Last week it seemed like Shannon Ryan’s Celebrity Treasure Island victory was a foregone conclusion.
Not only had she won three elimination challenges in a row, she’d sent three titans of the game home and had a whopping 11 clues in her possession.
This super-human effort had even the ultra-confident Sam Wallace well and truly spooked. Despite trying on four separate occasions he had to concede, “I can’t get rid of her!”
But her winning streak proved to be of little use when Shannon came up against ‘the pocket rocket’ Athena Angelou in Monday’s elimination challenge.
The last two women remaining on the island were tasked with moving a stack of six discs of descending size from one wooden rod to another without placing a disc on top of a smaller one.
If you’re struggling to get your head around how that is even possible, spare a thought for Athena and Shannon who had to go head-to-head in what co-host Matt Chisholm described as, “easily the toughest elimination battle yet.”
Same here Gary.
Sure enough the challenge proved to be so confusing that at one point spectator Gary Freeman was seen holding his head in his hands. But Athena bounced back from an early misstep to prove she is truly worthy of the ‘puzzle queen’ title, completing the puzzle first and taking the victory.
Not even Athena could quite believe what she’d just pulled off, bemusedly asking, “What the heck just happened?”
Just like that, Shannon Ryan’s time on Treasure Island had come to an end.
She maintained her dignified composure right until the end saying, “I feel like I’ve grown into a new space through this experience and I feel really bloody fortunate for it, I truly do.”
Shannon was praised by an unlikely source, Sam remembering, “She just proved night in night out how smart she was, how elegant she was, yeah what an amazing girl.”
Host Bree Tomasel took Shannon’s loss the hardest, abandoning impartiality to commiserate, “I’m so disappointed, I had my money on ya!”
Shannon’s biggest impact on the game would come after her departure, in the form of bequeathed clues.
The importance of who received what was not lost on Shannon. “I feel like I’m writing my will, I’m like hmm now what grandchild has been kind? What grandchild has been a brat? What grandchild deserves nothing?”
Shane Cameron was most deserving in Shannon’s eyes, earning himself ‘a massive leg up’ in the form of seven of her previously unseen clues. Of course as Shannon had just found out, he’ll have to make it to the final in order for them to be at all useful.
As we’ve come to expect, Sam pulled out all the stops in the immunity challenge, taking the win and securing a free pass to the final. The others’ dream of an all Mako final was no longer possible.
Unfortunately for Athena slaying goliath a day earlier wasn’t enough to earn her place in the final three.
The last woman standing was sent home after Gary and Shane struck a ‘bros before useful women who actually know how to solve puzzles’ deal 75 minutes into the weirdest ‘who balance coins on their fingers and forehead the longest while standing in a repurposed bread shelf’ challenge Treasure Island has ever seen.
That means that going into tonight’s final only Sam Wallace, Shane Cameron and Gary Freeman remain and are each achingly close to Celebrity Treasure Island victory and securing $100,000 for their charity of choice.
Celebrity Treasure Island wraps up tonight on TVNZ 2 at 7.30pm.
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