After last week’s premiere left us high and dry without a rose ceremony, tonight’s episode wastes no time delivering what we came here for: good old-fashioned headbangers. We immediately touch down in the elimination arena, which as of now doesn’t seem to have been given a classic, randomly generated Challenge moniker. I was waiting patiently for a counterpart to the Chamber. My vote is for “The Crypt.â€
The carnival of pain setup in the sand features four of the most iconic eliminations in franchise history: Balls In, Pole Wrestle, Hall Brawl, and Take Shelter. Why was this not a ticketed event? I would have paid courtside Celtics prices for this shit.
Era III EliminationÂ
Game: Balls InÂ
Male competitors: Leroy (Challenge loser) vs. Tony (Winners’ vote)Â
Female competitors: Nia (Challenge loser) vs. Amanda (Winners’ vote)Â
When Amanda learns she’s getting thrown into elimination at the hands of Tori, whom she despises, and Cory, with whom she shares one (1) mutual friend, she executes a meltdown that earns her her entire appearance fee in one scene alone. While navigating the limp Challenge House buffet, Amanda looks Cory in his “beady little ferret eyes†and screeches that if she wins the elimination, she’ll come back and “throw every fucking challenge†to screw him over. She’d rather have petty revenge than money — is that what enlightenment feels like?
Playing Balls In, Amanda starts on offense and manages to fake out Nia, who’s twice her size, and successfully scores the first point of the series. Unfortunately, the buck stops there, and Nia swats Amanda like the horsefly that she is over the course of the next three rounds. We all know Nia is stunning, but watching her stomp on Amanda was particularly titillating for the men of the house. Both Kyland and Josh profess their love for her in confessionals, like she’s some kind of ass-whooping siren.
In the men’s corner, Leroy has ice in his veins this season. The guy left his bombshell wife and their 2-week-old daughter at home so he could secure this milli, and he didn’t even bring any family photos with him so he could keep his brain completely locked in on the game. Despite his mental fortitude, Leroy isn’t a physical match for Tony. When Leroy plays offense, he can’t figure out a strategy for subterfuge, even with Bananas screaming, “Shimmy!†from the sidelines. Tony beats Leroy 2-0, sending Leroy home first for the first time in his Challenge career.
Era I EliminationÂ
Game: Pole WrestleÂ
Male competitors: Mark (Challenge loser) vs. Derrick (Winners’ vote)Â
Female competitors: Katie (Challenge loser) vs. Aneesa (Winners’ vote)Â
Derrick, who self-nominated, got lucky tonight: He feels his name is synonymous with Pole Wrestle, and a Pole Wrestle he received. That said, Derrick is only five-seven, shorter than most female models, and his opponent, Mark, stands tall and proud at six-three — no height filters on Hinge will get Mark down! In the first round, Mark takes control, using his weight advantage to essentially suffocate Derrick in the sand, like when you drop an encyclopedia on a cockroach. But Derrick isn’t going to let that coveted Pole Wrestle crown slip off his head, and he rallies enough strength to flip Mark over and wrench the pole out of his hands from a standing position. In round two, Grandpa Mark is ready to head back to the nursing home while Derrick is invigorated, making, as Jodi puts it, the “chuffing†vocalizations of a powerful creature as he secures the win. I never need to hear the word chuffing again; it sounds like it should be the name of a category page on an unsavory adult website.
We learn that despite Aneesa and winner Rachel’s 20-year friendship, Rachel did nothing to protect Aneesa from being sent in, letting C.T. have full control of the decision. I respect that she’s an OG, but I’ve never found Aneesa to be a particularly compelling character. Her story for the past 15 seasons has been, “I’m out of shape and people underestimate me, but I’m going to try my hardest and prove them wrong.†It’s like The Challenge equivalent of Kendall Jenner only ever talking about her anxiety as a “plot point†on The Kardashians.
Since no cardio is involved, this elimination is perfect for Aneesa, and she makes quick work of Katie, who is probably better off in a nondescript suburb drinking wine coolers from a Marshall’s tumbler that says, “I make wine disappear — what’s your superpower?â€
Era IV EliminationÂ
Game: Hall Brawl
Male competitors: Theo (Challenge loser) vs. Paulie (Winners’ vote)Â
Female competitors: Nurys (Challenge loser) vs. Olivia (Winners’ vote)Â
Cue the “This is how legends are made†song from every sports-drink commercial and definitely at least one of the 600-plus episodes of The Challenge and its associated spinoffs. The Hall Brawl is the franchise’s most iconic and most notorious elimination: Imagine running full-speed down a narrow corridor with the goal of colliding with someone like C.T., a hybrid of a man and a brick wall, as every bone in your body shatters like Blake Lively’s reputation.
Rivals Paulie and Theo are both beyond psyched about getting to smash (into each other). As he vibrates with adrenaline pre-match, Theo tells the camera, “To get my hands on him, finally, after five years of back-and-forth. I want to hit him with a blow he’s never gonna forget.†Theo, you’re making us blush! Save it for your Wattpad account.
Mr. 6’5 delivers on his promise, hitting scrawny Paulie so hard that he’s knocked backward toward Theo’s exit, paving an easy path for Theo to get to his buzzer. In the second round, Paulie changes tactics. He attempts to get low, which, to his credit, has worked for smaller competitors in the past, but not tonight. Tonight, dear reader, size matters. Theo knocks Paulie onto his back and basically kicks him through the rest of the hall like a docile plastic bag drifting through the wind. Paulie is humiliated. Olivia has never been hornier.
All that dopamine has Olivia juiced up for her battle with Nurys, but Nurys is emotional in her pre-game interview, clearly not experiencing the same rivalry high as her counterparts. Crying before a Hall Brawl is probably the worst mind-set you can be in; it’s like smoking an indica strain before taking the SAT. In the first round, Olivia and Nurys barely make contact, sidestepping each other as if to say, “after you,†like two posh ladies perusing the same blouse collection at Bergdorf Goodman.
Olivia takes the first W, which means Nurys has “gotta pick it up†if she wants to stay in the game. This time, the two scuffle a little bit, and for a second, it looks like Nurys has a chance. After Nurys knocks Olivia down right at Olivia’s exit, Olivia idiotically decides to grab Nurys’s leg instead of just getting up and running to her buzzer. But once enough people scream at her from the sidelines, it hits her that all she needs to do is STAND UP, DAMMIT, and she wins the series.
This means both Era IV feuds are already dunzo before the season has begun in earnest. BOO. We want our Challenge houses like we want our Arby’s: full of beef!
Era II EliminationÂ
Game: Take ShelterÂ
Male competitors: Ryan (Challenge loser) vs. Brandon (Winners’ vote)Â
Female competitors: KellyAnne (Challenge loser) vs. Cara Maria (Winners’ vote)
Cara is slightly rattled by getting stuck with the only non-contact elimination of the invitational. She’s much more comfortable with something completely physical, and we’ve seen her get frazzled countless times whenever there’s a puzzle or a strategic element in play.
In a flashback, we discover that Bananas felt Cara should have come to him to ask to work together before her ass was on the line, and that the timing of her “let’s bake a cake made out of rainbows†monologue voided its sentiment. I’m definitely with him on this, although I still doubt he would have been interested in working with her, and he’s just using that rationale as a cover.
Laurel, on the other hand, is back on her contradictory bullshit. She first says that she’s “so sick of trying to coach Cara Maria†(Cara has won two flagship show finals; Laurel winning All-Stars doesn’t mean they’re tied in my book) and then admits that she doesn’t want to face her in a final. She can’t suck at competing and be your biggest threat — pick a lane.
The Take Shelter elimination commences, and all four contestants play simultaneously. Each player uses various chains, ropes, logs, etc., to reinforce the door to their shelter in the most complicated way possible. After 20 minutes, they’ll switch places with their competitor and work to undo the mess as fast as they can so they can be the first to open the door. I would be beyond overwhelmed in this scenario, and the competitors seem pissed by how loud the peanut gallery is shouting, “Make knots, make knots!†Everyone already knows this is the dominant strategy, except maybe Brandon, who thinks sandbags and cinder blocks will completely stop Ryan in his tracks.
Paulie jokes in a confessional that he’s the knot guy in his and Cara’s relationship. Everything I’ve learned about Cara’s freaky sex life over the years has been against my will. She obviously adds a giant pirate wheel to her door for no other reason than it matches her kinky Captain Jack Sparrow aesthetic. When the competitors switch sides, Ryan immediately pushes away the rogue logs that Brandon set up, and KellyAnne swiftly dismantles the pirate wheel. Adding this detritus to your shelter is the equivalent of Slacking someone to do a minute task for you just for the sake of delegating when you totally could have done it yourself in the time it took to write the message.
Ryan is able to finagle his “skinny little ass†through the bars first, winning for the men. Even though KellyAnne’s psychic told her that she would compete on The Challenge for five weeks, Cara edges her out for the victory, immediately retying her elimination record with Aneesa. (Side note: We can’t complete this recap without mentioning that KellyAnne also has a separate psychic for her dogs. Rich people need to be stopped).
With both couples now out of the game and two major rivalries squashed, we better hope Bananas brought anonymous notes in fake girl handwriting again to stir up some much-needed tomfoolery in the house.
The safe players are instructed to exit the arena first, with the eight losers left behind with T.J. They’re told that while they’ve been cut from the game, they have the opportunity to fill out a comment card where they’ll award the remaining players between one and five karma points, though it’s not yet clear what impact said points will have.
T.J. keeps saying, “How you treat people matters,†which will apparently be the season’s motto. In my head, I keep thinking it’s Harry Styles’s “Treat People With Kindness,†but either way, I hate it. Why can’t we just have reality shows where people are mean for the sake of being mean anymore? I guess I owe an apology to C.T. and Darrell — now I’m the one who sounds like she should be on Joe Rogan’s show.