Previously on Australian Survivor, Sophie made waves after joining the Water tribe – geddit? I’m here all week – spitting fire about Sam to her husband. At the reward challenge, she doubled down on her rage where she beat up Sam in scenes reminiscent of the ‘stop stop, he’s already dead’ moment in The Simpsons. Nina once again beat up Sandra to win the reward for the Water tribe, which was a cheese player that they had to enjoy at the Blood tribe. In front of the losers. This gave Sophie the opportunity to rage at her former allies and then Sam, for allegedly turning everyone against her. The next day Ben won immunity for the Blood Tribe all by his lonesome sending Water back to tribal council. While Sophie was the obvious target, her sister KJ hatched a plan to blindside Khanh instead while he was distracted. Turns out there was a bigger blindside on the cards however as Alex quit the game due to his injured back.

The next day the Blood tribe were lazing about in the water as Jesse joked about how he isn’t sunburnt but instead was just feeling super rosy. We then got a supercut of Jesse living his best life around camp and absolutely delighting his tribe and ugh, Jesse is my king. Despite also being young enough to be my child in an early-teenage pregnancy situation. I’m not good with maths, but I’m guessing I would have had to have been a father at 12. So unlikely, but possible. In theory.

But I’ve digressed.

We checked in with the Water tribe where Mark was regaling KJ with tales of life in the army or overthinking things at tribal council? I honestly got confused by the trajectory of their conversation. Sophie reminded us that against all odds she is still in the game and is still glad to be reunited with her sister. While Alex quit the game and ruined their plans at the last tribal council, Sophie realised that as Khanh is still one of the biggest threats it may actually be better to team up with him than vote him out. Sadly for her, he had no interest and immediately reported back to Josh and Jordie that Sophie came to him to announce his idol was going to be flushed and he would be voted out immediately after her, should he not join forces with her.

Oh and she reiterated doesn’t want to ruin KJ’s position in the game, despite her chaos.

Over at the Blood tribe, a lizard was wandering around camp and creeping out Sandra before talk turned to what they thought happened at the last tribal council. With everyone hoping Sophie was sent packing for good this time. Sandra regaled us with tales of her previous experiences in the game, talking about how much harder the conditions are in the Australian outback. She also reminded us that the only times she has been voted out have been on Day 16 and as such, the closer it gets to that day the more stressed she becomes.

But using that logic, should she make it to Day 17, she is either winning. Or at the very least, being booted on Day 39. So yay!

Sandra caught up with Sam, Amy and Michelle by the well, talking about who they should vote out one of the boys with Sandra trying to push to get rid of Dave given he wrote her name down before. Sadly for her though, nobody was interested in that. Plus, it was actually Sam who voted for her. Back at camp, Sandra asked Dave why they were enemies before joking about the curse that forces people that write her name down to lose the game and as such, he should regret his previous choices.

Which actually means Sam should regret it. And won’t win. 

Being close with Dave, Amy didn’t want to lose a potential ally and as such, pulled him aside to warn him and float the idea of getting rid of Sandra instead. As they joined up with Jay in the water, Sandra, Sam and Michelle watched on from the hammock and quickly identified the trio as the current biggest threat and suggested they vote them out back-to-back-to-back. Knowing they need numbers to execute that plan, Sandra and Michelle caught up with the alpha males to float the idea of splitting up said power trio and while Croc knew it was a good idea, he also wasn’t confident enough in his position to trust it. We then heard more about Croc, learning he applied to Survivor to get back his sense of purpose after retiring from the NRL and finally secure an individual win, rather than one as part of a team.

Speaking of teams, the tribes caught up with Jonathan for the reward challenge where water filled Blood in on the circumstances surrounding Alex’s exit. As for the challenge, they would work in trios to run down a ramp and into the water to wrestle for a football with the one to get it back up their ramp scoring a point for their tribe. For a club sandwich, which is fitting given our speedo kings of yore. In the first round, Mark, Josh and Jordie faced off against Croc, Jesse and Ben, the two latter looking glorious in their speedos as per usual. The entire round was chaos as everyone wrestled and tossed their ball with Chrissy screaming at Jordie to just get up the ramp and wait, which ended up securing their win.

Round two was Nina, Chrissy and Sophie against Amy, Michelle and Sandra with Nina continuing her winning streak against her mum, scoring the second point for Water despite Amy nearly breaking away with the ball. Jordan, David and Jay were up next against Mark, Khanh and Josh with Jordan and his speedo once again starring as he tackled anyone and everything, allowing Dave to score a point for Blood. Croc, Jesse and Jordan were up next, facing off against Mark, Jordie and Josh and once again my speedo kings were absolutely ferocious, however sadly, they couldn’t land their ball and instead Water took out yet another victory.

Back at camp the tribe were thrilled to discover they had each won a club sandwich, rather than having to split one which is what I assumed was the situation for some reason. Everyone quickly grabbed their snacks and juice while Khanh gave them the foodie description of their sangas. We then got a supercut of everyone near orgasming as they feasted on their sandwiches, with Mark thrilled to finally have time to pause and think through what is next for the tribe. While he still thinks getting rid of Khanh is critical, Sophie’s volatility is more concerning for him and as such he felt she needed to go first. He then flipped a table to check if there was an idol clue under it, sadly not in homage to Teresa Giudice.

Meanwhile over at the Blood tribe, they were talking shit about the sandwiches to try and make themselves feel better about their loss. Jordan tried to remind them not to stress and instead focus on winning immunity. Not wanting to wait however, Sandra, Michelle and Sam ventured back to the hammock and continued with their plans to get rid of Dave. While Amy, Dave and Jay went hunting for idols. Right in front of the tribe. Spooked, Sandra got up and joined the hunt with Amy, Michelle and Sam spotting a red pole near a tree at the same time. Yet somehow, Amy managed to spot the idol and knock it off without anyone seeing her. Begging the question, how? Like, HOW?

The tribes joined up with Jonathan for the latest immunity challenge where they would each have to swim out to a cliff, climb up a net, release a ball and then race it back to the start to shoot into a basket with the first team to five winning immunity. Jordie got Water out to the earliest of leads, however Michelle managed to close the gap as she scored the basket quickly at the other end. Add in Ben speeding through the water, he managed to catch up with Josh. While Water continued to have more time shooting their baskets, Blood always managed to close the gap until Khanh tired in the water and allowed Sam to overtake him while Khanh struggled more and more in the water. Sadly, Sandra struggled with the basket allowing KJ to take back the lead for the tribe once Khanh delivered the ball. While Croc started to close the gap again on his swim, he struggled on the netting allowing Shay to extend Water’s lead as Mark joined Croc in the water. Mark then whipped through the course, before  Nina scored the final point and secured immunity for Water.

The medics were then called in to check on Croc as Chrissy went into mummy mode, coaching him through his breathing and making sure he was ok. The NRL great then spoke about how he didn’t want to let his team down with everyone assuring him, they love him and he should be proud of his performance. Because that challenge was brutal.

Back at camp Sam tried to perk everyone back up, reminding them the other tribe are well fed while they are not. After that, things quickly descended into chaos as the hammock crew returned to rocking before locking in their vote for Dave. As such, Sandra then approached Croc to woo back the alpha male alliance, while Sam worked on Jesse and Jordan. And while everyone readily agreed to boot Dave, we also have way too long left of the episode, so something has to give.

Amy meanwhile was already feeling the paranoia that comes with having an idol before approaching Jay to loop him in on her fears that Sandra has turned the tribe against Dave. As such, Amy approached the alpha boys to talk about voting out Sandra instead, particularly because she plays a great under the radar game and the longer she lasts, the more fearsome she gets. Amy, Jay and Dave all split up to lock in the votes for Sandra, though Amy knew that there would be major problems should they try and take a shot at Sandra and miss. Meanwhile Croc, Ben and Jordan were relishing their role as the swing votes, weighing up whether booting Sandra or Dave would be better for the long term games. 

Back at the hammock however, Sandra, Sam and Michelle continued to strategise with the latter confessing that she spotted Amy finding her hidden immunity idol and floated the idea of switching the vote to get rid of her instead. Which Sandra was obviously all in on.

Sandra then approached the alphas again to loop them in on the new information, suggesting they split the vote between Amy and Jay instead to force Amy to flush her idol. While everyone quickly agreed to the plan, Jordan immediately went to Amy to tell her that everyone knows about her idol and as such, told her that she needs to play it tonight otherwise she is going home. While Amy continued to push for Sandra to go, she followed up with Sam, Jesse and Jay to loop them in on the new plan. Ben soon joined them and assured her that he, Jesse and Sam are all with her and will be voting out Sandra tonight.

While Sandra was making jokes about checking how to spell ‘Amy’ before deciding Jonathan will figure it out if she gets it wrong.

At tribal council Jordan spoke about how brutal the challenge was, Ben opened up about being blindsided at last tribal council, though Jordan agreed that getting rid of his ally did create more harmony in camp. Talk turned to the post-challenge scramble with Michelle opening up about how chaotic things were, with Sandra agreeing that everything changes on a dime. She then went in talking about how Amy and Jay who would usually speak to her ignored her all afternoon and as such, she knows she is going to be getting votes. She reminded them it was a better idea to keep people happy and thinking they were safe because otherwise, you can’t pull off a blindside.

Sam spoke about tribal council always being complicated, though looked at Sandra and assured her that she would be doing what she said. Amy tried to defend not talking to Sandra before the latter pushed her to admit that she had an idol. While Croc reminded her not to ever tell anyone when they have an idol, Amy admitted she didn’t tell anyone, as her allies looked on in shock. Jay tried to get everyone to focus on making a vote to keep things unified, while Sam felt there would finally be a line in the sand while Croc was just hoping to build some trust. Oh and Jay was confident there would be another blindside.

With that, the tribe voted and Amy (needlessly) played her idol for herself, negating the three votes against her while three piled up on Sandra before the rest all landed on Jay and sent him out of the game. With a different blindside to the one he was expecting.

Like Sam Schoers before him, Jay didn’t have a lot to say on the TV side of things but off the show, he is an absolute delight. And was playing such a strong game. As soon as he walked into Loser Lodge, I scooped him up in my arms and then realised I have zero upper body strength to lift him. Instead, I gave him a hug and then tried to sweeten his post-boot pain with some Jaypricot Bruno Jam.

Yeah, yeah, jam is jam. But you truly haven’t lived until you’ve made it at home, complete with the freshest produce. Sticky and sweet, the lemon is the super power, cutting through to give you a glorious mouthful of flavour.

Enjoy!

Jaypricot Bruno Jam
Makes: 4-6 cups.

Ingredients
1kg ripe apricots
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 cup water
4 cups raw caster sugar

Method
Halve apricots and remove stones before popping them in a saucepan with the lemon zest and juice, and water. Bring to the boil, reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes, or until tender.

Take off the lid and stir in the sugar until dissolved. Again, bring to a boil and cook, uncovered, for half an hour, or until thick and jammy. But not too thick, given it will firm up as it comes to temperature.

Remove from the heat and leave to rest for five minutes before pouring into hot, sterilised jars to cool. Seal when cold. Or devour all at once, though that would be too much for even me.


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