I’m Not a Cat Lady

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Finale: See You Next Year?

As our comely hosts Damien Fahey and Myleene Klass open the show, they announce that it's pouring with rain in Costa Rica—a fitting outcome for the final episode of this soggy version of what should have been a really fun and engaging series. After three-and-a-half long and uneventful weeks, we've finally reached  the bitter end. Three are left—former NBA champ John Salley, ex-WWE sweetheart Torrie Wilson and once-promising Hollywood actor Lou Diamond Phillips—and one of them will be crowned King or Queen of the Jungle. Unfortunately, everybody was watching So You Think You Can Dance or Wipeout instead, so this will be a fairly intimate coronation.

But first, let's recap everything that's gone before. No, I take that back, let's not. There's a rehash of pathological famewhores Heidi and Spencer Pratt and their acting out routine, which sucked up the entire first week and has generated plenty of publicity already, so to hell with that. We go back over Sanjaya's and Patti Blagojevic's expulsions, probably for the sake of all the viewers who dropped off over the weeks and whom NBC figured would tune in at least to watch the finale and totally did not.

Finally, it’s the long-teased reunion of rejectees—I mean, ex-campmates—all scrubbed up and sitting on logs. Heidi is velcroed to Spencer's lap and Myleene observes that they both look "so much better” than when we last saw them, and indeed, she's right: Their faces are preternaturally shiny and all plump and juicy—no doubt the results of some dermabrasion and a few strategic pricks of restalayne. Because all 22-year-olds need that kind of help to look rested. We get the old "I'm too rich and too famous" montage and Spencer whooping like a gibbon. Oh enough with these two.

Janice Dickinson has come dressed for the disco in a tight hot-pink number, hair a cascade of shimmering jet-black curls, with a smile plastered on her face like Bob the Enzyte guy. She's so happy to be here! A little too happy, methinks—she's chewing her face off and, well, she's vibrating. She must be on some very effective happy-pappy pills right now. We get a J-Dick montage showing her scowling and hobbling around, unable to "go poo," and instantly, all her efforts to look fabulous tonight are pretty much shot to hell.

Back to camp and the final three. Oh, there's a food challenge. Why? It's over! The votes are in! Haven't these poor starving smelly creatures been through enough? Apparently not. The producers must think we need another fix of snake-and-bug porn. The game is something to do with a spa and it's all, hee hee, ho ho, Torrie you need a shampoo, and she gets to lie with her head covered in all manner of things that crawl as she fishes around for her two stars. John gets a fruit facial, which means he has to submerge his head in a tub of slop filled with something known as vomit fruit. Belligerent to the end, John demands, "Is this legal in America?" and Damien is right back at him: "That's why we’re in Costa Rica, John, we’re breakin' rules. Now shut yer trap!" Okay he didn't say that last part, but his face did.

LouDi gets a manicure courtesy of some great horny toads and a few spiders in a tank. LouDi had his hand gnawed off by rats and tarantulas crawling over his eyeballs, this is a cake walk for him. Next, a hot tub for Torrie, which is filled with wee crocodiles. Oh big deal—we know these croccies are completely harmless. Torrie picks one up and gives him a kiss. And all the men go boinnnng! I gotta admit, it's pretty hot.

John gets a snake sauna. They’re all pretty little decorative snakes, ain't gonna hurt nobody, no biggie. LouDi gets a jungle spray tan, which translates as meal worms. Oh, ewww. He's got worms in his ear. Everyone's giggly and giddy, Myleene and Damien are more chipper than we've ever seen them, they are unanimously thrilled that they're all finally going to be out of there for good.

The final three return to camp all cleaned up, and sit by the fire to chit-chat with the hosts some more. Now they're in earnest mode: This is like nothing I've ever done before I got more out of this jungle and it's still surreal and I would never have quit and get me back, Clarence, I want to live again! We waste more minutes on the ex-campmates who are asked about their favorite trials and Sanji waffles on again about how he loved being immersed upside down in the tank with snakes on that very first night and .... Damien's all, yeah yeah, uh-huh, great.

Back to the final three. They eat their well-earned meals and talk about how much winning means to them. Torrie announces that she thinks she'll be an inspiration to women by showing them you can be strong, brave and feminine. As opposed to the role model du jour, skinny, trashy and slutty. It's an admirable goal but... good luck with that, Torrie!

Now one of the three musketeers has to go. Damien: “The next celebrity….. to leave the jungle forever is…. …. …. ….. ….. …. John." Good. John gets that rictus grin and leaps up a little too quickly, pretending he's excited to be getting home. Even through they're all going home tonight. There's a soupy montage of Salley's Greatest Hits. He simmers down as he watches, becoming gracious and humble at last.

We get a LouDi recap. He’s the good guy, everybody loved Lou, nobody had a gripe with him, and he’s proud of that. He triumphantly proclaims, "I do what I set out to do, my experience in this jungle has been complete." Bravo, fine ac-tor! Time for Torrie. She surprised herself with how strong and fearless she’s been. Awww. She feels like she can do anything after this.

We're back in camp and Damien reminds us the final three have been roughing it for 24 days, and I realize I really lost count with this thing—that's two days longer than I thought. Oh well, my bad. Myleene: "Lou, Torrie, one of you is about to be crowned King or Queen of the Jungle." Damien. "Lou……… you nervous?" Indeed, Lou looks like he’s about to cry. Back to Myleene: “There can only be one winner." Oh come on, we know that already, you've been telling us for 24 days! "The public has decided and voted and I can only tell you two, it has been incredibly close. The winner. Of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here 2009 is ….. …." Torrie? Please?

"Lou Diamond Phillips."

Well of course. The ex-campmates are ecstatic. J-Dick, I think, self-combusts. LouDi gets a shiny wreath of leaves. Myleene says, "We'll see you next year!"

And there will be pork in the treetops come morning. 

 

The End.

photos courtesy of nbc.com

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, Day 7: Sanjaya the Jungle Boy

 
Well, enough already with the Heidi and Spencer hype. I guess all the palaver over the weekend worked—IACGMOOH's viewer numbers were up an iota or two from last Thursday night. As suspected, there was no torture in the Lost Chamber—the walls were alive with bugs and spiders, that’s all, which made Heidi and Spencer pogo in panic all night long. Their arc is spread out over the first hour, but let’s get it over with right now: They’re allowed to rejoin camp; they speechify about the Lord and redemption and demons and the power of Christ (and somebody please explain to me why, in three years of The Hills, we’ve had no clue about Heidi’s obsessive Christianity yet now she's incapable of uttering a single syllable without the words Christ or God or praise Jesus leaping from her mouth); Heidi sings for the camp and sounds to Janice like “a cat that somebody has put water on”; Heidi gets sick, she’s rushed to hospital, it’s gastric, it’s serious, the charade is over, they’re gone.

Now they’re out of the way, here’s what else happened. The "aunties from the other side of the family"  have both gone back to the other side. Frances pulled her celebrity card and walked. She couldn’t take it without her BFF Angela. She was justifiably revolted by the return of the Terrible Two, and had nobody to crack wise about it with. I’m sorry to see Frangela go, this show needs their comic relief.

Now to the vote: Who did the public choose to compete in the Houdini Trial? Why, Sanjaya and J-Dick! Yay! I guess my vote counted. But the downside: Clearly, the public isn’t rooting for the Lady Team, there’s no way J-Dick will win. She receives the news perched on a log, looking particularly insane with a  new jungle hairdo that’s just begging to be accented by a bone.

They’re playing for lobster. Sanji goes first. He’s very calm and casual, bound by chains inside that narrow tank, as if he’s hanging out at the local pool. The snakes are added. Then cute little baby crocs. And wee frogs! Aww. The water’s rising fast—I’m starting to panic on his behalf, this can’t be easy!—and Sanji seems to have the ability to breathe underwater as he just keeps diving down for his keys. All the wee froggies float and bob around him, unperturbed, their pointy little frog-fingers dangling underwater. Sanji unlocks all five locks in 3 minutes and 12 seconds. He does a victory dance underwater. Dude didn’t break a sweat.

Next up is J-Dick, who acts like she’s pumped and ready to go. Once she’s all locked in, though, the mood swings wildly. The water rises, the critters are dispensed and she promptly wails: “No-no-no-no-no-no!” The froggies are as scared of J-Dick as she is of them: they bunch together in a corner, as far away from her as they can get. J-Dick screams, “Get me outta here!” and she’s done. Not one lock. She’s hysterical. And yet… her lip gloss is miraculously intact.

Sanji and J-Dick return to camp. “Hey, what happened?” Patti asks gratuitously. Take a guess, hon. J-Dick is traumatized and has to have a lie-down. A tarantula crawls on a rock. The boys come up with an idea to devise their own game for the girls to play, and the winner gets one of their meals. J-Dick is pissed and screeches about how she’s sick. She breaks down and whimpers for Sanji, who runs to her side. He’s got huge, angry red welts all over his skinny body. Do you hear him complain? J-Dick is shaking and crying about how freaked out she was by the trial. Sanji holds and kisses her to make it all better. It’s a little bit creepy, a bit too Spanking the Monkey for me. And Daniel “Papa Bear” Baldwin too—he’s done with her lousy menopausal moods.

We get a short Sanji the Jungle Boy montage. He’s gone completely Mowgli now. “I’m totally in my element!” he squeals, black warpaint smeared on his face. He makes jungle jewellery. He designs a broom out of some palm fronds. He whittles a vine to make some furniture. He’s really at home here. “He’s like a wood nymph,” coos Lou Diamond. Wise, wacky Uncle Lou.

By now the men have had it up to here with the Diva Dickinson and her drama. She orders SanjiMow around—“get my shoes, give me a massage!” She lies around all day and scowls. Which is such a waste of all the time and money she’s invested in her various nips and tucks and fillers—when she’s not scowling, she can look quite pretty. Why have all that work done and then pull a face all day like Jabba the Hut? Long Tall bitches behind her back, “She’s she’s mean she’s selfish … she’s a witch.” Papa Bear is more direct, telling her straight up: “I just want to see you do something around this camp besides eat and sleep.” Naturally, this just makes her sneer and scowl some more.

It’s time to pick a new team leader, Wacky Uncle Lou announces in his reading glasses. Hee! They have to split into two teams and do another eating challenge at Jungle Joe’s Café. The first group gets some kind of spiky grub. J-Dick sprints out of there, followed by Torrie and Long Tall. It’s up to Sanji, who breaks them into tiny chips and ingests them at his leisure. On the other team, Papa Bear starts talking trash about how he’s hogging the camera time, so Sanji hands him a plateful and Papa scarfs 'em right down. This gains him no points at all: it’s not his round yet and it isn’t even his dish. Such a showoff.

Papa Bear's team gets leaf cutter ants. Brother Stevie informs us that they taste a “little smoky, little jerky” but can’t get them down and walks, with Patti hot on his heels. LouDi has one little problem: He can’t quite swallow. You and a million ladies out there, Lou. Papa Bear wins. 

It’s Sanji and Papa Bear. The dish is a bull’s testicle. In true team spirit, J-Dick gags loudly. Equally helpful, Myleene shouts, “Oh it smells rank!” I’m sure Mario Batali serves these at Babbo, what's all the fuss? One bite and Sanji’s out. LouDi and Papa Bear face off in the next round: stick insect with cow tongue chaser. Daniel inhales the bug, no problem but he can’t do the tongue. He forfeits to LouDi.

J-Dick is relieved because LouDi “doesn’t have snarly comments like the Baldwins or Salley.” Not for long. LouDi decides, in the effort to be a fair leader, to have a Janice intervention. He assigns her to dish duty. J-Dick responds by hawking something up from her chest.

Suddenly we’re invited for the first time to learn exactly which charities these celebs are suffering for. Daniel is there for the his mother’s institute, Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund. She’s a breast cancer survivor, but he cries just talking about it. Salley’s is the Cedar Sinai Sports Spectacular. Torrie’s for Disabled American Veterans. LouDi’s is the Art Has Heart Foundation. J-Dick is supporting the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation. Sanji’s is the Shriners Hospital for Children. Patti’s is the Children’s Cancer Center. Stevie B’s is Love 146, which helps young girls sold into sex slavery. Okay, good. Now we know. And Myleene and Damien remind us that we can chip in anytime.

It’s dinner time. A basket is lowered into camp from somewhere overhead. But wait—there’s only one lobster in there. J-Dick, who totally threw both competitions today, is all, What? The guys aren’t going to feed me? Unfortunately, the male team is being penalized for exactly that: They were not supposed to share their meals with the losing Lady Team. Now they tell us! Salley’s not having it. “I got children! You don’t punish me!” Not sure why having children exempts anybody from breaking the rules, but whatever. Myleene’s a little tickled by the latest twist; she’s all, Ha ha, suck it!

We’re live and it’s time for the immunity challenge. J-Dick grimaces and invites America to vote her off and then immediately takes it back and then pleads too sick to do the challenge. Papa Bear holds up that black-and-white photo of somebody's baby and, as usual, nobody pays him any mind.  There will be no IACGMOOH tonight thanks to the Stanley Cup, but they’ll be back Wednesday! With a brand new surprise campmate—Heidi’s sister Holly! So the rumors were true after all. And a nation yawns.

Photo courtesy of NBC