rohan to vote Kat, and for Kristie to do the same, and he would have scraped through. I believe he would have had a chance that Kristie would vote for Kat had he done a better job of managing her situation last week (see my analysis here)

Where to from here?

So where does this leave the rest of the Aganoa tribe?

Kat

Time to fuggin scramble girl. You only avoided the vote tonight because there was a bigger threat. Unless you can somehow eat the magic ‘do better at challenges’ cookie, while you’re in Aganoa you’re always going to be in danger. I think we did see her scrambling when she started talking about the ‘girls being four strong’. I don’t know how just how down the other girls are with that but I guess it’s worth a shot. I assume it would be easy to get Kristie on board, I’m not sure where Phoebe and El are with that though. Else, throw Kristie under the bus and hope you don’t go to another tribal before merge.

Kristie

Get in the game. Easier said than done when you’re on the outs. At least she has lots of options. Team up with Kat and find one more and you’ve got three. Try and get the female alliance to actually happen. Or is there a way she can canoodle herself in with Rohan and Lee. Maybe. I think her best bet is actually to get close to Phoebe and let Phoebe use her as a number to enact whichever move Phoebe wants to enact next. In fact I see Kristie as a vote up for grabs. Everyone on Aganoa would benefit from keeping her close, whoever can do it first, has a good resource if they can keep Kristie’s volatility in check.

El

Seems to be doing a solid job of being friends with everyone, but has shown some untrustworthy colours in choosing to deceive with Rohan. If she can fly under the radar and judge who she needs to align with when, she can easily make it to the merge.

Lee

Being the only Aganoan other than Evan to vote Kat he may be feeling out of the loop. My sense is that by being Mr Loyal and honest, he has made himself unapproachable to those who could actually use him to make a move. If he wants to keep playing the honesty/mateship/loyalty game he needs to find someone he can do that with, and I think El is the only person that comes close to fitting that brief, even though she just lied to his face about the idol clue. I can’t see what move he can make next. He’s both low hanging fruit and a sitting duck. Play him right and you can pluck his loyal voting apple straight from the loyal tree, need him gone and I can’t see how he can put up a fight.

Rohan

For once Rohan actually seemed quiet in front of J-LaP. Given that his deception has now been aired, this seems wise. For me, the best thing he can do right now is use that clue and find that idol, and take it from there.

Phoebe

Having just got her way and removed Evan, it’s time for Phoebe to sit back and reassess what next. I’m not even sure that getting rid of Evan was a good move for her right now. I get that she doesn’t like or trust him, but nobody does, I can’t suddenly see him start forming tight alliances that could move against her. I suspect Rohan is more likely to do that. I think she should have kept him around as a shield for bit longer. Now she has potentially exposed herself as a somewhat strategic player, she may have increased her own threat level. She’ll need to downplay this if she wants to avoid looking like a threat. Settle into the background a bit, solidify relationships with El, Rohan and Lee and let Kristie and Kat do something silly that in effect votes themselves off.

Next time on, Drop Your Buffs!

Well, this week we have both a Monday night and a Tuesday night episode, so I’m going to be a busy and tired little vegemite. Fear not though faithful friends, I will still endeavour to get you my analysis on each episode mere hours after each episode airs. Tomorrow I suspect we’ll finally see somebody get a hidden immunity idol. I can’t wait to see how that shakes down. Until then, I got nothing for you, head back to camp.

– Russell Feathers 
 

Episode 4 Analysis here!