OPINION
Day seven and we start exactly where we left off. Hiding in a blanket watching the drama unfold.
At camp Kārearea, the one, the only, the underrated Blair Strang - AKA ‘Zaddy Grylls’ - is quietly refusing to share the scroll he won in last week’s elimination round, and oh, boy, there are thoughts.
“I wake up this morning and it’s frosty at camp - something definitely has changed,” Miriama Smith tells the confession cam, reminding us of what it feels like to walk into work after one too many at the office Christmas party. You won’t get us this year, tequila!
Meanwhile, captain Jordan Vandermade is confused as to why Strang wouldn’t trust him with the scroll after he literally stuck to his word and put him up against Steve Price last week. Like, hello, if that doesn’t scream, “I’m trustworthy”, what will?
Oh, wait - he didn’t.
Thankfully, before things get too awkward, it’s off to Kārearea’s charity challenge, and it’s the exact tension intermission we needed. The castaways must slip down a waterslide on an inflatable, and whoever gets the furthest, and therefore the most points, wins.
It’s wet and it’s wild, and Eli Matthewson thinks he’s Magic Mike as he strips down to his budgie smugglers to show us the results of his three-protein-shakes-a-day, gym-junkie summer.
Ultimately, Smith takes out the win for her chosen charity, Coastguard New Zealand, but I’m willing to bet Channing Tatum is shaking in his Speedos after seeing Matthewson in beast mode, so who’s the real winner here, huh?
Back at Kārearea, Strang and Smith are plotting the demise of their captain - but first, a brief intermission. Tohorā needs some of our attention before they start to feel more overlooked than the middle child whose mum accidentally left them at school for a few extra hours.
Mel Homer reveals she was left a very special gift from recently eliminated castaway, Matilda Green. Her clue. Up to her sneaky tricks again, Homer shares half of the clue (the part that leads to the official clue) with the team, sending them on yet another wild goose chase looking for the other half that’s actually hiding in her pocket.
While Matt Gibb is deeply connecting with his hunter-gatherer instincts, Schmidt-Peke sits back, observes and, like Kylie Jenner in 2016, realises stuff. “I think Mel’s already found the clue and she’s just making us look around like little idiots,” she tells the confession cam.
If this were Married At First Sight, an explosive dinner party would be moments away.
Meanwhile, at Kārearea, Smith and Strang are bonding over parenting. “Sometimes when kiddies are playing up, the parents need to discipline,” Strang tells Smith, and we couldn’t agree more. It’s almost as good as the advice on the Herald’s parenting podcast, One Day You’ll Thank Me. But hang on - all is not what it seems, and this is in fact a scheming session.
Strang is throwing his Eat Pray Love era in the bin as the two castaways prepare to throw the team face-off so Vandermade ends up in the captain’s coup. It’s a move everyone saw coming, but did we see Strang’s chaotic one-liner coming? Absolutely not.
“Sorry Jordy, you’ve got to go. But I do appreciate you, bro, it’s all good,” he sarcastically tells the confession cam.
Dead, see ya, lowering myself into the ground as we speak.
At the face-off, the teams must row out to their pontoon and grab some puzzle pieces before completing an obstacle course and a puzzle. The first to finish, wins a BBQ pack as well as choosing who is going up in the captain’s coup.
Kārearea’s mouths are watering, but Strang and Smith take a page out of Matthewson’s summer shred book and pretend they don’t want a Bunnings style fry-up. As a hot-girl-summer enthusiast, I see the vision and respect it.
Out in the water, Kārearea is more out of time rowing than Uncle Glen dancing, and it doesn’t take long for someone to notice. “I’m thinking, ‘Are they throwing the challenge, or are we just incredible?’” Tohorā’s James Mustapic tells the confession cam. “Probably throwing the challenge, let’s be honest.”
Never change Mustapic, never change.
After a tense match, Tohorā takes out the win and Vandermade is more disappointed than your dad finding out half the vodka in the cupboard is water. Sigh.
One person isn’t, though.
“This might be the happiest I’ve been so far,” Mustapic tells the confession cam. “We’ve won the chance to overthrow Jordan, I get to keep my captaincy and we’ve finally won some food.”
Back at camp Tohorā, self-proclaimed dictator Mustapic has already decided to put up Matthewson against Vandermade, but he’s read How to Win Friends and Influence People and pretends to listen to his team’s suggestions first. “Bless their poor naïve souls” he chuckles.
It’s a foolproof plan, until karma steps in to remind him every action has a consequence. At Kārearea, Matthewson tells the confession cam: “I’ve built such a friendship and trust with Jordan that I also would not feel good stealing his captainship. I’d consider throwing it because if Jordan wins it, he gets a clue and it will be a clear shot of allegiance to him. Ugh, I don’t know.”
Someone call a medic - he’s got a serious case of the bromance bug.
Arriving at the captain’s coup, Mustapic decides to put up Matthewson, and Vandermade tells us, “I feel like a bit of meat in front of a pack of hungry wolves.” Could this be the moment everything changes? Is Vandermade returning to his boy-next-door roots?
Matthewson gets to choose the challenge and lands on ‘Foot Build’ because he has “freaky li’l feet and flexible hips”, and I won’t lie, I’m too shocked to speak.
It’s neck-and-neck, but the comedian finally snags the win, overthrowing his captain. “The brother Eli has completed the challenge, Jordan’s captaincy is over,” Vandermade chillingly tells the confession cam. “The demise of Jordan,” he says, before spiralling into a manic fit of laughter.
It truly feels like it would have been the right time to end the episode, but Treasure Island is in it’s give era and provides us with one more OMG moment. Mustapic gets his game-changing advantage, along with getting to see what’s inside the plot-twist-promising Treasure Island box.
Removing a scroll from inside, he unravels it and immediately says: “What the f**k?”
Is it a merge? Is someone going home? Is Jordan the captain again? My stress is through the roof and we have to wait another 24 hours to find out what’s happening next. Cue intense rage.
Celebrity Treasure Island airs weekly, Mon-Wed, 7.30PM on TVNZ 2 and TVNZ +.
Lillie Rohan is an Auckland-based reporter covering lifestyle and entertainment stories who joined the Herald in 2020. She specialises in all things relationships and dating, great Taylor Swift ticket wars and TV shows you simply cannot miss out on.
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