The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30 (and Champs vs. Pros Discussion Thread)

[Vil]

Interesting. I just looked at my channel guide. Originally before Dirty 30, there was supposed to be some Fear Factor episode featuring people from The Challenge and people from something else.

They've changed that. Race in America: An MTV Discussion and the description mentions there was an incident on The Challenge (I assume it was the stuff from last week). I can't wait for that to start and see it's a panel moderated by Johnny Bananas.

edit: It's actually Fear Factor on now. I'm confused.

[Vil]

Ok, so hopefully we're done with all that other bs and this season can get on pace to the finish. The idea of CT baking a cake is pretty amazing. Softened butter. Colombian sugar. There was plenty of filler stuff thrown in there, but at least that was good for a laugh.

[Valisk]

I absolutely hate eating challenges. So lame. This was a burner episode. Best part of the episode was Nicole taking off her $249 mink eyelashes and MTV doing a comparison to the eyelashes on the cow eyes. TJ even got in on the fun and gave Nicole a slight jab.

Preview for next week has Nelson muffing Derek in the face. Might get another ejection. But also Hunter is crying about wanting to leave. I swear if 2 of my players quit (Ashley, #3 overall pick btw, and Hunter) and 2 of my players get kicked off (Shane and Nelson) this will be the most bizarre fantasy season I've ever seen.

[Byrd]

Cut vacation early to attend a funeral service. On the plus side, I got the challenge watched much earlier than anticipated.

Standings/Players left:
Vil - 505 - 4
Valisk - 420 - 3
Byrd - 385 - 4
Moss - 360 - 3
Headspace - 355 - 2
Xno Kappa - 260 - 2

Weekly Scoring:
Aneesa 25
Hunter 20
Tony 15
Bananas 10
Nicole 10
everyone else 5
Marie -15

For the season:

Shane 150 VALISK HOME
Simone 150 MOSS HOME
Camila 145 VIL GAME
Aneesa 135 BYRD GAME
Tori 120 VIL GAME
Veronica 115 VIL GAME
Nelson 110 VALISK GAME

Thanks, Marie, for losing me points. Good lord, that was a sad sack effort. Might even hurt her chances of coming back.
Hopefully, they're done with Redemption House. Maybe next week they drop the million dollar bomb and get back on track with no Redemption House and one challenge and one elimination per episode.

[Vil]

I didn't think that Marie would make it much further than this point, but I thought it was entirely possible she could make it to like top 7 on the girls' side. Instead I remember about 2 things about her:

1. She loves wine
2. She doesn't like gross food

AYTO6 started last night, and I haven't watched it yet other than the first few minutes. If they are bringing in 20-22 people in every 9-10 months, I definitely could see producers just writing people off if they didn't show enough in 3-5 seasons. Even if a lot of them would be total flops on a Challenge, you've got to figure with that many, there would be 4-5 people who could possibly be good competitors and at least as many who could just be brought in as drama fodder.

Speaking of people that fall into that 3-5 range... Dario? I admit I stopped watching Bloodlines pretty early because that was bullshit. Rivals I remember him mostly as "Nicole's partner" even though they went pretty far. Invasion, not as much. Dirty 30, has anybody seen the guy? I don't know if he's still with Ashley K, but if he is, I think he should just call himself a winner at life and say "fuck these shows".

[Byrd]

New leader. Valisk is down to 2 players, but I guess if you're going to lose players, them getting kicked out is the way to go.

Big scoring week for a couple of guys.

Bummed the pink team didn't win the challenge - that team literally made up all four of my remaining competitors, would have been quite the happenstance.

Standings:
Valisk 600 w/2 players left
Vil 535 w/4
Byrd 420 w/4
Moss 375 w/3
Headspace 365 w/2
Xno Kappa 295 w/2

Contestant Scores for the Year:
Nelson 250 VALISK HOME
Camila 160 VIL GAME
Shane 150 VALISK HOME
Simone 150 MOSS HOME
Aneesa 140 BYRD GAME
Hunter 130 VALISK GAME

Contestant Scores this Week:
Nelson 140
Hunter 35
Kailah 20
Derrick K 20
Camila 15
CT 15

[Valisk]

Hunter’s weekly total looks a little light. I’ll have to check the spreadsheet but did he get producer points as well for having to be restrained in the bathroom when he got into it with Bananas? Crying, challenge win, producer points, arguing. 35 sounds like I’m getting jipped!

The girls were looking good at that club. Britini, Tori, and Kailah were all looking like snacks. How they were dancing and moving their hips. Whew! Aneesa’s titties looked great. Veronica’s ass looked great. Kudos to the subtle sex appeal of this episode.

Nelson fell victim to the alcohol once again. Hilarious to see him totally twisting the story of Derek getting in his face after he was getting bed to go to sleep. LOL!

Good challenge. Good fireworks afterwards.

[Byrd]

Crying, challenge win, producer points, arguing. 35 sounds like I’m getting jipped!

Feel free to double-check, but it sounds about right. Male crying (10) + challenge win (10) + producer on screen (5) + arguing (5) + episode survival (5) = 35. I certainly could have missed something; wouldn't be the first time.

[Byrd]

Season 31 cast left last week, and they've broadened the scope of the show a bit.

Spoiler: show

Vevmo (via Reddit) has confirmed that of the 32 people on the cast, 4 will be from CBS' Big Brother 18 and four will be from Ex on the Beach (MTV UK). Weird, particularly the Big Brother cast. Speculation is that this is ramping up for Johnny Bananas and maybe someone else to be on CBS' Celebrity Big Brother this fall.

[Vil]

Unless you're still possibly hoping for an episode ending with the Presidio (if you watched the preview from last week, it obviously wasn't going to), I thought that was a great episode.

I don't want to go so far as to say I like the guy when he's sober, but Byrd nailed it a couple weeks ago saying that there's a huge difference for Tony. He actually has the capability to come across as a normal human being. Too bad that it's probably too late for him to finally be "waking up". Either way, I loved seeing that team winning this challenge. Even outside of Fantasy, the other three mean nothing to me, but Tony and Veronica winning that is hilarious and amazing. I'd better not be getting my hopes up for nothing, because this elimination + the vote could really be the shot in the arm this season needed as it's been bogged down a little lately just killing time between Redemption returns.

Sent to Redemption immediately has to be some combo of Bananas/CT and Camila/Cara Maria, right?

[Valisk]

Good episode and elimination, but I had to fast forward through the scratching portion of the challenge. I’m squeamish when it comes to nails, especially fingernails.

The winning team has to use this opportunity to pull a power move. Gotta be Bananas (my choice) or CT like Vil said. Jenna is protected from the girls side, so that leaves Tori, Camilla, and Cara Marie. I think Camilla is toast. She rubs everyone the wrong way and doesn’t have any allies. What was that lecture she tried to give Jenna and Kailah earlier in the episode? It was like she was trying to strong arm her way into their alliance and telling them they have to look out for her because everyone is trying to win. Shocking, I know.

Tony killed it, but he’s too much of a piece of shit to be liked by me. Especially drunk, but even when sober he straddles the fence and seems to not be himself but whoever the people around him want him to be.

[Byrd]

I would think they would be smart to pick CT and Camila (or Cara, but I think everyone is sick of Camila) to go directly to Redemption House. If they decided to send Bananas and Cara into Redemption right behind them, that would be even more ballsy.

No idea if they'll actually do it, although editing made it seem like what they were doing.

Standings:
Valisk 615 2
Vil 600 4
Byrd 435 3
Moss 395 2
Headspace 420 2
Xno Kappa 315 2

Contestants this week:
Tony 50
Veronica 50
Britni 15
Jordan 15
Kailah 15

Contestants this Year:
Nelson 245 VALISK
Veronica 170 VIL
Camila 165 VIL
Shane 150 VALISK
Simone 150 MOSS
Tony 145 HEAD
Aneesa 140 BYRD

Note: I accidentally gave Nelson survival points last week. I provided a -5 week this week to balance out.

[Valisk]

It’s insane how far ahead Vil would be if I didn’t have 2 players ejected. Like seriously, we would have had to call the fight a couple episodes ago.

And I’m still bitter about Smashley. Never breaking my draft strategy again. Tried to do something new this year and it backfired.

[Vil]

I'm not even sure how I got that much separation from Byrd. I looked at the individual totals and it makes sense, but when Aneesa came back, he's got Bananas, Jenna, and Derrick who are all people that you could conceivably see make a run to the end and should be doing well, and Aneesa whom I guess couldn't even be bothered to get into any fights after returning. If you ignore Dario and Jemmye, Bananas and Jenna are tied for the lowest total (85) and that just seems insane.

[Xno Kappa]

I have CT and Kailah who've won multiple challenges and eliminations at this point and I'm dead last lololol.

[Vil]

Part of that is the format of this season. More than many other seasons, it just hasn't been as focused on the normal format. If it's not challenge day, CT doesn't really have an opportunity to get points.

I approve of this taking two episodes for this whole ordeal. There's no way in hell you could have told me that those people went into the duel without a very good explanation, and we (sort of) got it. I'm not going to rewatch it now, but did Bananas come up at all in that deliberation? Pretty sure they mentioned every other name, so I'm wondering if they just cut something out or if they were like "k, you guys want Hunter, Tony wants Derrick" etc.

wtf Kailah? I get wanting to protect Jenna, but if you get Camila out there, then Tori, Kailah, and Jenna are favored to win over Britni, Veronica, and Jemmye in most things. If you can't win and pick those three off til the Redemption 3.0, then how the fuck are you ever going to win a final? She sits there and talks about how Cara stands in her way, but you can't wait til the eventual final 5 and 4 to do this when there's a good chance at a huge threat coming back.

Whatever. I hate that it was at my own player's expense, but I'm glad she ended up showing up Kailah there. You can't make an omelet without cracking some eggs. Maybe people don't learn that lesson til their 3rd challenge.

Finally, that Presidio? I like the concept generally speaking, but I didn't like how there were there was that bunching point. Maybe I would have liked if there were 3 of those doors on the 2nd lap because the saran wrap was way too much of an equalizer.

[Valisk]

I liked that presido a lot, lol. That guy’s heat was intense and came down to video replay, twice.

That elimination deliberation was great. Still don’t get why Bananas wasn’t nominated, let alone mentioned. Had to have been an edit job. That’s... bananas to me that he wasn’t even considered.

They 100% dropped the ball on a power move to get another strong girl out the house. Camilla should have been the nominee and the double cross puller would have had the chance to put Jenna or Tori in.

I think a dope twist would be to let the double cross be pulled for each sex before announcing who to double cross, then making the safe winners pick the opposite sex to send into the double cross.

[Byrd]

Every week I continue to be reminded that Camila is a terrible person, and next week doesn't look any different. She's also had only one confessional in the last four episodes combined. MTV has completely changed how they present her - she's no longer a narrator. Good for them.

Good challenge, too. Although I think Hunter might truly be injured, which would put the guys two people down in the house compared to the girls.

Low scoring week. I gave Veronica and Jenna bonus points for slick game moves. Other than that, the only scorers were the elimination winners.

Standings:
Valisk 640 2
Vil 640 3
Byrd 455 3
Moss 405 1
Headspace 425 1
Xno Kappa 320 1

Weekly Scoring:
Camila 20
Hunter 20
Jenna 10
Veronica 10

Total scoring for the season:
Nelson 245 VALISK HOME
Camila 185 VIL GAME
Veronica 180 VIL GAME
Hunter 155 VALISK GAME
Tony 150 HEAD GAME
Shane 150 VALISK HOME
Simone 150 MOSS HOME

[Valisk]

Go to sleep Byrd, you’re drunk. The standings are the exact same from last week, points and all. You copied and pasted the template but forgot to change the values, lol.

[Xno Kappa]

lol