"I'm a Celebrity..." recap -- Tues 6/23/09

Since last night's show was the last one before the Finale that airs tonight in a couple of hours, we started off seeing all of the remaining celebrities reminisce about their time in the jungle and how they've grown. For example, Sanjaya said that he pretty much went from jungle boy to rainforest man during his 3 weeks in Costa Rica. From there, it was time for another food trial, and up for grabs was a nice gourmet salad for the top two finishers (which John was pumped about since he's a vegan.) The challenge was their toughest yet, at least from a psychological standpoint. The celebs had to pull themselves on a single cable for a LONG ass way, grabbing flags that were attached to the cable at certain intervals. Patti struggled a bit, but it looked like a dead heat between John, Lou, Sanjaya, and Torrie. When the smoked cleared, John and Sanjaya were the ones chowing down on the greens.

We went to a live shot after the food trial so that Damien could tell the 5 remaining celebs which of them would be eliminated. He read Torrie's name first and told her she was safe. Same deal with Lou. Then he told Sanjaya that he was the first one to leave the jungle for the night. We went back to pre-recorded shizz, where the celebs were giving out "Jungle" awards for everyone who's been on the show. After the fun was over, it was time to get down to business, and Damien told Patti that she was the final one to go.

The Finale airs tonight in just under 2 hours, and it's John vs Lou vs Torrie to be named the King/Queen of the Jungle. On top of that, the WHOLE CAST is back, so it should be good.

"I'm a Celebrity..." recap -- Mon 6/22/09

We started off last night with all the celebs talking about the past eliminations. Afterward, Stephen talked about how he was tired and hungry and really getting homesick, and was really thinking his time was up in the jungle. After a little more deliberation, Stephen decided it was time to leave and head home, which shocked the sh*t out of the celebs. Literally the second Stephen crossed the bridge, John turned around and pretty much called him a p*ssy. Sanjaya was pissed because Stephen made it to the final week and only had like 3 days left in the jungle and just quit, meanwhile his crush Holly really wanted to be there but was voted off by America. That's when the twist to the game came in -- since Stephen left, the celebs had the opportunity to vote one of the past contestants back on -- they had a choice of either Janice or Holly. They obviously went with Holly.

After getting Holly back, it was time for the food trial called Head of Horrors, and up for grabs was a huge ass double cheeseburger, fries, and onion rings. The celebs had to put their heads into a box that had 2 stars tied to ropes. They had to use their teeth to get the stars off the ropes and through little slots in the box, all while having creepy crawlies around and on their head. Lou continued his winning streak and ended up winning the burger, fries, and rings, and felt insanely full after. Once they were back from the challenge, the figured out how much weight they had each lost from being in the jungle -- the two shockers were John, who lost 21 pounds, and Torrie, who gained like 8 pounds from working out so much.

After that, it was time for two celebs to battle it out in the Last Chance Saloon for their right to stay in the jungle. Holly was automatically put into the competition since she was the player that was already voted off but brought back by the celebs, and she was joined by the lowest vote-getter, John. The two went head-to-head in a best-of-five drinking competition, and by drinking, I don't mean who can take the most shots. They had to down grasshopper shakes, tarantula drinks, and blended dung beetle juice. It took them both the entire 5 drinks, but John pulled it out and sent Holly home for a second time. They re-opened the phone lines (which have since closed) and tonight, the bottom two vote-getters will leave the jungle forever. Tune in tonight to see what goes down.

"I'm a Celebrity..." recap -- Thurs 6/18/09

Last night kicked off with more of the nervousness surrounding the upcoming vote-off where 2 celebrities would be given the boot by the end of the night, with the remaining celebs making it to the final week. The celebs were given a package and a note that there were no more teams -- it was every man/woman for themselves. Then they were told about the upcoming food challenge, which involved wrestling. Torrie thought she was a shoe-in to win. The celebs were all given costumes to wear for the challenge, which ended up being a mud pit challenge where 3 stars were tossed in and needed to be found. Whichever 3 celebs found the stars would get to chow down on pizza. Sanjaya, Lou, and Patti found the stars, so they got to pig out on personal-sized pizzas. (For the record, Stephen had me laughing my ass off at the end of this challenge while he was still talking in character as "El Capitan Longou Mystere" -- dude is f*cking HILARIOUS.)

After the celebs got all cleaned off from the challenge, we went to a live shot of Damien and Myleene heading into camp to tell the celebs who the first person voted off was. Damien said that Sanjaya and Torrie were safe, then told Holly that she was going home. Janice acted super upset (even though just minutes before that, they showed her calling Holly a crybaby in the confessional and talking a bunch of sh*t about her. That broad is as fake as her face.) After the first vote-off, we went back to pre-recordedness to see the celebs get letters from home that gave them their second wind and got them focused to win the competition. Damien and Myleene came in again after all of the letters were read and told Stephen that he was safe, and told Janice that her melting-plastic ass was going home.

The voting has already started for the final week, with the first vote-off happening on Monday. What happens now is that whoever the bottom 2 vote-getters are by Monday night, they'll face off at the Last Chance Saloon, which is basically a challenge to drink some horribly gross stuff. Whoever finishes their drink last goes home.

"I'm a Celebrity..." recap -- Wed 6/17/09

We started off last night pretty much checking out more of John's reign as camp leader -- he's really enjoying himself (and why shouldn't he? He gets to sleep in a huge bed while everyone is confined to uncomfortable cots) and loves waking up early to watch the sun rise. John actually feels bad that Sanjaya, Holly, and Janice still can't sleep that well and he wants to work on changing that. Meanwhile, Janice was telling Stephen about a dream she had where a blonde was behind her (that she said could've been Torrie) trying to harm her, but she ran to the river and was fine. Stephen told her that dreams like that are representative of a fear of death (which Janice interpreted as she's going to die soon), but she probably feels at peace and salvation at the river (honestly this part confused the hell outta me, but whatever.) Janice actually shed some tears because she was so moved by what Stephen had to say.

Torrie wakes up and wants to go home. She doesn't attempt or plan on leaving the show, but she just gets really, really homesick and starts talking about how even though she's met new friends and she's really connecting with them, they still aren't her best friends or her family and she's just really down in the dumps. Patti sympathizes with her since she misses her husband and kids a lot. This leads into word of a new food challenge, where each team has to pick 2 people again to compete. Janice is adamant on going, and snaps at Holly, Patti, and Torrie when they question how she's feeling (considering that she was in the health clinic days before). They decided Patti would join her, while the men sent John and Stephen. It was a human-spider challenge, where the two teammates were harnessed together and had to maneuver around a web made by ropes while they collected flags. Whoever got all the flags in the shortest time won -- the men crushed the ladies by 2 minutes and won the award of Chinese takeout.

The topic of John and Patti's friendship comes up next, with some of the celebs saying that they think they're doing more than just having deep conversations but are actually being really flirty with each other, while other celebs (mainly Stephen) is thinking that it's all a part of gameplay and Patti isn't as sweet and innocent as she seems. That's around the point where everyone starts realizing that they're playing a real game, especially with the vote-off just a couple of days away and two celebs going home. They realize going from 8 celebs to 6 is really going to change the face of the game, and it's time to start getting into gameplay mode. Damien and Myleene gave the celebs a preview of how the vote was going, telling Janice that she's not in the Top 2 vote-getters, and telling Patti that she's not in the Bottom 2 vote-getters. We find out who goes home in an hour!

"I'm a Celebrity..." recap -- Tues 6/16/09

Last night's show started off with John starting to take on his role as camp leader. He was given the order to assign chores to everyone, but he didn't just stop there. He also cracked the whip on everyone to wash their hands before they eat (totally the Dad in him coming out) or else he'd throw out food (like he did with rice the night before), and also told Sanjaya and the others to clean up their areas and keep it clean. It rubbed some of the celebs the wrong way, but they all decided to give him a chance.

The celebs were then delivered a camcorder and some props to make a slasher flick, just for a fun time and to get their minds off the jungle. Lou took control and directed it while Stephen was deemed the "Executive Producer that puts in feedback and good ideas then gets shot down and steps aside." After they finished taping the film, it was food challenge time, where the celebs were led to believe it was a strength challenge. The ladies went with their strongest team member in Torrie, while the fellas sent Lou up against her. The challenge was reaching into a box filled with snakes and trying to work a star (five in total) around the inside of the entire box (there were multiple holes in the box to keep sticking arms into) until you got to a colored slot that you pushed the star through. Lou ended up being up by one pretty much the entire race until the last star, when Torrie finally caught up, but unfortunately, she was ONE SECOND behind Lou in getting the final star out, which made her uber disappointed and frustrated.

The "Up in Arms" immunity challenge that didn't take place on the live portion of the show Monday night was shown next. The contestants had to stand on a narrow beam while holding a pole that held up a box of slime. If you couldn't hold the box up any longer, the slime would dump out on you and you'd be eliminated. But there was a catch -- you could only use one hand. Stephen sat out and decided to leave his chance at staying in camp up to the fate of the fans. It ended up coming down to Lou and Sanjaya for the second straight immunity challenge, and for the second time Lou beat Sanjaya for immunity, which was important since that guaranteed him a spot in the final week. Once the challenge was over, the celebs went back to camp and actually got a chance to have some down time to watch the edited version of their slasher flick.

The end of the show went live and had Damien and Myleene present John with a tough decision (at least they thought it would be) -- he could give immunity to any of his fellow camp members, or himself, but he only had 20 seconds to decide. Not even a second after he was asked for his decision, John selected himself and said he was in camp to win the game. I'm a Celebrity throws ANOTHER one-hour episode at us tonight on NBC at 8p eastern time.

"I'm a Celebrity..." recap -- Mon 6/15/09

Last night kicked off week 3 of the celebrities in the Costa Rican jungle, and it started off with everyone's shock and sadness (except for Janice) at the loss of Daniel. Then almost right off the bat, Damien and Myleene showed up to tell the celebs about the next luxury challenge, which was again a 2-on-2 match-up with massages on the line. The ladies picked Patti and Torrie since they won the last time, plus they both REALLY wanted the massages, while the fellas sent John and Lou (since John has back problems, Stephen didn't want one, and Sanjaya already gets back rubs from Holly.) The challenged called for one of the celebs from each other (which ended up being John and Patti) to stand on a plank while Lou and Torrie kept working on a crank. Each time they cranked away, the plank that John and Patti stood on would get shorter and shorter -- first one to drop off loses. John ended up dropping, so Torrie and Patti won the massages (hardcore jealous the masseuse got to give Torrie a rubdown.)

It's around this time that Janice actually stopped acting like a total maniacal bitch and ended up letting down some walls, opening up to Janice about her past as a mother, which included a nasty divorce, and getting knocked up without knowing who the father of the baby was since she got around a little bit, not to mention she rocked the drugs and booze too. Her and John also made up and decided to just have fun for the rest of the time. At the same time, John was seriously thinking about leaving camp, just because he was so close to being voted off instead of Daniel. He figured if he can't control his own destiny, it's not worth it and he was going to control his own destiny and leave. After a little time, he realized he didn't want to go anywhere, especially after all the celebs made him feel wanted. Patti actually helped talk John down "the cliff and bridge" (as he called it), so John returned the favor when Patti had a breakdown after talking to her husband Rod and feeling like he looked tired. She got nervous that both of them could face jail time, and John told her to keep her head up.

Next up was the food challenge, which pit Torrie and Sanjaya against each other from America's votes. They had to face the tunnel of terror, which was this little underground tunnel filled with 20 stars. In the first part of the tunnel, the stars were hidden in holes in the wall (much like the challenge from last week) that also had surprises in them (snakes, crayfish, spiders.) The second part was a mini lagoon with baby crocodiles floating around. The final part was a mud tunnel filled with cables just to tangle you up. After they both went through, Sanjaya won the food for the men, getting 19 stars to Torrie's 18.

Janice started getting a little sick, and not attention-whore sick like she has been, but legit sick. She fully volunteered that she hadn't dropped a deuce in about 7 days, so she just felt awful. Then she was starting to look really frail and broken down, which was really starting to worry the other celebs. After she started getting really nauseous, the medical personnel decided to bring her to a health clinic out of the jungle, where she was diagnosed with a viral infection. She stayed there overnight, then returned the next morning full of life and energy and as Sanjaya said, "back to her old self."

Since Lou had been the camp leader for the past 2 weeks, the celebs all had to compete in a challenge to pick a new one since one celeb can't be leader for more than 2 weeks. It was pretty much a quiz about what America thought of each celeb (who slept the most, who was the hardest worker, etc.) -- John ended up winning the challenge so he became the new leader. Afterward, they all gather around the campfire and shoot the shizz about who is their best friend at camp. Patti and John picked each other, Lou and Stephen picked each other, Sanjaya and Holly picked each other, Torrie picked Stephen, and Janice said she had to take a sh*t.

Tonight it looks like the show will kick off with the immunity challenge, which is called "Up in Arms." They wanted to start it live last night, but there was a tropical storm during the entire broadcast of the show, so they had to put it off and were actually going to do it shortly after they went off the air for the night, so we'll see the whole challenge recorded tonight. Show starts in an hour, so get ready!