BY DC CUEVA
■ @DC408Dxtr @ TW / IG / YT
We'll look at all of that here coming up along with our latest power rankings from inside the Strategy Room. And for one who appears to be on her way to becoming outstanding rookie of this season, we'll look at the emergence of the latest Queen of this new crop of Challengers. That's ahead.
THINGS TO KNOW
"IT'S BRITNI"
● ON THE BEACH: In the wake of Devin's upset of Bananas, the game becomes wide open and Big D uses his grenade to help put together the teams for the succeeding challenge. The three-team affair takes place on the beach in stacking wooden palettes until they get to 45, which they will then climb and hoist a flag to declare victory. Teams are divided into roles of receiving & stacking the palettes, running them back & forth, and loading them for their runners, or better yet - stealing some from the other teams' stacks... which can then force loaders to go to a reservoir to reload. And it's a double elimination week, with the winning side to pocket 25,000, pick the troika and select who the elimination opponents will be to whom the losing team picks.
Devin's strategy is to make sure his Red team is stacked in him, Brad, Nelson, Kam & Kailah, and to make sure that the shorthanded 4-person Blue team with Leroy, Cara, Jemmye and Kyle finish last. That strategy works... in a way: the Green team of Tony, Britni, Zach, Nicole and Natalie doesn't see as many of their palettes get stolen while the Blues have to deal with a short stack. Dev's team gets fatigued almost from the outset by the pace of this excruciating challenge, though Kyle does hold up his end of the table. On the other hand, Zach proves his worth of why he has bounced back a bit this winter as he and the Greens take out the win.
● BACKSTABS & LOVERS: Before that challenge, and in the wake of her crush losing and his crush leaving after getting bullied around so much, Nelson and Natalie begin to bond with one another over them being scorned by what happened last week. After being part of the winning team, she is again chosen for the Troika over Britni, who hasn't been in the deliberation room as of yet but is assured by her team that she wouldn't be voted in to a Ring that sees the last place Red team vote Brad and Kam.
Nat, Zach and Tony then head into the deliberation booth where they go into planning mode, and for a group intent on again trying to break up the lone remaining romance, the Troika's plan goes into action. The guys decide to again target Nelson but also vote in Britni against her wishes, with Leroy, Kyle, Cara Maria and Jemmye joining in the six who are up for a night date in the Ring. They feel Brit is ahead of them, and Nelly has been on the opposition this whole time... he is upset that Natalie has decided to turn her back on him this late in the game. And it's no surprise that he and Brit are voted in unanimously by the Troika, much to her surprise and him getting frozen by Nat not burning her vote -- similar to Hunter last year.
● MERCENARIES RETURN: Just a day or so earlier, Nicole got to celebrate her birthday as she was surprised with a Nutella birthday cake and some peanut butter... but what she has no idea about is that her ex is about to invade this challenge just after they broke up. When the players arrive for this double elimination night, the game once again turns on its head when a second group of Mercenaries come in to hold court: four-time champ & Champs vs. Pros winner Darrell, Battle of the Seasons champ and Zach's old roommate Frank, Free Agents champ Laurel, and Invasion champ Ashley M. To no surprise, Nicole is the one everyone's focusing on as her ex is facing the elimination opponents.
For this game, players are tied to a chain, backs facing one another and a circle separating them, and a race to ring a bell at the end of that circle, with the first one to ring it winning. Because this is a longer process than it seems -- and given what happened in Derrick vs. Joss, the televised versions doesn't exactly represent how long and tough these eliminations are, and they are edited out for time. But in the first battle -- a battle of San Diego and of two champions, Brad beats Frank comfortably. And though Smashley gets off to a flying start in her battle with the Kam, the ladder and her strength proves her worth and she takes the win... more on her shortly.
The other battles prove to be more intense: Darrell almost gets up to win over Nelson, but his more youthful opponent manages to keep the champ from taking him out, and that necessitates a restart. Their other battle of the ones that are shown out of 10+ that take place in total sees Nelson almost do the same thing to Darrell, but after that becomes more like an American Idol finale than anything else, TJ Lavin declares it a draw and Nelson returns to the game but with no chance at getting a grenade. And as expected, Laurel returns to her rightful place winning an elimination and making it clear she will return, but Britni does hold her own against a beast of a player.
ENDGAME
QUEEN KAM
We profiled ten first-timers in our Who Are These Newbies? post for Vendettas, and three of them are still with us as the game heads towards determining which players will be going for the $500,000 prize fund at season's end. But out of that remaining trio of her, Kyle and Natalie, the one rookie who is on the right track to sneak into the final is, without a doubt, Kam. If Tori's stellar campaign on Dirty 30 helped ease Team AYTO into The Challenge community, then Kam might as well join her and Devin & Cheyenne in getting another chance at the cash by going from debuting on AYTO to going into a Challenge final.
Okay, so perhaps Kam's rookie campaign might not match what Tori had in the blonde winning four challenges and an elimination on Dirty 30; and sure, she has just one dailies win compared to Kyle and Natalie with multiple, plus they've been in the Troika and have not been voted into the Ring yet. And there was her political game which was questioned a bit after what happened a few weeks ago when Marie was put into that laundry basket. But with her being able to win two eliminations over the aforementioned real Deal and Ashley M. does give Kam some standing in a female field with three finalists, Natalie and Kailah who came close to making the final last fall. Unlike Natalie, Kam is more liked by looking over how social world sees things, and she's on the Dolphins alliance which has been reduced a bit from when this began.
Of the six ladies left in Spain, only Kam and Kailah have been in an elimination, and the possibility exists that someone might coast their way into the final without earning their stripes under the night stars. And while Kailah was the benefit of Marie's laundry misfortunes, yes Kam won both her battles against those who actually aren't on this season. But being able to gain safety in most of these weeks, she has held up very well in what is, obviously, a weak female field than usual. And her win against Tori was very impressive in gaining new fans in the process, as well as showing toughness against someone who is definitely no tough cookie.
As things shape up as they appear to be right now, either we'll have a two-time female champ or a relative newcomer joining Ashley in winning a Challenge in their second go... perhaps Jem is a long-shot but as we know anything can happen. But Kam has a better shot than her and Natalie in making the final based on what she's been able to prove both in the dailies and especially in the Ring. The four other Challenge vets have made it to a final, while her other first-time counterpart made it to the final two weeks in the SoCal sun. But it's in the late stages of a Challenge where anyone's mettle is tested the most, and she has yet to experience what that is like, though what happened twelve months ago in her AYTO group being on the edge of victory came crashing down in the end.
Kam will sure be a best bet to be Rookie of the Season when this is all done, but the question of whether she makes it into the final is anyone's guess. But as it shapes now, there's a good shot.
STRATEGY ROOM
POWER RANKINGS
POWER RANKINGS
THROUGH 11...
With a bakers' dozen players left in the draw, we are assured of having either a first-time winner tasting glory for the first time, or a previous champion going for two on this season. Yes, it's not as stacked as the Dirty 30 field was at this stage last fall, but knowing how there is a good chance someone who doesn't have a ring will win in just three past titlists are left, perhaps we might not have people lose it over the one they didn't to win winning. But this season will give you a clear indication that a new generation is about to stamp their flag on this show, the same way Zach did six years ago. With that in mind, here's our up-to-date power rankings...
MEN
1. TONY
2. ZACH
3. DEVIN
4. BRAD
5. NELSON
6. KYLE
7. LEROY
WOMEN
1. NICOLE
2. CARA MARIA
3. KAM
4. KAILAH
5. NATALIE
6. JEMMYE
▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪
And that is this week's look at The Challenge. Now, something that we haven't done in a while is to punctuate these recaps with a roadmap to where you can listen to more from the week's episode. Because we last did these back in Week 5 and when Sylvia gave her 110% over Melissa, we have a lot of webcasts to dole out here in this epilogue. So, here you go...
● In the past month, Challenge Mania with the man at the heart of the biggest elimination battle of this season, Derrick (@DerrickMTV) and his friend Scott Yager (@AShotAtYager) has offered hardcore fans their unique look on The Challenge as only they can. They talked to Joss just after that great battle in the Ring, by the one & only Marie, by Britni and her AYTO guy Devin, after last week's second elimination win by the aforementioned Kam, and two times by Cara Maria including a second visit with the duo that eventually became a 2-part podcast... not to mention by Big Easy while on assignment at Spring Break. Listen to all of those interviews and much more on Podbean and iTunes, with a chat with Ashley M. to come this week, among other things.
● For those who love both the present and the past of The Challenge, check out Reality Bites Back, where the show has been discussing Vendettas this season, including a pod with Marie & Kayleigh from Episode 8, just after they joined early on in the season. But for MTV history buffs, interviews with those from the past have been prominently featured all winter long, including Challenge veteran Tina Bridges, Shane's Road Rules Campus Crawl RV'mate Kendal Sheppard, CT's Real World Paris roommate Mallory Snyder, and Nathan Blackburn from Real World Seattle of twenty years ago. All of those and many more at on teamdss.libsyn.com.
● After what went down in mid-February, You Killed It was joined by Jemmye as she discussed NoteGate, and then by Marie & Sylvia to discuss the ladder's elimination win and more. There's also plenty of weekly episode discussion with hosts Sheldon and John which you can check out on PodTail, along with a review of Vendettas right up until his elimination battle with Derrick talking to Pat Mayo on his fantasy sports-driven podcasts on AudioBoom.
● During February's stretch of episodes, AfterBuzz TV's Challenge After Show had something that they've not had in a while: Challengers dropping in to chat. Britni joined the panel after Episode 7, Johnny Bananas after #8, and Leroy after #9 to discuss everything that went down during that time. Listen to those podcasts on the ABTV site, plus co-founder Keven Undergaro talking to Joss after his elimination battle on sister site, The Tomorrow Show. And if you love AYTO, that show's ABTV panel will be at it again to cover Ex on the Beach starting next month.
● And as always, check out Rob Has A Podcast with hosts Brian Cohen (@CohenBrian_) and Ali Lasher (@LashTweets) and all of their coverage of the past few episodes on Rob Has A Podcast, which should also include coverage of the new Ex on the Beach when that gets going soon enough. And there are the always incisive blog posts on Medium by Allan Aguirre (@TheAllanAguirre) with recaps and much more for those who love to read about the Trifecta.
Now, we'd usually say here to be sure to rejoin us over the weekend when we get to cover tonight's Challenge episode, and we'll have that on here then. But for the coming week or so, we have some midweek posts to offer here: last week saw the return of Winter Break: Hunter Mountain as it resurfaced on MTV2 just before this week's wave began here, and we'll have that covered. We'll also have a look at when the shining star of last fall's AYTO got to meet an NBA superstar before he became MVP. And this coming week, we'll check in on how Team MTV is spending Spring Break 2018, including catching up with one of the Trifecta's most polarizing figures in recent years.
That is all coming up in the next few days, all coming after tonight's episode of The Challenge airs, and you can join yours truly for all that tonight over on DCNOW at @DC408DxNow and at #DCChallenge. Enjoy all of that, and talk you back here in a day or so. See you soon.
- I AM DC
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