The Challenge Final Reckoning Episode 13 Recap and Power Rankings
The competitors return from the mission and Zach is talking to Nelson. Nelson wants Zach and Amanda to go after Bananas and Tony, but Zach says he is loyal to Tony and won’t backstab him. Zach outlines the house sides as Bananas’ alliance consisting of Johnny and Tony, Marie and Cara, and himself; with Amanda’s alliance being Shane and Nelson, Hunter and Ashley, and Sylvia and Joss. Jozea and Da’Vonne are considered the swing vote, although they’ve voted with Johnny the majority of the time.
After talking with Da’Vonne and Jozea, Cara goes outside to talk to Johnny and Tony. She tells them the other side of the house is planning to vote for them, and that Marie will vote anyone besides Shane and Nelson. The three agree to vote for Hunter and Ashley and conclude if they can get Da’Vonne and Jozea to vote with them, they can at least force a tie.
Back in the Redemption House, tensions are still high between Kyle and Paulie. Paulie says he shouldn’t have come on the show in a relationship, so he could have gotten with Cara, and then he and Kyle start getting into it. Paulie says he didn’t think Kyle cared for Cara. I’m honestly confused why Kyle holds so much ill will for Paulie, He ghosted on Cara and got with two other girls on the show and Paulie didn’t even reciprocate Cara’s advances; so, I don’t know what the big deal is. Paulie says he would go into competition against Kyle or Zach as long as he has the opportunity to get physical with them. Kyle steps up on him and Paulie doesn’t back down and the two look like they are about to fight before Brad breaks up the pair. Brad leads Kyle outside to calm him down before heading back to the main house.
At the main house, Nelson and Da’Vonne are talking and they discover they are both from Englewood. They are very cordial with each other and it seems we may be headed toward an alliance. However, Jozea and Da’Vonne then go talk to Johnny. Johnny says he is most worried at the moment about Nelson and Shane and that they should be too. He says he is on a need to know basis and to just inform him of anything they might need.
Later that night, Tony and Zach and Amanda is not a fan of that and runs outside to try to convince him to not trust Tony fully. Zach says he doesn’t believe Tony will ever vote him in, while Amanda counters that he already voted in Johnny so what is keeping him from throwing in Zach as well. Zach pulls Amanda aside to have a private conversation. Their conversation doesn’t seem to amount to much at all because both just talk about how their side hasn’t betrayed them and not to raise their voice at the other. They start yelling at each other and end up heading inside without any resolution having been reached.
We head to nominations, and things go as expected. Zach and Amanda vote for Da’Vonne and Jozea, although Amanda says they can’t play the middle forever and have to make a powerplay soon. Shane and Nelson, Joss and Sylvia, and Hunter and Ashley all vote for Johnny and Tony while Johnny and Tony and Cara and Marie vote for Ashley and Hunter. Da’Vonne and Jozea are the only vote we don’t see, with Jozea saying they have to pick a side and stick with it.
We head to Armageddon, where the pads light up and it is a tie between Hunter and Ashley and Tony and Johnny; meaning Zach and Amanda have to cast the deciding vote. Zach wants to vote for Hunter and Ashley while Amanda wants Tony and Johnny; so, the two are at an impasse. TJ says they can go discuss it, but Amanda says she isn’t budging so there is nothing to discuss. TJ then says that if they don’t come to a decision within ten seconds they will be the ones playing. Amanda and Johnny start arguing before Zach realizes neither of them are budging and steps down to enter the elimination himself.
The house, especially Amanda, is absolutely floored by this decision. Tony and Ashley say maybe they should have gone in, but both resolve to let Amanda and Zach take the bullet for them. Since they did not receive any votes, they are allowed to select their team for Armageddon. Zach at first wants to select Joss and Sylvia, but Amanda says no, and they pick Da’Vonne and Jozea. Da’Vonne flips out after getting called down, complaining about how keep getting picked on because they are the “rookies.” Hunter and Ashley say they had an opportunity to vote with them and probably not have to go into elimination. Da’Vonne starts yelling at them saying she wasn’t talking to them and starts cursing out the whole crowd. These types of outbursts always really bother me, because they show a complete lack of self-awareness about their situation. Right now, Amanda and Zach are having major issues because they have opposing alliances they’ve built up from multiple seasons. Da’Vonne and Jozea are the only team one member of the pair has not built a significant relationship with. It makes complete sense for them to throw them in, whether they are rookies or a pair of veterans coming out of retirement.
After the pairs head down, TJ announces they actually won’t be playing each other and instead will face Cory and Devin as mercenaries. For those not in the know, Cory had been deemed by some the future of the show after his rookie season where he got second place on Battle of the Bloodlines. His performance fell off a little bit, but on Dirty 30 he was really the one who lead the futile charge against the veteran contingent in the house. Devin picked up Cory’s mantle on Vendettas, convincing Tony to send in his mentor Johnny Bananas and then eliminating him from the competition. The rivalry between the two started on Rivals 3, where they got into a fight at the bar and continued onto Dirty 30 where Cory declined the opportunity to save Devin in the initial Purge challenge. TJ says in order to enter the game, they will have to defeat Amanda and Zach and Jozea and Da’Vonne.
TJ introduces the elimination, entitled Shake It Off. Each pair has a rope with nine medallions on it, and they have to jump on the rope and shake it in order to try to knock the medallions off. First team to take down all nine wins. Amanda and Zach are first up to take on Cory and Devin. Zach and Cory each knock one off almost immediately, but then Zach also gets knocked in the nose by one of the medallions and starts bleeding. They switch up their strategy, and have Amanda hold onto the rope while Zach leaps onto it and grabs it and knocks off five of the medallions. Devin and Cory knock off one of the medallions using the same strategy, making it so Amanda and Zach only have two left while Cory and Devin have seven. Both pairs keep employing the same strategy, and Cory and Devin have a few good jumps and get it to where Zach and Amanda only have one left while Cory and Devin have two. The one left for Amanda and Zach is all the way over on Amanda’s side, and she can’t seem to get enough power to knock it off. Cory and Devin get another one off, so they only have one left. Amanda and Zach still can not get the last one, and Cory and Devin jump on and knock the last one off; sending Amanda and Zach to the Redemption House.
Devin and Cory are not finished yet as they still have to take on Da’Vonne and Jozea; but Amanda and Zach are clearly in low spirits. Zach starts telling Tony that at least Amanda learned her lesson; to which Amanda tells him to shut up and stop talking to her like that. In my opinion, the intrigue behind this pair and this decision is really one of the more fascinating items of discussion in recent seasons. On one hand, Amanda has what is relatively clearly a more ironclad alliance and one where only one player there is only one final win and two final appearances on their side; making them seemingly easier competition in a final compared to Zach’s side of the house where Johnny is the winningest Challenger of all time while Tony won the latest spin-off and Cara won the latest full season. However, Zach really has only had one team he is attempting to protect while Amanda has three. Also, if Hunter and Ashley are thrown in, there is a chance they choose a team without strong allegiances to either member of the pair while if Tony and Bananas go in one of Amanda’s three teams is going to have to go in anyways due to those three teams being the only ones that voted for Tony and Bananas and being the only ones eligible to be selected by them. Back on the other hand though, throwing in Johnny and Tony would mean one strong team has to go to the Redemption House while putting in Hunter and Ashley could lead to one of the two teams farther down the totem pole going to Redemption instead.
After this break in the action, we get to a relatively anti-climactic second elimination between Da’Vonne and Jozea and Devin and Cory. This elimination seems to go much quicker than the last one, with Cory and Devin getting six of the nine medallions off almost immediately. Da’Vonne and Jozea catch back up and get to where Cory and Devin have seven and Da’Vonne and Jozea have six. They end up being tied where each pair only has one left, with Devin and Cory having one in the middle of the rope and Da’Vonne and Jozea having the same one left Amanda and Zach did. It comes down to the wire, but Da’Vonne falls to the same fate Amanda did and Cory and Devin knock off their last medallion, sealing a place for them in the main house.
After the win, the Lavender Lady/Young Buck side of the house charges the winning pair and celebrates with them for their return to the house. I think the charging of the winning pair is honestly a tad immature and also a bit rude to the losing pair, who in all reality just lost their chance at a million dollars and have to deal with a bunch of people screaming in celebration for their opponents. Johnny starts talking with Hunter after the elimination, saying they aren’t going to be able to take their whole group to the final and trying to incite some chaos by pointing to what their pecking order is. TJ gathers the pairs together and dismisses Amanda and Zach and Da’Vonne and Jozea while welcoming back Cory and Devin.
Extra Notes
· There’s a lot to unpack with this episode. First thing off the bat is the equalizers for the eliminations. Da’Vonne mentioned something on her recap about Devin and Cory being double roped or something, but unlike most previous episodes it wasn’t obviously apparent if it was there. I’ve been relatively anti-equalizers in the way they’ve been used thus far; but this was a situation I felt one was clearly in order due to weight playing such a heavy factor. It’s hard to say if the equalizer had the desired effect, but these eliminations were exceptionally close (although it is suspicious it was the same medallion which remained for both Da’Vonne/Jozea and Amanda/Zach) so it seemed like they were put to appropriate use.
· One thing that I think has gone completely without attention this season is the fact that due to the format of the season no matter who Amanda and Zach selected for elimination between Ashley and Hunter and Tony and Johnny that a pair from both alliances was going in. To explain further, if Amanda and Zach had voted for Johnny and Tony; one of Ashley and Hunter, Joss and Sylvia, and Shane and Nelson would have to go into elimination because those were the only three teams who had voted for them. On the flip side; if they had voted for Ashley and Hunter; one of Johnny and Tony, Cara and Marie, and Da’Vonne and Jozea would have to go in. While Zach wasn’t aligned with Da’Vonne and Jozea, he and Amanda BOTH had allegiances to Cara and Marie and Ashley and Hunter had said they wanted Cara and Marie out first (as outlined in Cara’s recap here.) The fact this was never brought up by seemingly anyone is shocking to me, and also that this was the case and Amanda and Zach still couldn’t reach any sort of agreement is even crazier.
· Before I put this out there, let me say I have absolutely no sources and this is just me taking in the information in front of me and coming up with a conspiracy theory: I think Zach cut a deal to split the cash with Tony and Johnny. Deal cutting in The Challenge has been rumored (and essentially confirmed in some cases often in the show. On the first Battle of the Seasons, the two sides literally drafted up a contract to portion out the winnings. On Battle of the Sexes 2, it was all but confirmed Mark Long made a pact to split the money with Dan, Theo Von, and Eric Nies. When it comes specifically to Johnny, he is heavily rumored to cut a deal with Mark Long so the latter would throw the final elimination, and fellow members of the JEK alliance Evan and Kenny said on the No Quitters podcast that in essentially every season they were on some backdoor chicanery was going on. Looking specifically at the circumstances of this episode, Zach repeatedly says in confessionals that Amanda “just doesn’t understand” why Johnny and Tony are the team they need around most. He also had originally asked to go against Joss and Sylvia in elimination despite Da’Vonne and Jozea seeming like an obvious choice, which makes me think he wanted to eliminate them, so Johnny and Tony would have an easier path to the final. Also, Amanda said over Twitter she had was going to spoil Zach’s “big secret” at the reunion. Again, I have no sources on this, but there is a ton of info which points to this making it seem like a possibility.
· There has been a ton of buzz on Twitter especially about a clip from Vendettas where Tony seems to indicate he wants to put Zach up for the Inquisition but Cara and Kailah don’t let him before the last elimination. I think something overlooked here is that reality competition editors (and Challenge editors specifically) are known for not showing the full picture in order to create a narrative for the show. This happened continuously throughout the time of the show, notably happening a few episodes ago when the order of the scenes in the Cara-Amanda fight were supposedly completely flipped around. In the clip itself, Tony was never really shown saying he wanted Zach to go in, I think there is a possibility that he was stuck in a position where he knew one of his three allies (Leroy, Kyle, Zach) was going to have to go in and he didn’t like not being able to choose exactly how it would go. It also completely goes with Tony’s narrative in the season to show that, with his whole arc of the season being the rise from the goofy bottom feeder that was the runt of the Power Alliance on Dirty 30 and before, to be the backstabbing, emotionless power player he became on Vendettas. While it is possible Tony would have ended up putting Zach in on Vendettas, I think the clip has had way too much attention paid to it on a show known for telling their story rather than what happened.
· In controversies outside of the show, the person behind the Challenge Throwdown events that have been taking place across the U.S. has been revealed as a massive fraud. Scott Yager of ChallengeMania sheds much more light than I ever could on it here. A shocking and bizarre development in the world of the Challenge that came completely out of left field.
Redemption House
5) Da’Vonne/Jozea: It’s very difficult to parse out the Redemption House at this point, but considering they only have one team that would seem at all willing to pick them and if it’s more of a Purge based mission I don’t see them winning it.
4) Paulie/Natalie: I’m exceptionally conflicted on this pairing, because while they been abysmal in eliminations they’ve also gotten an incredible amount of camera time and think there is a distinct possibility that the coming Redemption House is more of a Purge based mission (similar to the Redemption missions in Dirty 30) versus the ones previously and if that is the case Natalie has actually shown to be quite good in missions so I wouldn’t be surprised if they sneak out a win in that type of format.
3) Kam/Kayleigh: There’s a strong possibility both of the teams above them select them for the Double Cross and considering how they have performed thus far and the fact that no matter which pair they go against in elimination they’ll have equalizers on their side means they have a chance.
2) Amanda/Zach: I considered putting them at every spot on the list due to their abysmal team morale at this point but in the end figured their overall ability as a team put them at #2.
1) Kyle/Brad: When the rankings are this close, eventually you throw your hands up in the air and say if you put them all on an even playing field who would be the best team. Factor in Amanda and Zach’s chemistry issues and the fact that both the teams above would seem like they may select them puts them at the top.
Main House
6) Cara/Marie: And all of the sudden, there are only six teams in the main house. This pair has been the worst performers of the pairs in the game and if Ashley/Hunter wanted them out there is a strong chance that thinking continues.
5) Cory/Devin: While they may seem like a strong team, Cory and Devin are probably the worst two male competitors in the game at the moment and are decidedly at the bottom of the Anti-Banana contingent.
4) Bananas/Tony: The hardest team to rank on the list, these two are probably the best pair left in the game but have all the cards stacked against them at the moment.
3) Shane/Nelson: They’ve been a good team so far if Bananas/Tony go in I would imagine they pick them and in a final I prefer the two teams ahead of them.
2) Hunter/Ashley: With Amanda and Zach gone, they’re the most balanced pair in the house and are in a solid place in their alliance.
1) Joss/Sylvia: If this season has shown us anything so far, it’s that someone will stick around until the producers give us a reason to care about them leaving. These two have been given the least of that so far, so they stay on top.
