Enter...
STEVE
That worked out a lot better than I thought it would. I don't just mean the evil competition, I mean the whole competition. Total Drama. Who would have guessed that I'd make it to the finale in the second season? I've gotta believe that the odds weren't in my favor at any point. And yet, here I am. Final two, again. Sure, it's a bit of a letdown not to have won it all today, since I was led to believe it would be me against Wendy in the finale. But me against Voltar is just as good, since the finale always comes down to one specific, late-breaking moment.
Seriously, I can't believe this worked. I mean, I figured that if I got to come back and put my plan in motion, Chris wouldn't say anything at the start. He'd probably let it slide for long enough that I could engineer the eliminations of a couple of my biggest enemies. But then he didn't say anything even as the game went on and I kept rigging the votes. Even though that's in keeping with what I know of him, it was still surprising. But it was more surprising that nobody figured out what I was doing. It should have been pretty obvious that I was getting rid of my enemies and anybody I thought was threatening, but nobody figured it out.
Well, apparently Aunt Grandma did eventually. It took her close to three weeks, but she realized what was going on. Which makes me wonder whether I would have been better served by getting rid of her earlier. Of course, I didn't have many opportunities, and Ruby turning in a blank vote did save my bacon that one time I accidentally went into the booth first, but I still wonder whether I should have gotten rid of her earlier.
But then, I did have to get rid of other people instead. Elise had to go for tricking me. Marlowe had to go for voting me off. Dale might have been an okay person, but he was getting suspicious. Even if I had convinced him to flush Aunt Grandma, he might have realized what was going on anyway. I had to vote him off then. And then I had to get rid of Nazz, and I didn't get a chance to actually vote somebody off until Snidely came back, and there was no way I could let him have a chance at winning. Not with what he and Elise did to me.
Still, everything worked out in my favor. I even got a better match for the finale because of Chris's gamesmanship. For the first time, I might actually be favored to win it all.
Enter...
VOLTAR
Ooh, that Steve! He makes me so angry! He thinks he can just waltz through life, all la-de-da-de-da, I'm not frightened of the mighty Voltar, no! I don't care about his big plans, or how he's going to rule the world, or how he's the evilest guy ever! I don't care about anything, because I'm Steve! I don't care that Voltar managed to fend off an alien invasion that was going to start by taking over my skull! I'm Steve, and I don't care! Well guess what, Steve? I'm about to make you care. I'm going to take your dream...and crush it! Crush it! Crush it into nothingness! Obliterate it, even! And then, Steve, then we'll see if you still don't care! Oh, we will see, and you will care! Mu-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
But right now, I'm bored. Hmm. There has to be something to do around here. I didn't get to find out what it was last time because everybody was so afraid of my evil prowess that they voted me out. But this time, this time I will win! And when I do, everyone will bow before me, the ultimate evil victor of whatever this show is called! Oh, they will bow before me. They will worship me as the god I am, and I will use their worship to rule the world! Yes!
Also I'll probably get rid of those pesky neighbor kids who call me a dork. I'll show them who the real dorks are! I'll show them all!
It's them, by the way. They're the real dorks. I am the super-cool evil genius leader of the League of Super Evil.
And tomorrow, I will prove it, by winning this game! I will be victorious once and for all! Mu-hu-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Now where are all the video games? There's gotta be something to do around here. After all, there's no way I'm just going to sit around bored and wait for tomorrow, right? There has to be some form of entertainment on this island. I just have to find out where they keep it.
Enter...
WENDY
The boat left behind a gentle wake as it puttered through the water. It gently bobbed up and down in a rocking motion, and it would have felt relaxing were I not so mad.
You'd be mad too. Just three hours ago, I thought I was in the finale and competing for ten million dollars. Then Voltar comes back, Max gives out a challenge, my...okay, it wasn't that great an idea, but it was better than the plot of Goldfinger or a sun magnet, and yet it was the one he hated the most. So Voltar gets to choose who to go up against, and instead of getting rid of a guy he says he hates, he decides to take that guy to the finale and send me packing. Today has just been a constant series of letdowns. Actually, letdown is too weak of a word. It hasn't been a day of letdowns, it's just been a day where everything continually gets worse.
I know, it's not the worst day I've ever experienced. And it's probably not the worst day I ever will experience, as depressing as that thought is. But that doesn't change the fact that today completely and utterly sucked.
A hand came down on my shoulder and rested there lightly. I looked up and saw Chef standing behind me.
"Who's piloting the boat?" I asked.
"Don't worry about that," Chef said.
"Uh, if we hit a swell, I'm going to be pretty worried," I pointed out.
Chef sighed. "We'll be fine. Trust me. Once you get a bit away from Wawanakwa, everything is normal."
"What about Boney Island?" I asked.
He shrugged. "That was mostly testing grounds for what became Pahkitew."
"Fine," I said. "So if you're not going to actually drive the boat, what do you want?"
Chef stared at the wake for a few seconds before finally speaking.
"I don't do this for everybody," he finally admitted. "I mean, in the first season, I did it for a lot of people as I took them to the Playa. But Chris wasn't exactly fond of me doing that. He said that it might make people smarter, you know, realize where they messed up. I'm pretty sure that's why we hired an actual driver for Action, and why everything after that has been, well, catapults and parachutes and cannons and all."
"So why'd you bring back the boat?" I asked.
"I assume it's the nostalgia angle," Chef said. "I mean, we brought back pretty much everybody who could pass a psychological exam. Or, you know, something like it."
"Something like it?" I asked.
"That's not important," Chef said. "But I mean, Scarlett didn't show up because she's..."
"Yeah, I get that," I said.
"Izzy kept going to her therapist and actually toned it down outside of your challenge," Chef continued. "Which surprised me, because I didn't know she could tone down the crazy."
"She wasn't crazy?" I asked, surprised.
"Oh no, she was mighty crazy," Chef said. "It's just, you know. It's all relative. And Ezekiel would have been allowed to come back, but he didn't want to go back on the show, so we agreed to take him off the list because of emotional stress. He still has to show up for reunion episodes, though."
I stare at the water. "He didn't want to come back?"
"Nope," Chef said. "Can't say I blame him."
Somehow, I got the sense that maybe Ezekiel was smarter than a lot of people thought, because he decided not to come back to a show that had routinely humiliated him. He'd been used as a punching bag for everyone else, made a laughingstock to the world...honestly, why would he come back?
Why would I come back, for that matter? I mean, let's face it. This was probably my best shot at winning, and I'd lost in embarrassing fashion. I'd actually lost thrice in two seasons. If anything, this was all just a waste of time.
"So why'd you come back here, anyway?" I asked.
"To congratulate you," he said.
I stared at him, flabbergasted. "What?"
"Look, I know the villains make the show," Chef admitted. "And I'm not able to influence outcomes unless Chris thinks it would be funny or dramatic. Probably both, given his sick sense of humor. So, when you get right down to it, I'm basically just another piece of furniture on the show. I serve the food, I play the roles that aren't glamorous enough for Chris, I bark at campers, I'm the obvious bad guy to Chris's charismatic, charming, actually evil host character."
"It's a character?" I asked dubiously.
Chef scratched the back of his head. "Honestly, I don't really know. It might be a role he plays, it might've been a mask at one point and now it's the real him, it might've been the real him all along...the point is, I can't pick winners and losers. I can't make sure the good guys win and the bad guys lose. Which is really, really annoying, because I'm almost certain Chris does everything he can to tip the scales toward the bad guys. Usually it's nothing too obvious, but Chris definitely loves letting the villains run loose. Probably because good villains make for great ratings. It's always about the ratings with that guy. But I can't interfere, at least not the way I'd like to. So I can't tell the good guys that, say, the attractive foreign guy is actually evil, or that Mike's gone more nuts than usual, or that maybe there's more to Nazz than meets the eye."
"So you can't tell anybody that Steve is cheating," I said.
"I can't confirm or deny that," Chef said. "Not until after the season airs, at least."
"Gotcha," I said, smirking.
Chef smiles back at me. "Look, what I'm trying to say here is–and I know I keep getting off track–you're one of the people who played the game the right way. I mean, what I view as the right way. Because usually those people, they don't end up winning. They usually don't make it as far as you do."
"That's not true," I said.
"Oh yeah?" Chef challenged me. "Final three, Island: a fat guy nobody cared about, a lying, conniving bitch, and a goth girl who played hard, didn't betray anybody, and basically tried to win fairly and honestly. Gwen's the only one of those three who fits the bill."
"See? That's one already," I pointed out.
"Not done," Chef said. "Final four, Action: a fat guy working undercover for Chris to drive a wedge between everyone, an angry woman who constantly sued the show for special perks, a juvenile delinquent who shoved everyone else out of his way, and a nice girl that managed to get everyone to ignore her until the finale. Final three, World Tour: that same lying conniving bitch, her better-looking male counterpart, and a guy who only got that far because everybody ignored him except for his crazy-strong stalker, who did her best to get him that far. Revenge? All muscle, no brains goes up against all brains, no muscle, goes up against a girl who became so competitive that nobody could trust her. All-Stars? Goth girl again, vs. a guy who stabbed his team in the back all the time his first time around and then managed to survive while everybody else was tripping over themselves to be completely stupid so that girl who went nuts last season can face off against her boyfriend, who oops-a-daisy has gone completely psycho and actually rigged the votes in one contest! And then, Pakhitew...actually, everybody in the final four but Sugar pretty much did things the right way, if we're being honest. But my point is, over the course of six seasons, I only saw three people make the final three that I could legitimately root for to win it all. These last two have upped that count to five. First Ingrid, then you."
He sighed. "If it's not clear by now, I consider the right person to win–the best person to win–someone who doesn't stab anybody in the back, who doesn't cheat, and can actually, you know, win a challenge without having it handed to them. Maybe that doesn't sound like a very high bar to clear, but almost everybody who makes it a reasonable distance in this game fails to clear it. I don't know why. Maybe honesty doesn't pay. Although, then again, in that Don spin-off Chris hates, it did pay decently since Don wasn't rewarding villains for being villainous. Anyway, my point is, you played the game well and you made it pretty far. You should be proud of yourself."
"Proud doesn't get me ten million dollars," I pointed out.
"Trust me," Chef said. "I've been on this show for a long time. People only get their money about half the time, and even when they do, I get the sense that it's not really worth it." He clapped me on the back. "I just wanted you to know that I'm proud of you, and I'm sure everybody you know who watches this show is going to be proud of you too. You did well, Wendy. Don't ever doubt that."
Chef turned around and went back into the boat's cabin. As I stared out on the wake again, I felt much better. All things considered, Chef was right. I played well, I did well, and even if I didn't win...well, I didn't have to cheat my way into the finale, and I didn't have to practically be placed there by Chris. I had a lot to be satisfied about.
So yeah. I suppose that even if I lost, I'm okay with it. After all, I did pretty well, and I didn't have to become a bad guy to do it. What more can you ask for?
