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The Challenge: North America's fifth sport (spoilers within)


DanteGabriel

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Really good show this week.

Spoiler

I thought Kyle made a great move taking Cam. Cam is in the alliance pretty strongly and is a good competitor. Picking her should mean he isn't part of a team that the alliance will throw in without hesitation for fear of losing her.

As to Fessy-Aneesa

Spoiler

I think they laid the ground work this week in the editing for them to get broken up real soon. During the ice block thing it was mentioned several times how they had no kill shots. Then TJ called them out in front of everyone and said he should write them the check now which added extra attention. Then Fessy tells them all to get Wes in, and then they change it and vote in Kyle because he lied to them which pissed off their alliance. Plus lets be real, there is no way he wants Aneesa as his partner the whole way.

Ass to the gold skulls, yeah they will be targeted especially if a perceived weak person wins one.

Natalie!

Spoiler

I love how Natalie from Survivor has jumped right in head first and done really well. She was a beast on Survivor and it shows already. When she called Jason or George or whoever it was that was talking about wanting to go in against Wes I was laughing my ass off. Normally people don't come right out and say what they think but she really let him have it. Wes should thank the heavens she is his partner.

 

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Fessy was such a wuss for not going in to what was obviously a physical elimination against a guy he would have easily handled.  Plus, as someone else said, he could have chosen a stronger competitor to be his new partner, because Aneesa will drag him down at some point.

I loved the bit where Kyle talked about how he went up to every single person in the house after the first elimination and told them he didn't vote them in.  :lol:

The preview for next week looks fun.  I always love a good Josh meltdown and it looks like we'll be getting one of those.  Fucking hate that guy.

 

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1 hour ago, Whiskeyjack said:

Oh wanted to mention one other thing, in case anybody hasn't seen it.

Netflix just added 2 old seasons of The Challenge. 

Season 10 - The Inferno II
Season 13 - The Duel

Fun to go back and see some of the old school players.  And some of the long-term players in their early years. 

Sweet.

I babysit for my brother during the week and he has an app on his Apple TV called Pluto that has an all Challenge channel.  I spent my summer sitting on his couch binging old seasons.  The problem is they only show so many of the seasons, then they start repeating them.  Great fun though.

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8 hours ago, Whiskeyjack said:

Oh wanted to mention one other thing, in case anybody hasn't seen it.

Netflix just added 2 old seasons of The Challenge. 

Season 10 - The Inferno II
Season 13 - The Duel

Fun to go back and see some of the old school players.  And some of the long-term players in their early years. 

Man, I've never actually seen seasons of this show with Miz in them.  

Also, zero chance this show would still be on if Dave Mirra was the host.  Holy shit is he bad.  I'm like 90% sure the only reason The Challenge still exists is because TJ Lavin wants to travel the world and torture alcoholics, and you can feel his glee when they get hurt in the challenges.

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On 12/18/2020 at 10:40 AM, Fiddler said:

I don't know if anyone watched the Celebrity Big Brother with Lolo, but she could be a real source of some drama.

I forgot about the Jordan/Josh rope challenge.  The way Jordan completely played Josh was fantastic.  Especially because of the amount of crap Josh talks, but has never lived up to.  I love the "rivalry" he had with Wes last year.

I love the twist this season of the hidden votes, but the winning pair seeing who voted for whom.  Fantastic, especially while no one else in the house knows about it.

I think I remember there was a fair bit of drama in Lolo Jones' actual life, so I kinda expect her to have some messy moments this year. I thought I had some vague memories of her creating drama when she did Champs vs Pros a few years ago? Anyway, I am actively rooting for her to get it on with Nam. 

Josh is so hilariously inept. It's amazing to watch him continue to cluelessly blunder his way through a season. 

The hidden votes being revealed to the Double Agents only is a great twist. I was beginning to wonder how long people would let Fessy and Aneesa keep the spot, but I think after the way things ended people won't just let them default to win again. Though between Aneesa's brains and Fessy's brawn, they're actually a pretty decent pair. Right up until there's an endurance run.

Will the next pair of double agents keep the secret as well? It's totally to their advantage to keep the secret as long as possible, so there's going to be some kind of Secret Knowledge club about people who know about that perk of being a Double Agent. Fun!

 

On 12/18/2020 at 11:23 AM, Whiskeyjack said:

That said - actually, umm - was any decision made about spoilers?  It's been a couple of days since this week's episode, but don't want to ruin it for anybody who is behind.  Will spoil things for now - @DanteGabriel let us know how you want to handle things.

 

I think it's okay to just talk about what happened without the spoiler tags. There are only a few of us and it's a pain in the ass to quote-respond to a spoiler tag. I am writing this post on my computer, I bet it would drive me bonkers to deal with quoted spoiler tags on my phone. But that probably means that I should say "spoilers" in the thread title?

I do appreciate the folks who used the spoiler tag out of an abundance of caution. I actually stayed away from this thread until I could see the episode. My wife was off work Wednesday, which is rare, so I didn't watch the Challenge the night it aired.

 

On 12/18/2020 at 11:30 AM, Whiskeyjack said:

Oh wanted to mention one other thing, in case anybody hasn't seen it.

Netflix just added 2 old seasons of The Challenge. 

Season 10 - The Inferno II
Season 13 - The Duel

Fun to go back and see some of the old school players.  And some of the long-term players in their early years. 

That's awesome, thanks for the heads up. I might go back and see some of those. But wow, looking at the Wikipedia page for Inferno II, that's far back enough that there were still a lot of not-that-athletic people on the show. And I totally forgot that Dave Mirra used to host this thing. Maybe those were some of the seasons I missed, because I remembered Johnny Moseley came before TJ.

To talk more about the latest episode: pretty funny to see Joseph self-assuredly doom himself. Dude paid no attention to the game, ignored the social aspect, ignored his partner, and thought he was going to outsmart and outplay everybody.

I think it was dumb of Fessy to skip this week's elimination. He opted out because he thought the elimination setup looked "janky?" What does that even mean? There was a metal ring in the arena. That's pretty much a guarantee that you're going to have to wrestle the ring away from your opponent. He could have dominated Joseph as bad as the Johnny Backpack.

Love that Kyle called Fessy out on it, too. Kyle is kind of a weasel, but he has self-awareness, and he was right that people were gutless when they weren't putting kills on Fessy and Aneesa in the challenge and right about Fessy dodging this elimination.

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Well I almost thought I wasn't going to be able to watch this.  Unlike back in the past when it seemed you could never turn on MTV without encountering a Real World or Road Rules marathon, it seems they are barely showing this?  Only one rerun a week and its at a unobtainable hour on a weekend morning.  Yet Ridiculousness is on every single day.

In any event I have discovered its available on demand so I have been able to catch up.  Not sure what I think yet.  I never take to new-to-me people immediately and there are so many new-to-me people!  You know I am desperate for oldies when I'm actually rooting for Wes, who I used to despise, but am now I guess sentimental about.  It's funny how some things can stick with you over the years - even before I clearly saw his face, I recognized his voice when he started talking.  Same with CT.  Although I am always a bit sad when I see CT as I can't see him without thinking about Diem.

I like the challenges so far and I love the location.  I guess I am so sick of seeing people in swim wear on Survivor sweating to death so its nice to have a change of scenery with Iceland and people freezing in the water and having to chop ice.

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On 12/22/2020 at 12:58 AM, lady narcissa said:

Well I almost thought I wasn't going to be able to watch this.  Unlike back in the past when it seemed you could never turn on MTV without encountering a Real World or Road Rules marathon, it seems they are barely showing this?  Only one rerun a week and its at a unobtainable hour on a weekend morning.  Yet Ridiculousness is on every single day.

I am as shocked as you about the ubiquity of Ridiculousness. It doesn't seem like MTV is even trying with its programming any more. I had a weird scenario where I missed the first episode of this season, also discovered that it never got repeated over the course of the week, so I went on MTV's website to view it. They made me pick my cable provider from a list, but Comcast (a huge cable provider in the US that also owns a ton of intellectual property) wasn't on the list, so I had to watch with a "24 hour pass." Which is fine, I have my DVR set up to record it now, but it makes me wonder if MTV's parent company is in some kind of pissing match with Comcast.

 

On 12/22/2020 at 12:58 AM, lady narcissa said:

In any event I have discovered its available on demand so I have been able to catch up.  Not sure what I think yet.  I never take to new-to-me people immediately and there are so many new-to-me people!  You know I am desperate for oldies when I'm actually rooting for Wes, who I used to despise, but am now I guess sentimental about.  It's funny how some things can stick with you over the years - even before I clearly saw his face, I recognized his voice when he started talking.  Same with CT.  Although I am always a bit sad when I see CT as I can't see him without thinking about Diem.

I like the challenges so far and I love the location.  I guess I am so sick of seeing people in swim wear on Survivor sweating to death so its nice to have a change of scenery with Iceland and people freezing in the water and having to chop ice.

The last season would have been great for you to watch -- there were more older veterans around and Johnny and Wes had a pretty neat story arc.

I wonder how you felt about this most recent episode, the third episode of the season, with Wes's wounded act over people doing him dirty. This episode was also notable for one of the most dangerous challenges they've ever had them do (no harness!) and because Josh was so very Joshy and Devin was so very Deviny.

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Devin is definitely my favorite of the newer guys.  He's an insane person, but watching him so easily manipulate Josh was hilarious.

Also loved Devin's bit where he was talking about how he couldn't understand a word Nicole was saying.

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9 minutes ago, briantw said:

Devin is definitely my favorite of the newer guys.  He's an insane person, but watching him so easily manipulate Josh was hilarious.

Also loved Devin's bit where he was talking about how he couldn't understand a word Nicole was saying.

"What's 8x9?"

I wasn't too big a fan of Devin before because he seemed too big for his britches, just overestimating his own cleverness, but getting to pick on Josh turns him into a regular mastermind.

Second biggest dumb-ass of the week? Fessy, for spilling the beans about the secret vote info and somehow making everyone suspicious of him. I don't think we got to see if Aneesa knew he told the other guys about it. I bet she'll be pissed.

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Yeah, I don't know if getting Josh upset mentally is much of a challenge. The guy is about as mentally strong as chicken with it's head cut off. Devin really had him going though, and the funny thing is Josh never did answer whats 7*9...hmm

Wes, I hated seeing him act like that. He is a beaten man, he is done. It was like seeing Cara Maria two seasons ago. She was totally dick whipped by the English Ken doll and she was never the same after that.

On a side note I watched some episodes of the Inferno 2 last night on netflix. Man was it different. weak challenges too.

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3 hours ago, dbunting said:

Yeah, I don't know if getting Josh upset mentally is much of a challenge. The guy is about as mentally strong as chicken with it's head cut off. Devin really had him going though, and the funny thing is Josh never did answer whats 7*9...hmm

Wes, I hated seeing him act like that. He is a beaten man, he is done. It was like seeing Cara Maria two seasons ago. She was totally dick whipped by the English Ken doll and she was never the same after that.

On a side note I watched some episodes of the Inferno 2 last night on netflix. Man was it different. weak challenges too.

Wes crying about people playing a dishonest game is the funniest shit ever.  He is literally known for being one of the biggest snakes in Challenge history.

Hell, his entire strategy last season was built around dishonesty when he was working with Bananas but pretending they were still rivals.

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2 hours ago, briantw said:

Wes crying about people playing a dishonest game is the funniest shit ever.  He is literally known for being one of the biggest snakes in Challenge history.

Hell, his entire strategy last season was built around dishonesty when he was working with Bananas but pretending they were still rivals.

I'm pretty sure we won't see him again. If we do it will go similar to this season.

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6 minutes ago, dbunting said:

I'm pretty sure we won't see him again. If we do it will go similar to this season.

Wouldn't surprise me.  He's pretty much washed at this point and without the new players respecting him enough to let him lead/manipulate them, he's got nothing going for him.  He's coasted for at least the past five years on previous Challenge success, but he just can't get it done in any physical eliminations any more.

Still won't forgive the Challenge crew for not giving us a physical elimination between him and Bananas last season.  Granted, maybe he doesn't go into the elimination if he thinks it's physical, but that was an all time shit elimination game that basically amounted to pure luck.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Okay I am all caught up.  The holidays really interrupted the tv viewing.

I still feel like I am finding my footing with this cast.  So many unknowns.  I had to watch the episodes with the Wikipedia listing of the cast so I could keep cluing myself in on who is who.  I do watch Big Brother and Survivor so I recognize those but couldn't necessarily remember which show I knew them from.  I've decided one of the biggest problems is everyone wearing all black.  Didn't they previously give teams different colors to wear?  I realize with the switching around of partners it would be hard to maintain team colors.  But once everyone suits up and puts on their helmets, its really hard to tell who is who.  It doesn't help that they seem to have given a grey muted wash to the video.  Iceland can be so blue and green, I wish they had used brighter colors.

That daily challenge on the third episode...the one on the moving truck...holy shit!  At first I didn't realize the nets were on either side and I thought they were going to be throwing each other off to the ground!  But even with the nets that was one dangerous challenge.  I felt really bad for...*looks their names up*....Nicole and Liv with their injuries.  But these daily challenges are pretty good and I do like the Iceland backdrop. 

On 12/28/2020 at 12:45 PM, DanteGabriel said:

I had a weird scenario where I missed the first episode of this season, also discovered that it never got repeated over the course of the week, so I went on MTV's website to view it. They made me pick my cable provider from a list, but Comcast (a huge cable provider in the US that also owns a ton of intellectual property) wasn't on the list, so I had to watch with a "24 hour pass." Which is fine, I have my DVR set up to record it now, but it makes me wonder if MTV's parent company is in some kind of pissing match with Comcast....

...I wonder how you felt about this most recent episode, the third episode of the season, with Wes's wounded act over people doing him dirty.

I actually have Comcast and they have The Challenge available for free viewing On Demand.  Maybe that is why its not listed on the MTV website?  I am very old school with my tv viewing so I can't record and I don't have any streaming services, just my basic building provided cable.  So I was pretty pleased to find this there.

I was pretty sad about Wes being booted and considering how much I used to hate him I can only imagine its because there are so many new people and he is one of the familiar faces and I will cling to familiarity in the face of all those newbies.  I'm sure I will be over it in a few episodes as I get more comfortable with the rest of the cast.  If CT goes, however, I don't know what I will do.

On 12/28/2020 at 12:58 PM, briantw said:

Devin is definitely my favorite of the newer guys.  He's an insane person, but watching him so easily manipulate Josh was hilarious.

OMG right now I hate Devin.  What is this show he was on?  Are You The One?  Is this another MTV show that they hardly ever air?  Because I cannot remember ever passing it and they have somehow had 8 seasons.  I feel sorry for that woman he apparently hates but has partnered with.  And poor Josh.  I remember seeing him on Big Brother but honestly cannot remember if I liked him then or not but maybe have some vague notion he did better than he should have on the show.  But I guess just for old times sake I'll root for him over Devin.

But what is up with all the guys going and telling other guys they have made the girls cry when the girls are never crying.  And apparently calling another guy pussy is like the greatest insult they can come up with since they repeatedly seem to use that.

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Josh is an absolute weak player. He only wants to go in against a much smaller player and even then wants attention and drama over it. Last season he had the perfect chance to go in and wimped out of it, then freaked out once he knew what it was. This last week he did the same thing, he play acts like he is upset and that he wanted to go in. That big baby wanted no part of it but he can posture that he did now. Nelson would have destroyed him in hall brawl and he knows it.

I can't stand Devin, unless he is messing with Josh! He did the same thing to Bananas a few seasons ago and was chasing him all over the house and Bananas finally snapped and made a comment about Devins dad and Devin freaked out and suddenly Bananas was the bad guy and Devin did nothing to antagonize him. 

If nothing else this show is always entertaining.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Loved the latest episode. The guys are playing scared and I love that TJ called them out for it and didn't hold back on them. 

Devin owns Josh, of course a poodle could mind f*ck Josh he is so weak. Fessy, wtf poser. He gets all loud and pokes Devin and Kyle in the chest but as soon as Kyle poked back Fessy lost his crap, don't put your hands on me!!!!

Love how people get butt hurt over getting sent down...isn't that why you are there? You have to earn a gold skull at some point but they all cry and complain when they get sent down. Sure you would like to get to pick and choose but damn.

Have to think Leroy is the only person who would have beat Jay in that challenge, no one else would have been close. Sucks because I like Leroy and Jay.

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It's been a while so I'm catching up on plotlines. First I have to say it's rare to see a fall from grace as bad as Fessy's. He went from winner of the first two challenges and taking Kaycee as his partner, to becoming an untrustworthy punk-ass who betrayed Nelson and fought dirty against a guy 50 lbs lighter than him. And then ended up paired with Aneesa again. I'll never forgive Fessy for making me root for Nelson.

This last episode made me happy. Happy to see Theresa's clumsy machinations blow up on her. I think this was her first season in a long time but damn I don't remember her being this treacherous, unlikeable, and an outright gaslighter.

Also happy to see everything Leroy did in this episode. From being one of the few guys who tried in the challenge, to announcing his targeting of Jay, following through, and just smoking him. @dbunting you're right, it's hard to think of someone else who would have beaten Jay in that. I was nervous for Leroy when I saw what the elimination was, since Jay is lighter and unexpectedly strong (just ask CT) but holy shit did Leroy move.

I'm all in, Team Leroy from here on out. He's been around a long time and I don't think he's even gotten into a final. He's always been a solid dude. I like Kam, I like their alliance, I like the way they play the game, and I think he deserves a win.

ETA I do still think Devin is a dickhead but he's at least honest about himself. If he keeps picking apart the feeble brains of Josh and Fessy, more power to him.

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2 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

It's been a while so I'm catching up on plotlines. First I have to say it's rare to see a fall from grace as bad as Fessy's. He went from winner of the first two challenges and taking Kaycee as his partner, to becoming an untrustworthy punk-ass who betrayed Nelson and fought dirty against a guy 50 lbs lighter than him. And then ended up paired with Aneesa again. I'll never forgive Fessy for making me root for Nelson.

This last episode made me happy. Happy to see Theresa's clumsy machinations blow up on her. I think this was her first season in a long time but damn I don't remember her being this treacherous, unlikeable, and an outright gaslighter.

Also happy to see everything Leroy did in this episode. From being one of the few guys who tried in the challenge, to announcing his targeting of Jay, following through, and just smoking him. @dbunting you're right, it's hard to think of someone else who would have beaten Jay in that. I was nervous for Leroy when I saw what the elimination was, since Jay is lighter and unexpectedly strong (just ask CT) but holy shit did Leroy move.

I'm all in, Team Leroy from here on out. He's been around a long time and I don't think he's even gotten into a final. He's always been a solid dude. I like Kam, I like their alliance, I like the way they play the game, and I think he deserves a win.

ETA I do still think Devin is a dickhead but he's at least honest about himself. If he keeps picking apart the feeble brains of Josh and Fessy, more power to him.

Devin has basically become a good guy this season solely because Fessy and Josh are such little bitches.

Agree with you on Leroy.  Would be great to see him finally get a win since he's been doing this show forever and I can't really ever recall a time he was a "bad guy" on it, which is rare for The Challenge.  I think pretty much everyone else who has been on for a bunch of seasons has had an arc from good to bad or vice versa.

I only wish that TJ invalidating the votes from the guys who didn't compete would have changed the outcome.  That would have been hilarious. 

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15 hours ago, briantw said:

Devin has basically become a good guy this season solely because Fessy and Josh are such little bitches.

Agree with you on Leroy.  Would be great to see him finally get a win since he's been doing this show forever and I can't really ever recall a time he was a "bad guy" on it, which is rare for The Challenge.  I think pretty much everyone else who has been on for a bunch of seasons has had an arc from good to bad or vice versa.

I only wish that TJ invalidating the votes from the guys who didn't compete would have changed the outcome.  That would have been hilarious. 

I was holding out hope that TJ would say since Theresa and Jay both competed and all the other guys didn't then they can't be the compromised agents. The episode title kind of gave it away though, Die another Jay...

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