Tonight's episode sees a second dramatic elimination. Photo / TVNZ
Tonight's episode sees a second dramatic elimination. Photo / TVNZ
REVIEW
There’s work stories, there’s better work stories and then there’s Christian Cullen’s paperboy work story.
“I had to go in a bush by someone’s house and deliver the paper,” he says, before adding the desperate punchline, “And a number two!”
Nevertheless! We must leave Aihe to find better work stories and join Wētā at their Charity Challenge.
They’re playing Guess Who? with a board consisting of current and former CTI players. But even in a harmless board game Wētā can’t resist dunking on Dunkedon Garner.
Carmel Sepuloni faces off against Wairangi Koopu. Photo / TVNZ
After the challenge, JP Foliaki is desperate to get into the good graces of his new teammates. He shares the note that Aihe’s captain Millen Baird covertly passed to him asking if he’d like to form a cross-team alliance. As the note’s passed around, Foliaki suggests he could work as a double agent.
But Wētā's top brass poo-poo the note and his idea.
“Don’t play like them,” Wētā's strategist Sepuloni says. “That’s part of the strength of this team, we’re not underhanded.”
“It shows a type of character. The way you do one thing is the way you do everything,” Koopu says. “If you’re sneaky in the game, you’re probably sneaky in real life too.”
Foliaki tries to hide his disappointment at their less-than-enthusiastic response. The question is whether they denied him for those lofty reasons or because they suspect he was attempting to become a triple agent.
He has no time to figure that out as it’s time for the Team Face-Off. As the teams trudge down to the beach it begins to rain, making the upcoming Tug-of-War that much harder. They’re split into pairs and wait for battle.
Up first are Sepuloni and Solomona, who make short work of Bubbah and Janaye Henry. But if Wētā thought they were in for an easy ride, they are sadly mistaken.
Koopu and Foliaki may outgun Cullen and Dunkedon Garner but they don’t outweigh them and the colossal clash to come is a textbook example of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.
Lovely weather. Photo / TVNZ
The teams take the strain and begin tugging at each other but neither can gain the advantage. Wētā's attempts to brute-force their way forward are frustrated by Aihe’s refusal to budge.
“I’m an anchor,” Dunkedon Garner grunts, planting himself in the sand and causing his opponents to exert extraordinary effort for negligible gains. They go back and forth but neither side gives - or gains - any ground.
Frustrated by the lack of progress, Koopu goes into what he calls, ”silverback gorilla mode.”. He beats his chest and begins relentlessly powering forward, dragging teammate Foliaki along with him. But Dunkedon Garner is dug in and stubborn.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he states. “I will die on this beach.”
It is a stalemate.
The four men heave and ho and grunt and moan and give it their all but only succeed in staying perfectly stationary. Their unforgettable struggle lasts an exhausting 15 minutes until a truce is proposed.
After a lightening-quick confer with his teammate, Cullen calls back to Koopu.
“Draw.”
With peace agreed, all four men collapse on the sand.
Next up is James Rolleston and Mea Motu versing Michelle Langstone and Baird. The rain is bucketing down, giving their ferocious battle a cinematic quality. Neither team give ground, with Langstone in particular bucking wildly against Wētā's efforts to drag Aihe back.
Savali calls time on the challenge early. Photo / TVNZ
As the rain gets heavier things only get more desperate as the teams fight each other, the wet sand and mother nature herself. As the elements get wilder so does their fight and their struggle becomes very real indeed. Too real for co-host Lance Savali, who is forced to intervene.
“For everyone’s safety I’m going to cancel this team face-off,” he shouts, before sending everyone back to their camps.
Back home things take a sudden turn for the shivering Motu, who is struggling with chest pain.
“It’s pouring rain, it’s cold, you’re all muscle and no body fat, it’s hard to stay warm,” the show’s medic tells her. “The chest thing is the thing that scares me.”
It also scares Motu.
After giving it her all, Motu is rushed to hospital. Photo / TVNZ
“I think I need to go,” she quietly tells the medic, who agrees, rushing her off the island.
The next day the rain is gone but so is Motu. She has been discharged from hospital but remains too unwell to rejoin CTI.
As the face-off was canned, the captains must now nominate a player for the elimination challenge. As it’s puzzle-based, Baird selects the self-confessed Sudoku queen Henry, while Koopu selects Rolleston.
The two players must shuffle large wooden cubes out of a net tube, then stack them on top of each other, making sure that the patterns on the sides don’t repeat.
Rolleston rolls into an early lead as Henry struggles to negotiate her cubes through the net. He quickly frees all four cubes, leaving her to putz around with her second. Seeing he’s under no pressure, he takes his time with the challenge, methodically placing his blocks, slowly pacing around to double-check the patterns and then rearranging as necessary. Henry, meanwhile, has completely stalled. While she attempts to headbutt her third block through the net, Rolleston calls for a check.
It's the end of the road for Janaye Henry. Photo / TVNZ
Savali examines the stack.
“It is correct!” he shouts, sending Henry home and marking Rolleston’s second triumph at elimination.
As a jubilant Wētā leave, disgruntlement boils in Aihe.
Bitter over Baird’s decision to betray the alliance by putting one of the Mutinous Four into the elimination challenge, she begins to question his trustworthiness and his captaincy.
“Am I safe in my alliance? Am I out on my own here?” she wonders as Baird walks off ahead, oblivious to the hellish fury bubbling away inside this scorned woman.
Celebrity Treasure Island airs Mondays to Wednesdays at 7.30pm on TVNZ 2 and is available on TVNZ+.
Karl Puschmann is an entertainment columnist for the Herald. His fascination lies in finding out what drives and inspires creative people.
