With the pre merge portion out of the way, Australian Survivor All Stars had its merge this week. While not the strongest batch of episodes, there’s still a good amount of things to talk about this week.
Overall Thoughts
As you might know, this season is airing at the same time as the US show’s 40th season Winners At War. I’m going to be honest here: I found myself liking the fourth episode of Winners At War more than the three episodes of AU this week. Now let me get this out of the way: the US show still has many flaws. I don’t like Edge of Extinction nor do I like the currency/fire token twist. Still, this week’s episode of Winners At War took me by surprise: despite all of the silly twists, something about this episode just worked. It had some drama, emotion, solid character and camp life scenes and overall- it was a fun episode to watch.
For AU, Episode 13 had an interesting conflict/dilemma. I forgot to mention in my recap last week about Harry’s advantage. Last week, Harry found an advantage that allowed him to stop Tribal Council before the vote were read- saving everybody. When Vakama won immunity in the episode, Harry wanted to give it to his ally Nick– knowing that Nick could be in trouble. However, if Nick played it- that meant everyone on Mokuta would be safe. From what I’ve heard, Harry apparently said that production wouldn’t tell him if the tribes would still merge at 13 people if the advantage was played. I’m a bit iffy on this: in Survivor, you have to expect the unexpected. Then again, Harry’s advantage went to waste. Aside from that, the following two episodes were okay but it was pretty obvious the new Vakama members would be picked off one-by-one.
The new merged tribe have named themselves Kalokalo, which means “star” in Fijian. This isn’t the only time a tribe has used the name Kalokalo: the merged tribe on David Vs. Goliath (Season 37) also named themselves Kalokalo.
Stand Out Contestant
This is a tricky week: of the players remaining, I feel like I really only know David and Shonee. The editing this season has been weird and the confessional counts have been all over the place. I still like some of the people left but I’d be basing that mostly from their original season- which I think is one of the pitfalls of All Star seasons: the favorites get cut early while others barely get a re-introduction. For this week, I’m to stick with David. He’s been entertaining and has been serving as the comic relief. At this point, David is in a powerful position- calling the shots with Moana.
Favorite Challenge
My favorite challenge from this week was the immunity challenge from Episode 15. In this challenge, the contestants had to balance on see-saw type platforms. On these platforms were a bowl of blocks and a small circular platform- both on opposite sides of the platform. While trying to keep their balance, the contestants had to move the blocks one at a time to the other side- stacking them on top of one another. The first contestant to get nine blocks stacked for three seconds wins the challenge. In the end, it was Shonee who won the challenge. When her tribe asked her how she did it, Shonee told them she did Pilates.
Voted Off
In Episode 13, Nick Iadanza became the 12th person voted out of the game. After the Phoebe vote, Nick was on the outs on the new Mokuta tribe. He had allies in Lee and Sharn but he was deemed to be too dangerous to go into the merge. After a 7-1 vote, Nick was voted out of the tribe. Seeing Nick go was unfortunate. He’s a great character and was one of the most memorable contestants from Season 1.
In Episode 14, Locky Gilbert became the 13th person voted out and the first member of the jury. Given that the tribe split was 5 to 7, Locky was on the wrong side of the numbers. David and Zach lied to the Vakama 5- telling them they’d vote out Jacqui with them in the next Tribal Council. With that, Locky was blindsided.
In Episode 15, Harry Hills became the 14th person voted out and the second member of the jury. Harry was yet another former Vakama and was mischievous player. Last season, Harry was able to stick around given he was able to find idol after idol. In this episode, Harry didn’t have anything to protect him. He tried turning over a few of the Mokutas over with the four remaining Vakamas but he was unsuccessful, resulting in his boot.
Final Thoughts
There are ten people left in the game- 7 being from Mokuta and 3 being from Vakama. Given how Locky and Harry went in back to back episodes- AK, Brooke and Shonee could be the next to go in these next three episodes.
I’ll see you all next week!
next: Australian Survivor All Stars Recap Week 6
I'm a writer/journalist with a passion for music and pop culture. Having graduated from King's College in Wilkes-Barre, PA in 2014, I've been looking for a platform in which I can share my passions. Since 2009, I've been posting to my own blog- The Walrus' Music Blog- via Blogger. I'm also the author of two self-published books, "The Camp: Stories from the Summer" and "The College: Stories from King's." Together, the two books cover the story of my life from 2004 to 2014. I've been lucky enough to interview several of my favorite musicians over the years and go to concerts from time to time. I'm also very devoted to the CBS reality TV show Survivor, which I started watching in 2002 when its fourth season started. I currently live in New Jersey.