Rule number one of being a mean girl: Be nice now, scheme in the Burn Book later. Photo / TVNZ
REVIEW:
She has the beauty, she has the brains and now she has the power.
Mangō 's Courtenay Louise is the triple threat, everyone, better watch out for and boy does she know it.
"Do you guys want to gather round?" the actress grins as she tells them she has a mercy card and can save someone from elimination.
It feels like Christmas for the team. The poor unsuspecting souls. Clearly, they don't have trust issues because just as she builds them up, dangling what may as well be a $100 bill in their face, she rips it away.
Mwahaha. This is a game after all and Louise tells the team she won't use it on just anybody, only someone she thinks will benefit her later. Women could rule the world with this type of attitude.
Over at Kuaka, Jesse Tuke – the traitor, navigator, liar and team jokester, is realising he just might be able to take out the win, "I've got so much knowledge," he grins.
It's starting to feel like Game of Thrones on this island. Louise is Daenerys Targaryen and Tuke is Cersei Lannister, battling it out for the Iron Throne. Except Louise has dark hair, not white, Tuke isn't a woman, and the Iron Throne is $100,000 for charity.
I digress.
While Tuke giggles to himself about his mountains of knowledge, his teammate Melodie Robinson is getting a tad feral about the entire situation, "The navigator thing gives him a huge advantage, and my team thinks we should protect him. How dumb is that?"
Better watch your back, Tuke, I think you've got your first enemy.
Back at Mangō, Joel Rindelaub and Louise sit down for a chat. Wait, am I seeing things or are these two quite possibly… friends?
Nope, never mind. Louise tells Rindelaub they are most certainly not in an alliance, and she will only protect him so long as he is in her team. Brutal.
At the team challenge host, Bree Tomasel has let down the teams with today's prize. Some lush, clean, cosy pillows and mattresses.
"Yay," the celebs sarcastically say.
Kuaka takes out the win for the first time since the merge and when they return to camp to their freshly made beds they almost issue Tomasel an apology for the boring prize – almost.
On top of their dull prize, team captain Cam Mansel now gets to decide who is going up for elimination and he tells the confession cam he really really wants to put Robinson up.
"My dream world would be putting up Mel because I know for a fact she's been a part of alliances and not told us the full story of what has happened on multiple occasions," he says, prompting the producers to stir the pot.
"Should we bring her over?" they ask, and Mansel almost dies. We have very quickly gone from Game of Thrones vibes to Mean Girls vibes, and personally, I'm in my element.
Mansel wears his hair in plaits and pink nail polish so now I wear my hair in plaits and pink nail polish.
Robinson comes over and Mansel gently pokes his version of Regina George asking if she would be okay to do the elimination round. The simple answer? No.
"If you put me up tonight, I'd be reasonably braced off." She tells him, and I realise we are not going to get any bus-pushing moments this episode because Mansel might be as gorgeous as Cady Heron but definitely not as ruthless.
We don't do backstabbing on Wednesdays.
Instead, the radio host enters the elimination arena and decides to put up Mangō 's actor, Te Kohe Tuhaka who is competing for Water Safety New Zealand against Kuaka's Olympic Trampolinist, Dylan Schmidt who is competing for Special Olympics New Zealand.
The round is one that involves standing on pieces of wood, so of course, there are lots of feet shots. At this point, I'm convinced someone on the production team has a foot fetish because this is the second foot-focused elimination. It's getting weird.
The challenge is about endurance and balance, something the Olympian is excited about, "If it's worth doing, it's going to be challenging if it's easy it's probably not worth doing."
Amen.
Meanwhile, Tuhaka is making me cry as he endures for not only his charity but also his wife, who is heavily pregnant at home, "In my mind, I'm having a conversation with my wife, 'you just tell me to come home, and I'll let go' and she's saying 'no not today'."
A modern-day Shakespeare.
Ultimately, Schmidt makes a wrong move and goes down, ending his time on Treasure Island. His bromance bud, Tuke is near tears, but Schmidt is looking on the bright side – like reuniting with his trampoline and of course taking home $10,000 for his charity.
"To be heading away with 10K for them, oh, I couldn't be more proud. I know mums going to be so happy, and I can't wait to do some stuff with Special Olympics New Zealand in the future."
And just when I thought we were ending the episode on a wholesome note, the mean girls bus-pushing opportunity arises again. Mansel tells the confession cam that in the next elimination round he gets to decide, Robinson will be going up.
Unless it's too late Cam?
Celebrity Treasure Island airs weekly, Mon-Wed, 7.30pm on TVNZ2 and TVNZ +.
The host has been spotted across the Atlantic post-election.