Australian Survivor 2019 episode 3 recap: Out for a dip

When there are 23 others competing for the same prize over 50 days, Australian Survivor 2019 episode 3 reminds us early is not always the right time to strike.

Most of the time when an early numbers-strong alliance is formed on Survivor, they tend to hold strong throughout the game, especially if they are heavily propped up. However, Australian Survivor 2019 is not an early 2010s CBS production, as you’re not going to see a Family-like scenario always fold out. With 50 days’ worth of gameplay ahead, people gotta make moves.

One of the first moves for the Contenders after suffering their first loss of the season was to hit the reset button. Thankfully, with these longer episode runtimes, we get to see more of these downtime moments, as John running into the ocean seemingly a mile away from camp, pulling back a sea cucumber, cooking it up, and eating the fish that popped out was simultaneously character-building and disgusting.

While Susie reassured the audience that she is built for the endurance of a long game despite its hardships, Janine was selling us on the fact that she had a one-track mind necessary to prepare and contend with the challenges ahead. I’m sure the Australian audience will bemoan the constant bombardment of native and advertised Boost Juice ads, but if she’s training with an ex-Navy SEAL to prepare, she might as well have earned the promotional time.

We didn’t make it a week out of Australian Survivor 2019 before we saw a major parallel between the AU show and the US show. Ross compared the intensity of being crushed by thousands of tons of water in his wave riding being nothing compared to Nova serving as the bearer of the banana etiquette. That was a seam Luke hoped to push through in breaking up Bradbury’s athletes alliance.

Finally, we got to see more of Shaun’s story, as he had been an oddly silent character up until this point. Casting remains obsessed with AFL athletes to the point of casting one as a Contender with an underdog upside, despite having combined millions in net worth between him and wife Megan Gale. It’s weird how they try to tug on heartstrings for everyone at all times.

Still, everyone gets their time and highlight on Australian Survivor 2019, and you never know when someone’s skills will come into play. The obnoxious pre-challenge banter continued ahead of the Reward Challenge, as it seems like strength and speed continue to be the primary skills for the time being. This challenge forced one player on each tribe to run down a lane and ring their bell at the other end while an opponent either stops them or does the same themselves.

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Betsided

Luke and Matt were familiar faceoff foes to start things off, but being a quarter submerged in the water meant Luke’s gangly body was at an advantage. Matt’s takedown maneuver faltered as the Champions took the first of their required five points to win. Daisy faced off against Susie, dragging her opponent as she rung the bell and evened things out at 1-1.

David vs. Shaun was deemed the battle of the pretty boys, and Shaun’s AFL experience allowed him to bowl the supermodel over to force things 2-1. Harry vs. Simon was a similar battle, as the score tied at 2-2 again with a simple push maneuver from Simon. Bradbury wanted to take on John the Mullet in the Gold Miner vs. Gold Medalist matchup, but John took Bradbury’s hit and ran to a 3-2 lead.

Abbey outran Casey as they mostly made it a speed race that she won for the Champions. Ross hoped to break the 3-3 tie by bowling over the scrawny Baden, but the kid showed massive speed in sprinting to a 4-3 lead. Shaun was the MVP of this competition, while Luke was the LVP for the Champions. Shaun powered through to win a box of goodies for the Contenders.

It was clearly “make Baden out to be a long-term rootable character” time after the Reward Challenge, as everyone seemed to heap praise on him for helping secure the win independent of each other. Seeing John pick who received what reward was pretty funny, too, as it made for a lighthearted affair.

Of course, you can’t have a lengthy Contenders segment without hearing from Andy. It’s quite unfortunate that we have all of these camp dynamics in the first week of Australian Survivor and it’s mostly one self-proclaimed superfan who’s doing all the talking. You wouldn’t know about Sam’s casino hosting background nor her middle-ground status in the tribe without Andy, and that’s weird.

We saw David working over Abbey with his charm over on the Champions, tying their early game connections from previous episodes to show David and Luke trying to exploit cracks in the seven-athlete alliance. It only made sense that those two were the ones to hunt for the idol using Luke’s clue and for David to both find the spot and physically dig up the idol before handing it to Luke. Hopefully, his selflessness won’t be his demise later on.

Even more mindless preceded the Immunity Challenge, which saw tribes dig themselves underneath a log sitting on the sand, carrying a wooden plank through obstacles then later using it as a ladder for a player to collect sandbags. Once collected, five tribe members would hold up plank platforms as two threw sandbags onto them, securing a victory.

The Contenders took an early lead thanks to John’s rabid digging through the sand, which was secured through the seesaw portion. Hannah and Andy’s relatively small frames helped push through quicker while ET’s long arms allowed him to grab more at a time. Things balanced out at the sandbags, with the Champions catching up to tie at 3-3 before the Contenders locked up their second immunity win. We still don’t know who Hannah is despite being so instrumental here.

Janine’s strategy of digging a longer length of sand for bodies to get through seemed to be a sticking point for Nova, swiftly placing the target on Janine’s back as the group “agreed” she needed to own up for the team loss. However, Abbey didn’t like being told how to vote without offering her input.

This is where I found myself, like Libya, as a land of contrasts. I loved that David and Janine were leveraging Abbey’s distrust of her athletes group by talking about their alliance being one of open ideas. What I didn’t like is because targeting Susie is rooted in this rudimentary understanding of Australian Survivor of it being a tribe strength game.

To be fair, with all of these early “tackle harder, push stronger, or run faster” challenges, perhaps the game early on is built on ABC-like fundamentals. However, it did present an even bigger task for Luke and David to try and grab Ross and Abbey, respectively, as it looked like we were heading into the first truly contentious Tribal Council of Australian Survivor 2019.

As people got settled in, we started to see the difference in those who were too comfortable with their alliance and those who had a fight within them. Bradbury openly saying that Abbey was the last person he talked to in securing a voting group was an odd strategy, as was saying he didn’t like the “outwit” part of the game. It’s as if he wants to keep loyal people, not free thinkers!

Meanwhile, Janine pressed hard on the “tribe strong” mentality, pushing the idea that the Champions would act like Contenders if they put the weakest product out on the field. That seemed to work well on Abbey, and Ross abandoning a plan to go on “intuition” seemed to be a huge victory. Strength versus loyalty was the matchup of the night, not Champions vs. Contenders!

Despite Abbey shown being mostly up in the air and a lot of tension between either Janine or Susie going home, we need to remember that two athletes needed to flip heading into the vote. A 6-5 vote was seemingly in the books, but it would have required both Abbey and Ross to flip to get Susie out. Thankfully for Team Good Television, they did, breaking up the athletes alliance and making this season quite interesting.