Goddamnit!
I'm not wearing underwear!
Now comes poetic language, tautology.
Oh, fuck!
There's no evidence that the timer has even been running.
Good evening, and welcome to following
how the top of the entertainment world showcase the sharpness of their thinking,
while performing surprisingly challenging tasks.
I evaluate them with all the objectivity of a dictator.
I am Jaakko Saariluoma, and this is Suurmestari.
Our regular contestants are Eero Ritala,
Pamela Tola,
Pirjo Lonka,
and Joonas Nordman.
Today, the always charming Johanna Puhakka will oppose them.
[actress, best known for her soap opera character Alissa Nikkinen]
The person on my left monitors all of the performances.
She is the official referee, Pilvi Hämäläinen.
Pilvi, what fun is in store?
A lot of talk, little action.
Big emotions and little smells.
At least it sounds promising.
Let's remind everyone what we are competing for today,
and at the same time, award the first points.
The prizes are the personal property of the contestants.
Today you asked them to bring in as a prize:
The best bad investment.
I haven't done any, myself. This will be interesting.
What did they bring?
Let's start with Joonas.
Joonas brought all the toys he had lovingly bought for his cat,
because it's no fun playing when the cat doesn't participate.
Pirjo brought a gym card, which has already gone unused for a year. [card: "Gym"]
Eero also brought a gym card, but it's the VIP version,
because the card has gone unused for three years.
Pamela brought an orchid she bought a year ago,
which was supposed to be a beautiful and showy flower.
Johanna brought a naughty robot vacuum cleaner.
Johanna, what makes this vacuum cleaner naughty?
- Well, the robot vacuum... - Remember, this is a family show.
Well, that's exactly why it's a "naughty" robot vacuum cleaner.
It has a small mustache under its belly,
and it always goes for the ankles like...
I always get spooked, and I'm like, "Naughty, naughty!"
It often gets lost, and it's jealous of the service dogs.
It's... pretty bad.
- You're still talking about the vacuum cleaner? - [Johanna] Yeah.
Interesting bad investments.
I'll score them like so:
Joonas, who wasted the most of his own money, because he bought the most, gets five points.
Pirjo gets three points, because the gym card has been unused for a year.
That money is gone!
Eero gets four points, because his gym card has not been used for even longer.
And Johanna and Pamela get two points.
- Okay, okay. - [Pamela] We'll move up from here.
The points account has been opened. Pamela, you are being condescending about those two points.
You're like, "Yeah, yeah..."
I just said, we'll move up from here. I'm pretty sure of it.
- You're a Phoenix, rising from the ashes. - Exactly!
- You're a person of big stories. - Yes!
Do you get extra points if you have a Phoenix tattooed on yourself?
- [Jaakko] It depends on where. - I can't show it, unfortunately!
Only the naughty vacuum cleaner knows.
- I guess I might have one too! - I also have a Phoenix tattoo, but can't show it.
I'll give you an extra point for a good attempt.
[Eero] Well well, the game has begun.
So! Is it time to kick things off,
watch how Pamela will rise fom the swamp,
and go to the mansion to watch the first task?
- Argh! Good day. - Good day.
"Produce speech without stopping."
"Your time starts in 30 seconds."
"The one who speaks the longest without a break wins."
The contestants' task was therefore to produce speech without a break
for as long as possible.
This is an interesting task, ingeniously designed, because here we'll dive into the subconscious.
- Who do we start with? - We'll start with Eero and Pamela.
Five. Time.
Once upon a time, there was a cat named Jaanin Bumbersdorf.
He went to visit the store, where there were large objects, one after another.
Clock, donkey and pawn, Hollola, cigarette, kanttu, fist.
[PAUSE:] Hallola - Finnish municipality kanttu(ra) - old and frail animal/person
When you breathe, is it a pause, or just a natural habit?
Why are you pressing it when I'm talking? You can't just put in stops.
The president is shit, so hit them with a baton.
This one thing happened once, when I went to the toilet, and a turd came out
and I made it into a cake. ["torttu" - "tart", also slang for "turd"]
Do I understand correctly that you pressed that button
because you got nervous and messed up?
Like, all on your own?
And I have to take a shower right away. Have to go, "Hey Grandma, hey Grandpa, can I go in the shower?"
My butt is drenched in sweat. "Yes, of course you can, my grandchild."
"First, take some candy. There's doughnuts, too."
My grandmother always bakes doughnuts.
It's starting to bother me that there's no other inspiration in this room other than that stopwatch.
Spoiler alert!
I'm not wearing underwear! Yes, I am.
I have to follow after you, and make estimates about which direction you'll go.
This will never end. You have created a monster task.
You crazy referee.
Now this is getting into aggressive territory.
Don't call anyone names. Be a positive yes man.
Now this is terribly obsessive,
and I'm just reflecting what I see here, and I see you.
You are terribly boring right now, both to myself and to others.
Give me the rights of a postman,
so I can deliver the mail to all of you.
You have a dog, and I also have a dog. That could be a good topic of discussion.
But on the other hand, it's also a boring topic of discussion, because a lot of people have dogs.
This whole thing is to starting to deteriorate for me,
and deteroriation is quite an interesting phenomenon in humans,
and in animals as well.
I won't start talking about...
The grill is open!
It's terribly awkward, those times whenever you ask someone for help,
and the other person doesn't step up. I get terribly disappointed by that.
Eero and Pamela, I don't know if I dare to ask you anything,
if you'll just start answering while following a longer formula.
Eero, you almost became aggressive there.
I did. It was there.
There was a lot of everything.
I have a hard time getting sleep. Falling asleep.
That monologue is the same one in my head, whenever I close my eyes and try to go to sleep.
Pamela, you didn't stop. Even though Pilvi had stopped timing.
There seemed to be some amount of interference.
[Jaakko] Here we go again.
I still don't understand why you kept pressing the stopwatch button.
I have a suggestion.
Eero can't sleep, and when listening to you, we fall asleep.
Could you arrange to meet in the evenings?
- Sure. - Yeah! We can talk without taking a break. - Yeah.
Pilvi, how can we go on from this?
Regarding Pamela and Eero's tasks, they will remain open for a while,
but that will be explained later.
Absolutely it will. We'll come back to this later.
And then, in addition, the performances of Johanna, Joonas, and Pirjo have not yet been seen.
But after such a flood of talking, a little break is needed.
See you after the break.
Welcome back. This is Suurmestari.
Before the break, we saw how Eero and Pamela talked non-stop.
We'll come back to that later.
We have not seen Joonas, Johanna, and Pirjo's floods of speech yet.
Which we will see now.
Three, two, one.
In the morning when I woke up, I made a smoothie.
I put in berries, bananas, blueberries, and oat milk in there.
I drank it. I felt good in my stomach. It felt nice. I also made coffee.
There were flowers on the table. The man who brought the flowers had his eyes wide open,
because he had a bow tie, and a cat was looking at the bow tie, and the cat was completely out of it,
and the cat kept staring at it, although it had no intention of getting one for itself, because it was a cat.
The bowtie on your neck looks very nice.
Yeah, there's a brown roof in here. It's probably varnished or waxed.
The walker walks, he can still go.
Run, run, run, run...
And the man runs, runs, runs, runs...
[gasps for air]
Runs, runs, runs...
And there are no stores or banks for you to rob.
There's no breaks.
And what else did I do? Accounting. Boring!
I did that. Then I called my mother, then my grandmother,
and Grandma said to call Grandpa. Then I called Grandpa, too.
What else did I do? Ummm... After breakfast I went for a walk.
Trees are not my area of expertise. Not much is.
When I've been doing this show, there's been a lot of things that aren't my area of expertise,
but it's good to come across them.
Rush, rush, rush, rush, to the store to buy [gasps] a bowtie,
but, but, but...
But, but, but.... You don't even have to look at me!
Now comes poetic language, tautology.
The form of a tanka poem means that sometimes you stutter like this.
[Pirjo stutters] [Japanese; 5-7-5-7-7 syllable structure]
Everything got wet. Underwear got wet, socks got wet. I got sick. Well, no I didn't.
Producing speech and counting in your head at the same time is not easy.
The cat went to the store... This is not the end!
I still have a lot of talking left in me!
The poem is only halfway done, and the bowtie is still strong on the cat's mind.
I went to the toilet, I showered, I washed my hair, dried it. It was a terrible show.
It took an incredibly long time, because my hair is so thick.
It's kind of a blessing, but also a curse.
Is that the end of it?
A lot of words came out.
180 performances? Seriously? [He seems to be referencing all non-studio task attempts over this season]
Maybe that really is true.
What? Did you stop the timer?
I'm starting to lose momentum, since I'm going insane, but the man keeps running, running, running...
Hihhihhahhah, huhhuh. The man says huh huh huu!
[Pirjo continues laughing nonsensically]
There will be laughter, too!
Why did you stop it?
Thank you, but I would have had a little more to say.
- [Pirjo] What the hell... - [Pamela] Yeah! She's interfering!
[Pirjo] But wait...
Oh, my.
Pirjo, what do you think about the content of your story?
Exactly. I didn't. I... I can't say anything. That was just...
I understood it as there must not be ANY breaks.
[Jaakko] You didn't have any.
I didn't have any, and that's why I'm asking, because I was about to pass out or die, because...
Is that why? Your oxygen became so low, that the same words started to repeat?
That wasn't forbidden!
No, it wasn't forbidden anywhere, but you weren't told to speak as fast as possible, either.
Well, then, I...
What were the results?
Johanna's time: 59 seconds.
Pirjo's time: 2 minutes 17 seconds.
And Joonas' time: 4 minutes 9 seconds.
I see! Interesting results. Only Johanna was less than a minute.
Then there is still Eero and Pamela.
The Ritala/Tola cases.
If you had three fields in life all to yourself,
[48 minutes later]
then three fields would be a good thing, because you could grow rye,
and then you could cultivate something variable, and something...
And there they go. They don't want to listen anymore. I understand.
You can go for coffee! No problem, Pilvi!
I never did get an answer to that,
what has been done to that stopwatch.
It continues to gnaw at me.
Anyone can be elected into the government.
...telling me that Santa Claus is a lie.
That's how the joy of childhood was taken away from me.
Maybe I'll just continue talking for a while.
My innocence and faith in all kinds of fairytale characters has been taken from me,
and actually, that's against all of my morals.
When playing football, you have to defend, you have to attack,
and sit down on the substitute's bench when it's time to sit on the bench,
because then you can't go play on the field.
And then you have to learn all the rules that there are in life to learn.
- [Joonas] Wow! Really. - [Pamela] Wow!
Did I... Did I see correctly that the crew...
That even the film crew couldn't take it anymore?
They couldn't, and I wouldn't have been able to either, but I had to stay to listen to Pamela.
And... well, Eero...
No. No.
Did we get a time for these performances?
They were... endless.
Then this is easy to score.
- Eero and Pamela, five points. - [Eero] Yes!
But didn't it interfere with your attempts?
Joonas and Pirjo, three points.
And Johanna, two points.
[Pamela] I have half a mind to ask about it.
- Does Lonka have some grumbles about this? - [Joonas] Yeah, it's unclear.
I was interrupted! I would have still kept going.
[Jaakko] You took too long a break.
[Pirjo] ME?!
- [Eero] You weren't interrupted. - But...
It was time, so I stopped.
- Why did you stop? Pamela didn't stop. - Right...
For all of them, I pressed the button several times. You yourself stopped.
Oh, now I understand! Yeah, yeah. I thought the time was up.
[Jaakko] But there was no time. "Speak as long as possible."
There was no deadline. Just "Speak as long as possible."
When you do this with a stopwatch, it could be a so-called bluff.
Pilvi, what is the overall score at this moment?
The one currently in charge is...
Eero!
[Jaakko] Congratulations, Eero. You get to enjoy this moment for once.
Yes! It's a wonderful feeling.
Now let's go back to the mansion to see the next task.
- Hi! - Hi.
Allora! [explained later]
"Make yourself a mustache that looks like a mustache from afar,
but it's not a real mustache."
"The best performance wins."
"You have ten minutes."
"Your time starts now."
So the task was to make a mustache that looks like a mustache from afar,
but is not a real mustache.
Right. How do we go about unpacking this task?
This time, we're not watching the contestants' process that closely,
so let's jump straight to the final results.
Let's start with Pamela's mustache.
Yeah, yeah. It passes.
Thank you, Pamela. That looked like a mustache.
- Right? Pirjo was glaring at me! - If we look at...
- [Pirjo] I was admiring! - [Jaakko] If we look at the picture...
[Jaakko] It looks like a mustache from afar.
Yes, exactly, from afar. The picture is from quite close.
- Yes, but from a distance, it looked like a mustache. - Right!
- It was bark, wasn't it? - Yeah.
It also looked like it's not the first time you've had a bark mustache.
It looked like you were used to wearing them.
It felt like it fit me really well.
Thank you for this. Who is next?
Next we'll see what Johanna's mustache looked like.
Oh, yeah.
- [Eero] Very good. - [Pamela] Yeah, pretty good.
Johanna, it also looked like a mustache from afar.
- Then you shaved it off for a bit and put it back on. - Yeah!
Wasn't it awesomely bushy?
You looked like you had a moth on your upper lip.
Can we still see the picture of the mustache?
[Jaakko] Yes, it passes.
- [Eero] You're imposing. - [Johanna] I was raised with love.
Definitely raised with love.
[Eero] Pablo Escobar.
- Nice mustache. - Thank you! Thank you.
- Who is next? - Joonas is next in line.
What?
Joonas...
Why did it look like you were just holding cardboard under your nose?
When officials think about things, they are often this way. "Hmmm...."
The twists and turns of bureaucracy.
Shall I call you Hercule Nordman now? [fictional detective Hercule Poirot, known for his mustache]
Joonas is good.
"Joonas is good."
Will we get to see this mustache one more time?
It seems like... that your effort,
how you got it to stay there... was pretty minimal.
It didn't say in the wording that my hand couldn't be here like this.
[Jaakko] No, it didn't.
It's imaginative, what can be seen behind that hand right now.
From a distance, it looks like a mustache.
- Thank you, Joonas. - Thank you.
A few mustaches have yet to be seen,
but let's first take a short break.
Welcome back. This is Suurmestari.
Before the break, we saw what kind of mustaches
Johanna, Pamela, and Joonas conjured up.
Pirjo and Eero's mustaches have yet to be seen.
- Let's continue by looking at Pirjo's performance. - Yes. Let's do so.
[Pamela] What?
Ooh la la!
Hey!
[Pamela] Jeez!
[Pamela] What is that thing, anyway?
Pirjo...
Pirjo, this would have been an excellent performance,
if the task had been to make a mustache that can be seen from a distance.
[He's referring to different conjugations of the verb used in the task]
I thought that the winner of the task would be...
that when you go out further and further, you could still see the mustache.
I thought, if you look at it from afar, that thing must be a mustache.
What else could it be?
Let's look at the picture.
We don't really need to do that.
[Jaakko] If someone actually manages to grow a mustache like that,
they can be seen from far away.
The mustache world championship would certainly have that kind of mustache.
I'm not going to try anymore!
- What does the Taskmaster have to say about that? - [Pirjo and Pamela talk]
You can't say anything about that.
I didn't know that the mustache world championship was a thing.
- Thank you, Pirjo. - You're welcome.
There is still Eero's performance left, but a small advance warning.
This next performance requires a little more concentration. From the viewers, as well.
Here comes Eero's performance.
I should do an illusion, using perspective.
- No! No! No... - What?
It means that if the camera is there,
then the mustache is placed at some distance away, on a stand...
And immediately, it was found.
But if you look from over there...
- That's twice the size of your head. - [Eero] Oh, still?
To make it look like a mustache from afar,
a second camera must capture the screen of the other camera.
Well! Hello, hello!
Look mom, I'm on television.
Now it's covering my whole head. No! It's too low!
Now it's my full head size! How is this going to work?
We need to get closer.
Big head.
How is my brain not working?
Then it just gets bigger...
Now I've done something stupid.
Closer.
Try to stay there.
Now I have a mega-mustache.
[Eero in task] It's focused.
Now my time is running out. Give it here again.
Then you have to film this.
[Eero] Done.
[Pilvi] Thank you, Eero.
[Joonas] Yes, they're in that picture...
[Jaakko] Eero, you decided to bet on an optical illusion.
Pilvi, remind us all of what an optical illusion is.
An optical illusion is an illusion that misleads the sense of sight.
In it, the brain interprets the information received by the eyes in such a way
that something seems impossible or untrue to the eye.
[Jaakko] Eero, did this materialize in your performance?
In a way it did. When we got the task,
in the beginning, I said "allora," which is Italian for "oh, well." ["no niin" has many contextual uses]
And that inspired me so much
that I set out to build this through magical realism,
like Federico Fellini back in the day. [Italian director, 1920-1993]
There was a Fellini-like magical realism here.
Your picture was so blurry that we couldn't get a decent still.
But your process was great, Eero, and the task thought out in a new way.
Thanks. Thank you so much.
I'm starting the scoring on what the mustache actually looked like
from the distance that we interpreted as far away.
- So, Pamela, five points. - [Pamela] Wow!
Pirjo, you get four points.
[Pamela] Wow.
That's not necessarily because the mustache was good looking,
but because it was fun.
Johanna, three points.
And Joonas, two points to the civil servant.
And...
Eero gets one point.
[Jaakko] Wait a minute, excuse me.
There was an optical illusion here. Three points for Eero.
Ooh!
[Johanna] Well, well, well!
Everyone solved this task as they saw fit.
Some were better than others. It showed in the points.
Let's go back to the mansion, and start the next task.
"Get the exercise ball into the kayak as quickly as possible."
"You need to stay dry throughout the whole attempt."
"The fastest performance wins."
"Your time starts now."
The task was to get the exercise ball into the kayak,
as quickly as possible, and without getting wet.
- Who do we start with? - Pamela, Eero, and Joonas.
Can I throw it? No.
I have turned into kind of a... tinkerer and craftsman.
- It's being built there. - He's not in any hurry.
Oh, it's actually shit. Well, that's nice.
[Pamela] Huh?
[Eero in task] Oh, goddamnit.
What?
Risks must be taken.
That would be really...
- [Pamela in task] Almost! - So close...
Everytime I throw, it sucks... Aah, no!
Come here, ball.
I don't know, listen, if this stays dry.
Now you're going to break your leg.
No! Don't fall...
Okay, bring that ball over here.
And then somehow...
Oh, fuck!
No!
Ah, fuck.
[Pamela] Where is the joy?
No!
Such a nice and easy-going craftsman.
Fuck! Who did this kayak setup?
No!
Get in there!
Whoahwhoah!
No!
- What on Earth?! - [Johanna] What a thriller!
Thank you.
Joonas Nordman, do you want to discuss your self-control?
Yes, even the civil servant's onion peels at some point.
And this was the culmination? This was what broke the camel's--
I started with genuine joy for once, that now...
[Pamela] With genuine joy?
I've been a bit uptight when I've been doing these tasks.
For once, I thought that now this will all work, and I was really proud,
but as everyone knows, pride goes before a fall.
It backfired a bit.
[There's some untranslatable wordplay here]
In the task, you were also uptight upfront.
Oh, yes. Full tension.
On the other hand, it was nice to let off some steam.
What were the results, Pilvi?
Pamela's time was 17 minutes 54 seconds.
Joonas, 10 minutes 11 seconds.
And Eero, 6 minutes 25 seconds.
At this point, we have to go on break.
After the break, we'll see a few more performances.
Welcome back.
Before we went on break, we saw how the competitors tried to get
a ball into a kayak without getting wet.
The performances of Pirjo and Johanna have not yet been seen.
[Pilvi] Both of which come now.
And I have to stay dry, so I can't just go out there.
What?
Hold that. I'll go see if I can find something long in the shed.
[Pamela] She's going camping somewhere!
There was something like that in there?
But can I get wet here if I need to go pick it up?
Hey...
Ah ah ah! Don't go that far!
Have fun.
I feel like just throwing it in there already.
Could I, Pilvi, have that paddle? This is such a farce.
Damn ball.
Give me the ball! Meaning, give me the ball.
Great! This is a quick operation.
Duzaa!
- Where did you find those? - The shed! In the shed!
I have to get the ball into the kayak, but I must not get wet.
Hey... Hey! Hey! Hey! Lightbulb!
Can I pull the kayak ashore and put it here?
[Johanna in task] Or what?
Goddamnit!
I'm technically on land now.
It's only a bit like getting wet.
You've finished.
Thank you.
All done.
Johanna, I have so many questions for you, and none at the same time.
- But... - Can you expand on your logic a bit here?
The logic was that I couldn't get wet, but I still had to get the ball,
so I thought it would sort of start over from "the beginning."
You stood in water up to your waist, and said that you couldn't get wet during this task.
A lot of everything happened in it.
I'm sorry, confusion abounded, but...
I went to get it, and thought it would all be reset when I got back on shore.
[Jaakko] You were technically on land, but you were already wet.
You were already next to the kayak.
With that logic, you could have just put the ball in the kayak,
but you pulled the kayak ashore.
Yeah! Yeah, it's like starting over...
Thanks to both of you.
Oh, no.
What were... What were their times?
Johanna's time was 7 minutes 14 seconds,
and Pirjo's time was 4 minutes 2 seconds.
[Pamela] Good job, Pirjo!
The points are based on their times.
Pirjo, five points.
Eero, four points.
Joonas, three points.
Pamela, two points.
and Johanna, even though you got wet, because it was so terribly cold,
you get one point.
It's customary for me to deduct points for swearing,
but Joonas's behaviour was so fun that I also gave an extra point for it.
But now!
Pilvi, what's the score? Who is leading?
The one who is currently in the lead is...
Eero!
Don't be discouraged. Pamela, Joonas, Pirjo, Johanna.
The victory of the episode is still within your reach.
It's time for the final task. Get ready.
Pilvi, remind me what I came up with for the final task.
The final task today requires attentiveness.
Concentration must not falter for one moment.
Johanna, read the letter out loud.
"Follow the Taskmaster's instructions."
"The one who follows most closely wins."
The task is to follow the instructions of the Taskmaster,
which are related to the items in front of the contestants, and also their pockets.
Contestants, are you ready?
Each instruction comes only once. Let's get started.
Put the duck in the left side pocket.
Put the onion in the right breast pocket.
Take the pencil in your right hand.
Put the ping pong ball in the left breast pocket.
Put the keys in the right side pocket.
Change the places of the left side pocket item and the object in the right hand with each other.
Swap the items in the breast pockets.
Return the item in the right side pocket to the table.
Take the item from the left side pocket in your left hand.
Spin around clockwise.
Put the object in the left hand into your mouth.
Put the item in the right side pocket into the left side pocket.
Put the object on the table in the right side pocket.
[Johanna] What?
Switch the position of the yellowest and whitest objects.
[Johanna] What the hell?
Put the object in the mouth in the left side pocket...
and change the contents of the left pockets with the corresponding contents on the right side.
- Oh, whaaaaaaaat? - [Pirjo] Wait, left side...?
Good. They should be ready now. Pilvi, how should the objects be?
If the competitor has acted according to the Taskmaster's rules,
the competitor's left hand should be empty.
Eero, Joonas, and Pirjo's are.
The competitor should have a ping pong ball in their right hand.
Joonas and Eero do.
There should be a duck in the left breast pocket.
Doesn't anyone have it?
There should be an onion in the right breast pocket.
- [Jaakko] Pirjo, you seem elated. - Because...
There should be keys in the left side pocket.
Joonas and Eero have them.
Stop it!
And finally, the right side pocket.
There should be a pencil.
[Pamela] In the side pocket, huh?
Gravity has just lifted it up!
Thank you, contestants.
Thank you, dear contestants. Was it hard, Pamela?
It was really difficult.
Maybe this right, left, side pocket, thigh, chest...
It was hard to figure out.
Whoever succeeded the best gets five points,
and the least spectacularly successful gets the fewest points.
Eero, five points.
Joonas, four points.
Pirjo, two points.
Johanna, one point.
And Pamela, no points.
[Pirjo] How much was right?
Nothing was right.
But there was...
If you are able to perform, where you have to change things around a bit,
and you still can't get anything right, you have to get one point.
- Yaaaaaaay! Thank you. - You're welcome.
But now the big, big question is in the air: who won the episode?
After all of the tasks,
the most points were gathered by...
Who is it? Who is it? Who is it?
- [Pilvi] Well, it's Eero! - [Eero] Yes!
[Jaakko] Congratulations, Eero. Go enjoy your items.
Thank you, contestants. Thank you, Johanna Puhakka!
And thank you, all viewers. This was Suurmestari.
Translation by zadorvp Proofreading and sync by u/chequedummy
Original Finnish subs: Tanja Piirainen Iyuno
[Pirjo] This is a cat's toy, Joonas?