Caleb, Julia, and Wayne face off in the final challenge with the help of their former teammates and fellow competitors, and after a grueling cart pull up a mountain, a tightrope walk across a gorge, and a flying squirrel glider suit flight back to the docks, a winner is finally crowned and the million dollars is won!
Tropes:
- Back for the Finale: Every eliminated contestant comes back, and beforehand they were asked to choose the finalist they wanted to help in the final challenge, with the eliminated contestants playing a bigger role than they usually do in most season finales of Total Drama.
- Bad Hair Day: Julia manages to circumvent the curse of someone going bald each season, but she's left with a horrible mullet.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- Chris allows all the eliminated campers to pick whose team they want to be on for the final challenge themselves. This initially seems like Julia is at a major disadvantage since only MK volunteered to join her team. However, Chris reveals the first part of the challenge is the finalist pulling a wagon up a hill, with each of their teammates needing to stay in the wagon while they pull it. This suddenly puts Wayne and Caleb at a disadvantage due to their large teams.
- When the raptor bites off Julia's hair, at first one may think that she had just become bald, as it had previously happened to other characters in the franchise, but because Breaking Old Trends is in play, while the raptor bites off a good chunk of her hair, she just gets away with a much shorter hairstyle. Likewise, Chef can't believe that they could show it on TV, hinting that she might've been scalped, turns out it was referring to her unflattering mullet.
- Breaking Old Trends: It seems Julia would continue the show's trend of Bald of Evil as a part of the main antagonist's Laser-Guided Karma. While she does end up receiving a Traumatic Haircut, she still retains a shorter hairstyle, not going completely bald.
- Call-Back: Julia mentions that one of the things she wants to do with the money is start a podcast with MK, alluding to MK stating that they should start one back in Fun Fight at the O'Cake Corral.
- Camera Abuse: Zee's soda accidentally damages the camera in the confessional while Wayne and his team are celebrating his win.
- Captain Obvious: Raj's advice for Wayne while crossing the balance rope? Don't fall, because falling is bad.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Julia, despite having cheated and manipulated her way into the finale, loses to Wayne, who dedicated himself to playing fair and square.
- Childhood Brain Damage: Wayne is mentioned to have a horseshoe wedged deeply in his butt that is touching his brain, implying this.
- Clueless Aesop: Wayne winning is supposed to send the message Cheaters Never Prosper due to beating out Julia who had cheated all season and overtaking Julia and Caleb who spent the whole final leg trying to sabotage each other. While indeed Wayne never supported the frequent cheating, being on the same team as Julia he did benefit from the frequent cheating that shielded him from the elimination and never outed Julia as working alongside MK, who at least was outed for cheating. While he personally can be forgiven for this by just being that stupid for it to never occur to him, narrative wise it still makes him an Accomplice by Inaction who benefited from the cheating.
- Crazy Enough to Work: Upon seeing how much behind he is compared to Caleb and Julia, Wayne decides that the only way he can win is through... BAD ideas with using his glide suit for a free fall to the endpoint, which wins him the million.
- Dark Horse Victory: Absolutely no one was expecting Wayne of all people to reach the finale, much less win the entire season, but sure enough, despite even his own teammates having their own doubts at first and trailing behind for most of the final challenge, he manages to take home the crown and the million dollars by barely outpacing Caleb and Julia in an explosive victory.
- Delicious Distraction: Wayne ends up getting distracted by the pizza and ice cream left on the road as obstacles, and Zee and Raj also get distracted.
- Description Cut: After Caleb's teammates make it clear that they care more about making sure Julia loses than they do about him possibly winning, Priya assures him that she's sure Wayne's teammates feel the same way. It immediately cuts to Wayne with his volunteered teammates, half of which include Axel, Chase, and Ripper, along with Julia's Arch-Enemy Bowie, with all of them chanting Wayne's name in support.
- Disposable Intern: The episode opens with a lion chewing on a camera with some shoes and an intern's hat nearby. Subverted as the intern the hat belongs to is shown to be fine when she’s carrying the canoe full of money later.
- Enemy Rising Behind: Scary Girl is not on the boat with the other eliminated players, nor does she join a team. She appears suddenly behind MK when Julia makes it to the tightrope.
- Epic Fail: Millie's attempt at aiding Priya in hindering Julia amounts to this when the shirt she shoots bounces off the cliff and hits her instead.Millie: I'm hit.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Downplayed. While he technically isn't disliked, per-se, Caleb's team reveals that he is this, as no one particularly cares about him (except for his girlfriend Priya), they just want Julia to lose and think he is more likely to beat Julia than Wayne is.
- Graceful Loser: Compared to Julia, Caleb actually takes losing to Wayne pretty well, only being concerned whether he’s still a good enough boyfriend for Priya before immediately shrugging off the loss when Priya kisses him.
- Hated by All: Julia has become this to everyone but MK. Nobody but MK volunteers to be on her team, with the two sitting awkwardly in the confessional together. Later, when Julia insists to MK that she is popular, the camera just pulls back emphasizing the empty confessional.
- Hidden Depths: In spite of being a Dumb Blonde, Wayne figures out a way to land faster.
- History Repeats:
- Like in several seasons of the show, the final three consists of the main antagonist, the equally capable protagonist, and a goofy underdog. Just like in the original Island, the underdog is made out to be the canonical winner.
- Like Heather, Julia gets her comeuppance for her cheating, overall terrible behavior, and vanity by getting her hair mutilated.
- Idiot Ball: MK giving her t-shirt cannon to Scary Girl despite being well-aware of her Team Killer tendencies. Even she admits it was a bad idea both in hindsight and at the moment.
- Irony: In the first episode, Julia talks about how she wanted to make Bowie ugly cry on international TV. After the raptor she insulted in season 1 bites a good amount of her hair off, she is left a sobbing mess.
- Jerkass Ball: The people on Caleb's team, minus Caleb himself, and to a lesser extent Priya, all go from relatively cooperative and friendly people to straight up admitting they don't care about him and that they just want to see Julia suffer and/or lose. This is only directed at him, however, as they are still friendly with Wayne. Particularly Nichelle, while she was a prima donna she was never really rude to her teammates, here she straight up says that she doesn't care what happens to Caleb and even mocks him when he feels nervous on the tightrope.
- Kick the Dog: A mostly unintentional example: Caleb's team isn't very supportive of him and just wants him to stop Julia from winning, when he says he's happy they picked him, they say they don't care about him and shout loudly that they are basically team "Not Julia" instead of team Caleb. It's not really malicious, but it greatly affects Caleb's performance during the challenge.
- Kissing In A Tree: Scary Girl uses the classic playground rhyme's tune to poke fun at Caleb and Julia falling through tree branches (and losing their gliding suits).Scary Girl: Caleb and Julia crashing through a tree! Wah! Crack! Thud! Pain! Ouchie, ouchie!
- Knuckle Cracking: Wayne briefly cracks his shoulders right before the challenge begins.
- It Amused Me: Why did MK shoot Zee with the t-shirt cannon despite not being in the game? He was there and she could.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Julia gets her comeuppance for her cheating and overall terrible behavior and vanity throughout two seasons as she not only blows another opportunity to win a million dollars again but she also gets her hair turned into a mullet by the very raptor she insulted for it’s appearance.
- Loved by All: Wayne's good-hearted and friendly yet goofy nature has made him so popular with the other contestants by this point that even the members of Caleb's team can't bring themselves to shoot him and only support Caleb due to either being closer to him or thinking he has a better shot of beating Julia than Wayne does, rather than any dislike of Wayne personally.
- Megaton Punch: After losing most of her hair to the raptor, Julia punches it into the canyon wall.
- The One Guy: Damien is the only male helper on Caleb's team.
- Only Friend: MK is unsurprisingly the only person who volunteers to be on Julia's team.
- Only Sane Man: Bowie ends being the one who tries to keep Wayne and the rest of their team focused on the race, which he does by acting like a hockey coach.
- Scare the Dog: Scary Girl falls into the water and inadvertently saves Caleb by hissing at the predators approaching him. A grizzly bear, a crocodile, a dire goose, and the raptor all clutch each other and flee from her.
- Sequel Hook: Chris closes out the episode, and by extension the season, by sneaking in an announcement for another season.Chris: There you have it! Another wonderful season filled with pain and misery. But no matter how hard we try, it always ends with someone happy. Well, hopefully we can change that on the next season of... Total... Drama... Island!
- Share the Male Pain: Most of the other campers wince when Wayne lands crotch-first on the tightrope.
- Sidetracked by the Analogy: When Wayne says records get broken all the time, Bowie points out bones also get broken all the time. Raj decides to add that candy canes also break too easily, making Bowie openly wonder what he's talking about.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: Scary Girl goes back to wearing her original outfit, representing that she gave up on trying to be normal.
- The Smurfette Principle: Axel ends up as the only female on Wayne's team.
- Stealth Insult: After Wayne wins the money, Raj says how Wayne is going to buy their hockey team a new bus and put some aside for college. Chef suggests just buying two buses. Wayne is smart enough to recognize how that sounds like an insult, but at the same time thinks it's a great idea too.
- That Came Out Wrong: When Caleb says he will give one dollar each to a million charities, he realizes what he said would make him seem cheap.
- Token White: Similarly to the start of the season, Emma is the only white person on Caleb's team.
- Traumatic Haircut: The raptor ends up ripping off most of Julia's hair, leaving her with a hideous mullet.
- Underdogs Always Win: Out of the three finalists, no one in-universe really expected Book Dumb and gullible Wayne to win against Caleb and Julia, two contestants that are both very physically and mentally competent, but in spite of all adversities, Wayne ends up winning the season.
- Visual Pun: When Wayne lands on his kiwis, a nearby squirrel crushes a nut in horror.
- We Win, Because You Didn't: Caleb's team consists of the campers eliminated by Julia (minus MK and Bowie, but also Millie), who, in turn, just want to see Julia lose. Ultimately, Caleb and Julia both lose, and they're satisfied with that.
- Wild Card: Scary Girl is prohibited by Chris to join any team due to her sadistic and chaotic tendencies. This doesn't stop her from joining in at hindering the finalists during the rope-crossing challenge.
- With Friends Like These...: Raj decides to shoot Wayne with the t-shirt cannon, first to make him fall off the rope and again while he's on the water since he thought Wayne would like them as souvenirs. Luckily he's right and Wayne doesn't mind the hindering.
- Your Makeup Is Running: Julia's make-up ends up like this while in the confessional while MK tries to cheer her up after the loss of her hair.
- Your Mom: In a rare friendly version of this, after Raj absent-mindedly shoots Wayne off the tightrope due to wanting to give him a free t-shirt, he shoots him another one while shouting it's for his mom. Wayne actually thanks Raj for this, liking the t-shirts.
