Challenge 38: Ride or Dies

[Vil]

How the heck does that one team get 19 out of 20 flags? Did one fall off or something? The whole challenge was kind of uninteresting, but it was at least something kind of new and they got through that early enough on. The reason why rookie revolutions rarely work? Look at Sebastian there. They ended up having the votes on Amanda anyway, but I think he threw a vote on Tiffany when things could have still gone either way.

Is Alyssa becoming one of my favorites for having none of Tori's whining at the vote meeting? And then I couldn't help laughing when Bananas got finished with his tirade at Corey, then walks into the other room and is like "you too, Faysal" and he looked like he couldn't care less about Bananas.

That early Paulie scene with the flashbacks screamed him getting eliminated or at the very least being in the arena. Good on the guy for having growth, though oddly he leaves the game and I'm like "eh". I think I'd probably have seen him win THAT matchup, but I'm neither disappointed nor glad to see him go. Really need the suspense of "the decision" for Sunday? Obviously he should be going to blue, just a matter of whose spot he takes. As much as the kneejerk thing is to send Faysal/Cory to red because of how they voted, Chris is probably the best option and see if he could rally those guys, with Tori and see if she can get that doofus Seabass to vote with them?

They really needed to give them a lot more beanbags for that elimination, rather than having one person's on for the rest of it so early on. I like the concept of having that to switch the flames, but having such a potentially big factor in it for something to be only the initial part seemed unbalanced.

[Byrd]

Good episode. I actually found myself enjoying Paulie this season. I think he has both matured and not being around Cara Maria helped him quite a bit. Wouldn't mind seeing him back again.

I agree that I think Bananas takes Chris' place on blue team - that should give the vets more voting power on that team between vets and their allies. He could send Cory over to Red out of spite, but I think that makes a lot less sense than Chris. He is whining a lot, but he rarely makes strategic blunders like that.

Alyssa L is the person I'm most surprised by this season in terms of gameplay. Michaela and Desi are also doing well, but I found it less surprising - my only previous experience with Alyssa was in last year's Challenge USA, and she seemed to be Angela's sidekick.

Agreed with the beanbags - good idea, but I think it could have been better. It presumably meant the person who hit the target last won. It dragged out for another who-knows-how-long amount of time, which made everything post that last miss very anticlimactic.

[Xno Kappa]

Oh cool. Throwing challenges is a relevant strategy again.

[Vil]

Last week I thought it was kind of tongue-in-cheek when Dusty was talking about Bananas. There's nobody from his season and only one other person from his show so if he wants to work with the vets, whatever. The worshiping of Johnny Bananas by a guy who is turning 40 in a couple months is just sad. This guy is a plant, right?

Bananas looks tiny on that blue team. Dude should maybe stand in the front row for the group shots.

That truck challenge sucked even if they played it straight up, and on top of it there was a "sabotage one team" type thing. How thrilling.

Chanelle was a disaster on her season of Survivor and probably had more positive content on this episode than she did on half a season of that. Most of the rest of that deliberation was absolutely moronic. That Josh "won" that deliberation isn't even really understanding the win restrictions. It would be considered a win if he went into elimination and lost, as he would have continued to show fealty towards the vets to try to remain their preferred goat and ensure casting invites him back as a proper enabler.

Dusty talking about that matchup and saying that Chris looks like a homebody. This guy is just running his mouth as stupidly and frequently as possible to try to achieve his life's dream of being on the main show, isn't he? Luis looked like he had potential, but we'll surely never know. Thankfully Desi took Amanda out.

Big oof to Green tonight. Losing two people and getting a downgrade with that swap at the end. When those teams were formed, that looked like potentially the best. I'd still bet against red basically any time, but Blue looked good at the start and keeps getting better.

[Xno Kappa]

Producers are in full blown save the vets mode right now. It’s incredible CBS hasn’t straight up told MTV to fuck off with their shitty format.

Especially after that horrific first season where Tyson spilled the beans on the questionable editing.

[Byrd]

Oh cool. Throwing challenges is a relevant strategy again.

This was a little different. They were already effectively eliminated, their only option was to play Kingmaker, so it made sense for them to do so. If they still had a shot to actually win, they would still have tried. It was a poor producer design choice to allow 2 teams to go head to head at the end when there are 3 in the game, it only encourages that kind of thing. Once again, Challenge producers put "looks great on camera" ahead of competition balance.

[Byrd]

This season has been really good so far.

I enjoy the relative randomness of the hopper. Having three teams instead of two is a nice change (Cuthroat vibes), the challenges have been - for the most part - very well designed, including the often bungled trivia round. Game play has been on point, and the contestants have been - for the most part - interesting.

I hope it can keep it up and stick the landing, because it seems like way too often early season promise fizzles out as we get to the end.

[Xno Kappa]

Probably gonna be my last episode. I just can’t fucking stand any of the vets anymore. They come in with pre-arranged plans because it’s always the same fucking people, and the rest always end up like complete buffoons worshipping them.

Tyler willingly and openly being a pawn was the last straw. And of course the producers immediately give the green light to go to singles when Michaela threatens Tori’s position.

[Vil]

Anybody remember the last (another?) time when they specifically mentioned that they wouldn't be able to see other heats? That's very strange. What were you hoping for, production? That you'd get two vet winners? Hmm.

As someone who does the daily "Connections" puzzle on NYT, I appreciate that challenge. It was just a decent overall challenge which actually ticked several boxes, rather than some that they act like it should but doesn't really.

So why's there 0 discussion of targeting any of the vets here? Did they get a stern talk in confessional or something?

Also a good elimination challenge (did they get outsiders to come up with challenges for just this episode or something?). They've done things like that on Survivor, but they're usually doing like a house of cards or something. You know, things that are at least semi-stable. That's kind of brutal having them stack a pyramid of balls like that.

I'm really tired of Wes recently. The worst way he can lose this season is to lose an elimination to Josh. What's the 2nd worst? Let's go for that, because inflating Josh's ego would be a bigger issue.