Australian Survivor 2019 episode 5 recap: Tripped up

Sometimes, you need to know when to strike at the perfect moment. Australian Survivor 2019 episode 5 reveals that moment doesn’t come on Day 1 of 50.

If there’s something Survivor likes to create, it’s the true underdog story. Whether it’s the desolation of Malolo, the Aitu 4, or Davids conquering Goliaths, it’s hard not to root for someone down on their luck. That makes it difficult for Australian Survivor 2019, as it begs the question; how do you make someone out to be an underdog when they’re designated as a champion?

With Nova voted out of the game in the previous episode, Ross doesn’t seem to be as cut out for kitchen duty. Between burning the rice and burning someone’s flipflops, it looks like we’re back to the bumbling edit he once had when he was the king of snorers.

The Contenders continue to have their underdog upside going for them, with Shaun honoring his son’s birthday and Daisy getting her first character profile of the season. It seems as those two will be a tight pair going forward, as Shaun found the Champion idol as they both gathered water as the well. How the hell he’s going to swap an idol at a challenge with a stranger he doesn’t even know who has a similar idol is a big question.

Steven telling David that he didn’t know that the social aspect was such a massive part of Australian Survivor tells you all you need to know about his game. Meanwhile, David’s playing 4D chess while having the appearance of playing checkers, as he’s been leaning hard on his social links to learn about Janine’s Contender idol. He still wants to find an idol of his own, which is odd since he technically found Luke’s idol for him and handed it to him immediately.

We’re finally crunching down pre-challenge banter to just two individuals, as the Reward Challenge saw three players from each tribe in a watery pit grabbing after a ball, playing offense and defense. A fourth person for each tribe would then try to kick the Aussie Rules Football-sized ball into a goal at the other end, with the first tribe to 5 goals winning the reward of fish and chips.

Harry and Casey sat out for the Contenders as the first matchups was a dude fest. Simon finally did something; he kicked the first goal for the Champions, while Abbey’s career in kicking field goals seemed unfair in helping them take a 2-0 lead. The Champions had someone in football or rugby in almost every round, with ET kicking their third goal.

Two men and four women collided together in the fourth matchup as the Contenders finally had a shot. However, not having a professional athlete take their kick saw Hannah come just short, as Abbey nailed her second goal to take a 4-0 lead. John and David got so tangled up John even shared a kiss on the cheek as Andy scored first for the Contenders, making it 4-1.

As David and Shaun walked off, they exchanged words in anticipation of an idol swap coming at the Immunity Challenge the next day. So nice of Australian Survivor to give its castaways an itinerary! Again, a field goal competition with a pro seems unfair, as Abbey’s third goal secured the victory for the Champions. Boy, do they love winning rewards and not immunities!

As a member of the Commonwealth and with many British family members, I can attest to just how much we all love fish and chips. What was cool was seeing Ross regale the Champions with his near-death experience, but when the “newspaper” turned out to be essentially a PR reel for each of the Champions in their glory days had me rolling my eyes.

Of course, in Australian Survivor 2019 tradition, they seemed to lean too heavily into a concept that it ends on a strong note, winning me back over. Luke’s picture of him feeding his six-week-old daughter with cystic fibrosis and hearing from him how much the $500,000 AUD prize would mean to his family did bring a tear to my eye. It’s hard not for root for him out of all these models, athletes, and celebrities competing for the Champions.

I didn’t understand the “will they, won’t they” squabbling over the idol swap from Shaun’s side, as it seemed like a no-brainer if a guy like David mentions a swap coming directly to you. Of course, immediately after saying that, David pulls off a masterfully manipulative move by asking Janine for the paperwork and creating a startlingly convincing fake idol of his own to swap with him.

If we never see an extended banter session after this session before the Immunity Challenge, I will forgive what we saw before today as foreshadowing. The banter allowed for Shaun and David to switch idols before Jonathan explained the rules.

Two tribe members raced through a series of obstacles, unlocking their fellow castaways in a series of cages. At the end of the stage, two players from each tribe needed to assemble a puzzle forming the Australian Survivor 2019 logo with blocks while they would knock down the blocks with sandbags afterward.

Despite the Contenders rushing through the early obstacles, the Champions found their way through the tighter, tougher obstacles faster. However, when it came down to the puzzle, the Champions found themselves struggling to follow instructions (despite Ross saying he could earlier).

This led to Baden and Andy making up a lot of lost ground, quickly solving the puzzle and Andy firing from downtown to win the Contenders immunity in the final portion single-handedly. Seriously, rewind the tape and look back as Baden handed sandbags to Andy, even though both Abbey and Ross were throwing sandbags in a last-ditch effort in failure.

Even though ET talked about how well he’s been doing as the rest of his crew botched it up in challenges, as well as Ross talked about how he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, we focused more on David ascending to Australian Survivor Golden God status. He even admits to power-tripping with his real idol, and Janine even reminds him that way leads to failure. Is this the most obvious foreshadowing in TV history?

It took not even seconds for David to bung things up, telling Simon and ET that “upper management” is telling them to vote Steven or “someone else may go” if they don’t do what they’re told. Immediately, the women in the majority took umbrage with just how David went about things, noting that they may try to create their own plans.

Immediately, ET and Simon admitted to not like being told what to do, with ET talking about the possibility of a blindside by pulling in Steven and Ross. Seeing those four talk got Pia worried about splitting the vote, and it genuinely felt like the Champions are in such disarray that they can’t even get a simple split vote done without major trust issues.

Tribal Council danced around these possibilities, even though Bradbury’s name seemed like a foregone conclusion. Immediately, whispers started dancing around whether or not to split the votes or throwing them all on Bradbury. Jonathan did seemingly point out that being told to vote a certain way and having an input are drastically different things, even if the cards are laid out on the table.

Even though it seemed obvious based on the episode’s composition that Pia wasn’t a real possible target, Bradbury did get the tribe riled up with talk of an idol, which got people worried more about the voting strategies once more. It was so weird to see Luke so on the outs of the voting strategy, going to show just how much of a target David has as he sent and the tribe Bradbury home in an 8-1 vote. It was the most compelling unanimous vote in years!