Trying to capture a week's worth of Australian Survivor in a single recap/review is an impossible task. There's just so much of it. Which is unfortunate, because SurvivorAU usually puts a bit of craft into their three-episode arcs each week: There will be twists or advantages that appear in the first installment, and pay off in the third, so each week is something of a mini-season, or at least a season part, like the pre-merge or the post-merge.

For SurvivorAU: Australia v The World, that's also technically true. If my calculations are correct, Episodes 1-3 covered virtually all of the pre-merge (Days 1-6 of a 16-day game), because with a double-Tribal episode coming in the next episode (Ep4), they almost have to merge at 9 players left in Episode 5. (Which would also explain why everyone was talking about hitting the merge with numbers as Episode 3 closed.) Put another way: Episode 4 (probably just Day 7) is the last day of the pre-merge.

But there's another, more important way in which the first three episodes of SurvivorAU: Australia v The World had a common theme: They were almost perfect. 10/10, no notes. There was drama, chaotic gameplay, plans replaced by other plans, swapped with other plans, supplanted by still more plans at Tribal. There was comedy, to keep things light. There were big players playing grandiosely - then falling flat. There were outside-the-game connections that made some choices difficult (or easier). Somehow, the show leaned into its unavoidable pre-game alliances, and on both tribes, organic reorganizations of elite players formed to thwart that. It's everything you could want in 4.5 hours of Survivor.

And credit where credit is due: After years of fans begging Jeff Probst to try this format in US Survivor, the Aussies just said "Ffffffffar out!" and went ahead and did it, taking a huge risk in the process, in hoping that a dramatic shortening (16 days!) of the season would still work ... and were absolutely right. Fortune favors the bold, CBS! Or as Kirby said (ironically in an all-star season), "We're only here once!"

Contrasting clashes

The first episode did a great job of setting up the season, with the usual over-the-top opening arrival sequence. Luke emerging from a duffel bag was cute, although I probably could have done without Tony standing in the back of a pickup flanked by double billowing US flags, which felt very MAGA-coded. Still, seeing the other truck with the South Africa, New Zealand, and Quebec flags, and Tommi on a motorcycle, wolf-howling with the Finnish flag - that was all fun and different, and really gave the World tribe an Olympics-adjacent feel.

What the premiere best demonstrated, however, was how the differing sources of the two initial tribes create both a quasi-normal, mostly strangers situation on World, vs. a highly interconnected group of returning players with complicated loyalties on the Australia tribe (which I will call "Aussie," because that's what their buffs and the big flag in camp say).

To be sure, there are *some* connections on World. Most obviously, and as we were reminded, Cirie and Parvati were part of S16: Micronesia's Black Widow alliance, the season Parvati won, and the season Cirie describes as the one she (Cirie) should have won. (Parvati mentioned she felt she was robbed in S20: Heroes vs. Villains, which is an interesting claim here specifically, since the actual winner, Sandra Diaz-Twine and her daughter Nina played in AU7: Blood v Water, and Nina played again the following season.) Also, obviously, Tony and Cirie both appeared (briefly, in Tony's case) in S34: Game Changers, and Tony and Parvati played together on S40: Winners at War. Tony won $2 million that season (as he reminded us), but Parvati's jury vote was not for him. It doesn't appear time has made her grow fonder of him. (Actually, now that I think about it, Cirie and Parvati riding comfortably inside the US truck while Tony is forced to stand in the bed does feel like an accurate preview of their relationships.)

So there are definite cracks on the World tribe that a savvy non-US player could exploit, and we see a bit of that dynamic in Episodes 2-3, as Tony is quite aware that with Rob gone, the tribe doesn't value physical strength, the women are four strong, and he's probably next to go. Still, what's interesting about World is the non-US players. Most US superfans have at least heard of Rob Bentele and Lisa (Stanger) Holmes. The seasons they won (SA: Island of Secrets and NZ: Thailand, respectively) were briefly available on Paramount+ in the US. They still are in Australia. But there are two other quite-capable players here who are probably unknown to everyone else: Kass from season 2 of Survivor Quebec, and Tommi from season 7 of Selviytyjät Suomi (Survivor Finland). How some of the most famous players US Survivor has ever produced interact with (or against) their lesser-known but no less competent tribemates will be fascinating to watch.

In contrast, everyone (players and audience) knows everyone on the Aussie tribe. Shonee has played four times! (Although remarkably, never with Luke before.) George, Luke, and David are making their third appearances. Janine and Sarah both played with Luke before; Janine and Shonee also played with David. David and Sarah knew each other from long before SurvivorAU, when they were both modeling. George memorably formed the Spice Girls alliance with Shonee in AU8: Heroes v Villains, but voted her out in the post-merge. The only player nobody has played against before is Kirby, and she famously had not watched any of their seasons (at least before playing her first time). She publicly claims to still not have made that effort, but it's unclear if that's the truth, or strategic misstatement. (Not mentioned on the show, but Kirby allegedly knew Luke outside the game, and he inspired her to apply.)

What's exciting about the Aussie tribe - and this plays out at length in Episode 2 - is this contrast between the players who are leaning on their past/pre-game connections to get ahead in the game (David and friends), and those who are trying to put together something new. So far the latter is mostly Kirby, but she's put a lot of effort into connecting with Sarah, and has had at least some working relationship with George, Shonee, and David. With David and George now gone, those numbers are dwindling, but if anyone's going to work with World folks at the merge, Kirby seems like a good bet - especially now that the other two most likely people (George, flaunting his knowledge of the US players at the Ep3 IC, and David, who had a non-Survivor alliance with Parvati on Deal or No Deal Island) are gone.

I'm not sure this is intentional strategy on Kirby's part, but not having a huge alliance - especially one full of SurvivorAU legends - at the merge is probably the best approach. If you're a lone wolf like Tony (or Tommi, who howls and is wearing a wolf shirt), would you really want to be the last person in, joining a tight alliance of three, like David-Luke-Janine would have been? You're the most expendable, unless you can play them against each other (and I'm not sure any of the US players know the Aussies well enough to know where to poke, although Cirie might). To be fair, any strong Aussie alliance might seem threatening to the World people, especially the non-US ones. The merge is coming fast, and it'll be fascinating to see if the previous connections vs. freshly formed alliance dynamic continues to play out there.

Ep1: Working as a team/ not working as a team

The story of Episode 1 was the inability of the highly disparate elements of the World tribe to cohere into a single entity (not helped by the opening Reward Challenge, which was single head-to-head bouts, where each heat's winner got to pick their prize). Most of the blame for that problem fell on the enormous shoulders of Rob, who was giddy that the non-US players on World had a 4-3 numbers advantage over the US players, and seemed to stop strategizing at that point, preferring to just remind his new tribemates that they were up, 4-3. (I get the sense that Rob probably knew less about his tribemates than anyone else on World, and as soon as he saw that one-player margin, stopped caring about learning.)

The whole episode was just a celebration of Survivor in all its formats and iterations, but perhaps the best example of that was the scene of Lisa tearing up at getting to not just be on the same tribe as her favorite player of all time, Cirie Fields, but be in a fricking alliance with her, as well. Lisa is a Survivor winner! Cirie has come close, but it hasn't happened for her (yet). But Lisa's point still stands: Cirie is the best (but so is Lisa, as I hope we'll all get to see as this season progresses).

Anyway, other notable moments in the premiere were Rob picking a mysterious locked box as the first reward item in the RC (more on than in Ep3), and Rob's inability to hit any targets with the slingshot in the immunity challenge. Tony hit four, Luke hit four for Aussie, and so did David. Rob hit zero. There were only eight targets. If you're gonna volunteer, you also need to deliver. Rob did not. He thought he could fall back on his numbers advantage after that loss, but of the people on his tribe, he was "allied" with at least two (Kass and Tommi) that I'm almost certain he'd never heard of before. They (along with Lisa) nodded dutifully every time he pointed out the 4-3 advantage, then promptly wrote his name down. Good for them.

It's a pity Jacques Burger from Rob's original season didn't get the invite in Rob's place. Jacques was vilified by (Rob's) majority alliance that season, simply for playing the game, rather than being a blind, unthinking follower. I hope Jacques feels a bit of redemption here.

Ep2: Kirby Godslayer

The second episode shifted the focus to the Aussie tribe, as happens when they lose immunity. What was most striking, though, was that IC loss came with 40 minutes (not counting ads) left in the episode. A *massive* amount of time to fill. But not a minute of that was wasted.

Instead, what unfolded was a tour de force of elite strategic gameplay. David wanted George out. David had a four-person alliance with his best mates Luke, Janine, and Sarah. Four people is a majority on a seven-person tribe. "Easy-peasy" was the Golden God's assessment of that plan's difficulty level.

But not so fast! Kirby, in contrast, has been putting in the work, getting people to consider the idea that maybe, *because* David was so well-connected (and also a beast in individual challenges), it would be better to get him out of the game as soon as possible. First, even. Sarah was initially reluctant, having known David outside the game, for longer than the game existed ... but was coming around to the idea by Episode 2. Shonee wanted George out, but was fine with David. George, trying to play both sides (he thinks he has an alliance with Luke and David called "the Power Bottoms"; they're really just humoring him) pushes for Janine as the safe option, but Kirby encourages everyone to make the bold move, and target David. Yay!

But that's not the end of it! Things get increasingly muddled as George warns David his name has been thrown out, and tries to switch Luke, David, and Janine to vote Shonee. Sarah tells Janine (because she can't be seen talking to David directly) that David is in trouble, and he should play his idol if he has one (he doesn't, and he's also unaware Luke does), and that George is part of the group voting against him. Kirby tells George that David's plan was to split the votes between George and Shonee, which irritates George, who thought they were all voting Shonee. So George is mad at David, and David is mad at George. This is when all Hell - calmly, tersely - breaks loose.

David spots Kirby and George talking in the jungle, and marches right up to them. George asks David what he's been telling people, because he heard there was a planned George/Shonee vote split, "Which is very disappointing." David counters with "All I'm hearing is it's fully on me ... from people I actually really trust." The tension gradually ratchets up, but everyone manages to remain calm. David asks George where his vote is going, George swears it's "with what we discussed before" (Shonee). David replies that's not what he's hearing, and asks "Who's driving my name?" George waits a beat, then points at Kirby, and says: "She's right here! Yeah."

Just complete, cold-blooded betrayal. Not really backstabbing, but rather an entirely public front-stabbing. Kirby stares in disbelief. David is stunned, says "Okay." Then heads off "to look for an idol." Kirby (in confessional) is livid. Doing damage control after David leaves, as Kirby tries to get George to explain himself, George tries to play it all off as nothing, then tries to paper over it with "Let's vote [David] out tonight."

Remarkably there's still several more changes of plan before Tribal starts. David tries to rally by getting everyone to more or less agree it's a really good idea to vote George out, and gets a fair amount of buy-in. George pulls in Luke and tries to get everyone to just vote for Janine (incorrectly calling this an "anyone but me" strategy - rather than agreeing to a plan someone else brought up, he's haranguing everyone to vote Janine, which nobody particularly seems excited about).

But that's *still* not the end of it. David's group goes into Tribal set on voting George; Kirby's group is I guess following George's Janine plan? Or maybe also voting George? It doesn't really matter, because a Live Tribal breaks out shortly after arrival, as David foolishly goes all in on pointing out what a massive threat Kirby is. Shonee asks Kirby to confirm they're still voting David? Or is it George? Kirby instantly decides David, and tells Sarah (who does not look pleased). Meanwhile, David and Janine agree to switch their votes to Shonee. Neither side tells George what they're doing.

But that's *still* not the end of it. David's group goes into Tribal set on voting George; Kirby's group is I guess following George's Janine plan? Or maybe also voting George? It doesn't really matter, because a Live Tribal breaks out shortly after arrival, as David foolishly goes all in on pointing out what a massive threat Kirby is. Shonee asks Kirby to confirm they're still voting David? Or is it George? Kirby promptly decides David, and tells Sarah (who agrees, but does not look pleased). Meanwhile, David and Janine agree to switch their votes to Shonee. Then back to George. Neither side tells George what they're actually doing.

It ends up in a 3-3 (-1, with George dutifully voting Janine) tie between David and George. Because neither David nor George can vote in the revote, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that's David's gone here, but it really all rests (uncomfortably) on Sarah's shoulders - torn between helping an IRL friend, or sticking with the "loyalty thing" she's been talking about all episode. She chooses the latter, voting out David, and spends the next episode regretting having done so. Just play Survivor! Don't handicap yourself! (Sigh.)

But all of this back-and-forth really happens because you have a tribe full of elite (Sarah says "professional," which also seems accurate) Survivor players desperately trying to emerge from their first vote of the season with numbers. There are a lot of tempting targets, which adds fluidity to the constantly shifting voting blocs. And there are a lot of prior relationships that both enable and clog up those attempted moves. It's the kind of strategic battle you watch Survivor for, and they went into overtime on it, here in Episode 2. Probably one of the best all-time episodes of any franchise, ever?

Oh, and as David is grabbing his torch to be snuffed, he rumbles, "Congratulations, you guys retired me!" (In light of Channel 10 announcing immediately after the episode aired that David is the new host, replacing the universally beloved Jonathan LaPaglia, for some reason ... this makes it sound like maybe David had already had preliminary talks with the network last year, when this filmed? Hmm.)

Ep3: The sadness of King George

Over his three-season arc, George has gone from an annoyingly self-aggrandizing and lucky twist-/idol-aided finalist (AU6: Brains v Brawn) to an indisputably powerful strategic player (AU8: Heroes v Villains) to in this season ... the guy everyone just wants out. It's very similar to Russell Hantz's run from S19: Samoa to S20: HvsV to S22: Redemption Island. George's allies his first season, especially Cara, talked up how the edit (carving out so much time for his confessional bravado) didn't really do him any favors, because he was constantly talking strategy in camp (when not talking himself up in confessional), and the audience didn't really get to see that more considered, thoughtful version of George until his last two seasons. Still, it's both a great move on everyone else's part and a little bittersweet that George's run here was cut short. But also, after his massive double-cross in Ep2, why would you keep him in the game longer than you have to? (The answer, at least in Ep2, was: Because he's just a king, and you probably want to get rid of the god first.)

But first, the B-story of Episode 3 was the World tribe collectively deciding to find the key to the locked box they (Rob) won in the premiere, and them actually succeeding! But the details are more entertaining than that. After a bit of searching, Parvati finally finds the key, and immediately alerts Cirie and Kass to her find. They decide to open the box while everyone else is still looking, but Tony wanders into camp while they're doing that, so there's a brief comedic panic as Cirie and Parvati frantically try to re-lock the padlock, eventually giving up, and just having Parvati sit on the box, with her skirt draped (poorly!) over the padlock. Eventually they enlist Lisa to distract Tony at the well, while they open the box for real. (*Physical comedy intensifies*)

I'm still not 100% sure this wasn't a bit for the cameras, but Tony somehow dropped the ladle into the well, tried to fish it out, and eventually asked Lisa to lift/hold onto him as made the full Rome Cooney deep dive (above). For her part, Lisa looks committed, but we don't get resolution about this beyond the scene above. Since Tony appears in the IC, we just have to conclude he's not still stuck down the well. Meanwhile, Cirie opens the box, and discovers the contents are just a clue to an idol at Tribal - on Jonathan's podium. (Yes, the fabled Palesa Tau idol that Adam Klein was hoping for in S40: Winners at War.) I was thinking it's a pity that Adam wasn't one of the US players, because he's probably the former winner who knows SurvivorSA and SurvivorAU lore the best (probably in top percentile among US players, in fact). He definitely knows who Lisa is, right? But upon reflection, let's hope he gets an invitation to Australia v The World II, that Palesa is also invited, and they race to extract the "idol" from (sigh) David's podium, only to learn there is no podium idol that season. (Adam: "Oh my god, not again!")

After all that, George's send-off was probably the weakest part of the three episodes - but it was still fun! It was pretty clear everyone wanted him out. Luke and Janine made a symbolic gesture at history by creating a 3-2-1 final tally, voting for Shonee in case George had an idol (Luke should have known he probably didn't), but in the end, it was always George getting voted out here. In voting for Janine again, he was 0-for-2 in his two Tribals, and received three votes against each time. Maybe it wasn't such a brilliant tactic to rat out Kirby while she was standing there? I dunno. Still, three big players gone in the first three votes, and each Tribal, as promised, had at least one jaw-dropping moment (Rob revealing Parvati and David's DONDI connection; the Ep2 live Tribal and tie vote; George getting booted so early).

So to sum it all up: Buckle up, Australia v The World looks like a white-knuckle ride. It's a pity that we'll only get 10 episodes of it, but they should all be good ones.

Shorter takes

What did Janine do to deserve this? A fun subplot in Episodes 2 and 3 was George's weird fixation on taking out Janine, as "the safe option." It made sense from a process-of-elimination perspective, but it's still funny. On the first vote in Ep2, he was just trying to keep his options open for his (named, but still mostly imaginary) alliance with David and Luke, while also theoretically working with Shonee, Kirby, and Sarah, so thanks to seven-person tribes, that left only Janine available to vote against. But this was funny because the only person who seemed to have any interest in voting Janine, at any time, was George. Even so, he kept pushing her name, like a broken record. He even had a voting confessional he workshopped with Shonee as the audience: "Janine! Your juice is ready! But today it's you who's getting juiced!" (Sadly, it remains a mystery whether or not he actually used that.) Still, as a man of his word, George wrote Janine's name down both times. His persistence makes you ask: Why does he hate Janine so much?

Challenge appreciation: While the first immunity challenge had *some* of the strength-based competitions SurvivorAU's pre-merge is known for (one of George's best lines in HvV was a semi-sarcastic motivational yell, "This is why we came here! To pushy heavy shit!" as the Villains hauled a giant sled), the rest have been surprisingly balance-, teamwork-, and skill-based. Or (above), pure endurance, which allowed a great moment in Episode 3, as Lisa struggled throughout the challenge, only for Aussie to eventually lose, and the World tribe celebration included multiple tribemates praising Lisa's ability to push through. Wholesome!