Right now we are not at the Loud House or in Royal Woods but rather the larger Great Lake City in the Casagrande apartment building; inside the apartment where Bobby & Lori Santiago called home. This time along with their guests; the Loud & Casagrande families were all together.
"One episode to go and Gwen better be winning this time! All of us were so certain of the result last time but this time... Let's hope..." Ronnie Anne was telling them and they all nodded.
"Plus Linky will be coming home!" squeled Leni with the others sharing in the excitement.
"As exciting as it has been to watch Lincoln be famous on a popular reality TV competition; we will just be glad to have our boy home safe and sound!" Rita said holding her husband's hand as hhe had her father and stepmother nod with her.
"Indeed... A mixed bag but I have accepted that he found love outside of our dear Ronalda and the dangers he was in and in the influence of the Courtney girl... Hope she won't be like that when they enter that race next year!" Rosa said with them grinning at the reminder.
"I will definitely be excited to join in this time and have Lola with me as a team ourselves! Rita said with Lola smirking at the thought of winning it.
"Don't forget us! Hope there are no hard feelings with us comepting against eachother!" Luna said sharing a high five with Sam and then Rita nodded.
"Indeed from our end and I have found studies about competing in around the world competitions!" Carlos then said smiling with his wife Frida.
"Finally getting to travel the world!" Maria said with tears of joy as she had her children come up to embrace her.
"Go Dad and Tia Maria!" cheered CJ, Carlota & Carlitos as the Louds smiled at the display.
"I will be sure to have shirts ready to show support and hopefully they will be able to be sold better than the Gwen and Dawn teams ones since they turned out to be too late..." Hector said sharing a look with Carl as Rosa sighed at them and there was Sergio looking in to share the look.
"Here it comes..." Albert said as they got ready in their seats with their snacks for this finale starting to air...
There was Sammy standing inside the food tent as Gwen and Brady tucked into their fast food pizza breakfast; "16 teens have dwindled down and now they are only 2. Only 1 will remain after today and be going home with a million dollar cash prize! Will it be Brady the heartthrob Killer Grip or will it be Gwen the goth artist and ex-loner Screaming Gaffer? We will have our answer in this exciting season finale to..." Sammy said and her smile froze as she motioned her head towards thet able where Gwen and Brady were eating. She kept motioning until they noticed.
"Was this supposed to have them join in announcing the show's title... Did they even practice?" Lori asked as they found this amusing with what Sammy was doing.
"Oh... Total..." Brady said sitting up straight as Gwen laughed amused.
"Drama..." Gwen then said as Sammy put her arms up.
"Action!" all 3 said at once.
They all giggled but then started cheering.
The opening is shown.
One last time they all singed along.
Outside the cabins there were stools with Brady and Gwen sitting down as Sammy was standing in front of them with a monitor.
"Brady... Hey... Good luck!" Gwen told Brady with a smile as he straightened up and smiled at her.
"Good luck to you as well Gwen." Brady replied as Sammy faced her.
"Good sportsmanship from them... Glad that the finalists for this are like this unlike certain other teens since you know how they can be in these kind of shows..." Rita said and they all agreed though most of them on this show were quite cool and wanting to be friendly outside the game... Most...
"Brady, Gwen... Congratulations to you both!" Sammy said with a smile as she then gave an applause. "Before I explain today's challenge; I want to show you some messages recorded from the eliminated contestants on this season." Sammy then said as they watched intently.
The looked intently to see how what they are like; especially the one from Lincoln.
There was Lincoln smiling in the at the camera with his eyes showing; "My eyes have healed and it feels a bit weird after the days spent with the eyepatch... Rooting for you Gwen!" Lincoln said excitedly.
"Lincoln looked cool with it and he could have had a game of pirates with me when he came back..." CJ sighed and they smiled and giggled at that.
"Well he did end up looking cool and I think he ended up making it work and it got him fangirls... More than he already had..." laughed Ronnie Anne.
"Just glad that his eye is alright now." Lynn Sr said and Rita and the Loud grandparents nodded with him.
"Come on Gwen and I hope we will be on better terms next time that we meet; maybe even be good friends." Courtney said with a smile.
"So surprised that she turned around after all that she pulled and had Lincoln go along with it..." Frida admitted with others nodding.
"Well she did apologise, realise that she was taking it too far and it seemed that Dawn was right that she did consider Lincoln a friend." Luna pointed out and even the ones who disliked Courtney the most out of them all had to agree.
"Will give you both this; you managed to beat what the game through at you longer than I did." MK admitted.
"The thief is taking it well..." Lana said and they glared thinking about how MK got Dawn eliminated and what indirectly happened because of her. Plus her stealing from the other contestants.
Topher just glared at the screen before leaving.
They all just laughed; "I will give Chris this... He played Topher like a fiddle with that Sammy pretending to be a producer scheme..." Lynn Jr said and they all nodded.
"What a season and you both deserve props for surviving it all." DJ said with a smile.
"Truer words never spoken and I think we deserve some 'props' as they say for surviving even watching it..." Albert joked and they all laughed.
"This was fun and glad to meet all sorts of cool people that I saw from the first season and that includes you Gwen and cool new people and that includes you Brady..." Sid said with hearts in her eyes.
Ronnie Anne grinned and put a thumbs up to the screen as they all smiled at it. "Still remember how the Changs took the episode where she was eliminated..." Carlota sighed and they frowned at the reminder.
"I would have killed that sports movie challenge is all that I will say..." Lightning said.
They could tell; "Still can't believe we forgot about that 'rivalry' he had put forth against Lincoln." Sam said they all looked on in agreement.
"Good luck to you both and glad I could meet almost everyone here..." Zoey said excitedly.
They all smiled at this; "Falling off the radar and making a big splash with that alien movie challenge..." pointed out Luan and they all smiled at the memory.
"Whoever wins will definitely deserve it but I gave my pick..." Bridgette said.
They remembered about that in the previous Aftermath episode.
"Yo-yo-yo... From 1 Champion to the 2 potential Champions... Get ready to rock the lifestyle..." Ezekiel said.
"Will our brains ever accept that it happened..." Maria Lisa decided to ask and they all shook their heads; even the ones most accepting hadn't really fully accepted it.
"May the Earth Mother give you both the best chances!" Dawn said with a smile.
Big smiles from the Dawn fans; "Lincoln had better have us meet her in person one day and same with Gwen." Lori said with big nods from them all.
"Say your peace so that we can leave Lauren..." MacArthur told a handcuffed Lauren.
"Can't the nightmare of the existence of this monster please just leave our brains..." Lucy pleaded as they gulped.
"Wait... Wasn't that her parole officer from the first episode?" Maria asked and they all recognised her as that.
"I enjoyed my time on the show and I hope whoever loses this challenge screams loudly..." smiled Lauren.
They just stared silently.
Max just laughed maniacally before saying "good luck to you both..."
"Forgot he existed again..." Lisa said glaring at the screen for the so called 'genius' and they looked on in agreement.
"The artefacts that foretell future sees big things for the winner!" Leonard said.
"I forgot he existed as well and I was much happier having forgotten..." Lynn Jr said and they just sighed at the screen.
They smiled and Sammy said "now a message from the previous host in his hospital bed." The finalists both frowned at this.
"Should be fun seeing him all hurt..." Lori said as they were surprised at this; normally they would be unhappy if it was Chris out of the hospital fully healed but if he was still recovering.
The screen showed a bandaged up badly hurt Chris in his hospital bed; "Final 2... Good job you 2 and I see that Sammy made changes to my challenges... Not thrilled but should be exciting..." Chris smiled at the camera before yelling in pain. "It especially hurts in the crotch, double as much when I pee... Kristal; you didn't want siblings, did you?" Chris asked looking off camera.
They bursted into laughter at this.
"Dad! This is embarrassing enough for you so please don't drag me into this! Wait; they are cutting this bit off... Right?" retorted a young woman's voice.
This continued; "Can't say I have much sympathy for Chris... More for this daughter of his and what kind of parenting she would have experienced from him..." Frida said and they all nodded.
The two finalists laughed at this display; "One more thing; your last confessional to give some final thoughts." Sammy then told them.
They wondered what they would have to say.
"I want to dedicate this all once again to Beth!" Brady said in the confessional.
"Once again focusing on his girlfriend; she must be a lucky girl to have a devoted boyfriend." Lana ended up saying and they agreed with Carlota hoping that she would find such a boyfriend herself.
"One last thing to say in here... I ended up liking a lot of things like I enjoyed some challenges and I met some people who ended up cooler and better than I expected like my boyfriend and his other girlfriend... But to everything else like the food, the majority of the challenges, some other people and especially Chris and Chef... I just have 1 thing directed to them..." Gwen said in the confessional before smirking and giving a double middle finger that was censored by the camera.
There were blinks, silent stares and open mouths at this and Carlos and Frida wondered about covering their children's eyes.
Suddenly some including Ronnie Anne, Lynn Jr, Sam, Luna, Luan & Sergio started laughing and children while the older adults just sighed looking disappointed.
"Lincoln; two better not break up ever..." Ronnie Anne ended up saying.
"What did Gwen do?" Lily asked and there were awkward looks and the Loud parents looked around.
"Don't look at us; explaining that to her should be yours' job." Hector said with his arms folded as the Loud parents just sighed.
"Now onto the last movie genre of the season... Post apocalyptic road movies!" Sammy then said as Brady looked concerned and Gwen looked suspicious.
They blinked and were excited.
"I am now terrified of the thought of what if Chris had continued on to the host and had mostly control of this challenge." Rita said and they gulped in horror at the idea.
"You mean the ones they were drive around the barren deserts where everyone drives in massive stupidly impractical vehicles and you have to wonder if resources weren't so few if they didn't waste a lot of junk making them like that?" Gwen ended up asking and Sammy nodded.
"Never thought about them like that but they are still cool..." Lynn Sr said with nods around him.
"Indeed so... Chris had a spiked uniform for me with revealing clothing but I now have the power to veto it! Now offscreen you are going to help use the junk provided to you transform your provided karts into cool vehicles!" Sammy said as they were interested. "Now while you are doing that I will be setting up the finishing line for the actual challenge which will be explained to you by our special guests for this episode... The winners of the last season of the Ridonculous Race; Jay & Mickey: the Adversity Twins!" Sammy said clapping as in came 2 young teens with brown hair and wearing hooded jumpers; one with a dark blue jumper and the other with a light blue one and protective headgear.
"...Wow it's like the universe looked me saying that Homeschool was the most unlikely Reality TV contest winner and was like 'hold my beer'..." Ronnie Anne said as they were just speechless.
"They won a race around the world?" Bobby asked in disbelief.
"Winning the show should be much easier than I thought..." Lola said to herself grinning.
They looked scared about coming there as Gwen had her eyes widened; "I bet that the million dollars that they won helped pay for some medical stuff..." Brady told Gwen who just fell sorry for them as they fell and Sammy picked them up.
Some giggles at this but a frown from Maria as she worked as a nurse.
"Hello finalists... You went through a lot to get here just like we both did... Travelling around the world and being the last team and ended up winning the million dollars..." Jay said with Mickey nodding.
"I should check out the last season to see how exactly they accomplished that..." Lynn Jr said with others nodding.
"We didn't expect to get very far but we persevered and faced through adversity which I think you both did with the challenges!" Mickey said nodding with his twin.
"Shouldn't be too surprised that you won your season of your show considering who actually won the first season of this one..." Gwen ended up saying.
"It's like Gwen and I have a hive mind..." Ronnie Anne laughed as others nodded.
At the starting line Gwen had her kart painted black with a fake skull decoration at the hood with Brady having his done up like a muscle car. They smiled at each other's cart and there was Jay & Mickey with the flag. "Okay... When the flag is waved; you both will be racing through with obstacles designed after previous challenges off the show and you will have to get off at the entrance to the awards ceremony theatre." Jay finished.
"Then on foot you have to race to the stage and first to join Sammy at the podium on stage wins it all!" Mickey continued as they got themselves ready. Jay and Mickey then waved the flag and ran off as both karts went off.
They just held their breaths to watch this play out and then started cheering for Gwen.
They were in pace but ended up steering in different directiosn to get around the giant monster animatronic that was fixed up and staying on the spot. Then they went around the standees of a thug and an elderly woman to represent the 2nd challenge.
Brady ended up getting the lead but they both ended up slowing down as there was sand on the track to make it like a beach before they left and Gwen caught up and got to the lead. Then there was standees of cowboys on the road and they struggled to navigate around them as they were all in different areas around the track.
Then they went through a tunnel with chains hanging from the ceilings as from the inside were tally marks and graffiti as if it was prison walls. Gwen caught up again as they had to dodge prison guard standees.
Then they went through a model of a bank with Brady managing to take the lead but a piece of the model hit him in the head slowing him down enough for Gwen to catch up and overtake him but Brady pushed his pedal to take his lead again. However then there was realistic standees of zombies and they had to navigate through them all.
Then they drove onto a podium that started shaking them as if an earthquake was happening but they drove off and had to navigate through cannons being fired from the sides as if it was a warzone. Then there was alien standees to navigate through that was oozing slime. Then navigate through standees of supervillains.
Brady managed to take the lead as they navigated through standees of pirates and then paparazzi. However there was standees of sports players with baseballs being shot from each direction and it ended up with one hitting him in the head and he was spiralling in circles from it.
"It's like a tour of the different challenges..." Myrtle said as they gulped as the leads had changed several times in the race.
Gwen managed to reach the entrance of the theatre first and got out and was follwoed by Brady as they then began running. Gwen was up first but followed closely by Brady as all previous Total Drama contestants were in their seats anxiously...
They both got to the stage steps as...
They gulped and held their breaths...
"The winner... Is... GWEN! GWEN WINS TOTAL DRAMA ACTION!" Sammy said as Gwen reached Sammy first and had her arm lifted in the air and Gwen was open mouthed as most of the contestants were cheering her on.
They started bursting out of their seats cheering in excitement.
"I won? I WON!" Gwen screamed with joy as the contestants all came up to the stage to congratulate her. She shared a kiss with Lincoln and an embrace as she looked to Brady. "Bad luck Brady..." Gwen said as a girl with glasses came onto stage.
"That's what I am talking about... Who is that?" Ronnie Anne asked as they looked at the girl.
"Sorry you didn't win Brady..." said the girl as Brady embraced her and kissed her.
"I did my best and just knowing that you came here for support in the finale is worth it Beth my dear!" Brady said as they took this in.
"That's your girlfriend..." Sid asked humphing with her arms folded.
"Not what I expected but don't judge someone by the looks and it must means that the model's taste isn't shallow..." Carlota said and they looked at the couple and smiled and some giggled at Sid's reaction.
"Now let me present to you Gwen the final Golden... SAMMY?" Sammy said taking a from a box to her surprise a real golden statue of Sammy this time like an award's statue. Sammy looked and saw some production staff who smiled and put their thumbs up at her. "Well here you go Gwen..." Sammy said with a smile as Gwen accepted it with the constestants calling for a speech.
"Wow... What a nice surprise for her... She totes deserves it..." Leni said and they smiled even harder at this.
"Probably was a real Golden Chris that they melted down to make that..." Lori said and they all thought that it was probably true.
"Well... If you insist... Wasn't up for it much at first and glad to meet my friends and boyfriend so I want to thank my brother for daring me to audition for this stupid show in the first place! Also my parents as well... Plus all of you and especially you Lincoln!" Gwen said taking Lincoln closer for another embrace.
Big smiles from everyone and squeals from the Loud sisters.
"Now the ultimate prize Gwen... One million dollars in cash..." Sammy said taking the suitcase and opening it to reveal the bills much to Gwen's shock as Sammy closed it again. Gwen accepted as most cheered her on.
They looked on in awe; "At least it is being claimed by someone deserving this time..." Lynn Jr managed to mutter out.
"I am going to soon have my own case with that money..." Lola whispered to herself as Lisa didn't find it worth bothering to point out the Canadian-US conversion rate again.
"Should have plenty left over after I set aside my college tutition... Could treat some people out..." Gwen said and eyed certain people in the contestants.
"You deserve it Gwen!" Zoey and Bridgette said with others giving a thumbs up.
"So that's us done for now? We can go home before our contracts drags us back to this show?" Gwen asked and Sammy nodded causing Gwen to sigh in relief.
"The answer is yes if I am supposed to have any faith in humanity or in the universe again..." Rita pleaded and they were hopeful and then they all sighed in relief.
"Well Gwen; I am needing of a partner for the Ridonculous Race early next year and my boyfriend and my sister are unavailable..." Dawn offered as Gwen was taken aback but thought it over.
"Kind of wish that I took the chance to make a case to be your partner Mum..." Ronnie Anne joked and they thought that this would be exciting news and wondered if she would accept...
"You know what... Why not? Different host throughout it all and while competing we can keep an eye on Lincoln together and make sure that his teammate stays a teammate and not his boss..." Gwen ended up saying as Gwen smiled in delight as Gwen looked to Courtney who sighed with her arms folded.
They cheered and laughed.
"Very funny Gwen..." Courtney said rolling her eyes but ended up having a good natured look on her face while Lincoln giggled.
"Well she is taking it in good humour..." Carlos pointed out as they just giggled some more.
"That's all we have time for today but I want to thank all of you viewing crowd for making both seasons of Total Drama a rounding sucess! I'm Sammy and this is Total... Drama..." Sammy told the camera as they all faced it together.
"Action!" they all yelled at once.
They all took a moment to take a deep breath. "What a season and two..." Lynn Sr then said and they all nodded.
"Soon Lincoln will be back home and we can spend time with him again..." Luan cheered and the Louds all smiled at this.
"Plus Lincoln can see his new fame first hand..." teased Lori and they laughed.
"Both of my best friends back..." Ronnie Anne smiled and they took a moment to take all this excitement in.
Writing all this I was reminded of my struggle with large ensemble casts in stories and why I just had the Louds reacting for the season... Sigh... Plus I was anticipating getting to my favourite TDA 'season' if you call it that and it's the one with 18 separate teams... I hate making things easy for myself in this story universe; don't I?