Watch: Ep #3, John John in Twelve!

Like everything featuring Double John, it's good.

The third instalment of JJF’s series, Twelve, dropped today. Like everything featuring Double John, it’s good.

Can’t call this one great. Smacks of filler. Too much about Brazil, too much about Fiji. I’ve seen those waves. Know what happened. And John John doesn’t do a great job shedding light in his voice-overs. Because he’s too well adjusted.

For which his mother deserves some sort of Parent of the Millenium award. Raising three boys on the North Shore without a single one turning into a tweaked out scumbag is damn impressive.

Tolstoy said it. “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

It’s our struggles that make us unique. Interesting. I know what happened, John. Please, tell us how you feel at your worst!

I have been confused why they’ve titled it, Twelve. Only seven segments. Just figured it out. Because they’re filming it over a year. Twelve months. Am I right?

Part three isn’t bad, unless you compare it to parts one and two. They were magnificent, this is merely pretty good. I suppose it’s due to the nature of the format. Film and edit installments as you go, sometimes life slows down. Nothing to be done about that.

I am surprised that John John doesn’t hire a team of bodyguards while he’s in Brazil. Those crowds are terrifying. When he’s signing autographs next to a fenced off crowd of screaming lunatics I half expected a knife to slither out and stab him in the neck. He’s pretty damn famous now. Enough so that you just know he’s gotta have at least one crazed stalker with a shrine in the living room and a plan to shed his blood.

As per usual with most surf clips, I could have done with a fraction of the lifestyle shots. But that’s old, jaded, Rory talking. Teenage Rory would’ve eaten it up with a spoon. It’s the type of stuff that sells the dream. The notion that it’s all fun and games. That near non-stop traveling and competing doesn’t, at least occasionally, turn into a soul crushing grind.

I’m calling this a weak moment in what’s been, thus far, an amazing series. I’m looking forward to number four in October almost as much as I look forward to absolutely anything featuring Mason Ho.

Watch here! 

(And here if you want to re-watch the back catalogue, here’s episode one, and episode two.)