The curtain has closed on the fourth season of the gripping reality series, Special Forces, as the triumphant winners reflect on their journey to victory.

On the climactic episode aired Thursday, November 20, the final contenders—Kody Brown, Brianna LaPaglia, Andrew East, Shawn Johnson East, and Gia Giudice—faced a rigorous interrogation following a simulated capture scenario. While Kody, 56, and Andrew, 34, were unable to pass the stringent tests, Brianna, 26, Shawn, 33, and Gia, 24, advanced to the ultimate challenge.

The remaining trio confronted a harrowing simulated burial, where Brianna emerged just before Shawn and Gia were declared victorious.

In an exclusive conversation with Us Weekly, Gia shared her thoughts alongside Shawn, reflecting on the momentous finale. “Watching the finale was surreal. Winning and receiving recognition from the Directing Staff was validating,” Gia remarked. “It felt like my way of processing it all, realizing, ‘I did it. I crossed the finish line.’”

Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, airing on Fox, challenges reality TV personalities to discover their limits through grueling physical and mental trials. Since its 2023 debut, the series has tested contestants with intense military-style training, mirroring real special forces selection, though not all participants endure to the end.

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?’”

Fox is the place to be this fall with new and returning TV shows including Doc, Special Forces and more — but when is each program airing? The network’s schedule for the fall includes new TV episodes of both scripted and unscripted content. Doc, for example, follows a doctor named Amy (Molly Parker) who loses […]

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.