Alex Casey power ranks week four of Celebrity Treasure Island. 

Someone call the Southern Motorway because it’s time to merge, baby. Drop your buffs, drop your team names and, if you are Lance Savali ordering Macca’s, drop the pickles and add extra onion. While it was a huge few episodes for the game, it also felt like Savali really stepped into his hosting potency this week. He was jonesing to get involved in the memory challenge, and gleefully egged on our ailing contestants as they failed to get their balls in the hole. 

While we got a fresh injection of Savali energy, we also got a fresh injection of magical rocks in the game. While previous seasons have featured mystical glittering shards of dragonglass, the rocks this season really are just your bog standard, hold the pickle, add extra onion rocks. The cost of living crisis has come for us all, and we cannot begrudge production for their use of povvo rocks and the brazen repurposing of Battleships as “Treasure/No Treasure”. 

Onto the rankings!

Eliminated: Carmel Sepuloni

Sepuloni reminded us all of the importance of taking a stand, even if that stand only lasts three seconds before the world’s muscliest man pulls you off your platform and sends you home. She got an emotional send-off from Gaby Solomona, who sung her a Samoan song to say “thank you, we honour you, go in peace.” How this stupid show about celebrities playing party games always manages to make me scream cry is fast becoming a matter for parliamentary debate. 

Eliminated: Michelle Langstone

Michelle was very excited about the merge, very excited about the slip ‘n slide, and very excited about going on a treasure hunt. What she was not so excited about was facing her bestie Millen twice in a row in the elimination arena. She got to play a mercy card in the first battle, thanks to some deft gameplay and more award-winning acting from Christian Cullen, but her endless enthusiasm was not enough to save her in the end. “It’s been cool,” she said as she farewelled CTI. “It’s been so, so, so cool.”

8. JP Foliaki

Look I obviously love JP with my entire heart and soul, but it felt like he spent most of the week trying to get a new catchphrase off the ground: 

But then she really did say plot twist when he revealed his deeper motivation for staying in the game. “Representation is important to me,” he said. “Any dream that I have is more attainable if I can see someone who looks like me that has achieved it.” Once again, hats off to this show for always kicking us in the guts when we least expect it.

7. Millen Baird

It was Millen’s birthday this week, and he celebrated by getting about as close to a birthday suit as one can in a 7.30pm timeslot. And the best birthday present of all? Getting a tipsy Christian Cullen to say that he was his best friend in the game. Could be valuable, could also be the tequila talking.

6. James Rolleston

Speaking of emotional hammers, James Rolleston’s CTI journey has been so beautiful to watch. Basking in the glow of last week’s puzzle triumph, he shared more about living with a brain injury this week. “Being here has been good for me and good for my healing,” he said. “My thoughts are calmer, my thoughts are more positive.” May he never ever be eliminated, amen. 

5. Gaby Solomona

“We’re gonna get mocked, we’re gonna get a meme made of us” said Gaby after bouncing on a miniature trampoline for 45 minutes straight in a challenge while desperately trying to peep over a fence. Very perceptive Gaby!

4. Duncan Garner

Teach a broadcaster to fish and he will feed starving celebrities for at least a day. Show a broadcaster an arena of novelty socks, and he will put $10 worth of those socks in his pocket. Invite a broadcaster to your spa date and he will insist upon eating grapes straight from the bunch. This is all to say, it was another ripper from the man in the Nacho Libre onesie. 

For someone who fretted about his journalism chops not once but twice this week, Garner still knows how to deliver some beautiful soundbites. “If you shit there will be flies, if you have a fish there will be flies, we are in nature,” he said. So true. “I used to have credibility and now I’m stomping around the beach with a chicken on my foot.” Aren’t we all Duncan, aren’t we all.

3. Christian Cullen

I would give my kingdom, my heart, my firstborn for the full interview of tipsy Christian Cullen after a few margaritas. For a guy who said “I’m OK at maths… on my phone,” he still managed to crack the code and win a coveted Mexican feast. His earlier grumbles – “I’m not a big margarita drinker and I don’t mind Mexican as long as it’s not too hot” – soon took a dramatic and slightly drunken turn. “I LOVE MEXICAN, I CANT WAIT! Is it spicy?! I love spicy food!”

Cully’s week of cuisine continued when he became the slow-motion McDonald’s delivery boy for the island. “I feel quite powerful to be fair, in my red McDonald’s shirt and my white McDonald’s hat… I feel honoured.” He didn’t get to eat any of it, but at least he’s not starving for alliances. Cully is tight with almost every single human being on this island, even if he does struggle with names and faces from time to time. 

Because after Wairangi said that he and Cully were “old friends”, Cully privately struggled to recall a single time he had met him outside of the island. “Have I met him?” he asked the camera, icy blue eyes desperately searching for answers. “I’ll go out and play golf and then we’ll come back for a drink and I’ve forgotten who I’ve been playing with,” he added.

That may be the case, but I have a feeling Cully will never ever forget his bond with one special princess in particular…

2. Bubbah

Although she describes herself as the “princess of the camp” who is “always asleep”, I think we need to keep our eyes wide open when it comes to Bubbah’s power in this game. First of all, she wore her Tony’s Steakhouse T-shirt during one of the challenges which is nearly the greatest piece of local merch to ever grace Celebrity Treasure Island.  

Not only is she easily the funniest person in the world – “I was getting so hungry I was going to eat Duncan” – she also has extremely deep bonds with a bunch of key players. She gave Cully her secret advantage in the ultimate show of trust, while also having a ride or die alliance with JP and Gaby. Plus, she nearly beat Wairangi in a challenge! She may not know how to play fake battleships, but I have a feeling Bubbah is as hungry to win as she is for a Big Mac (very).

1. Wairangi Koopu

In the hallowed words of Michelle Langstone, before she was sent home by the big guy himself: “He’s the full threat in every single way, which is horrifying.” But the bigger the threat, the bigger the target… my money’s on Bubbah to topple him next week. 

Watch Celebrity Treasure Island Mon-Wed on TVNZ2 or here on TVNZ+