Alone Australia Season 3 Finale – Episodes 11, 12 & The Reunion, Recapped!

SBS knows when its onto a good thing hey? Tim’s eyes went square watching all three hours of the Alone Australia Season 3 finale last night. Luckily, it delivered.

There’s a delicious irony to watching Alone. The format, authentically self-filmed television, is so unique and pays homage to just how raw and wild the contestants’ experiences are.

Obviously, keen survivalists are into the show, but it taps into something broader. Whether it’s simply voyeurism, or that hard-to-shake feeling that it’s our world’s version of The Hunger Games, the struggles to work with and sometimes despite Mother Nature, speak to our core.

Anyway, that’s my justification for watching three hours of television on a weeknight. As someone who a) doesn’t watch that much TV and b) avoids reality TV like the plague, I’d say that’s pretty special.

Last night de-livered like it was a high protein catch being processed (Episode 5 reference) and I was glued to the screen. I’m gonna take you through all the ups and downs from this record-breaking season of Alone Australia.

Alone Australia Season 3 spoilers from here on out!

Read more: Alone Australia Season 3 – Everything You Need to Know

Tap Recap!

No better way to start it aye? Remember Matt? And Ceilidh?! Given that the season is unfolding roughly in real time, with no big time jumps, they left literally months before for our final three contestants. Not that they know that.

Corinne, Muzza, and Shay

This little hype reel for the final three shows just how good the show can make them look if it wants to. Everyone looks boss.

It also puts into perspective just how game-changing the flood was. The most rainfall in seven years has lashed the west coast, and the lake has risen a total of FOUR metres! The bastards even showed Karla’s shelter underwater, which was a huge misdirect and also means they must wait until the show is over to time-lapse the shelter deconstruction.

I made a prediction that Shay would win a few weeks ago, but honestly, it’s hard to split these final three. All are looking very solid at 61 days, noting that the record for the Aussie version of Alone is 67 days. Let’s start with Shay.

Shay

Wish I could make these swipey like on the ABC

My first thought is ‘Holy shit, do they have to clap to sync audio whenever they film?’. I’d deeply appreciate more insight into how the filming works.

I’m watching every second of these last two episodes knowing that I’m being conducted. Shay looks like he nearly loses an eel; it’s so stressful. In fact, a lot of his life seems stressful as he talks about living paycheck to paycheck.

I love all three contestants, but Shay has a real drive to make the time pay off. Imagine coming back empty-handed after leaving your wife and young kids for months on end.

‘Don’t fuck this up’, he says, and I feel for him. This is why I mentioned The Hunger Games earlier, it’s a bit twisted if you think about it too much, but it’s also an opportunity for Shay to get some money for being the wild man that he is. If he can outlast the others.

Corinne

What’s fascinating here is how much cleaner Corinne’s jumper got

Can you believe Corinne’s jerky has lasted 40 days in this soggy, cold armpit of the world? She’s lucky too, because she hasn’t got one fish and without her foraging skill, she’d surely not have lasted this long.

Corinne has definitely been rationing; she’s getting painfully thin, yet she smiles through it all. Maybe she’ll last? During Season 1 We Are Explorers staff member Anna thought Gina would win ‘Because she has a cool fluffy hat’. And she was right. Corinne also has a fluffy hat, so who am I to argue with science?

She’s also given us the most wholesome moment of the whole series. Corinne’s fashioned a driftwood guitar and composed a song that sounds remarkably good. Overlaid with the sun coming out and the joy the others are feeling, honestly, it made my heart sing.

But when people start doing random side quests, it’s also a sign that they’re on the way out. They’re getting bored and they’re craving humanity again, rather than the wild. Get ya gal an agent and a Spotify account!

There’s definitely been that transition, though, from enjoying herself to forcing herself to stay (I deduced this from when she said it). Now, just getting past day 67 and breaking the Alone Australia record has become the goal, and beyond that, day 70.

My big prediction is that Corinne taps once her health starts to suffer. She’s too worried about doing permanent damage that means she can’t have kids, and once that’s threatened, she’ll be gooone.

Muzza

Crispy

Have I mentioned the contestant names appear on the screen floating half underwater? So funny. I bet the VFX team was chuffed when they thought of that.

Muzza’s talking about food. The big man’s starving after the flood, the move wrecked his fishing streak (24 eels, 11 trout), and he says he misses food more than his family. He’s losing weight too, ‘I couldn’t see me old fella!’ he says of his former body. I think he’s talking about his eel.

So what do we do when the fishing gets tough? We build a wharf, duh!’ 

Muzz gets sawing on a tree and WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED!

Damn, I stood (yes stood) bolt upright for the ad break. Did a tree just fall on Muzza? Is the wharf in jeopardy? Am I going to watch The Veil premiering at 9:35pm directly after Alone? (No, but nice try SBS).

Coming back, thankfully, we can see that Muzza’s copped some kind of hit as the tree bounced, but he’s ok. Except for being laughed at by a kookaburra, of course, the savage bastard.

Things are getting tough for the big man. He’s starved for eight days now, and there’s more chat about his health and family. He always finishes any whinging by setting his shoulders, looking at the camera, and saying:

‘But I ain’t tappin’ out.’

The Gamechanger

No, the gamechanger isn’t Shay heating up rocks and putting them in his socks to keep his feet warm, but it’s a pretty neat idea!

It’s Shay getting a mutha-flippin pademelon!

‘The possums here are super weird’

I thought it was probably Shay who got this catch, mostly because of the shot we’d seen of the pademelon cooking. All dark background with a bright fire and a roo on a stick. Muzza would’ve framed it up in his campsite, and Corrine’s shots seem to be exclusively inside the shelter.

Shay’s shots are often profoundly dark in comparison, the wild man.

As usual, we don’t see much of these opportunistic catches, but on The Reunion, Shay says that he’d noticed the pademelons were easy to sneak up on when it was raining, when their ears were down, and they were distracted. He literally caught it alive and bundled it up.

‘Now to put him out of his misery’, is a very funny phrase when you’re holding a perfectly un-miserable pademelon. Sorry little buddy, the possum trapper hasn’t got a possum yet, but you’re done for.

And that’s ep 11, no one even tapped? What the hell is going to go down in the final episode?

Which We’ll Start Right Now – Alone Australia Episode 12 Finale Recap

We’re up to day 68, into the unknown as far as Alone Australia is concerned! And what better way to start than with a delicacy, pademelon testicles! Or as Shay calls them, ‘mountain oysters’.

Hahaha, this is cursed. He says they taste like scallops.

Now he’s cooking up the penis, or the ‘pizzle’ as he calls it. It’s lucky the show called out that this is a Middle English word for penis, or I would’ve just run with that being what New Zealanders call their old man. I’m still chuckling at how he calls eels ‘tuna’, though at least that being a Māori word is a good excuse.

Fo shizzle my pizzle

Turns out the pademelon was fairly small, likely struggling with the lack of grass to eat after the flood. It’s not a guaranteed win for Shay yet!

Corinne

What shocks me about Corinne is how methodically she approaches aspects of her life. For someone who at times comes off as a bit of a hippy, all meditation and songs, her plan to rekindle conversations with potential sperm donors and/or a love interest is giving ‘finding a mate’.

All this chat means she’s heading through, and after 70 days, it seems her mind is made up. And she’s going to do it by song?!

Oh dang, not quite haha, I was hoping she’d sing into the satellite phone, but this is a close second, a song about her time here, played on bush guitar. Adorable.

As Corinne leaves, I can’t help but think one thing: ‘A white jumper was a rogue choice’.

I bet Wonderwall absolutely slaps on this

Muzza

My wife reckons Muzza’s gone grey since he came on the show. Go figure, but it could just be soot in his hair.

Seriously though, this whole waking up to immediately go fishing for eels situation is incredibly stressful. Last time it happened the fishing line broke, but this time it’s a humungous eel. It seems like he didn’t even process it that night, just chucked it in the sleeping bag I guess?

I also adore how he doesn’t give a fuck about rationing anymore. ‘I’m just gonna eat as much as I want’, he says.

I also love how, when talking about what he’d do with the money, he says he’d upgrade his ute:

‘Change my ute to a better ute, not new or anything, second hand, but an upgrade.’ Doesn’t need the finer things, our Muzza, if he’s got salty eel skins and a second-hand ute, he’s golden.

Shay

Meanwhile, Shay is dining on pademelon shoulder. Geez, imagine if this wasn’t contested in the middle of winter during a crazy flood? The show would never end.

We’ve got a nice, wholesome, and somewhat sad moment from Shay, hoping everyone gets what they wanted. About how his wife will have been doing it hard without him. Shay needs to win this. He’s got a pretty cool, fairly successful YouTube channel (give it a follow), but I don’t think he’s chasing the full-on influencer life. The cash injection is what’s necessary.

Day 71, 72, 73

Time is moving, the fellas are going head to head. How long will this battle last?

Shay survives a med check. The editing here was perhaps a bit heavy-handed, I felt like they were trying to make it sound worse than it was. But Shay has lost a quarter of his bodyweight despite even the recent pademelon catch, and the threat of more frequent checks is stressful.

Over to Muzza and he’s low on hooks, he’s down to his last worm, and it’s suddenly looking a bit how ya goin’.

And then it hits, something that can’t be edited in. Muzza falls over twice in 200m, seemingly without reason. It looks like, for the first time since the gout, something is seriously wrong.

And then his catchphrase. ‘But I ain’t tappin’ out.’

Oooh Muzza, you bastard. I actually yelled at the TV here. I thought he was smarter than this, was gonna listen to his body.

We move to his med check, it seems on the same day, and it’s not going well. I’m pleased to see some honesty from Muzza about how he’s feeling, but it’s obvious that he’s unsteady on his feet. Maybe a part of him wanted the doctors to make the decision, but in the end, it was a no-brainer. My heart breaks for him as he sheds rare tears about the decision, but I’m sure it’s the right one.

Heartbreaking watch

As far as medical taps go, I don’t think there was any argument there. The show has definitely been overly cautious in the past, or at least not shown enough of the process to be convinced that it was fair, but this time around, it’s obvious.

What’s more, Ceilidh’s admission on The Reunion episode that she was actually worse than she thought when she was pulled out on Episode 5, was a good reminder that sometimes the risk is too high.

Shay Wins Alone Australia Season 3

76 days for Shay! What a weapon. Did you see how he picked his partner up when he hugged her? He’s actually fine.

‘You did it!’ she says. ‘We did it,’ he says back. I’m crying, that’s the best picture of his character yet.

My wife’s done the quick maths. $3,290 a day is what Shay’s made from this endeavour. Not a bad gig! Though the pay gets worse every extra day you stay. It’s so nice to see the money go to someone who really needs it too, even if the amount feels a little stingy.

We finish with a voiceover, Shay describing the adventure to his children. It’s precious and pure, and captures his personality well. One that was shy, yet courageous, caring, and determined.

I wish him well.

‘You smell like eel’, said Shay’s wife

The Reunion

For Alone Australia frothers (that’s you if you’re anywhere near this point in the article), The Reunion is definitely worth a watch. It has the beautiful, somewhat awkward energy, but Kumi Taguchi from Insight manages it well and asks probing, caring questions.

Shay wears his Mitre 10 beanie from the show, Muzza admits he’s been following Shay for years, and Tom rocks a hectic cardigan.

We’re reminded of how funny Matt was, see all the shelters (Karla’s wins), and there’s a whole segment for Quentin the Quoll (including some very strange CGI or something).

Some stats that stood out to me:

• At 17 days before the first tap out, it was the second longest stretch of all ten contestants in the history of Alone
• There were 97 catches this year (not including Shay’s 1100 worms) compared to 14 last year
• Corinne is 12 weeks pregnant, wahoo
• Ben put on 1kg a day after he got out

Thanks for reading!

I’ve been writing these recaps for three years now, and it’s been so much fun to see the show develop. The survivalists have overall become tougher (and potentially less media savvy), and the show is operating with intent and clarity that wasn’t as strong in the first two seasons.

Thousands of people come to We Are Explorers to read these articles, and if that’s you, please stick around! We’re all about the outdoors and nature, and reckon everyone would be better off if they spent more time in it. We even had the joy of hosting Rick J Petersen from Season 2 and Karla from Season 3 at our inaugural festival, ExplorerFest, just a couple of weeks ago.

For now, I’m gonna enjoy getting my Wednesday nights back, and gear up, hopefully, for Season 4!

Hooroo.

Biblically accurate Neptune