So we’re down to three. Just three people remain in Australian Survivor: All Stars. With Brooke exiting the series last night, the competition is narrowed to one person who will win, and two will fall agonisingly short. And after studiously watching this series most of my life, and having gone over every episode of this current season with a fine toothed comb, I have arrived at a point where it largely does not matter, to me, who wins Australian Survivor this year. Every remaining competitor has their pros and cons, every remaining competitor has a compelling case to make at a Final Tribal, and every remaining competitor would be a worth winner. Except Sharn.
David is an easy favourite given he’s casually the most brilliant player Australian Survivor – or any Survivor for that matter – has ever seen. His All Stars game has been near-flawless, from early strategic manoeuvring that should replace The Art of War as the go-to resource on the subject, through to last night where he pushed his bashed-to-shit body beyond its weakened limits to secure Individual Immunity when it mattered most. He’s the complete Survivor package, and he’s the clear runaway favourite from here on out.
Moana, conversely, has trotted around the island under the delusion assumption that she has run the show from day dot purely through the act of sitting down and doing nothing. Despite this, she has the backstory to charm a final jury into giving her the win (provided she doesn’t wind up sitting next to David) and she’s been tangentially on the right side of enough votes to at least mount a partway believable case for being the strategic megalith she somehow believes herself to be.
Sharn, on the other hand, has played a weird ass game for cowards and has fallen back-asswards into the end stages of the game because every fertile Survivor field needs a willing goat.
At several points throughout the game she had the chance to reef control of proceedings away from the other goofballs in her quote-unquote “solid alliance” – all of whom clearly viewed her as little more than the bamboo pole at the bottom of the shelter – and time and time again she refused to make a move.
She could’ve orchestrated an assassination on the game’s biggest threat David by forging a temporary voting bloc involving AK, Shonee, and Brooke, destabilising an alliance that constantly held her at the bottom and forcing them to readjust their numbers with herself at the top. But she didn’t.
She could’ve blown up the entire game by saving Phoebe and kicking Mo to the curb way back before the merge, setting off a sliding doors-type scenario that still would’ve seen her sail through to the final three but with an actual case to make to the jury.
She could’ve gone to rocks (ROCKS!!!!) with AK, Shonee, and Brooke, and actually showed the jury some backbone by putting the fate of her own game in the hands of fate, which would have been at least a move on the resume.
But she has done none of that, and now she’s barrelling towards a second-consecutive second place finish.
Sharn will not win Survivor, she does not deserve to win Survivor, and I sure as shit do not want her to win Survivor.
Every season has a goat. There’s always, always a goat.
