Week two begins with Brawn down a player on Brains and a big split at their camp, whereas Brains is very much everyone v George and Wai.

Episode 4 (kemperboyd):

• I am enjoying watching Simon fail again in the recap.
• Brains are doing some yoga, one of the blondes has a very burnt back, but anyway back to George, George only has one pair of undies so isn’t wearing any as he does yoga.
• Benny says the first week feels like 48 days. Benny isn’t your average Brawn, he’s a high end real estate agent, so he’s scum, essentially.
• Simon thinks really bloody highly of himself doesn’t he? He goes idol hunting but does it as the whole tribe watches. Shannon is right, it’s fun to watch him scramble.
• Big lolz as George goes obviously idol hunting, Baden follows him to keep and eye and finds a clue to the idol.
• The Reward challenge is tethered running through a maze with a ball throw in the middle, the prize is comfort and bacon and egg fry up. Simon hits the ball out of Haley’s hands then seems annoyed when she tries to do the same. But in the end he wins his point. Brawn win again.
• Baden goes to try and get his idol but George has sussed that he has a clue. George and Wai blow up his search. In even bigger lolz George uses Baden to find the idol Baden has a clue for!
• The Immunity Challenge is an obstacle course followed by a word puzzle. Brawn have an enormous lead they manage to give away at the puzzle. Simon yells at Benny a lot about not protecting him from Brains seeing the letters. In the end Wai and Laura manage to figure out the last two letters and boom Brains win a huge comeback victory. I really don’t get Brawn putting Danai and Simon on the puzzle as they have both been terrible on earlier ones.
•  Back at Brawn camp, the 6 say Simon, Simon wants Benny and Benny gets into the water with Gerald and Danni and tells Danni that it’s set. But she’s on the other side. I know the Brawns are dumb but Benny spews the info to Danni. Danni obviously tells her alliance and Simon decides to go back to Danai and convince him Benny is the weak link.
• Simon keeps saying he’s a big player with big moves but he hasn’t voted correctly in the first two episodes, even if he manages to get the vote onto Benny I really don’t think it constitutes a big move.
• At Tribal Simon goes after Benny for making mistakes at the challenge. Benny counters and says when people are feeling the pressure they blame anyone they can and that’s what is happening.
• The vote come in and it’s 5-5. And Benny goes on the revote. Honestly I don’t see Simon winning the show but I can see him ruining some of the Brawn women’s games and I say women because he has shown no animosity towards Gerald or Danai, only Shannon. But they did what they did I guess. It likely makes better television.

Episode 5 (Barbara Anderson)

• We start on Brawn where Gerald is modeling for some of the Brawn ladies. This is indicative of the lighter mood following an extremely intense tribal where Gerald is the only one in his alliance who was really out of the loop and still in the game. He still wants Simon out because he is a threat who is still feeling pressure. We check in on Simon and Emmett as they begin to idol hunt again. Simon stumbles across the idol while Flick and Kez are seemingly talking about where the clue was. Simon walks away where we don’t know if he has the idol or not. We then go to Brains…oh wait, no we are still on Brawn and Simon didn’t get the idol then. But he goes back out and gets it with ease.
• Meanwhile on Brains, they are so hungry that they are pretending that rocks are TimTams. We finally get an intro to Joey and I still don’t know what he actually does. He still seems to be one of the more likable dudes left out there. We also get his perspective on the alliances. He is close to Georgia, Laura, and Andrew with Mitch sorta there. He is not close to George based on his Tribal Council antics and wants him gone. We hear a lot about Joey’s dislike for what George pulled at that tribal this episode, so I am just going to address it here for the most part.
• We get to the reward challenge but before we get there, Brawn struggle to get across the water. Poor Gerald. Meanwhile Mitch is not shocked by Benny being gone and Georgia speaks! The reward challenge is the classic lumberjack wheel. Last one standing wins the round and first tribe to three wins a kit to make toasties. This challenge basically goes the way you think a more physical challenge would go except for Hayley beating Flick in a balancing around water challenge. Why is Hayley good at beating Brawn at literally their own game? Other than that round, Brawn wins and we hear more from Joey.
• After the reward challenge, we get Brawn celebrating their win and making toasties. As a notable picky eater, toasties look disgusting (I can’t deal with baked beans). Anyway, Simon notices some stuff he can use for fishing and discovers an idol. He tries to sneak off to unwrap it, but Gerald sees him. Here’s hoping Gerald tells somebody in his alliance about this.
• Brains are distressed about just having rice and lentils again. George is telling us about how he likes Cara because she is super positive. Meanwhile, Baden is still looking for the idol that is in George’s bag and also looking around and realizing that he is not in an alliance, which is news to me because I thought he was part of the big alliance since Mitch seemingly had him tail George last episode. Anyway, George gloats to us about the idol, but he wants to use it to work with Baden. During a round of morning yoga, George tells Baden that the idol is found. In maybe George’s only solid strategy moment this episode, he points out to us that alliances don’t always have to like each other to work with each other and vote together.
• The immunity challenge is an obstacle course that involves releasing balls, skeeball, mud pits, and weird basketball hoops. It is close until the skeeball where George loses the challenge for Brains because he is unable to land his ball in the hole. Brawn finally wins Immunity…again and Joey wants to take the game by the horns.
• Due to his performance in the Immunity Challenge as well as his performance in general, George knows he is the target. The majority alliance wants George out because they think he will side with Brawn (hahahahaha). So, George decides to have the tribe say hello to his little friend, Diego the Hidden Immunity Idol That Is Not So Hidden, and wears around camp in an act that gave me Marty from Nicaragua energy. The tribe is stunned and immediately goes into planning mode, while George thinks he is sitting pretty with  Baden, Cara, and Wai (apologies for misspelling her name last week!) and can swing Rachel and Hayley without talking to them. He then decides to target Laura because to him, she is the lynchpin to that particular foursome. The new target for that foursome is Mitch because this is a prime time to take him out and they could also potentially flush George’s idol. The swing votes are Rachel and Hayley. In the first and only time we hear from a woman in confessional this episode, Rachel is excited to be in this position.  After sharing with Hayley what George is planning on doing, Hayley is also excited to be in this position.
• Onto Tribal Council. Joey has some fun about being back after so long. After that, we get a lot of talk about trust, alliances, and the dreaded line in the sand. Are things fluid or solid? Is the vote going to make them more fluid or solid? Mitch doesn’t realize that there are solid alliances, which is not a good sign for a person who some considered the tribe dictator not eight days earlier. We also get talk of Diego, which is still around George’s neck. Joey fears that the is the George Show Round 2 and that George can’t see beyond his own ego. George then comes up with our website’s new motto, “I am not here to make allies”, which is kinda odd to hear brought up in this particular game, but okay. He then starts in on his talk about how he wants a tribe that share the same values in a martyr-like tone, but he also wants a blood-letting. Okay. Fun note: Andrew brought Phil’s hat, which is nice.
• Voting time. George plays his idol for himself, which only negates Mitch’s vote. George’s alliance votes for Laura and Joey’s alliance votes for Mitch. The swing votes go to Mitch and he is voted out. Needless to say, he is stunned and says that he is happy to meet everyone except for George. George quickly adds that he did not vote for him.
• In the final words, we weirdly hear Hayley’s voting confessional saying that she could see Mitch wasn’t in playing in front or back, but in the middle. I think this vote maybe proved that he didn’t have a handle on anything in that tribe. I do think that getting rid of Mitch was a good move because he did seem to be just there in a Cambodia Savage role where now everyone else can play. It was also a good move because Mitch wasn’t the best television. Joey’s plan played out almost perfectly except for those two swing votes who can just as easily go to George’s alliance at the next vote. Also, I could see Baden being pulled over to vote for Mitch. Let’s just hope that more women are allowed to have confessionals in the next episode.

Episode 6 (Assistant Dragon Slayer)

• Production has listened to Barbara Anderson and gives Flick the first confessional of the episode.
• Morale is high at the Browns camp. Gerald reiterates that he saw Simon with an idol and plans to use that knowledge to round up enough votes to blindside him.
• Over at Brains, Rachel says that the previous tribal council drew a line in the bull dust, and she’s now in Joey’s majority alliance, putting George, Wai, Baden, and Cara on the outer.
• In a stitched-together confessional, George says he’s pissed that Mitch is gone instead of Laura, and super-pissed that Rachel flipped on him. Well that’s one way to look at it. Another is to ask why anybody in their right mind would ally with George. Wai probably has no choice, but what are Baden and Cara doing? George confronts Rachel at mealtime, and once again everybody else just looks at each other bewildered and seems desperate not to get involved. It’s like they all work at Dunder Mifflin.
• Joey is entirely too chuffed about everything going according to plan at tribal council, and way too overconfident about getting George out next.
• Reward challenge: Brawn is baffled that Brains would get rid of a relatively brawny member. George bad-mouths his own tribe. The challenge is a tethered obstacle course, then throwing things at things. It’s fairly even until George and Wai fall far behind on the obstacle course. They should have put a relatively strong person in the last position to manage their ropes and assist them through the course. Once Brains can finally start throwing things at things, Joey and Andrew stage a remarkable comeback but can’t smash the last pot before Emmett does so for Brawn, denying Brains their first reward. Crushing, even if the reward is just chocolate milk and some Australian sweet that looks like a brick.
• Brawn gets to share the reward with one Brain. They huddle up and discuss who is most likely to spill the tea. It comes down to Joey or Wai and they choose Joey.
• Joey yuks it up with Brawn for a while but eventually reveals that Mitch was the collateral damage of an idol play by George. Flick thinks this is vital intel that Brawn can leverage but I don’t see how.
• Wai once again apologizes for her poor challenge performance. George pointedly doesn’t come to the defense of HIS CLOSEST ALLY but that’s OK because Rachel decides now’s a good time to reprimand George for undermining the tribe going into a challenge. She’s totally in the right, of course, but George’s reaction (step 1, get defensive; step 2, go on the attack) is entirely predictable.
• George stomps off and Georgia follows him, both so that he can’t idol-hunt in private and also because forensic psychology is her superpower. George knows what’s up, of course, and in confessional brags that he’s two steps ahead of her. If you say so, Hannibal Lecter.
• Immunity challenge: It’s the boogie board attached to a rope attached to a giant winch from Ghost Island, then a giant puzzle. The first half of the challenge massively advantages Brawn, and they crack the puzzle quickly enough that Brains can’t catch up. It seems like a easy George boot but there’s 30 minutes left in the episode.
• It’s the majority alliance of Joey, Laura, Georgia, Andrew, Rachel, and Haley against the minority alliance of George, Wai, Cara, and Baden. 6-4 is not a safe margin, if you ask me. They need to pull in Baden at a minimum. But no, they sit in the pond, complacently watching Cara idol-hunt. What happened to assigning someone to tail George? He’s now going after Georgia, by the way.
• And of course, Cara finds the idol. At least she didn’t immediately hand it over to George.
• Laura belatedly suspects that George and Cara found something, and Joey belatedly realizes that they can split the vote if they pull in one from the minority. He approaches Wai. She’s definitely listening. In another stitched-together confessional, she lays out the choice: Break up the majority six or get rid of George, who even she’s sick of.
• Oh noooooo! Wai tells the minority alliance she’s wavering. Whyyyyyy???
• Cara and Baden hatch a plan to pass the idol among themselves and George to throw the majority six into turmoil and pressure Wai to stick to the plan. This makes no sense. You need to keep the majority locked onto one real target so you know who to play the idol for.
• Tribal council: Cara comes in wearing the idol, then passes it to Baden, who then passes it to George. The majority six don’t seem too ruffled by this. George transparently kisses up to Wai. I can’t tell if it’s meant to be a message to her or to the majority six. They’re in a bit of a pickle, though. Unless they got a rock-solid commitment from Wai that we weren’t shown, I think they need to continue piling all their votes onto George and hope that Cara plays the idol for herself or not at all.
• We see Laura vote for Cara and Wai vote for George, which thrills me for about three seconds before I realize that if we’re seeing it now it probably means George survives the vote one way or another.
• Cara plays the idol for George. As the votes come in, George breaks down crying and asks Cara repeatedly why she did it. She says it’s OK, it’s what she wanted to do, etc., even as she catches three votes while the four votes for George are negated. Who is this Stepford wife?
• But Georgia also gets three votes. On the revote, Cara is voted out. She goes home smiling and hugging a sobbing George, having put on her backpack before JLP even started reading the votes.
• George is one of those Survivor players who thinks that it’s the job of the rest of the cast to help him win. So Rachel is the worst for having the temerity to push back against him, Georgia has to go because she dared interfere in his idol hunt, and Cara is a hero for blowing up her game to his benefit. 
• So the moral of this episode was OH SNAP!!! A torch and note are awaiting Cara on Loser’s Lane. She’s going to the Edge of Extinction! JK the Brawn Tribe!