Don’t let your lack of knowledge be your Achille’s heel, or Jenna’s Ankle as it were. Check out analysis of the previous episode here.
Let’s get the ugliness out of the way early. I hope we all know what I’m talking about. Zach’s abhorrent, abominable behaviour. He was a complete and utter douchebag. I’m just going to say I hope he sees how he came off tonight and makes the appropriate changes. Let’s get on with the game discussion.
Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems.
I think we can all agree that Moana is playing a reasonable game at the moment. She’s certainly getting a lot of airtime. She was in a great position not to have to show her idol to anyone but she chose to show it to Mat. As a rule I’m not against sharing idols and advantages, though my rule of thumb is is generally if you don’t have to share, then don’t. I would argue that Mat is a special case. I believe he’s trustworthy and loyal to Moana. She really had nothing to lose by showing him, he’s hardly going to go spruiking it around camp, and what she gained is a tangible cementing of the trust between them. Quick question though, did she give it to or show it to him. I’m sure I heard Mat say that she gave it to him for safe-keeping, but we didn’t actually see that. Can anybody shed some light on this please?
Provided Moana & Mat make the merge together they’ll be a real physical threat and I suspect will always be a voting block. I’d love to come up with a nickname for them but the best I can find is Eminem. I’m not really feeling it, let me know if you have a more catchy suggestion. Their tightness is going to make it very hard for Sharn. While it’s fair to say the longer that she can stick with them the further she’ll go, there’s going to come a time where she has to split the two of them up in order to win the game. Perhaps take her opportunity after merge if Eminem gets split up.
Of course most of the action was with the Contenders this evening, but before I leave Champions I have to quickly point out that upon returning form the reward challenge Mat and/or Sam I can’t recall who, emphasised that their win was on the back of the solid effort from their female tribe-mates. That the females carried the tribe in that challenge. This was in stark contrast to the goings on at camp Contender.
Voting A-Gender
It became clear this evening that the bro-lliance of Zach, Robbie and Benji (not to be confused with ‘brilliance’) felt that they were superior to the ‘girls’ who needed to be “systematically wiped out”. From a numbers point of view this might make some sense to the bros, but it is incredibly short-sighted. If we were to take gender completely out of this, then ostensibly you have a group of five (Heath, Steve and Manpower Australia) against a group of six (everyone else). Let’s say the group of five do manage to even things up, then you’re still left with five and five and someone has to flip eventually. It’s much wiser to start looking at options now rather than assuming you’re onto a solid thing.
Enter Heath, who has always seemed to be uneasy with being inserted in the douchebag bag (that Benji and Robbie did not call Zach out on his douchebaggery makes them just as douchebaggy as he, so I’m comfortable tarnishing them with that bag). Heath has clearly looked outside the bag at other options and formed himself his little parents alliance trio with Tegan and Jenna. Nice. Shame we didn’t see him have to answer to Robbie and Benji about that idol clue from last episode though. I can’t imagine that was forgotten about. What definitely won’t go unnoticed is him not voting with Manpower Australia. I’d like to think he can explain this away as he could see that the numbers were against Steve, and had to vote that way at the last minute, and still convince Manpower Australia he is with them and prevent them from getting their knickers in a twist.
It was great to see Fen, Shon and An, or as I like to call them, Shonitella, show us they were aligned as well. This looks like another trio to watch. The three trios accounted for and we are left with Paige as a floater. Which for mine puts her in a great position. All Paige has to do is take her pick of the above trios and I suspect she’ll see herself through at least the next tribal. This is a tough choice though. Manpower Australia perhaps being the most likely to use her and lose her, though I don’t know that she will see that. Hopefully that comes out for her next episode. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Manpower Australia break up and seek shelter elsewhere, particularly if Heath makes it clear he won’t necessarily be voting wiht them. If I were Benji and Robbie I’d certainly be hopping off the Zach express at the next stop. But that is probably emotion talking and not strategy, which means I’m tired and should probably conserve my energy for another three fugging hours of Australian Survivor this week. I got nothing else for you, head back to camp.
– Russell Feathers
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Drop Your Buffs! 