Where's The Reward? - Brains V Brawn Episode 8 Recap - Australian Survivor

Recap of Episode 8 of Australian Survivor Brains V Brawn 2. What happened to the reward?

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello and welcome to American starkAustralian survivor.

(00:03):
I'm Rachel. I'm Leah and I'm Matt.
Thanks for joining us.
We just watched episodeeight of Australian Survivor Brains versus
brawn two,and there will be spoilers ahead.
We open up on day 18.
It is raining at the Brings tribe
and they are not happythat the shelter is leaking.
And it's just not as niceas the old Bronya.

(00:25):
And Ben was not happy, and he's not happythat Miles is talking so much.
Yeah, Miles, unfortunately, is going backto what we saw at the very beginning
of the show when he was over strategizingwho was overplaying and, who was it?
Kent called him out on it.
And now that Kent's gone, I guessMiles is back to over strategizing.

(00:45):
It looks like.
Yeah, well, Ben wants to build the shelterand it just shows Miles
talk and talk and talk and events.
As you know, it doesn't look likeyou have a lot of experience doing that.
And then Zara says she keeps seeing Milesspeaking to the bronze.
And just like, oh, she told Miles to stopand he just will not stop talking.
And that's too bad

(01:06):
because I was really excitedabout the graduates alliance with Zara
and Miles and Karen and everyone,but it's looking like,
I don't know,he may be ruffling some feathers, right?
Yeah.
You just have to be quiet. Yeah.
And that's so stillthe beans is right right now.
So we'll see how that goes for milesmoving forward.

(01:28):
Then we flip on over to the brawn tribeand we see that
they have their nice shelter.
Yeah, exactly the opposite.
Karen says she loves this shop.
The shelter.
It's like Kevin's a luxurious,And he's thrilled.
He said that he exceeded his planlast night of getting rich out.
He got everyone togetherexcept for Rich and Ursula.
We're the only peoplewho did not vote for Rich.

(01:49):
And he got them out.
It went perfectly for AJ.
Yeah.
So we see Christianand AJ talking and interesting pairing.
They're saying that Christian mayor may not trust Paulie and Noonan.
And this is kind of one of the first
and kind of only glimpseswe get into Christine's gameplay.
She, we know that she had
aligned herselfearlier with Nash and Ursula,

(02:12):
but we she's kind of taken a backseatuntil,
well, kind of still,I felt that she was throwing,
Polly and Noonan under the bus,
like, kind of saying, well, I'll voteone of them out of vote with you. AJ.
It could just be the wayyou just talk to somebody
so that they give you more information.That's true. Yeah.
Because there does seem to bea lot of untruthful statements.

(02:34):
We'll say.
And then we go to Noonan, Ursula
and Noonan says Ursa looks at heras if she's dirt on her shoes.
And then, she said she needs to get out.
Ursula.
AJ tells Noonan that,he wants the three of them at merge.
Yeah.
So AJ has a lot of plans coming up?
Yeah, many plans he does.

(02:55):
But Noonan and Ursulacannot get past this eye roll.
There was one eye roll,and they are not getting over it.
There's just a lot of agitationbetween the two of them.
Yeah.
And then, AJ,I think he's getting a little too cocky.
Said he has all the power,and he says the more likely
you play with me,the more likely you're going to lose.
I thought was very interesting.

(03:16):
He also said he has more powerthan he thought he had.
Yeah, it was.
It does seem to be, going to his head,I think.
And we so often see this peak of power
right before a giant blindside right here.
AJ, don't get too excited. Right?
I feel like he's like,no need for worrying, right?
No need to play an idol.

(03:36):
Yeah, I think he feels perfectly fine.
He's on top.
But what do you think? Job.
Right? As a poker player. Yeah.
If you look at his face, he really showsno emotion when everyone's talking to him.
So he is. He does this stuff right.
And I think he can read peoplepretty well.
I was all ready for the reward challenge,but there wasn't a reward challenge.

(03:56):
They went right into the immunitychallenge.
What do you guys think about that?
Yeah, well, we definitely had a shortenedepisode today.
It was, definitely shorterand not as exciting
because it's fun to see the rewardthat they receive.
Yeah, I was enjoy the reward challenges.
It seems like later in the gamethey kind of take out the reward.
And I guess we're at that point already.

(04:17):
No, it seems to do.
I mean, I like it.
I'm sure it'll be back tomorrow night.
I hope so, maybe it'll just be two rewardsnext time and no one will get voted out.
Oh yeah. Right, right.
Triple deckerand then triple decker sandwiches again.
Well, did something happen last nightin Australia that we needed to shorten
that, to say something else,take the place of Australian survivor.

(04:39):
What could possibly do that I don't know.
What did you see the big reactionthat when they found out
that Rich was voted out,everyone seemed to be happy?
I was shaking hands enoughso they really found a common enemy,
Ryan Rich, and he made an impact,like we've been saying.
So then we get into the immunity challengeand we see that the players

(05:01):
are kind of holding on to these pegsin a wall, and there's two players
from each tribe throwing beanbagsto try to knock off the numbered coconuts.
And when the number falls, the pegcomes out until you can no longer stand.
So, a little kind of a different idea,but we've seen some similar, variations.
But it was it was different.
Yeah. I wasn't such a big fan of it.

(05:22):
I think it's kind of a cool ideathat you have to knock down the pegs
so you can think about which coconutyou're going to hit.
If you can hit a coconut, right,you're right.
So there is some strategy to it, right?
I mean, you gofor all the ones that they're standing on
and you can get them outa lot more quickly.
But it didn't seem like they did that.
They were. AJ did.
AJ was saying to Noonan, first

(05:45):
try to get that coconutbecause that will be their foot right?
So it was interesting idea.
But yeah, interesting to see.
It wasn't really as much of a nail biteras some of the races,
but still a good challenge.
So we see AJ and Noonan, trying
to knock the coconuts offand they're not so good.
Petey and Ben are doing much better.

(06:07):
At getting these coconuts down,that's for sure.
They were.They were hitting one every time.
It seemed like 2or 3 out of their four shots.
We always seem to say,and is great at challenges.
And he was certainly pulling his weight.
Yes, he did a great job today.
It didn't seem like anybody wasreally struggling to stay on the posts.
You know, that wasn't like thethe hard part of it all.

(06:28):
It all just comes downto being able to hit the coconuts.
I feel like it should have beenmore difficult in the beginning though.
There were peoplehaving trouble struggling.
Not as much as you thought, but yes, therewere people struggling at the very end.
Someone was really struggling.
You know, sometimes they're standing onjust like a little tiny piece of wood.
Yeah, yeah.
It wasn't I didn't feel likeit was that challenging for them.

(06:51):
It happened to Paulie.
He was hanging on all feet.
Got taken out,and he was hanging on by one,
all of his body weightin his hands on one little peg.
How did he do that?
I mean, it was incredible.And it kept going on.
And I thought, for sure he'sgoing to drop out after a few seconds.
But he it was unbelievable.

(07:11):
Oh, I wish we had a time lapse. Sure.
How long he was hanging there. Right.
He has some. He's very fit.
He has some great muscles.
So that's great thathe obviously worked out before he came.
But it is unbelievablethat just that we saw what he could do.
He could stay on that long.
Who knows how long it was. Right.

(07:32):
We did it. Yeah. Right.
Yeah.
It was very impressivehow Paulie was hanging up there
and unfortunately it wasn't quite enough.
Eventually the brains wonthe immunity challenge.
Paulie fell to the ground,sending the brawn back to tribal council.
But before the challenge ended,we saw AJ, who is throwing the beanbags.
Talk to Ben, who is also throwing,

(07:54):
and said,you know, it's four and four on our tribe.
So one of yours may go home, butyou have the majority on your tribe, so
why don't you just throw this challengesent home an OG brain and be done with it?
Kind of an odd preposition.
It is an odd thing to sayin front of everyone, and I didn't
really see a reaction from Ben.
He didn't answer yes or no.

(08:15):
It was kind of an awkward thing.
Maybe he didn'tand then moved on, I guess.
I don't know,
but it certainly planted the seedsfor AJ's, ideas later in the episode.
Yes, wonderful hostage plan
underthis was the initiation of that idea.
So we head back to the brawn campto figure out who is going home.

(08:36):
Tonight.
We see AJ and car in talking andthey do not trust either Newton or Paulie.
They're thinkingthat they want to split up that vote.
All right, that duo and I have to agree,I think that they're pretty powerful
together.
There are, big physical threatsthat we saw with Paulie, just now
and then we know, obviously,that Newton is pretty good at puzzles.

(08:57):
And socially, Paulie seems to be doingquite well with the original brains.
So I kind of agree that this duo seemsdangerous to the original brains, right?
It's something worth keeping our eyeon, and I see why they want to split them
up, that's for sure.
So Corrine says that she wants to vote outPaulie first,
but AJ wants to vote Ursula first.

(09:18):
There was a little bit of tension there,and AJ comes up with this plan
that Ursula, if Erso goes first,the rest of them are just hostages.
It kind of seems to me that either way,we still have hostages, so to speak.
But he still seems pretty set on Ursulagoing home first.
Right. So, there.
You think that they're upset with Ursulajust because of, the way she acts

(09:40):
and Paulie, because of his strategy,his the way he's handling his strategy.
It's hard to see whythey don't like Ursula.
So I think, like we talkedabout on yesterday's episode,
Ursula voted for Noonanwhen everybody else voted for Rich, right?
So she is showing herselfto be a little bit volatile,
kind of untrustworthy, kind of emotional.

(10:02):
So those are great, right?
Yeah, those are great traits in a player.
However, she so clearly does not get alongwith the original brawn, right?
And is not interestedin working with them.
It seems like such an easy,like keeper for the brain.
So I. I'm surprisedthat Ursula is not pinching herself.
More like that.

(10:22):
I feel like she should just be constantlytidying the brains, like,
what's the plan? Who we votedfor. I'm with you guys, right?
And she's not really doing that.
And like we talked about last time, herher physical strength
is definitely a benefitwhen it comes to challenges.
Yeah.
So we see Caitlin get pulled in.
He's also thinkingthat it's too early for Ursula.
Let's get Paulie out first.

(10:42):
Logan sort of agrees but is not having it.
So then we see the Paulie notesthat he's planning to vote for Ursula.
He's also not happywith her having her around,
but he said he'll use his idolif he feels threatened.
And I totally forgot about thiswhile I was excited to be reminded of it.
Yeah, right.

(11:03):
So nobody else knows about it.
Is that right?
I don't think he told anybody, right?
Yeah. I don't think anyone knows.
Right.
My own in may have an idea. Right.
Because she was she was suspicious.Oh that's at that.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
She knew he was looking for itI don't know I don't remember.
So we don't know whether they leftthat out and just didn't tell us.
And that's going to come back.
Or does he really keep it to himself.

(11:25):
Which is hard to do.
But what I like about Paulie,he's still trying to get
the, brand people to stick together.
He's like, come on. Right.
There's four of us. Yeah, let's do this,Noonan.
Just let's get
you and Ursula to work together,and this would be beneficial for us.
But that happened too earlyin the negotiations.
You know,they weren't ready to go to tribal yet,

(11:47):
so I figuredit was going to have to fall apart.
But I appreciate thathe keeps trying to work on this.
If we all want to keep moving forwardin this game, we need to stick together.
They decide they're going to putall their votes on Karen, a current.
So Paulie is playing the game for sure.
He understands thatonce you get them into the minority,

(12:07):
it's hard to crawl your way back out,unfortunately.
So we see a little bit with Ursulaand Noonan.
They're saying, you know, yeah, we'll putour past behind us, let's work together.
Let's do it.
And they're like,you know, it'll be so unexpected
for the four of us to work together.
But itstill doesn't quite make sense to me.
It's still going to be A44.

(12:28):
They seem to think that the brainsare going to split the vote.
I didn't get any indicationthat they were splitting.
I don't know where they got that idea.
No. And there was never any talk about,a tie breaker.
Yeah.
So I don't know.
I just think I really believethat what Paulie was saying, and I thought
the four of them would work togetherand I couldn't believe it.

(12:51):
When you see Noonan go offuntil a car run about it, I'm like, what?
And she blames Ursulaand talk about spilling the beans,
but she's blamingsomebody who wasn't responsible for this.
Well, Noonan wants Ursula outbecause she apparently did not mean
what she said about working togetherand being better as a team,

(13:12):
because she immediatelyturns around and blames it all on Ursula.
So I,wanted to see them all work together,
because I think it would have beeninteresting to have a tie for four split.
And then we go to rocks.
Are we going, you know,is someone going to flip it? Really?
It gives you a lot of leverage to say,I'm not going to turn on my own,
I'm going to go to rocks against youor whatever.

(13:34):
And you have to, I don't know, I feel likethey could have done something there.
But I really like watchingKaren in the game.
She's still my very pick.
And so I was disappointedthat they pitched her,
and I was happy that she quicklysorted it off of herself. Yes.
Right away she goes and tellsAJ, Paulie and Logan, that
Ursula wants to get her and AJ's like, oh,I think it must be Paulie.

(13:58):
Yeah, AJ has a great sense of the game.
He just knew that it was Paulie.
He was like,that doesn't make sense for Ursula.
Target you right?It must be Paulie, right?
He just can figure that out as becausehe's a professional card player.
I think he just knows how people react,how people play.
Yeah, he's great at the game, right?
He's he's a big threat.

(14:19):
If he doesn't sink himself.
And there's just so many people nowgoing talking here, talking there.
I mean everyone's talking to each otherlike what's going to happen.
And once again AJ becomes very cocky.
Everything's going any way, he says.
And he did tell at this point.
He tells Ursula,two on you and two on Paulie.

(14:42):
Oh, this is all so awkward.
Ever.
The the four brains are standing there.
They're like,could you just give us a minute?
And standing in line.
You guys are so uncomfortable.
Wait. You're, like leading the pitch. Why?They shouldn't be voted out.
Yeah. Noonan's. Like what?
I'm waiting to talk to someone.You know, it was just.
Craig doesn't know who.
Just anyone is so uncomfortable to watch.

(15:05):
And AJ is trying to play both sideslike he wanted to do last night.
He's, you know, telling Ursula.
You know,I'm really trying to get it off of you.
Don't worry, we'll work on it.
And then he tells Paulie,I don't think you have to play your idol,
but I'm trying to save you.
So, like, I'll send you the signalif you need the idol.
So it's all, like, very double sided.

(15:26):
I don't know, it was very messy.
AJ says I think you have an idol,so he doesn't know.
But for whatever reason, he thinksPaulie has an idol
because he's so tuned into the game.Think about Brian. Right?
So that was interesting too.
I mean, come on.
If you had a know, you don'tneed to play it unless I tell you.
Yeah, yeah, that wasn't true.
Well, that sounds crazy, right?

(15:46):
The other side is going to tell youwhen to play your eye.
Right.
That you mayor may not even have right now.
Very interesting. Okay.
So we've got a lot of big personalitiesplay in the game.
But I did think it was interestingthat the brawn are all just
standing around waiting to talk,
waiting to pitch their caseinstead of looking for an idol. Yeah.
Now that there was a tribe swap,

(16:07):
I feel like therethere might be an extra idol out there.
You know, like we said, the original brawnprobably don't know
that Paulie has the idol, so Ursuladoesn't know if there's any in the game.
She should be out therehunting, right? Yes.
You're right, but.
So it's it's surprisingwith every season of survivor
that people aren't outlooking for the idol more,

(16:29):
especially if everybody'sright over there.
Just say, I'm going to go take a napand then you go away right there.
They were all like, they weren't at camp.
They were far further into the woods,somewhere at the watering hole or wherever
it was.
That seems like a perfect timeto go search for it.
I guess the difficult thing iswe don't really know as viewers
how much time that they're gettingto have these conversations.

(16:50):
So if you're really crunched for time,
you're like,I've got to pitch myself right now.
You're going to stand and waitinstead of looking for an idol
that may or may not be there.I don't know.
But anyway, no one looked for an idoland they head off to Tribal Council.
So we get to tribal and AJ discusseshis hostage right here.
I have everything all hands right?

(17:11):
But I liked what Kalen said.
He said, he'snot interested in freeing hostages.
He wants to win a challenge.
And he stood up to me, right? Yes.
So he said, I'mnot that he's speaking for myself.
Right.This hostage plan is not mine, right?
I didn't come here to win by somebody elsethrowing it right.
I came here to win. Yeah.

(17:32):
And it was all just very strange.
I think that AJ's hostage idea makes sensefor maybe, like, a vote or two to say.
You know what?
If if you win, then I'm going
to vote out your friendand make sense in theory.
But it's pretty early on to be,I don't know, like they just swap tribes.

(17:54):
Last episode, I feel like thishostage idea is a little bit,
pretty much aggressive.
I don't think it's good at allat any point in the game.
It's a stupid thing to methat you're trying to blackmail somebody.
That doesn't seem to be the way
and survivors play, but,I mean, it's a new everyone.
It's certainly a new twist.Yeah, right. It is.
But I don't like,

(18:14):
get the one team telling the other teamthey should throw the throw the challenge.
I just don't like.
I mean, boring would the show beif they just sit out the challenge?
Yeah, right.
So I have a feeling that the producersmay try to influence this a little bit,
because they certainly don't want to showthe show where the main challenge
only one half of the the castmates are trying in and have out poorly.

(18:39):
He said, oh, sign me up to be a hostage,right? Right.
Yeah, yeah, it it's out a little odd,you know what I was thinking?
If they had ended up going with Pollybecause at this point,
you know, they're sayingwe're going to decide at tribal,
we don't know if it's going to be Pollyor if it's going to be Ursula.
If it had been Polly.
And Polly playsthis idol, and Polly targets,

(19:00):
let's say AJ or any would have been huge,
then it would have beena reverse hostage situation.
So I'm thinkingit is really speaking out of turn here.
He's talking about his planbefore he even has the numbers.
Right.
I think he really could have been thrownfor a loop
if the votes would have gone on.
Polly and Polly played his idol,and while he targeted

(19:21):
one of the original brains,which that's a lot of chips,
but it seems like itpretty easily could have happened.
Yes, well,Polly knew that it was going to be Ursula.
He voted for Ursula.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean he knew.
He plays his idol for Ursula.
And then he votes for AJ.
Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
I feel like therethere could have been something there

(19:43):
didn't quite happen,but it would have been quite the upset.
So been exciting.
I was I was nervous to see AJ
being so confident to ride out the gatebefore he had the numbers.
I think it was nicethat Ursula said, listen, I know the Isle
O'Brien teamand they're not gonna throw a challenge.
And that could go back to AJtrying to talk.

(20:04):
What to Ben?
Yeah.
No man, that didn't wasn't interesting.
Right.
No challenge here.
We have no ideawhat's happening on the other side.
They may not even want to workwith these original brand anymore.
You know, there could be new alliances.
I think it's it's an okay, general ideato maybe whisper to 1 or 2 people

(20:25):
during the challenge,but I think it's very scary
to announce this to the entire gamethat this is the plan, right?
I agree, it can definitely backfirebecause you're just
giving up your whole ideaso that people can think about your idea.
Yeah.
So go ahead.
Another thing that I was thinkingabout during this Tribal Council is Ursula

(20:46):
is, you know, saying Polly gave the nameNoonan, saying Ursula gave the name.
And so no interest.
Ursulano interest. Noonan no interest. Polly.
What about Kristen?
No one's working with her.
Oh, you're kidding her.
And I'm thinking if RJ and his teamwould have targeted Kristen
and gotten her out,we maintain this level of division

(21:07):
within the original Bron,
which I think is going to be really goodfor the brains moving forward.
So if we get Kristen out, she's kind
of, I don't know,maybe an ally, maybe not.
But she's not causing chaos at camp.
Whereas Ursulaand Noonan are so much on each other,
you know, nerves that even come merge,they're not going to be working
together now.

(21:27):
So I don't know.
I wish they would have thoughtabout Kristen.
Right.
I feel like Kristen is kind of destinedto be one of the final
3 or 4, because notthat much is happening with her.
And then all of a suddenwe'll just start hearing from her.
And yeah, so she's not ruffling
feathers so she'll stick around.
She's a good pre merge game.

(21:49):
She's not getting in the way right.
It just seems like she would have beenmaybe a good target just to keep the chaos
going on the other side. Yeah.
Well I thought it was interesting.
Now that Polly says listen I'm.
Now I don't want to be collateral damagebecause of their Noonan
and Ursula's problem. Right.
It should be between these two, not me.

(22:09):
How am I getting involved in here?
And then.
Yeah, I see what he says.
Yeah. See, you see his point?
And then Noonan voiced her,concern about this,
and I voted the way you want it.
I voted for Rich last night.
Ursula did not go with the plan.
She voted for me.And that was a good point.
It was?
Yeah, I think that's a great, great point.

(22:31):
Yeah, right.
I wonder if she said that back at campand that influenced everyone's vote,
you know.And then she just said it again at tribal.
But she's absolutely right.
I went along with the group.
Right. Obviously one person didn't.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well it worked out in Noonan's favorbecause it is suddenly time to vote.

(22:52):
And Polly's looking at AJ for signal.
AJ kind of shrugs.
Yeah. Which I guess was a no.Don't play the idol.
No, I'm very not I'm not comforting.
No. Yeah.
There is no idol play.
Polly saves his idol and we see two votes
for Noonan,followed by all the votes for Ursula.

(23:12):
And she goes home, right.
Which I thought.
Boy, did you see she was smiling.
She was blowing kisses.
Yeah, she was very interesting.
She almost seemed nicer and happierthan we've seen her on the whole show.
Maybe she was relieved. I am done.
The stress is over.
Yeah, and she's away from Noonan.
Yeah. And Polly.
Yeah.
It's just too bad they couldn'tall get along like Polly wanted them to.

(23:35):
Just.
Just get along for now and then worry.
Then have your division. Yeah.
Because it seems like you're saying she'sa pretty nice, you know, bubbly person.
It looks like outside of the game.
And it's too bad we weren't able to seea little bit more of that in the game.
Yeah.
Maybe she's just too guarded and toonervous.
Yeah.
Well she went out with a smile.

(23:57):
Everyone clapped for her.
It's always, you know,nice to see that sort of an exit.
Yes, I agree with that. Right.
So we will see what happens tomorrownight.
So we're excited to see how this hostagesituation works out.
If you have ideas on this hostagesituation is it going to work.
Is it a good idea. Is it too soon for it?

(24:19):
Let us know on Instagram
at Survivor, TikTok at survivor,or send us an email at eight.
Australian Survivor at gmail.com.
Just a reminder, we will be back tomorrownight for episode nine,
and then we will be taking a one weekhiatus and returning the following week.
See you then. Bye bye bye.