DC SocialPulse - The Challenge: Free Agents - "You Be Illin'"

*** Reader Advisory: DC SocialPulse Contains Adult Language & Content 

Some Readers May Find Objectionable. Viewer Discretion is Advised. ***

By DC Cueva

@DC408dxtr / @DC408dxnow

Hi again, welcome to DC SocialPulse and to our play-by-play of episode 3 of The Challenge: Free Agents. Last week, we had romance and racing in Uruguay as the season's first threesome emerged between Jessica, Dustin and Emilee. We saw competitors race on the drag strip & a tricycle, and a night of celebration saw the first fight of the season between CT and Isaac, and then with Nany & Camila. And the unpredictability of this season proved itself with another key competitor & previous finalist going home, ending that budding romance in the process.

   This week, we see a Challenge 25 reenactment of one of the most memorable moments from RW Back to Las Vegas when one of its cast members & the guy she's flirtatious with in Uruguay enjoy a night of bachelor and bachelorette party madness as they get engaged...at least on a pretend basis. In the week's mission, everyone becomes shocked by a sudden departure before it even begins, while we have another epic elimination battle. And after twitter's view of this episode & after show and my winners of the night, we'll have some perspective on two cities who have figured prominently in these first three weeks, especially with one being in the spotlight outside the Challenge world this week.

- As we begin, please note there is explicit language in many of the tweets below, but I am keeping it uncensored in order to retain the heat of the moment. So if you are mature enough, please read with discretion. :-)

- And if you haven't watched the episode yet, then don't proceed. But don't worry, DCBLOG will compile all of these tweets into these posts after every episode so you won't be in the dark of how your favorites saw this all unfold.

So with that, join us after the jump for this week's drama from South America.

DC Fan's View: The Are You The One? Reunion Revealed

*** DCBLOG EXCLUSIVE ***

The views expressed in Fan's View are only those of the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the views of DCBLOG or its blogger. This post also contains spoilers for international readers and some adult language, please read with discretion.

By DC Cueva, with Meagan Cartwright & Janette Diaz

> @DC408dxtr, @Meag_Cartwright, @JannieL0ve

Hey everyone, welcome to the 6th edition of DCBLOG Fan's View, and taking a break from our coverage of The Challenge: Free Agents and from celebrating both Easter Sunday & 4/20 for the first of our two special editions of these fan-driven posts. So far this year, we've been showcasing more of the thoughts of the people who drive the conversation of the shows we watch more than anyone else: the fans. And the next two editions of Fan's View will cover the time when they and the cast come together to relive all of the moments all over again when it all ends. It's time once again for Reunion Revealed, our exclusive behind-the-scenes look at what goes on at the reunions of MTV shows from the point of view of those in the audience. And today in part one, we start with a show that has quipped my late night attention all winter long - Are You The One?.

Now first off, if this is your first time checking out DCBLOG, as MTV fans know reunions serve as the curtain closer to every season of The Real World, The Challenge, Catfish, Teen Mom and others. It's an hour to discuss and look back on everything that went on during the season. And when the entire cast gets together for the first time since they ended filming, it's almost a guarantee that there will be plenty of fireworks, similar to what happened in the episodes preceding it.

   But when you walk into the studio, the reunion taping process is much more longer than the tightly-edited 43-minute version we see on TV. And of course, there's some things that you didn't see or hear unless you were one of those lucky people who get to sit in that studio & have a front row seat to all the fireworks, and braving all those hours sitting in that same chair.

   This is where, with the help of some of those who watched it live, DC Fan's View: Reunion Revealed will fill in the gap, uncovering the wraps to get a firsthand perspective of what it's like to be in the audience, to watch the drama unfold among the cast, and get some valuable scoop on everything you want to know about all this, including what we didn't see on TV. And, of course, I'm not afraid to ask what you have on your mind. I'm providing this platform on here for you to praise, vent or just comment on things. So while most media outlets will be talking to the cast about the reunions, these posts add an extra dimension in getting the POV from that of those who were there in the audience.

   In our first two editions of Reunion Revealed last year, we provided great insight into both the Real World Portland and Challenge Rivals II reunions with three of my followers. One was taped over six long hours and edited down to a condensed version of it, while the other took place live & unedited and highlighted by a slap in the face. And both of those posts, as well as the RW Ex-Plosion After Shows, have received great feedback from all of my guests as well as a large number of page views. For this 3rd installment (6th overall if you include RW After Shows), we're expanding our horizons by covering our first non-RW/Challenge related MTV reunion by covering the one for Are You The One?.

For someone who's normally a Real World/Challenge fan, I can also say I'm an MTV fan as well, and is open to watching anything. But for the first time in a long while, no MTV show outside of those two shows have grabbed my attention as much as Are You The One?. Since I first discovered AYTO, I have been glued to this social experiment and watching 20 awesome girls & guys being put in a house in Hawaii, watch what happens when they all live together, do challenges, be close with one another, and all looking to find their perfect match. There was lots of drama and a roller coaster of emotions, but it had a perfect ending with a wave of confetti and excitement all around when the group's strategy of coming together to find their perfect match would pay off, and going 10 for 10 & winning $1 million.
   But the drama didn't end there. The week after that golden moment, the entire cast - Adam, Amber, Ashleigh, Brittany, Chris, Coleysia, Dillan, Dre, Ethan, Jacy, Jessica, Joey, John, Kayla, Paige, Ryan, Scali, Shanley, Simone & Wes - all came together for the first time since they left Hawaii and rejoined host Ryan Devlin to discuss the events and the moments from their stay in the islands. There, we saw some words exchanged among the numerous romances that came about in the islands, along with some never before seen footage and other things. And it ended, fittingly enough, with a fairy tale ending, with Ethan successfully proposing to Amber and them getting engaged.

As this reunion took place out in Los Angeles and not in New York like most other MTV reunions, as I did in covering the RW After Shows I had to look to new people from SoCal to provide me with their insight and their thoughts. After reading the tweets about the extremely-long process of taping this reunion (as explained below), as well as working hard & scouring the social-verse in the day before & day of it airing, in the end this is who I chose: Meagan Cartwright and Janette Diaz. They were in the audience when it took place back on March 8th, braving a very long Saturday in the studio to see the cast and be witness to that reunion, and of course having a front row seat to all of the fireworks. Even though you didn't see them on camera, they can best give you the comparison between watching it in the studio and watching it at home. And don't worry - we've been respectful to MTV to wait until after it airs a month later for them to finally reveal the inside scoop from the studio and share with you all of it exclusively here on DCBLOG.

   Enough of my prologue...let's get to what you've here for and to hear from the people you actually want to hear from...here now are Meagan and Janette with the Fans' View of Are You The One?: The After-Match. That's after the jump...

The Challenge: Free Agents - Who Are These Newbies?

By DC Cueva

@DC408dxtr / @DC408dxnow

Well, the buzz for The Challenge: Free Agents is at full steam, and we are two episodes into what's been a very good season so far. In the premiere, we saw our group of 28 eager competitors arrive in Uruguay only to find that they are facing an individual Challenge, followed by a grueling opening mission that saw them confront the country's tallest building. There, two relative newcomers would steal the show: Portlander Jessica conquering her fear of heights to become the star of the opening challenge, and Latoya returning battled & bruised, only to take out one of the contenders, Jemmye, in very impressive fashion in the very first elimination. And this week, Jessica would not only continue her impressive showing, she also became interested in Dustin as was Emilee, while Cohutta would have a very good week in celebrating his birthday in many ways. Speaking of them, they and several others on this season are the subject of this post.

Now, for many of you, especially those who only watch Challenges & don't watch The Real World with the same level of interest as me, Free Agents is your first opportunity to see these newcomers or returnees in action. These are the same people who I became familiar with on the past two Challenges and on their original RW season (I didn't watch Challenges much until BOTS). Of course, these fans will be in the blue of what these rookies have in store, and while it'll be easy for them to go for the vets - and also prefer the old schoolers over the new generation, as we saw in the very first elimination, there are some rookies who are eager to hang with the vets in Uruguay, enough for them to win over these fans too. Take for example what we saw with Jordan when he & Marlon went all the way to the final on Rivals II and earned the respect of one Mr. Beautiful, Kenny, after beating Leroy & Ty, among other things in his great rookie campaign last year.

   Just as we did last summer, this post is our way to help avid Challenge fans, who know more about the vets than these rookies, get some insight into these new people: background from their original bios, what happened with them on their Real World, and save for those four making their Challenge debut in Uruguay, a recap of how they did on previous Challenges. This will help you understand these people the same way you know the vets and the same way that I do having followed them first in that other show that I love more. This way, we will make sure you'll never know who these newcomers are when you see them being introduced or when they compete in that first mission in the premiere. And most importantly this will help ensure that they are all given the kind of proper respect they deserve.

In that first "Who Are These Newbies?" post last summer, DCBLOG profiled 13 1st- or 2nd-time Challengers who were on Rivals II, and seven of them have been called up to do Free Agents: Jessica, Jordan, Jemmye, Frank, Nany, Zach and Preston. Just in case this is your first time watching them this season or need a refresher, check out that post where we covered them and fellow competitors Trey, Robb, Cooke, Marlon, Knight & Anastasia. And of course, five of these people eventually joined the big name vets in the final. That's at http://dc408dxtr.blogspot.com/2013/07/rivals-ii-who-are-these-newbies.html.

   For our 2nd installment of "Who Are These Newbies?", we will introduce you to nine more people who have done either one or two Challenges or are making their debut in Uruguay. This includes two who were part of RW's most famous fight, two of those who were paired up on Hassel Island, and two finalists on BOTS who finished behind San Diego in Namibia. Plus as an aid to those who might be watching a Challenge for the first time, we've also included a 10th person who is neither of those options but is a power player making a return this season after a 3-year layoff.

   But we begin with a trio of Real World alums who, while they are technically classified as rookies on this season, are making their Challenge return after a few years watching these shows from the comfort of their own couch.

DC SocialPulse - The Challenge: Free Agents - "Love in the Fast Lane"

*** Reader Advisory: DC SocialPulse Contains Adult Language & Content 

Some Readers May Find Objectionable. Viewer Discretion is Advised. ***

By DC Cueva

@DC408dxtr / @DC408dxnow

Welcome again to DC SocialPulse and to our wrap of episode 2 of The Challenge: Free Agents. Last week, of course, the season began in grand style (and with a mega-wrap to boot) with a twist of the season being an individual Challenge that sent the competitors' pre-laid plans into for a tailspin, followed by a grueling opening challenge that saw the group confront the country's tallest building. And with a game-changing twist to the elimination process as we've known it, we get a great elimination battle that saw the continuation of the rookie revolution when a battered, bruised & bubbly St. Thomas lady took out a key contender & finalist from last season in a fantastic elimination battle.

   This week, it's Love in the Fast Lane as the week's mission shifts from a skyscraper to the race track as competitors drive their way towards the podium. A night of celebration to celebrate a birthday leads to hookups we never expected and an a huge fight between two close friends. And the volatile nature of the eliminations this season and its aftermath forces a budding romance to end just as began to blossom. And after our episode wrap - a much shorter one than what we had last week along with the SP diary, we'll talk about the latest member of the Real World/Challenge family, and someone on this cast, to take themselves off the bachelor list.

DC SocialPulse - The Challenge: Free Agents Premiere (SuperSizedEdition!)

*** Reader Advisory: DC SocialPulse Contains Adult Language & Content 

Some Readers May Find Objectionable. Viewer Discretion is Advised. ***

By DC Cueva

@DC408dxtr / @DC408dxnow

Hi everyone and welcome again to DC SocialPulse, and to our first diary for The Challenge: Free Agents - a very special super-sized edition to cover all the buzz of the action-packed premiere. Back when this was all taped several months ago, host TJ Lavin tweeted to fans, "Wow I just wanna go on record and say this is the best start to a Challenge I've EVER seen!!! Be ready!" Well, the premiere on Thursday night not only backed up his words up, but also provided us with a brilliant start to this silver anniversary season. This begins with TJ welcoming the cast to Uruguay and informing them of a stunning twist of it being an individual game that will alter the plans of many of the players. It continues with an opening mission that sees the group confront the country's largest skyscraper, including a death-defying walk 47 stories above ground. And with a game-changing twist to how the process of who goes home, in the end we get a fantastic elimination battle between a finalist from last season and an upstart in her very first Challenge. We'll be covering all of that here.

First off, for those of you visiting DCBLOG for the first time, DC SocialPulse is a unique post that I do that you can't really find anywhere in the blogosphere. These are our exclusive running diaries of how twitter sees television shows and big events as they happen. One of the things twitter does best is when people get the opportunity to see & experience the true communal experience that comes with watching television and interacting with cast members, fans and everyone else. As I've matured gradually in the twitter verse since I joined on, fittingly enough, premiere night of Real World St. Thomas on June 27, 2012, the reason why I go crazy tweeting and retweeting things when The Real World or The Challenge is on or during big events is for these posts. And in response to an issue I've had of losing followers on my primary twitter account, I recently launched a new twitter hub, DC NOW at @DC408dxnow as an place for me to still do live tweeting while protecting my primary audience.

   If you're a person who wants to relive how your favorite cast members reacted to a hookup, a fight, a huge challenge or an elimination round, or anything else that took place, we will have everything covered. Or, in the case of folks out west such as yours truly, those who might have stayed off social media while the episodes aired and wouldn't get the benefit of having the true TV & Twitter experience of your favorites tweeting along with you out west, these SocialPulse posts are just for you. Instead of having to go back and read up on all those tweets in your timeline after you've seen the episodes, let yours truly take care of that for you as I piece together everything in real-time, tweet-by-tweet, uncensored and unfiltered. I monitor & compile tweets as it emerges while the show airs out east, then RT certain tweets on DC Now when it airs here, and then I burn the midnight oil to then edit it, and post these articles a day or two after. These days, it's required that fans not only have their sets tuned to MTV for the shows as they watch it live, but also have an Internet device handy to follow the other big show on at the same time: the spontaneous interaction among cast, fans and all of us.

   Since we launched SocialPulse last year during the Rivals II premiere and then continuing along with the rest of that season near the end, and then this winter with Real World Ex-Plosion and Are You The One?, these SP diaries make up for a good number of DCBLOG's nearly 7,500 views, with visitors from many foreign countries checking out the twitter interaction, among others, of these shows. Yeah I know, it's a rather long process of copying & pasting cast tweets to my notepad and then putting it into my blog with commentary before & after, but the reward is lots of fans checking out my blog, not only from North America but also from overseas. And it's the work that I do compiling these tweets, along with getting views from fans and covering what I'm into that's made blogging such a great hobby of mine. For this Challenge, just as it was for RW Ex-Plosion and Are You The One?, we will be offering the same thing in bringing all the tweets together, but also I will post them the Friday or weekend after the episodes air, complete with my own commentary and thoughts & perspectives on them too.

Enough of my prologue. Let's get now to the reason you are actually here for: the following are the actual tweets of the cast, alumni, fans and me as we got to see the premiere of The Challenge: Free Agents, along with the week leading up to and the day after the premiere.

- As we begin, please note there is explicit language in many of the tweets below, but I am keeping it uncensored in order to retain the heat of the moment. So if you are mature enough, please read with discretion. :-)

- Plus, if you haven't watched the episode yet, then don't proceed. But don't worry, bookmark DCBLOG as I will compile all of these tweets into these posts after every episode so you won't be in the dark of how your favorites saw this all unfold.

- And there's also a number of twitter arguments that emerged with some members of the community while the premiere was airing. We've included all of their tweets in this post, and also carefully edited it to ensure that we showcase both sides of the matter.

So without further delay, off we go on a long ride into Challenge land... That's after the jump.

Countdown to The Challenge: Free Agents - A Primer and a Preview

By DC Cueva

@DC408dxtr

Welcome everyone to the beginning of DCBLOG's coverage of The Challenge: Free Agents. With two great & successful seasons of both The Real World: Ex-Plosion and Are You The One? having just wrapped up, and with both our Reunion Revealed posts & final SocialPulse diaries on those shows still to come, we now turn much of our attention here to the upcoming season of this revered competition show, which enters its 25th season starting tomorrow. This will be the fourth Challenge that I have watched since I rejoined this world with BOTS in fall 2012, then binge watching the entire season of Rivals the day after my twitter birthday last year, and of course Rivals II afterwards. Fitting enough for its silver anniversary season, and with the words of TJ & some of the cast to boot, this promises to be the most intense Challenge yet with all the competition, all the drama and so much more. And to kick off our coverage, we will provide a sort of Challenge for Dummies look into elements of the show, along with some of my perspective. Then, we will have our preview of the upcoming season of Free Agents.

DC SocialPulse: Real World Ex-Plosion - "The Ex-odus" & The Clip Show

*** Reader Advisory: DC SocialPulse Contains

Adult Language. Viewer Discretion is Advised. ***

By DC Cueva

@DC408dxtr / @DC408dxnow

Hi again everyone and welcome to another edition of DC SocialPulse as we cover season finale night of Real World Ex-Plosion. And boy, this has been one hell of a season...I don't normally curse in the social media world (pardon my language), but I pretty much had to utter it out to describe the wild and crazy nature of this Real World season that I have enjoyed so much. And on Wednesday, the season that has revamped & revitalized this pioneer of reality television came to a close in, fittingly enough, rather explosive fashion, along with the usual emotions surrounding the cast leaving the city.

   Last week, we saw a reconnection between Jenny & Cory making Brian jealous, Jamie getting a reality check for her aggressive behavior, and a touch of old-school Real World as Arielle pursued her aspirations of filmmaking. And it ended with the two guys turning on each other. And that's where the finale picks up with that confrontation as Brian reaches the depths after losing Jenny, and threatens to tear the house apart just before they move out. And as is custom for finales, the roommates all prepare to say farewell as the relationships they have are tested one more time. But isn't all sadness, after this finale we then saw the hilarity of what I like to call The Clip Show (you can call it by another name if you want but I'm calling it by the original name when the Seattle season first had something like this.

   Following twitter's view of both of these, we'll have an extended wrap of both last week's and this week's episodes (we tabled the EP11 wrap due to the cliffhanger & my busy blog schedule). First, Just a reminder here that there's adult language in some tweets below, but I am keeping it uncensored in order to retain the heat of the moment. So if you are mature enough, please read with discretion. :-) But first off, in addition to a marathon, there was also a proposal on the same day Ethan & Amber pulled that off on the Are You The One? Reunion...or so we thought. Join us for what happened next and more from finale day of RW Ex-Plosion after the jump.

DC SocialPulse: Are You The One? After-Match & DC List Top Moments

*** Reader Advisory: DC SocialPulse Contains Adult Language and

spoilers for international readers. Viewer Discretion is Advised. ***

By DC Cueva
@DC408dxtr / @DC408dxnow

Hi again and welcome to, sadly, our final edition of DC SocialPulse for season one of Are You The One?, as we cover the aftermath, or shall we say, "The After-Match," better known as the Reunion. This has been nothing but a hugely successful first season of this unique social experiment, the likes of which has never been attempted before now.

   More than two months after this started with 20 young people single & ready to mingle after not having much luck in the love department, this all concludes with them all finding their perfect match and sharing in the largest prize in MTV history. And judging from tremendous interest both on twitter and among viewers, including fans staying up late after Teen Mom II & this shown around the world, this has captured everyone's attention to the point that NY Observer is calling Are You The One? "The greatest reality show ever." Last week, of course, was the season finale and the group got to figure out the last remaining love triangle in the house - Scali, Jacy & John - and then swapped them & Ashleigh to pave the way for the group to go 10 for 10 and fly out of Hawaii with $1 million.

   But as it turns out, the finale isn't the end of the drama among the group. This week is the curtain closer to season one as Adam, Amber, Ashleigh, Brittany, Chris, Coleysia, Dillan, Dre, Ethan, Jacy, Jessica, Joey, John, Kayla, Paige, Ryan, Scali, Shanley, Simone & Wes get together for the first time since their moment in the sun in Hawaii for the Reunion, and once again host Ryan Devlin moderates the proceedings. We'll be looking back on the dramatic fights, steamy hookups and budding romances, as well as finding out who stayed together, some explosive drama and a surprise proposal & engagement between one of the couples.

   And after we see how the cast saw the paired-down version of their lengthy reunion on twitter (more on that coming later this week), we'll be debuting the DC List: a list of sorts that I'll be doing on here, as I'll be counting down my top 5 moments from this season. First...

- 1. Please note there is explicit language in certain tweets below, but I am keeping it uncensored in order to retain the heat of the moment. So if you are mature enough, please read with discretion. :-)

- & 2. As AYTO is airing hot off the U.S. presses on other MTV international channels and this episode hasn't aired where you live, please don't proceed with reading this post. But I will be compiling all the cast tweets from when it airs for the first time here into these DCSP posts, so you won't miss a thing of how your favorite castmates reacted to this episode when they get to see them for the first time.

So with that, for one last time, join us after the jump for the final act, and the DC 5. And we'll begin with the group continuing to soak in their historic achievement in the days after the finale.