Tara Ward recaps the penultimate week on Celebrity Treasure Island: Te Waipounamu.
Just as the winds of political change have blown through the nation, a cool breeze of emotion wafted through Celebrity Treasure Island this week. Now that the teams have merged into an orange coalition of chaos, the focus on the individual game has caused the CTI fun-o-meter to plummet. Our beloved celebrities became upset about playing the game when they didn’t want to play the game and got annoyed at not winning when they came to win, although they seemed happy enough to chuff down some fancy red wine that actually looked a lot like… Ribena?
Alliances have been broken, tough calls have been made and now we’re down to the final five. Whomst will find the Saucy Lady treasure first? Is it too late for some celebrity intruders to bust into camp, and who do we petition so that every single celebrity wins some charity cash when they’re eliminated? Imagine if nobody missed out! Imagine if everyone was a winner! Think of the good vibes, New Zealand!
Look, we’re all feeling a wee bit tetchy, and most of us haven’t been eating beans and rice for two weeks straight. The celebs are doing it tough, but somehow, are still determined to have a lovely time. Let’s roll into the rankings.
Eliminated: Steve Price
Steve-O went up to the line but not through the line, and now the big fella is goneburger. Steve struggled to stack some colourful boards while standing on a swinging beam in the middle of nowhere, and who hasn’t found themselves in that predicament at least once in their lives? A legend of both the game and of life itself.
Eliminated: Mel Homer
We tip every one of Courtney Dawson’s eight hats at Mel, who knocked triple threat Steve-O out of the game, only to be eliminated herself the following night. Who will make everyone look for clues around camp now that Mel is gone? Absolutely nobody. Also, bring back The Cafe.
Eliminated: Eli Matthewson
The comedian alliance is hanging by a thread, and a true fan fave has gone from the game. Also, I will never look at a sock tree again without thinking of Eli. He bought the laughs and the tears, and he also bought a shitload of chocolate cake after spending the best seven coins of his life at the CTI market. Moist, indeed.
5. Laura Daniel
After five weeks of hectic hijinks, Laura’s under-the-radar game was tested when she went up for elimination against her BFF Eli. Laura’s brilliant social game has taken her to the final week, where I hope she pounces on that treasure like a lovely possum hiding in the scrub while wearing an orange tracksuit. Wait, that was James Mustapic, but the sentiment remains the same.
4. Courtney Dawson
Courtney won the dodgeball challenge, won the individual face-off, and won a letter from home that basically told her to go “balls to the wall”. Balls! To! The! Wall! That’s a charity challenge just waiting to happen.
3. Nick Afoa
If CTI was awarded to the player holding the most scraps of paper, Nick would have this in the bag (hessian sack). Sadly, it is not. Nick may well have a thousand scrolls, clues and advantages, but what do they all really mean? WHAT DOES IT ALLL REAAALLY MEAAAN????!!!
2. Turia Schmidt-Peke
Turia is a challenge beast who does killer chin-ups for fun, but this week she raised an important question: where the hell are the TimTams this year? There’s been zero Tim and even less Tam. Forget the treasure, set fire to the clues, TimTams is what we came for, CTI.
1. James Mustapic
He’s just a man in an orange tracksuit, standing in front of the nation, asking them to love him. James had a finger in every pie this week, and one minute he was just a “lovely little possum” hiding in some bushes, the next he was winning immunity and turning against his Sagittarian/comedian/possum alliance by secretly teaming up with Turia and Nick. As James himself said, at this point in the game it’s stab or be stabbed, which is exactly the sort of smack talk you expect from an orange possum. Mama mia! All hail the king.
Celebrity Treasure Island: Te Waipounamu is on TVNZ2 at 7.30pm every Monday to Wednesday, and streams on TVNZ+. For weekly recaps, get amongst The Real Pod Extra on Substack.