First the knives are out, then the tears are out. It’s a turbulent Survivor Sunday. Let’s recap Australian Survivor: Titans Vs Rebels S9 Ep 13, on Channel 10 and 10 play.
“DROP YOUR BUFFS! We’re going into Merge!” JLP announces to a very excited group of castaways.
Our new tribe at merge is OG Titans: Eden, Mark, Caroline, Kitty, Jaden, Valeria and Winna and OG Rebels: Kirby, Feras, Raymond, Scott, Rianna, Alex and Aileen. They all sniff their new crisp, clean new dark blue buffs.
“I’m so dateable now!” Eden cheers. He’s fanboying hard and really proud of himself for ticking off one of his big bucket list items. I’m proud of you too, Eden.
There’s 14 people heading into merge together. It’s a bigger merge tribe than previous survivors, potentially meaning more chaos.
But there’s no time to celebrate making merge because we’re going straight to a reward challenge which will definitely give someone something to celebrate. Valeria wins the ball balancing reward challenge – sponsored by Set for Life – which gives her $5K on replay, a comfy bed to sleep in tonight and best of all, a spectator pass at tribal. She can’t be voted out.
After reward, the tribe agrees on their new name. They become that ‘Tasi’ tribe because ‘Tasi’ is Samoan for ‘one’. Is it all for one or one for all? We’re about to find out.
Time to jump forward to the first immunity challenge which makes the castaways regret skipping leg day.
“This is awful, I already know I’m not going to win this one,” Raymond says, everyone’s favourite viewers advocate. Him and Kirby drop, only a minute in. Then one-by-one everyone starts to drop off; Kitty, Caroline, Aileen, Rianna, Scott, Feras, Mark – whose been in crippling pain the whole time, lasts a massive thirteen minutes – then Alex. We are down to the last two, Jaden and Winna.
“The necklace would look better on you bro,” Winna tells his bestie then gives it a second look, “I would like to wear that thing, though.”
“It’s a bit of a girly necklace, I was thinking more of a manly one,” Jaden snickers.
“But Jaden, if you don’t like the look of the necklace, Winna loves it.” JLP points out.
“Ah yeah, no worries!” And without a second thought, Jaden drops out of the challenge because the immunity necklace isn’t vibing with his personal style.
I guess we have a WINNA after all. He’s right, the necklace does look better on him.
A storm picks up in the new Tasi tribe and its nothing compared to what’s about to go down at tribal.
The middle aged mafia propose to vote Titan-strong and aim for Ray; Feras’ righthand man.
‘That’s a stupid idea,’ Kirby decides when she hears the gossip from Rianna. Valeria casually drops Kitty’s name to Kirby, maybe because she could be a potential threat but almost definitely because she previously orchestrated Valeria’s BFF Viola’s blindside. “Revenge is Valeria’s middle name,” Mark adds in a confessional.
When Kirby tells Scott to vote Kitty he doesn’t want to ‘because I get a really good energy from her.’ He tries to reason with Kirby that Kitty is less threatening then Valeria. When Kirby ignores his plea, he goes straight for Kitty to tell her the truth.
“Let’s go for a chat and talk life.” Kirby not so subtly tells Scott to GTF away from the OG titans, after he tells them about the votes on Kitty.
“That’s sketchy as,” Caroline adds. Although it’s rattled the middle aged mafia. The middle aged mafia drag Scotty aside and pressure him to tell them who told him Kitty’s name. “It’s Mark? Or maybe Valeria?” He winces not wanting to throw anyone under the bus. But Scott doesn’t need to, Kitty’s already got the bus in first gear and Caroline’s navigating.
Caroline and Kitty start pointing the finger at Mark, “It’s not me, I haven’t even spoken to Scott.” Mark denies, still trying to differentiate Scott from the other guys with long hair in the tribe, that’s how unacquainted they are with each other.
“Well who else could it be?” Kitty demands from Valeria – who is the root cause of the Kitty voice.
“Umm… Feras,” Valeria throws his name out – and under the bus – because he’s the only one standing around and to her shock, they buy it. Kitty puts the bus in second gear.
When they get to tribal, nobody can agree on who to vote for but the tribe collectively agrees, with 14 people, there’s way too many cooks in the survivor kitchen.
Kitty shifts the bus into third gear at tribal council. “I know who put my name out there, and I am going to be gunning for you hard.” She warns the nameless victim.
“Wow, that was ruthless.” Jaden murmurs, although Kitty can’t throw names as hard as Jaden can throw winning immunity challenges.
“I’d rather be remembered then go out without a fight.” Kitty says admirably.
But the mood of the game suddenly shifts, when JLP asks Scott what he thinks, “I don’t want to take this chance to play the game from someone else when I might not mentally be in the game right now.”
“You have no idea, how bad my heads been these last 24 hours and the war that’s going on up there. So I don’t think I’d feel right sitting here in potentially someone else’s stool after tonight.” Scott admits.
“Ok so you want to leave the game?” JLP clarifies.
“Yes.” Scott confirms.
Scott has been known around camp as one of the smiliest castaways but close friend Kirby has noticed a change in his mental health the past couple days and discusses how the physical aspects of Survivor – the cold, the hunger, the lack of sleep – can affect the mental wellbeing of players too. “I support Scotty 110%” She says.
The wild tribal has turned into a teary tribal. With Scott deciding to leave the game, there is no need to go to a vote.
“I guess Scott, you have spoken.” JLP announces, snuffing out Scott’s torch as his tribe mates wish him their best wishes. “If we learnt anything about this game tonight, you should always put yourself first.”
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