Selection has officially come to an end on season 4 of Special Forces, and the winners are speaking out about how they stayed on top.
During the Thursday, November 20, finale, Kody Brown, Brianna LaPaglia, Andrew East, Shawn Johnson East and Gia Giudice were the last recruits left standing. They were put through an intense interrogation after a simulated capture exercise. Kody, 56, and Andrew, 34, did not pass the tests, which left Brianna, 26, Shawn, 33, and Gia, 24, for the last challenge.
The remaining trio were put through a simulated burial that Brianna pulled herself out of minutes before Shawn and Gia were crowned the winners.
“It’s so weird watching the finale back. We won and got that rewarding factor afterward — that acknowledgement from the Directing Staff,” Gia exclusively told Us Weekly during a joint interview with Shawn. “So it was different. That was almost my processing of it because I was like, ‘Oh, I did it. I made it past the finish line.’”
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Shawn agreed that making it to the end made it an easier transition back home.
“Being able to have a happy ending to all the hardship helped us repaint a lot of the hard moments and make them feel worth it,” she noted. “I would say for Kody and Brianna and Andrew, that’s really hard.”
Shawn continued: “They had to go through all this torture and all this interrogation and not have the reward of being told they did a good job or they earned or deserved it. They just had to live in that moment for a while. The transition was very different for us than them.”
After completing season 4, Shawn was thrilled to reunite with husband Andrew, who was by her side throughout the season.
“We are each other’s biggest fans and cheerleaders and teammates. Coming across that finish line, he was so happy for me and so ecstatic. But I could also see the disappointment and the sadness in him,” she recalled. “So as his biggest cheerleader, it was this interesting shared moment of I just wanted to hug him and help him process this moment — and he just wanted to celebrate with me.”
Special Forces, which premiered in 2023, puts contestants through harsh, military-style training based on actual Special Forces selection processes. They face intense physical and mental challenges designed to push their limits.
“The hard part that you don’t see on the show is we had been under interrogation and stress or duress for 12 hours. Within those 12 hours, you aren’t told how long it’s been or how long you have to go,” Shawn explained about the finale. “You don’t know if you’re nearing the finish line. We didn’t know if it was 10 hours, and you hit a breaking point where you’re just like, ‘We’ve done this long enough, can we be done?’”
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Gia had a similar experience during her own interrogation. “We got captured around 12 a.m. and we weren’t done until almost 5 p.m.,” she told Us. “It was very difficult and it was very hard.”
While reflecting on her journey, Gia was so thrilled to have made it all the way to the end, adding, “I just have so much pride after doing this show and it’s something that I’m really proud of. I think throughout the entire show it taught me to really just let go and the little things are not something that you need to worry about. There’s way bigger things in this world that are going on that are so much more important. It just honestly taught me there’s a lot more to value in life.”
Shawn, meanwhile, got to make her kids proud. (Shawn and Andrew, who have been married since 2016, share daughter Drew, 5, and sons Jett, 4, and Bear, 21 months.)
“It’s a pretty intense show, but they were so excited to see us jump out of a helicopter. They get to see that little clip and we will show them more as it goes on,” she added. “But my daughter has heard people talk about it, and she’s aware enough that she’s like, ‘Mommy, I want to watch the army show.’”
Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test is currently streaming on Hulu.
