Welcome to Week 3 of Australian Survivor coverage! Five episodes in and we have some emerging storylines: John the beloved uber-larrikin; David the surprise overplaying madman of the season (that seemed like Andy’s role); Luke improbably minimizing his threat level; the implosion of the Sporty Seven (and the Champions generally); the ongoing near-invisibility of Hannah, Casey, and Sam (it must be because the Contenders aren’t going to tribal council, since I can’t figure out what else they could possibly have in common /sarcasm). As always, this post will update as the episodes air.

Episode 6:

• We get quite a bit of camp hijinks before the episode establishes any kind of narrative groove. Is this going to be a quiet, table-setting episode after all of the drama in Episode 5?
• Mexican Parma?
• The reward challenge is fancy tug-of-war, with a giant swinging club mechanism in the middle that totally doesn’t look like a penis. It comes down to a one-on-one tiebreaker, and the Contenders put up Shaun, while the Champions send out Ross, because… hey, you tell me. Maybe as a sacrificial lamb to save face for young studs, who are all gassed? The Contenders seem certain to win their first reward, but wait, Shaun slips and Ross actually wins! Way to Steven Bradbury, Ross!
• Having taken John on the last reward for seemingly non-strategic reasons, this time the Champions choose Baden, which seems like a strategic choice (isolate the possible outcast). Baden gets to take a second person, and he picks Shaun. This is an excellent choice. As both tribes note, this means the Contenders’ strongest player is getting energy for the immunity challenge.  And unbeknownst to Baden, it could be a sticky situation for David.
• Sigh… I bent over backwards last episode to see David’s fake idol play as anything other than overplaying. Now he’s telling Shaun he played his idol to save Pia for some damn reason. SMH.
• The Champions women notice David huddling with Shaun and do not like it.
• The immunity challenge is yet another brute-strength challenge, and uses the exact same muscles as the reward challenge. That seems weird. Functionally it’s almost the same as the Survivor: Pearl Islands challenge where Osten and Rupert had to hold up Darrah and a less-memorable small person suspended over the water by a rope-and-pulley mechanism. Why the Champions put Simon on the platform is beyond me.
• Up on the platform, Casey (Shaun’s confidante) has the presence of mind to ask Pia if David really played an idol for her. Fuse lit.
• Matt outlasts Luke and then goes full Gervase Peterson on the Champions. You never want to go full Gervase Peterson.
• Abbey is miserable because the vote is between two people she hugely admires (ET and Simon). David sees this as an opportunity to push the vote onto Pia, to keep the tribe strong, which really raises red flags with Abbey. The fuse is really burning now.
• Gee, it sure would be nice to get a confessional with Janine telling us how she feels about losing control of her idol to an overplaying egomaniac.
• At tribal council, it’s apparently come down to getting rid of either ET or Simon, with the pre-existing alliance from the Nova and Steve votes holding strong. David really should be worried about how calm everybody is (including ET and Simon).
• Huh. No blindside of David. It seems like a wasted opportunity, particularly with the swap coming. The three women should have had no problem pulling in ET and Simon’s votes. Although leaving David in the game makes it more interesting for us.
• Abbey voted for ET.
• Has Janine told anybody about David’s idol?

Episode 7:

• Personal note: I’m recapping this episode from a Starbucks in Akihabara. Next week Kemper Boyd may be recapping from the French countryside. International Survivor indeed.
• Wait, what? Shaun doesn’t trust Harry and Andy, so to gain control over Andy, he’s going to tell him about his idol. This is idiotic!
• Andy agrees with me.
• Tribe swap! This is happening much earlier than last season, to keep the Champions from getting Ulonged maybe?
• David stays on Champions and Shaun stays on Contenders, which is too bad because I wanted to find out whether they would have to give their idols away again in the event they got swapped to the other tribe.
• Move over Fairplay’s Dead Grandma, it’s time for Harry’s Live Child lie!
• David is moaning about being in a 2-7 minority on New Champions. Fair enough, but does he think his own idol is fake?
• A desperate Luke begs Abbey and Janine to throw the challenge. Daisy and Sam should throw this immediately.
• New Champions lose anyway, and its scramble time for Luke and David. Oh damn, I totally forgot that Luke has an idol too. Double idol play?
• This is hilarious how the old Contenders are politely stiff-arming Luke and David.
• David can’t stand Sam’s face. This may be the craziest thing he’s said yet.
• Andy tells the OG Contenders minus Daisy that David has an idol so they need to stick to the plan. Daisy overhears and goes on the warpath. Bad on Andy for going around Daisy, because I think she would have seen the logic of telling the others about the idol.
• Daisy easily reels in John, then starts looking for a fifth vote. But I don’t think any of the potential fifths (Hannah, Sarah, Baden) are going to be wild about getting rid of a pawn rather than a King of the Jungle, Baby. But do they even need a fifth if the others are splitting their votes?
• Is Andy taking a pre-tribal nap? Can’t he see his plan is going south?
• Farewell Purple Sam, we literally hardly knew ye.
• Baden turned out to be the fifth vote for Sam. What is he thinking? For that matter, what is DAISY thinking???
• How’s this for irony: This never would have happened if Shaun had kept his mouth shut. Andy only knew about David’s idol because Shaun told him about it, and if Andy hadn’t tried to leverage his knowledge of David’s idol (alienating Daisy in the process), the old Contenders would probably have done an orderly vote split. And/or David and Luke would have played both idols.

Episode 8:

• Janine can’t get Casey’s name right. I feel seen.
• Janine is also pleased that the old Champions have a 5-4 majority on new Contenders. Wait til she sees what their old Contenders did with a 7-2 majority.
• David wants to pick off Andy. I get it, but I would think you need to solidify your fragile new alliance first.
• Nice use of the environment. The reward challenge is swimming upstream against the current of a river. As Baden notes, they could really use Susie right now.
• Rosco: Stealth challenge beast (although not so surprising in the water).
• The pier seemed to slow the current, literally a structural advantage for the Contenders, who win.
• The old Contenders are trying to figure out why and how Sammy got voted out. They decide that Daisy must have flipped, more evidence that there was off-screen friction, as someone mentioned in the comments.
• Casey and Harry are in the cross-hairs as the weakest of the old Contenders. Harry wants to pull in Janine and one other (possibly Abbey), Casey wants to flip to the OG Champions women.
• Nice cross-cutting of Harry finding an idol without a clue and Casey offering her vote to the OG Champions women. Two valid ways of keeping yourself in the game.
• The immunity challenge is a sadistic mash-up of a Survivor bucket brigade and the Brenda Lowe memorial drowning challenge. I’m gobsmacked that Sarah volunteered for the latter.
• Contenders win immunity yet again, which I wasn’t expecting based on the amount of time we spent with Harry and Casey.
• David, Luke, John, and Daisy are a tight four, with Baden loosely attached and Andy trying to worm his way in. So Sarah or Purple Hannah is going home, right?
• Sarah is valiantly wrangling votes against Daisy, but best-case scenario it’s 4-4.
• Sarah overhears Andy selling her out to Daisy and she’s “ropeable”. Help me out here Aussie friends. Based on context that means being as angry as an out-of-control bull, but wouldn’t that be “unropeable”?
• This could be the second straight episode where Andy unwittingly blew up his game when all he needed to do was to sit still.
• FFS. Yet again a woman gets booted, ostensibly to keep the tribe strong, when a huge threat is right there in position to be picked off. It’s too close to the merge to be thinking that way.
• Also, it’s infuriating that they’re penalizing Sarah for passing on the physical part of the challenge and not crediting her for voluntarily re-enacting the worst day of her life.
• Next time on Survivor: The shit hits the fan!