An incredible gesture had Simon Barnett in tears. Photo / TVNZ
Jenni Mortimer rounds up the best and worst performances on Celebrity Treasure Island this week.
Was this week the most dramatic and emotional on Celebrity Treasure Island ... ever?
One team was obliterated, a touching gift had the nation in tears, two players suffered dramatic on-set injuries, and that’s barely scratching the surface.
Portia Woodman-Wickliffe
Captain Woodman-Wickliffe showed us the game-winning mindset that saw her become one of the most dangerous names in sport. Yes, there were tears over tough decisions as captain, but she took a leaf from Fergie’s book and declared Big Girls Don’t Cry, deciding that maybe empathy is why a wahine hasn’t won this game yet?
With her new mindset, she told backseat driver Ben Barrington to “shut up” a whole bunch and proceeded to dominate the charity challenge in episode four, taking home $5000 for her charity, Te Rōpū Wāhine Māori Toko i te Ora – the Māori Women’s Welfare League.
She may have lost her captaincy to Barrington this week (more on that soon), but she showed just how physically strong she is in a head-to-head push challenge with Simon Barnett – even if it saw the end of his game (yep, more on that soon too).
Louis Davis
After lying low, Davis is beginning to show his strengths in this game, taking out yet another charity challenge in episode six by shoving lots of balls into All Black Frank Bunce’s sack.
Yes, you read that correctly.
His win brings his total so far to $10,000 for Te Ora Hou Northland.
Liv Parker
Parker earns a winner badge for bringing comedic relief to a very tense week. What else would you call someone willing to ask her team hard-hitting questions like: “What’s your favourite way to eat a sausage?”
Simons Barnett’s rig (until the show broke it)
“That is a well-built man right there ... He’s got abs on abs,” actor Vinnie Bennett declared as he watched Barnett and his black undies doing some morning chores.
It was all looking very good for Barnett’s body (which, this week, we found is entirely shaved) – until it wasn’t.
The team Kahu captain was medically eliminated from the show in episode six after tearing his calf during a push challenge against Black Fern Woodman-Wickliffe.
He revealed he’s suffered the same injury many times, assuring his team and medical staff: “It’s alright, you get that at 58”.
Reflecting on his game, a tearful Barnett spoke of connecting with the likes of Bennett and Nix Adams and hearing their stories.
“How lucky are we to actually take part in a show like this?” You and us both, Si.
Nix Adams
The social media personality had a brave korero about her children, loss and addiction this week – and that makes her a winner in my eyes.
Opening up to Barnett, she explained how the death of her baby, Alaska, led her down the path of addiction and losing, then gaining back custody of her children. She talked about her second chance at parenting with her now 3-year-old.
“She is a courageous, brave woman – she is a fighter," a moved Barnett told the cameras.
Adams continued to prove her physical strength this week too, finding kina for her team to eat on Monday, beating Woodman-Wickliffe in a blindfolded race challenge on Tuesday and being gifted captaincy by Barnett when he departed on Wednesday.
“I’m proud of me, because they will be proud of me,” she said tearfully of her kids watching along at home.
Ben Barrington
After all that backseat driving during the team puzzle challenge and earning his team a time penalty in the process, Barrington redeemed himself by asking Captain Woodman-Wickliffe to put him up for an endurance elimination challenge against radio host Harrison Keefe.
Barrington was victorious and was handed an advantage – the ability to pick someone to swap out in an elimination challenge ... and he also became Takapu’s new captain. How’s the view from the front seat, Ben?
Zion Dayal
“Being here has done absolute wonders for him,” Frank Bunce told cameras this week as Dayal found his stride and proved his sporting prowess and mental strength.
Barrington used his swap-a-player advantage to remove comedian Liv Parker and put the sports reporter up against Bennett in a seesaw balance elimination challenge.
Dayal beat Bennett twice after team Kahu played a rematch card, which saw Bennett able to have another shot. But it was no match for Dayal, who took the win and an advantage card.
Vinnie Bennett
Nobody has made us cry more in this show than Bennett. From revealing the impact Simon Barnett made on him as a teen to this week’s shock elimination, Bennett has proved himself a story producer’s dream.
When he was eliminated by Dayal in on Tuesday, Bennett turned to his new friend, Barnett, took off his pounamu necklace and placed it around Barnett’s neck, telling him: “My best friend made this, and he told me, ‘You will meet someone across your way who deserves to have this’, and that’s you, my friend.”
It was a moment so beautiful it even brought tears to this normally cynical reviewer’s eyes.
“Simon really taught me that a real strength is facing all your feelings head-on,” Bennett said in his exit interview. “To me, that’s the real treasure. I feel like I’ve found mine.”
Afterwards, Barnett also spoke through tears, saying: “I genuinly don’t know in my life if I’ve ever been so touched by a gift.
“He thinks I might have helped him in his journey in life, but I think he’s really, really helped me.”
Someone, please pass the tissues.
David Correos
This week I wanted to give the comedian a big hug – and his team a stern talking to.
Correos dropped some blocks in Tuesday’s face-off challenge, and instead of being supportive, his team were furious at him and he was down in the dumps about it.
Then, he tried a spot of team bonding with a pamper session, until a facemask got in his eye and burnt his already chaotic retinas.
But it wasn’t all bad news; he won the charity challenge in episode five, Christchurch City Mission got $5000, and we got a beautiful shirtless Street Fighter intro with Bennett.
We also found out Correos used to be an Olympic weightlifter, but the same challenge that took out Barnett was set to claim another victim.
The comedian collapsed in pain after snapping something in his leg mid-challenge. And sitting on a barrel next to an already broken Barnett, Correos was visibly furious with the outcome.
“I don’t even get my moment,” he later told the camera of his frustration in being medically eliminated, not being beaten in an elimination battle and being unable to say goodbye.
Nix Adam’s face after 47 bug bites
“How am I gonna be cute on TV?” Adams asked, and honestly, we are speechless.
Harrison Keefe
The radio host was eliminated in an endurance challenge on Tuesday and sadly made no love connections this week.
But he took home $5000 for his charity, Spark That Chat, gave us some killer one-liners, and many tears (on his end) in the process.
Team Fury/Kahu
Hell hath no fury, and neither does CTI, because this week saw the team wiped out, with four members of the team going home, leaving only three: Adams, Lines and actor Te Ao o Hinepehinga.
This forced production to redraw teams and reset the team game from scratch, making everyone draw a new team from the hat to correct the 7-3 imbalance.
After a tense re-draw, your new teams going into week three are:
Fury/Kahu: Adams, Hinepehinga, Dayal, Davis, and Ria Vandervis
Wisdom/Takapu: Barrington, Woodman-Wickliffe, Lines, Bunce and Parker.
Georgia Lines
The singer found herself the only person from team Kahu to get put in a new camp, leaving her very vulnerable.
She’d played a safe game; I’m not even sure the other team knew she was there. But now they do, and with no emotional connection to her, she’s fair game to be sacrificed.
Whoever created the puzzles, riddles and this season’s theme
Every puzzle so far has proven so difficult they’ve had to change the rules mid-game, or risk filming running hours over schedule, talent getting windburn and (surely) someone from the union getting involved.
The riddles are so confusing the cast can’t keep up.
“It’s so long, I haven’t taken any of this in,” says Parker, reading it aloud.
As an audience, we are still fighting for our lives to figure out the theme and why Sammi Poole had a shin guard on her arm in the promo pics.
– Celebrity Treasure Island is screening now on TVNZ 2 and TVNZ+