Superfan Joseph Harper tackles the sixth week of Survivor NZ, including artistic pizza and some subversive beachwear. Click here for last week.
It’s the week we’ve all been waiting for! A blindside! The rise of a dastardly matriarch! We are finally getting down to the meat and potatoes. Unlike in real Survivor, I have a feeling the Redemption Island returnee might legit make some noise on their return. It’s all go and even though we said laters to one of our most beloved tribe-mates, the game looks like it is finally going to get interesting. The game is afoot!
Takeaways
Episode 12 had one of the crappiest immunity challenges I’ve seen. Nobody gave a shit. Rubbish stuff. That’s some bad Survivor karma right there for Jak and Nate.
Other than that, who cares about everything else that happened this week. Let’s talk about the pizza.
Firstly, the above is 100% guaranteed not a Pizza Hut pizza. It’s not even a convincing lookalike. Look that that cheese coverage and lack of crust. That pizza, my good man, is an imposter. Still looks yum though. The pizza segment was insanely good and however much Yum Brands paid for it, they didn’t pay enough. I bought a pizza because of it. It was a Dominos pizza, but it was a pizza nonetheless, and what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
The best bit of this segment though was the “Pizza Feast”.
That is a real screenshot. That image was chosen by a professional cinematographer and created by probably a team of art directors and props boys. Look at it. It has it all. Five smallish pizza boxes? Tick. Two kind of shabby woven mat things? Tick. Rocks on the corners of the mats? Big-time tick. Transcendent stuff.
#1 BARB
This week the queen becomes queen! Lady Gray has steeped her tribe mates to perfection and emerged as the number one cool badass of the season so far. Axing Sala is guaranteed to get Barb a crapload of angry comments on the official TVNZ Facebook page whining about how ‘backstabbing is bad’ and ‘loyalty is good’ but hot damn it was a cool move.
If Barb can continue a reign of ruthless terror to the end I’ll be extremely happy to have her crowned New Zealand’s inaugural sole Survivor. She has Nate, Jak and Tom in her pocket, and Shannon has no real reason to go with anyone else given they all hate her guts. Do any of them seem like they could out-guile the leader of the teabag mafia? If you’re not rooting for a Barb win, you’re not rooting for the future of Survivor NZ.
#2 AVI
Avi gonna Avi…
#3 TOM
Thomas’ ass is saved again. Avi saved him time and again in the early eps. Then the swap secured his seat at the table via powerful bromantic forces. Now through a supreme act of deus ex Barbara, Tom rides again. My question is: when the hell is Tom gonna do something for himself to warrant the winner edit he’s been rocking since week ~1?
Tom is truly the cat that got the cream and by god he’s a cutie but ffs I’m getting tired of waiting for the Tom show to get underway.
#4 NATE
I can’t believe it took me six week to realise the viral cop of our lives is: 1) rocking some deeply subversive beachwear
2) Maybe has the Canterbury logo tattooed on his calf?
#5 SHANNON
The petty pace of Shannon’s betrayals is finally creeping up on her to the point that I think Shannon probably realises she’s gonna run out of tomorrows soon. I reckon Shannon could earn about as few votes as humanly possible from what seems like a potentially bitter as hell jury. It’s good then that she’s knocking off primo bucket list items such as “disastrously open a coconut”.
#6 MIKE
Doesn’t this strike you as the kind of season that would reward someone making it back into the game on the back of a challenge-winning avalanche with 100k? I’m praying to the only gods I know (Sandra Diaz-Twine, Kim Spradlin and Cirie Fields) that it doesn’t happen because I truly believe that the precedent needs to be set that Survivor is supposed to be won by scumbag back-stabbery and not mere challenge rocking.
All that said, holy crap look at this!
#7 SHAY
I dunno. The combination of a bunch of players seeming like they dislike Shay and the loss of her primetime partner in crime is a massive hit to my beloved Shay’s hopes at the win and the money.
#8 SALA
It only took six weeks for a real blindside. This one cuts deep as Sala was undoubtedly one of the game’s most charismatic players. At least he got to go out doing what he loved: eating pizza and carrying the single greatest piece of sponsored contend in New Zealand media history.
Seriously though Sala’s lil monologue about being the richest man in the world was a legit tearjerker and I love him.
#9 LEE (Eliminated)
Thus ends Lee’s two episode arc of being featured in the game. Lee I hardly knew ye.
#10 JAK
That’s right. This week, Jak ranks lower than the guy who actually went home. Don’t make a loincloth and do a racist as hell ‘tribal dance’. The Survivor empire is built on questionable enough sand. Don’t make it explicitly bad. Booooo!
