Alone Australia Season 2 Episode 3 Recap – Crashing in Slow Motion

Episode 3 of Alone Australia Season 2 saw the show sail past the one week marker with eight tough souls still duking it out, but for how long?

*Spoiler alert* Alone Australia Season 2 Episode 3 spoilers from here!

Well hello lovelies, yes I’m back and I’m charged up from last night’s episode. So much happened that it took a while to sink in and process. I feel like I’m watching a huge game of chess. Except colder and wetter and also there are sandflies and it’s wizard chess so you can get hurt.

Anyway.

Our episode starts with a simple quote, ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’, which they’ve attributed to one Richard Franck, but could possibly go as far back as Plato. It’s a good quote regardless and, if you assume it’s chosen with a purpose (I do), then it’s a hint that this episode’s going to be about who can get creative out there to survive and thrive.

This episode really drove home for me that we are being told a story here. SBS pull together Alone Australia from what can almost be described as found footage, then build narratives. I’m always hyper-aware of that unseen narrator, more than most of the stuff on TV, and half the fun is piecing together what’s being intentionally not shown, what was never filmed, and what the hell is really happening.

It’s day six and eight contestants remain…

Want to know about the latest season of Alone? Check out our guide to Alone Australia Season 3 for everything you need to know!

Chace

Last time we saw Chace he was doing pretty damn well on the beach. Sunset with a fish and a fire.

Now he’s telling us he was surrounded by deer last night. But, crucially, they’re not allowed to hunt with the bow and arrow at night by law in New Zealand, due to worries about misidentification. Having rules in a situation like this would do my head in.

Red deer are invasive in NZ, what are you gonna do, mistake it for a kiwi? Hunting at night is definitely one thing that’s allowed in Australia, with guns, not short-range bow and arrows. I digress, Chace didn’t hunt any deer.

So now we have to watch him climb an impossibly steep slope and test out some new material on a captive audience. Yeesh. Maybe try some of your stand-up on the deer man.

How did Chace even get this tripod set up? Look how steep it is!

That climb looked so tiring and calorie-burning (2,400 calories apparently!), but he pretty much gave up immediately when he got to the top. I wonder just how far he really went? Travelling through terrain like that, off-track in dense bush is very slow going. Maybe waiting quietly near camp would be better? Also what’s in the backpack dude, that thing is huge.

All this to say that the trout definitely powered Chace up, but I’m not sure he’s thinking very clearly.

Jack

Hell yeah Jack unlocked! Jack’s a tradie. To quote my friend Rach:

‘Oh Jack is a tiler, they’re all crazy, from the glue. He might win.’

My takeaway: Don’t ever fuck with a Chilean tradie.

But can I eat some of what they’re eating at that family BBQ my GOD. How could you leave that to eat sandflies?

I love how he swaggers into shot, his jaunty GoPro crooked on his head, and then just says: ‘Innovation is my secret weapon’. Sounding a lot like Plato dude.

Jack looks like a philosopher, no doubt

He does back it up though, with a pretty impressive looking handmade lure that he’s now, going to, shoot, with a bow?

Ok MacGyver? I’m not sure if I’m more impressed that he came up with that or that it worked? He’s so matter of fact it’s hard to question anything.

Bad day to be a fish

We did snag the quickest little peek of his hands there and the sandfly bites were looking very red. File that away for later.

100 days is his goal too. Everyone wants to go further than Sseason 1 it seems (which was 67 days) which is three times longer than eight of last season’s contestants. Crucially however, Jack isn’t motivated by the money (he on that tile money) as much as by proving himself, which I think is a stronger motive.

Suzan

Ok we’re finally meeting Suzan too and she’s just chilin in a hauuge puffer with her legs up on a tree. 

‘Hmm, singing doesn’t repel midges,’ she says, and frankly it’s good to see some honest scientific research going on out here.

The first thing I noticed was that Suzan’s shelter looks a bit shit. It just looks low and saggy, yet open, not day six material. Now full disclaimer, the We Are Explorers staff all placed their bets before episode one and my bet was on Suzan. She just sounded like a combo of Mike and Gina and had good wilderness credentials, so sorry if I was expecting a fully-formed yurt already.

I can’t be alone here in noticing that her husband LOVES rocking a kilt, that’s a huge vibe. Just walking around their off grid property with a breeze getting all up in there.

I’m just jealous of the kilt honestly

What I didn’t twig to until my mate Chris pointed it out is that Suzan’s ‘best friend and husband Jon’ is in fact Jon Muir OAM, a legendary Australian explorer. Jon’s list of exploits is incredibly long, but being the first person to walk unsupported across Australia is up there.

Essentially, Suzan spends her life with one of the best, and that can only help her chances.

But I also love that she’s the first contestant I’ve seen mention climate change. Her goal if she wins the money is to make her property more resilient to drought and fire by installing a sustainable water catchment system. ‘To protect ourselves and the animals around us.’ It’s a wholesome goal, I’m keen to see how powerful it is when things get tough.

A bit of an insight into Suzan as a person there, who starts studying herbal medicine at 14? I will never be like these people. Miro berries do be looking delicious though.

Oh and finally, I just noticed Suzan’s GoPro charger plugged into what looks like a portable power station. I’d always wondered how they managed that, as dropping off freshly-charged batteries all the time would be a pain.

Rick

Rick’s not eating for the first week to get his body used to starvation and start ketosis (burning fat for energy), That’s smart, that’s long-term gameplay.

Y’see the smart players understand that we don’t really need food fo… dued is Rick’s boot breaking. Nooo. NOOOO!!!

He says he got them professionally resoled six months ago but what’s the bet he’s worn them every day since then? I feel for him though, as he grumbles that he didn’t have the money for fancy new gear and now it’s coming back to bite him.

Read more: The Alone Australia Season 2 Gear List Has Dropped – What Would You Take Into the Wild?

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I just watched an entire anti-pokies ad that was in Arabic. Not sure SBS On Demand quite has a read on me yet.

Jason

Funny how we didn’t see Jack, Suzan, or Jason for two episodes and then met them almost back to back.

Jason’s drinking ‘sandfly soup’, which is just a joke about sandflies landing in his hot water, but still sounds like danger.

As a Yanyuwa, Waanyi/Garawa man and Jungai Jason’s done his fair share of traditional hunting (including killing a dugong apparently, dude?!) so it’ll be interesting to see how that translates to New Zealand.

Read more: Alone Australia Season 2 Cast Has Been Announced! Who’s Your Pick of the Pack?

At this point though, he’s talking about day five and not feeling that great. He’s having headspins while walking uphill, could it be low blood sugar? Apparently the big man is clocking in at 120kg, which will be pretty beneficial if he can get himself to start burning that fat. Unless he feels so bad in the process that he taps out.

Strangely, he just found an old beer bottle. It’s crazy that they’re finding rubbish out here. It must wash up when the lake is higher.

Can you use a bottle as a tool if it’s also your friend?

Rick

Rick’s Asolo boots are falling apart completely. This is such a common problem with hiking boots it’s so frustrating. He’s gonna tie them up with paracord.

This is the first time gear has really let someone down in the Australian series, it shows how much we rely on it. That’s a pretty neat old fix on the boot though.

It’s great how Rick takes the time to properly talk about his life, it also implies that he’s pretty comfortable right now

Rick’s sharing his backstory and it is heavy, imagine all of your siblings being sent off to different foster homes. It makes me think that Rick might have a deep toughness that most people never get to access.

I talk about it with him on this episode of We Are Explorers Podcast.

Day 7

One week people! It’s going slowly with eight people still on board to check in with.

Andreas

‘The weather here is really transient, it just comes and goes.’ Hahaha, I can’t fault him.

I love how Andreas just made a pretty dope fishing rod and didn’t even talk about it. In Season 1 Mike would’ve made that a feature film.

Jack

Jack couldn’t sleep last night, his legs are destroyed. Confirmed, the shorts have done him dirty and his body is not loving the bites. Come on man surely you have pants? Did you ignore the first 50 bites?

His body will be fighting those hundreds of bites hard, so much infection risk in a weakened state is very bad news. It looks like Jack’s tent is set up on sand too? Maybe that’s not helping? Damn, he looks defeated since his initial intro.

Sorry this screenshot is so blurry but god damn! The poor bloke

Suzan

Suzan is over the berries so she’s looking for meat.

Buuut she’s found a rock that looks like a mountain that reminds her of her husband? Suzan’s filming style is really chaotic. I love how her husband-rock is just sitting in the foreground while she walks around.

Hoping we see many more appearances of Jon rock

She’s made a few complaints about her stomach but the music is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, she seems ok.

Oh actually maybe she’s not. We’ve got diarrhoea baby! Suzan was worried that those miro berries could do her in if they were starting to ferment (or perhaps because she ate them straight off the forest floor). Damn, I hope it stabilises soon, I can’t think of anything worse when you don’t have any food or much water to replenish yourself with.

Jason

Wait, Jason has a dope shelter? Can we have a tour please dude? That thing looks like a house.

Also, Jason has a big cliff like, directly behind him, it’s probably not that helpful for hunting, though it could force animals to cross a tight area. I’d be looking for tracks there (I say from the comfort of my couch).

Maybe Jason pushed himself too hard making the shelter and is paying for it now?

Jason’s headgame is all over the place. Homie needs a Snickers ASAP.

He finally decides to go fishing, using the beer bottle he found to float the lure. So he grabs the bottle and screws on the bottle cap…wait what? There was no way the bottle had a bottle cap on it when Jason found it. He must have found a bottle cap separately?

Jack Brookes from the WAE social media team came at me with spurious conspiracy theories but I’m pretty sure SBS aren’t trying to save Jason with a bottle cap. Pretty sure…

Andreas

What’s Andreas cooking on the fire?

He seems like he’s just waiting by the fire and listening for wildlife. To be honest he seems very lucid and comfortable at the moment.

Now he’s stalking through the bush with a spade, ready to club something to death (or maybe chuck a Gina and launch himself on it?).

He’s chucked the camera down and there’s squelching. 

‘Oh shit, now what?’ he says. Has he killed something he shouldn’t have?

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Sooo is anyone else going to be watching Fargo? Looks good.

Back to Andreas

Ok so he actually says ‘Oh shit, I got it with my shovel’. Kind of weird that the phrase changed over the course of a few minutes.

Andreas has the first red meat of the show! A Common Brushtail possum. That’s the vintage NZ experience. I’m pretty sure you kill your first one in primary school.

Sorry possum dude

Damn, it looks scraggly without its fur, but that’s almost a week of protein apparently.

I swear he had meat on the fire when we first saw him though, it looked exactly the same as it does now. Is that a mistake? It’s definitely strange.

Anyway, look at Andreas sitting on his log seat. It’s hard to deny that he’s killing it right now.

Things could be worse for Andreas

Extraction Team

Who’s it coming for? Jack’s covered in a colossal amount of bites, Suzan’s got food poisoning, Jason’s looking significantly unwell. Rick, Chace, and Andreas all seem to be doing ok. 

I’m calling it for Jason. Something seems pretty wrong with him that we can’t quite explain. However if Suzan hasn’t stabilised or Jack’s started running a fever it could be either of them.

To quote my friend Elise: ‘Imagine surviving eight days and filming eight days worth of content, for them to only show you eating some berries, shitting yourself for a night, then going home.’

Next Week

Andreas is struggling with a shelter, Chace has a confession (?), Tamika is bleeding, and Rick says ‘Two will be easy’. Does he mean a catch?

Oooh baby it’s heating up, that’s for sure. Who’s going to be able to adapt to the challenges, create a sturdy shelter, and start bringing in regular food as winter sets in? Let us know who your money’s on in the comments! Catchya next week.

Alone Australia Recaps So Far

• Alone Australia Season 2 – Everything You Need to Know
• Alone Australia Season 2 Episode 1 Recap – At Night I Dream of Sandflies
• Alone Australia Season 2 Episode 2 Recap – Helter Shelter
• The Alone Australia Season 2 Gear List Has Dropped – What Would You Take Into the Wild?