Welcome back to Celebrity Treasure Island, where it has rained for the past 300 years and the celebs have had enough. Tara Ward power ranks.
Time is marching on, friends. It’s the end of October, there are Christmas decorations in the shops, and Dame Susan Devoy has no clean underpants left. It’s a sign that this season of Celebrity Treasure Island is nearly over, and this penultimate week pushed the celebrities to their limits. It rained non-stop, Jesse Tuke kept winning and everyone was so over the competition that Bree Tomasel had to flash her arse to the nation, just for some light relief.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, but we’ve found our top six castaways. Life’s a beach, and these celebrities are ready for a hot shower, a good meal and a dry pair of gruts, so let’s chuck these rankings on the smouldering embers of this celebrity school camp and watch it burn.
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Eliminated: Dr Joel Rindelaub
They say nice guys finish last, but actually, nice guys finish eighth. Joel proved himself as the gentleman of the competition when he threw the elimination challenge to save his BFF Siobhan, and everyone was sad. Even Dame Suzy D made peace with Joel and apologised for thinking he was odd. “You were correct,” Joel told her. May the mullet always shine long and soft, Dr Joel.
Eliminated: Ron Cribb
Before he left, the former All Black gave a rousing motivational speech to lift the spirits of the damp. His advice was searingly honest – “it’s a game” – and who among us would argue with Ron Cribb? Not me, not that crudely carved stick statue in the elimination challenge that led to Ron’s demise. We should have known that sticks hate motivational speeches. Ron. Gone. So long.
The rest:
6) Elvis Lopeti
Elvis is a free spirit blowing in the wind. He declared he was no longer playing in an alliance, making him free to dance in CTI’s stormy seas without anyone’s annoying strategy to pull him under. Will this approach get him to the final three? Probably not. Does it make for delightful television? Absolutely.
5) Dame Susan Devoy
A rollercoaster week for Dame Suzy D, whose soggy pants wore her down emotionally until she rallied to win the general knowledge charity challenge. She also showed a crayfish who was boss by eating it really fast. Susan may well know that Ernest Rutherford was born in Nelson, but that crayfish had the last laugh when Susan had to have a quick spew in the bushes. Legend has it that when the wind is low and the tide is high, you can still hear that crayfish chuckling quietly and whispering “It’s only a game”.
4) Cam Mansel
It’s about time pinky promises got the respect they deserve, and nobody knows that better than Cam. Play some sad plinky plonky pinky music, because Cam felt blackmailed into making a pinky promise with Jesse and then pushed back against the pinky. This made Jesse mad and Cam’s fingers sad, and while it’s too hard/boring to know who is right (handed) and who is wrong (fingered), “respect the pinky” is a motivational talk Ron Cribb would be proud of.
3) Siobhan Marshall
Siobhan is peaking at the perfect time, fearlessly making game-changing power plays while still having a cracker of beach holiday. It’s also a treat to see Vengeful Siobhan emerge, who is made up of 99% Nice Siobhan and the rest a slightly grumpy woman who called Jesse Tuke “a stink guy” after he double crossed her. Daggers through the ticker, joy through the soul.
2) Courtenay Louise
If you could win CTI by frenetic energy and exhaustive strategy alone, Courtenay would have already found the treasure, made a secret alliance with it, lied to it and then reburied it. After surviving last week’s elimination, Courtenay has secret agreements with nearly everyone, and she now gets to pair the castaways up to compete in the final week. It’s the most important decision of the entire game, so no pressure. NO PRESSURE COURTENAY EVERYTHING’S FINE.
1) Jesse Tuke
After inheriting all of Ron’s clues, Jesse now has enough string and spindles to open a haberdashery store, but who knows if those trinkets will mean anything in the final? They could just end up on Trade Me in a few years on a $1 reserve with a jazzy “Real CTI Knick-Knacks That Did Not Help Me In The Final :(” title. Regardless, Jesse has played a masterful game of strength, strategy and spindles. Jesse for the win, the win for Jesse.
Celebrity Treasure Island screens on Mondays-Wednesdays on TVNZ 2 at 7.30pm, and streams on TVNZ+.
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