"America's Toughest Jobs" - October 25, 2008 episode - season finale

The finale consists of three jobs that the contestants have done before. In each round, one person will be eliminated until there is only one person remaining.


The first elimination round takes them back to San Angelo, Texas and bull fighting.

But first, each of the four finalists (Ben, Steven, Sandy and Michaela) are told that each of them has won a brand new 2009 Dodge RAM 1500 for making it to the finals.


Each contestant will have 90 seconds in which to grab a ribbon that's attached to the head of a bull. Each person will go alone so that the others can't see how they did.

Steven is up first, and he gets hit a lot, but he finally manages to grab the ribbon after 1:11.

Ben is up next, and he does a fabulous job, getting the ribbon off after only 12 seconds.

Next is Sandy, who has difficulty getting the ribbon, but she also gets tripped up by the bull, which then stomps on her, leaving her lying on the ground. They stop the clock and lure the bull away as Sandy is tended to. She's mostly angry that she didn't get the ribbon, and eventually, it's determined that she just got the wind knocked out of her and didn't get hurt by the bull. But it's revealed later that when she was angry about what happened, she slammed her hand on the gate, breaking a finger. She was in the ring for 36 seconds before time was called, so that's her time.

Last up is Michaela. She is concentrating on getting the ribbon and focussed on the front of the bull, so she doesn't notice it bucking its hind legs, and the bull ends up kicking her in the back of the head, kind of around and below the neck area. She pops back up, but then she crumples in pain. She's taken aside, and she's given a neck collar and taken by ambulance to the hospital. When she leaves, she has a neck brace on, and everyone's outside with flowers to meet her. She says that it's nothing permanent and that it will take 6 to 8 weeks for her to recover. She only lasted 7 seconds in the ring, and with her injury, she is eliminated.


The remaining three finalists head back to Odessa, Texas for oil rigging. There are a variety of tasks they have to complete, and whoever takes the longest is out.

Ben goes first, and his time is 3:12.

Steven goes second, and he has a little trouble with the last task, and his time is 4:37.

Last up is Sandy, who is hindered in a few of the tasks, like climbing the ladder and pulling the rope, because she broke her finger. Her temper ends up costing her the competition because with her handicap, her time is 4:50, and she is eliminated.


The last competition brings Ben and Steven back to Port Angeles, Washington and logging. Again, there are a series of tasks that they have to complete, including felling a tree, cutting another tree into segments and loading the cut logs onto a truck. Instead of going in legs like in the previous two tasks, they will be going head to head, and whoever finishes first wins the grand prize, which is the combined salaries of all the jobs they've done during the course of the competition, which totals $298,000, and, of course, the new Dodge.

Ben does a good job in cutting the section out of the tree, whereas Steven has a much more difficult time because he can't get the second cut to line up with the first cut. However, Ben has difficulty getting the wedge to stay in the tree, but he eventually manages to fell the tree. He has already cut the logs and is attempting to load them onto the truck with a crane when Steven finally manages to fell his tree. Steven starts to cut his logs and sees that Ben is having a hard time getting the logs properly situated, but after a number of attempts, he finally manages to get it done right, and Ben is the winner.

It's revealed at the end that Ben is using his money to buy a house, and that he's training to be a Monster Jam driver, a job he was best at during the competition.


Ben wouldn't have been my choice to win - I would have preferred either Sandy or Michaela to win, and barring that, I wanted Steven to win because of his mother, but preferences aside, it was just about who did the best job, and Ben did the best job.

I really enjoyed the show, so I hope it returns next summer.