I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! Finale recap

WHAT would happen if I’m A Celebrity...had its own Logies special? We’ve got some awards of our own to give away.

IN THE words of the great and, in this writer’s opinion, brutally and unjustly robbed-of-victory Chrissie Swan: “I don’t know if it feels like not long at all, or if it feels like four years”.

Nobody has ever quite so succinctly summed up a reality television finale.

A reality television finale that included an Englishman winning an Australian competition in South Africa. It’s the bloody Boer War all over again. Or at least, it’s the Boer War according to someone who only read the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article about the Boer War.

So like, according to all of gen Y about everything.

But that’s it, Series One of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. Done. Dusted. In the can.

No more helicopter flashbacks.

No more endearingly hearty Chrissie Swan guffaws.

No more eight thousand reminders of the voting process.

No more live crosses to the campsite to see what people who are variously sitting down and standing up look like.

All we have left is the uncomfortable feeling that a foreigner won, and the very high possibility of being scanned for intestinal worms at Johannesburg airport.

Frair-ie Flin-off, who speaks like he’s shaking up only the low-scoring Scrabble tiles in a bag, is the King of the Jungle.

Good on him.

King of the jungle.

Chris Brown, winner Freddie Flintoff and Julia Morris.

I do, however, stand by my claim that if they’d shown the footage of Chrissie Swan’s reunion with her son Leo before the voting lines had closed, that she not only would have won this competition, she would have also been instantaneously voted the prime minister of a minimum of four different countries.

There are few more touching scenes than a mother unexpectedly hearing her son’s voice from a

short distance, the resultant boa-constrictor hug, and the eventual gleeful chucking of rocks into the river by a contented little boy.

Not a dry eye in the #ImACelebrityAU studio. How about you guys? pic.twitter.com/Bv2uH7QPdE

— #ImACelebrityAU (@ImACelebrityAU) March 15, 2015

OMG the moment when little Leo says "mum" tears, ugly crying going on #ImACelebrityAU most awesome moment ever

— Cathy Schafer (@cathys43) March 15, 2015

Although I suppose Freddie going the pash with his missus and Barry’s best mate Gav disliking insects also really twoinked the old heartstrings. I guess? Nah, but when Freddie clocks his WAG sittin’ by the river and says “Jeez”, it’s like roller-skating directly through the pages of a Mills & Boon novel.

As we all know though, a finale episode is all about the montages, and we were treated to no fewer than four hundred thousand in this two-hour episode alone, because we are very lucky Australians who can’t win their own campsite-based reality television competitions.

Thusly, based on the multitudinous montages, I’m proposing a number of new Logies categories and winners this year.

The Logie for Best Suggestion That She Would Legitimately Root Someone For A Little Bit Of Saltgoes to: Julie Goodwin.

The Logie for What Was Your Name Again goes to: Tyson Thingo-whatsit.

The Logie For Hogging A Disproportionate Amount Of Time In The Crying Montage goes to: Anna Heinrich.

The Logie for The World’s Most Endearing Chuckle goes to: der, Chrissie Swan.

The Logie for Get Him His Own Show Immediately I’m Not Even Kidding goes to: Joel Creasey.

And finally, the Logie for Best Julia Morris in a Julia Morris by a Julia Morris goes to: that’s right, Julia Morris.

Aside from all the montages, some actual stuff actually happens in this episode, which I suppose we should touch on.

The very final Tucker Trial consists of a gigantic elephant-themed skate-ramp-cum-slip-n’-slide decorated generously by the Coonabarabran Year 9 Remedial Arts class, otherwise known as The Most Fun Thing Ever.

Chrissie gets it. Most fun thing ever.

Don’t look down.

Celebrities must slide down one end and up the other end, grasping desperately at stars along the way or, as Kim Kardashian calls it: Saturday night.

Frair-ie Flin-off manages to grab three stars but it doesn’t really matter — we all know the final three are getting a fancy meal with proper tablecloths and cutlery on their last night anyway.

We’ve answered a lot of questions along our I’m-not-going-to-call-it-a-journey South African

journey.

We now know that Freddie Flintoff is an excellent poster boy for removing the stigma from clinical depression. We know that Barry Hall is an excellent poster boy for your average decent,

humble, awesome-as-long-as-you-stay-off-his-bed footy-playing country boy.

Here's our very first #ImACelebrityAU winner with a thank you message to all that voted. [Spoiler ahead] https://t.co/0VDpr0rIsR

— #ImACelebrityAU (@ImACelebrityAU) March 15, 2015

From all of us at #ImACelebrityAU, a huge thanks for joining us this series! We laughed,we cried.. & that was just during @Ladyjmo's intros.

— #ImACelebrityAU (@ImACelebrityAU) March 15, 2015

And we now know, as we’ve always known, that Chrissie Swan is the kind of person you totally want to hang out with, and I hope a pizza party at my house at around seven/seven thirty this Thursday is okay with you Chrissie.

Only one last question remains: what in god’s name are they going to do with all the surplus elephant dung in South Africa now?

Jo Thornely doesn’t get enough attention at her day job, so she writes for various outlets, takes up way too much bandwidth on the internet, and loves it when you explain her jokes back to her on Twitter. Follow her on Twitter @JoThornely