Madeleine Chapman and her Aunty Henga assess the skills, builds, and tattoos in Game of Bros, Māori television’s reality quest for the ultimate Polynesian warrior.
Aunty Henga arrived back home just in time to witness Game of Bros completely give up on trying to maintain the illusion of being on an island. After spotting a Mitre 10 in the background, Henga suddenly realised, “wait, are they in Auckland?”
After the stress of watching in different cities last week, we were able to relax and enjoy this week’s episode after eating the ultimate island meal of Mi Goreng, a soup “made of leftovers”, and a whole loaf of bread. The contestants were evidently very cold, wearing only hitched-up lavalavas on an overcast day somewhere in Auckland.
1) Louis
Louis takes out the top spot back-to-back for this week’s quote of the episode. When asked why he works better alone, he replied, “I don’t want any bandwagon behind me.” Louis is allowed to say something that doesn’t make sense – but kind of does – because he went on to win the day’s protein prize basket.
2) Jordan
In a result that can only be classified as a huge upset, Jordan won the 1km fruit carrying race. He also showed off some dance moves that took me back to when my cousin had a krump battle with someone called “Angel” in town one night and it was the most exciting event that year.
3) Thierry
Thierry emerged from within his mother’s shadow by winning the first challenge. His prize was a massive head start and weight reduction in the fruit carrying race which he decided to completely ignore and re-enacted the passion of Christ instead.
4) James
In the first scene of the show, each contestant voiced their thoughts on the challenges ahead. James did not get to share his opinion. It reminded me of when the family sits down for prayers and then they make every single person say a prayer and you can’t repeat what someone else has already said so by the end, some of the prayers are just dumb. Something tells me that James said one of those end prayers so they cut it.
5) Michael
After gleefully admitting that he and all the contestants were “plastic Islanders”, Michael proved his point by really struggling with the fruit tying. Aunty Henga saw the size of the banana bunches and was not impressed. Having extensive experience in carrying food in Samoa, Aunty Henga knows the tricks. “It’s a waste of time carrying just one bunch like that, you carry the whole thing. Otherwise you would be laughed at.”
6) Iosefa
If Aunty Henga and I had to put money on an overall winner of Game of Bros, we would dedicate an entire fa’alavelave to Iosefa. Like Louis, he couldn’t wait to rid himself of a bandwagon team and seemingly waltzed through the fruit challenge to secure his place in the contest next week. Malo Iosefa.
7) Selwyn
I wasn’t going to include Selwyn in this week’s rankings seeing as he got eliminated but he had so much bloody screen time that Aunty Henga began oioioi-ing him (you know what I mean) every time he started talking. As they cut from him to an ad break, Aunty Henga proclaimed “You can talk all the talk but…” then got distracted by a Laughing Samoans ad and never finished what was sure to be a vicious burn.
DISQUALIFIED – Ramon
Ramon, Ramon, Ramon. I had so much faith. For the first 90% of the show there wasn’t a shirt in sight for any of the contestants. This is it, I thought, Ramon will make the rankings and I’ll put him first even though he almost got eliminated. And then, tragedy struck in the form of his favourite sweater.
To make matters worse, there was a preview of next week’s episode right after. Spoiler alert, Ramon gets disqualified. I explained the Ludus Magnus clause to Aunty Henga and she can’t wait to play “Spot the gold lettering” in future episodes.
As the credits rolled, we tried to figure out how exactly one might successfully tie a coconut to a log.
We’re still brainstorming.