But first . . . I really liked the intro to the finale with the three final houseguests. Some pretty cool camera work and eerie music and voiceovers before we get a recap of the entire season. This was a lot better than the normal "previously" recaps, even if there was a lot of repetition. There was something from every episode and nothing we hadn't seen before but it moved quicker than usual as it focused more and more on Ashleigh, Sarah and Godfrey. It still took 11 minutes but, for a change, the length had a purpose.
Now it's Arisa's turn to go over the season, but she goes really quickly as she leads into the final HoH competition. It's a three part competition as the houseguests walk into what looks like the end of the world. They need to collect sand leaking from a tank in a bucket and keep refilling it until they are the last one with sand in their tank. The winner moves to part three while the other two move on to the second part to see who takes on the winner.
They race down the stairs to begin gathering sand, fill their pails, race up and refill their tank, then race back down to catch more sand. This is one competition that Godfrey has no intention of throwing. After 20 minutes there are earthquakes, ash starts blowing around, and bombs are going off, but they keep at it. After 41 minutes Ashleigh's arms are killing her but Godfrey says he's just warming up. At the 1:09:30 mark they're all still going as the sand is flowing out even faster.
They've been at it for 1:33:12 and they're still going but Ashleigh can barely breath. Sarah is actually encouraging Ashleigh and she keeps going. After 2 hours and 10 minutes it's really wearing them down. Despite all her hard work, Sarah is the first one out of the competition. Godfrey and Ashleigh just keep going but then Ashleigh gives up and Godfrey moves to the final round.
The girls are dying on the couch but they eventually get up again. They'll have to go head to head in the second part to see who goes up against Godfrey. Part two has them completing a gear matching 16 clues to the faces already on the gear. Whoever does it the fastest moves on to compete in part three. Sarah is racing through the clues and doing really well but moving the wheel is really hard. She's confident enough to hit the buzzer but something's wrong so she starts second guessing herself. Finally she figures out her error but she still feels she took too long.
It's Ashleigh's turn and she's proven herself a strong competitor in most challenges. That gear must be really heavy because Ashleigh has the same problem as Sarah did. She's down to the last two clues and she locks them into place and, . . . first times the charm. Sarah had a time of 21:13. But with a time of 4:55 Ashleigh wins phase two. Sarah was crushed in that competition but now it's time to start campaigning.
Sarah goes to Godfrey and tries to convince him that he's safer with her next to him. He knows that he needs to make the right decision and Sarah brings up some good points that Godfrey agrees with. Now Sarah goes to Ashleigh to compare jury votes and try to convince her that Godfrey has to go. In a last ditch attempt Sarah uses her jury vote for ransom and that scares the heck out of Ashleigh.
Over in the jury house everyone is hanging out in the backyard when Ian Terry, the U.S. Season 14 Winner wanders in to chat with the jury. Sindy is sure that Brittnee is going to win until she wanders in and says "sorry to disappoint". That surprised everyone. They start discussing the strengths of the final three and when Ian asks what got Godfrey to the end Brittnee thinks she had a lot to do with that. The jury knows that, in the end, it's ip to them. Ian closes with the reminder that the jury has to be happy with the fact that they lost to the person they're crowning as the winner. Time to head back to the Big Brother Canada house.
The houseguests are dressed up as they chat with Arisa before she sends them to the backyard. The lights go out and Godfrey and Ashleigh are now facing off to determine the final HoH and Sarah gets a front row seat for the competition. Arisa will read questions about the jury and the one with the most points at the end of seven questions is the new HoH. They both get the first question, Godfrey gets the second, they both get the third, Godfrey gets the fourth, Ashleigh gets the fifth, they both get the sixth, and Ashleigh gets the seventh. It's a tie. Time for a sudden death question and it's still a tie. Another question and again they're tied. Time for the tiebreaker, the one with the closest number without going over will be the new HoH. Godfrey guesses 260, Ashleigh guesses 300 and the number was 286 and Godfrey is the new HoH.
Nothing like a little pressure. If Godfrey takes Ashleigh I figure he has a 50/50 chance of winning it all, but if he takes Sarah I'm pretty sure Sarah will be crowned the winner because Brittnee will be campaigning hard for the jury to give it to her over Godfrey. Up until now he's won nothing except for the KFC PoV memory challenge, but he pulled it out in the end when it really counted.
It's now up to Godfrey to choose who to evict as Arisa tells him he needs to make his choice now. He gives a fairly emotional speech full of apologies as he chooses to evict Ashleigh from the house. Sarah can hardly breath and Ashleigh tears up as she heads up the stairs. Arisa welcomes her out to a cheering throng and it takes her a lot less time that I thought to catch her breath and cease the waterworks. Arisa asks her how hard it was staying in the house and she says once all her alliances started dropping out she knew it was all on her and she gave it her all. With that Arisa sends her off to join the jury who now have all the power.
Arisa welcomes back Jordan, Sindy, Bobby, Kevin, Willow, Bruno, Zach, Pilar and Brittnee. She then brings out Ashleigh and though they all look surprised, Zach looks devastated. I think he expected her to win. When Arisa asks, Zach says it hurts to see her in the jury. Time for the jury to ask their questions.
Sindy directs her question at Godfrey, while Bobby goes to Sarah who says she used her weaknesses to her advantage. Jordan also goes for Sarah and wonders if her relationships were real which she said they were. Willow wants to know if her relationship with Sarah was all game or real and Sarah says it was real. Pilar asks Godfrey if it was his plan to kill the showmances and he says it was to keep the target off of him. Brittnee asks Sarah how she got to the final two and Sarah admits she couldn't have done it without her.
Bruno tells them both they look great and wonders why nobody else mentioned it and then asks Sarah about her final two deals with both Brittnee and Willow and she says she probably would have taken Brittnee because she thinks she could beat her. Kevin agrees with Bruno and asks Sarah if she would have fought for him and she says that she loves him but she knew his loyalty was elsewhere. Zach asks Godfrey about his biggest move and Godfrey says it's not about the big move it's about the relationships. Finally Ashleigh asks Sarah if there was any move she made without Brittnee and she says she knew secrets that she kept from Brittnee to stay closer to everyone.
Now they get to defend their game to the jury. Sarah says she used her social game to get to the end and she apologizes for those she put on the jury and keeps going and going until Arisa has to cut her off. Godfrey says he started on the outside and stayed there until he convinced the house to go against the showmances. He respects whoever they vote for but wants them to vote for . . . and again Arisa has to interrupt and cut him off. It's now up to the jury.
Arisa tells the jury that they are now voting for who they want to win. Jordan is up first, then Sindy secures her vote with an "s", then Bobby goes up, followed by Kevin who congratulates then again, and then Willow locks in her vote. Bruno goes up and votes for whom he thinks best represents season three, and Zach votes for the phenomenal player, while Pilar is just way too happy. She's followed by Brittnee who votes based on best gameplay, and Ashleigh is voting for the one who deserves it.
Arisa thanks the jury then welcomes the remaining players, Risha, Naeha, Graig and Johnny before turning back to the jury. Time for one last surprise as Arisa advises them that one of them will be evicted from the jury and their vote will not count. Jordan jumps up and bids farewell to everyone before they sit him back down. Arisa then reveals a clip of the final three locked in the Vault as they deliberate over who to evict from the jury. Good thing this is being shown after the jury voted, especially with Godfrey being the only one keeping their cool. The jury is surprised at all the reveals they're getting from this clip until Arisa cuts it short.
Arisa then reveals that the final three evicted . . . Jordan from the jury and his vote will no longer count. I guess they could have just let him go. Arisa informs him he needs to leave the jury box and he joins the first four evictees. Then she goes to see who Jordan had voted to win and he had voted to crown Sarah.
For some reason we've now gone back for another recap of the season and apparently production just needs a lot of filler to get to the their two hour time slot. Seriously? It's like they don't think that the average viewer can remember what happens all season. It's not like it's been going on for years, it's only been just over two months. How much can they forget? My least favourite part of Big Brother in any of its incarnations and a waste of another three hours. Oops, I mean, five minutes.
Arisa asks Godfrey about his gameplay not winning competitions and he says he didn't need to rely on them because he made good relationships. Arisa asks questions of some of the houseguests and I'm not going to bore you with them all. Then she recaps the showmances for everyone and we get more filler. Get on with it. Or not, as she asks Kevin about "Kevlar" and he kinda sidesteps it. More recaps. Yawn. I'm gonna go get a coffee, be right back.
Okay I'm back, did I miss anything? What the heck is Brittnee doing with her fist down her throat? Nevermind, I forgot the sugar. Back again. Apparently the houseguests learned that they can survive without their technology. Are we done yet? Nope. I will admit that all the houseguests clean up real good but let's get on with it before this becomes a three hour finale.
Finally it's time for the results. Arisa is about to give either Godfrey or Sarah $100,000.00 and more as she begins to read the votes. Sindy voted for Sarah, Bobby voted for Godfrey, Kevin voted for Sarah, Willow voted for Sarah, Bruno voted for Godfrey, Zach voted for Sarah, she only needs one more vote and Pilar voted for Sarah, and with that Sarah has won Season 3 of Big Brother Canada. Told you she'd win.
They both race out of the house to join everyone on stage. There's a lot of screaming and hugging and tears and then Arisa finally tries to calm it all down. She asks Sarah what's going through her mind and she says she never thought she could do it. She says she loves Canada and is so glad that canada supports weird and quirky people. Godfrey thought he could beat Ashleigh but Sarah had his back and he couldn't not take her to the end. He's okay with his decision even if it did cost him the win.
And on that note my blogging is done for a little while. I'm not going to blog about the U.S. version of Big Brother which is about to begin real soon (at least that's what I tell myself now) but Wayne and I will be back July 8th to blog about The Amazing Race Canada when Season 3 debuts. We'll see you all back here in six weeks. Maybe sooner.