The Challenge Final Reckoning Episode 16 Recap and Power Rankings
The episode picks literally exactly where the last one left off, with Natalie and Paulie celebrating their win. TJ addresses the group and welcomes Natalie and Paulie and Cara and Marie back to the house while sending Brad and Kyle and Kam and Kayleigh back to the Redemption House. Johnny is very pleased with this outcome as he assumes Natalie and Paulie will jump on board the banana boat and they will only be down four teams to three in numbers.
On the bus ride back to Redemption, Brad and Kyle and Kam are jokingly arguing over who had the worse elimination loss. They seem to be doing it all in jest, but Kayleigh is having none of it and simply sits pushed against the side of the bus despondent. She’s silent through all of the bus ride we see, and she clearly doesn’t seem happy about her current living situation.
Paulie and Natalie return to the house and both are immediately taken by the hand by Cara and Johnny. Cara tells Paulie not to sleep in Kyle’s bed while Johnny says, “Angela who?” when asked about his relationship with Natalie, so clearly the attempts to persuade them to his side have started.
The next morning, Cory and Devin are discussing their place in the game. Devin talks about how his dad has motivated him throughout the game while Cory talks about how his daughter has empowered him. They also agree they are in a solid position at the moment, and it is best to lay low for a while.
That night, the house is going out to eat at a restaurant. Things are pretty amicable until the bus ride home. On the way there, Tony grabs Cory’s pasta after someone sits on it and throws it out the window, which displeases Cory. Once they get out of the bus, Devin tries to talk Cory down from going after Tony. He specifically mentions his dad and Cory’s daughter who need him to keep his cool, so they have a chance to win money. Tony goes over to Cory and puts his arm around him, jokingly saying that he’ll help him find the pasta. At this point, Cory positions his hands down Tony’s waist and leg sweeps him, sending him collapsing to the ground and slamming his head on the concrete.
Complete mayhem breaks out at this point. Tony bounces back up before a security guard holds him back, Johnny starts yelling at Cory while Nelson is pushing him back, security is getting in the middle of everything, and Devin is attempting to claim Tony simply slipped. Devin admits via confessional that a lot of his reasoning for siding with is he simply can’t believe that they would be fighting over pasta and he’s going to side with his partner when all else is equal. Bananas starts getting into it with Nelson and Devin before retreating to Tony and making sure he doesn’t go back at Cory. A security guard literally carries Tony away as Bananas follows him and takes them to the room where they give confessionals.
The Young Bucks are contemplating what just occurred and Cory and Nelson are attempting to argue it was nothing. Hunter sits quietly and judging by his body language he seems to be the only one who actually understands the how dangerous what actually happened was. I understand it was the heat of the moment, but for Cory and Nelson to argue like what happened was the equivalent of two guys just joking around is insane. If they honestly believe it was all accidental, how come their first instinct was not to check on Tony to see if he was okay after his head got slammed on the concrete? Instead their first instinct was to claim Cory didn’t do anything and Bananas was trying to escalate the situation, which is often an indicator of guilt.
A lot of people have been breaking down the physical altercation itself, but I honestly don’t find it all that interesting as while obviously Tony provoked the situation Cory could have caused serious long-term injury to him by slamming his head on the concrete. I think the more intriguing aspect of this debacle is contrasting how Devin went about calming down his partner versus how Johnny did. When Devin is talking to Cory right before the incident happens, he speaks to him in a somewhat aggressive fashion. He is pointing at him as he talks to him and speaks in an antagonistic, somewhat condescending tone of voice. On the other side of the altercation, while Johnny at first is going after Cory and Devin for the incident upon seeing Tony getting aggressive immediately recommends taking him to a neutral location to cool down. He also doesn’t place any sort of blame on him and instead tries to cool him down when talking to him. While Johnny realistically had an easier job than Devin did so placing any sort of blame on Devin is unfair; I do think it is fair to wonder if Devin provoked the situation more than helped it.
Cory and Tony are both taken to a hotel to cool off, but that doesn’t cause the mayhem to cease. Devin is talking to a few people and saying he simply was trying to get Tony off of him and they slipped and fell. Sylvia and Joss are outside, and Sylvia tells Joss to not get too worried over this whole thing and keep their eyes on the prize.
Johnny is talking to Cara and Marie in their room with the lights turned off. He explains to them what happened and calls what Cory did to Tony a “sucker punch.” For who knows why, Nelson is standing outside the room listening in on the conversation and upon hearing this immediately comes into the room and starts arguing with Johnny. He says Johnny is just trying to amplify the whole situation and calls for Devin to get down to the room. Hunter sprints down the steps and sees Nelson and Johnny going at it and seems to try to calm the fight down.
Devin follows behind and calls Bananas “Johnny Tomatoes” for his veins turning red from getting so angry. Bananas just leaves the room rather than deal with Devin, and Devin starts following him around the house. They go through the living room, on the bridge, and basically everywhere that has been filmed so far with producers, security, and camera following them. Devin is saying these things like he “controls” Johnny and he’s “in his head.” While I’m not in Johnny’s head, I’m pretty certain he had a lot more things to worry about before Devin showed up and still does while Devin is there.
Eventually things come to a head and Johnny turns to confront Devin. Johnny tells Devin that he should be back home mourning his father instead of being here and he hopes the apple “fell far from the tree” implying that he hopes Devin is nothing like his father. Johnny admit himself via confessional he crossed a boundary, and that morning Devin goes to Johnny’s room again to confront him about him being out of line. Devin seems legitimately emotionally hurt by the situation and understandably so. I’m not one to play morality police in that situation as for me to think I have some sort of moral high ground over readers or the contestants just isn’t right, so I’ll leave it at clearly every party involved in the actions the previous night is in the wrong in some way and to argue otherwise means they are likely just being biased.
The next morning, Tony returns from the hotel. He goes to the living room seemingly to greet Joss and Nelson, but they offer him nothing but blank stares. Pretty terrible of them to not at least check on them to make sure he is okay, but perhaps they were just surprised for him to suddenly come in or think he wasn’t in that dangerous of a situation. Tony heads to Cara and Marie’s room where the girls and Johnny greet him, and Johnny immediately hugs him and seems legitimately happy about his arrival.
Soon after, Cory heads back in the house and is welcomed by the rest of the Young Bucks including Paulie and Joss. Cory says he just has to apologize to Devin, and that the only thing he is sorry about is possibly costing Devin his chance in the game. TJ soon comes in and addresses the group and tells Coy and Devin they are being removed from the game. After kicking off Kailah and Melissa for their fight earlier in the season, I don’t see how they could let this slide. Johnny tries to give Cory a dap on the way out, but Cory refuses due to Johnny’s earlier comments about Devin’s father. Johnny laughs it off to which Joss immediately explodes prompting Johnny to ask “who put a nickel in Joss” before Sylvia gets him to calm down.
On their way out, Devin explains via confessional he thinks Cory was simply trying to get Tony off of him, not slam him into the concrete. However, after seeing the video, he agrees that it was a leg sweep and he was attempting to bash him into the ground.
After the whole ordeal has finished and Devin and Cory have been sent on their way, we get to the mission for the episode entitled Hit List. This mission works nearly identical to the trivia mission on Dirty 30, where the cast would be allowed to give an X to an opponent upon a correct answer and be given one on an incorrect answer. Once a team gets three X’s they are eliminated, with the last team standing winning.
As detailing this entire mission would be tedious, I’ll just hit the highlights before giving out the result at the end:
o Cara saying this mission would reveal everyone’s allegiances, when I’m pretty sure the only pair up in the air at all were Paulie and Natalie.
o Cara and Marie taking forever to stand up on the platform with Johnny having to talk them into doing it.
o Paulie and Natalie worked with the Banana Boat for this mission, targeting the Lavender Ladies.
o All the questions were Challenge related, with some of the best being about Jemmye’s biggest fear and having to spell “Lavender Ladies.”
o Tony accidentally knocking Johnny off their platform. Ashley and Hunter attempting to spell Armageddon about seven times before Hunter finally gets it.
o Nelson and Shane and Cara and Marie abandoning all laws of game theory and giving their X’s to people who didn’t have any instead of putting it on someone who already had X’s to try to get them out.
o When TJ asks Marie if she threw pizza on Brad and Britni after Paulie gives the correct answer of she did, she responds “No.”
Paulie and Natalie end up with the win, setting the stage for them to make some waves in determining who will go into elimination. I actually think the more interesting outcome would have been Cara and Marie winning so we could have seen how Paulie and Natalie would operate without immunity, but this still makes for a compelling decision as well.
Extra Notes
· Tony recently got engaged to longtime girlfriend and one-time Real World Skeleton Alyssa. Good luck to the couple and wishes for a happy marriage.
· Tony went on the ChallengeMania to discuss the incident and revealed a few interesting details such as that it was Ashley who sat on the pasta and he had arranged a secret plan for Cory and Devin t actually work with them. The plan obviously did not come to fruition, but for an inside look at the controversy of the episode check it out here.
Disqualified
Cory/Devin: I really wasn’t high on their hopes to win, but still disappointing to see them go out the way they did.
Redemption House
2) Brad/Kyle: Oh yeah, they’re still here.
1) Kam/Kayleigh: Will be curious to see if they let the Redemption House see the fight and what their opinions on it will be.
Main House
6) Cara/Marie: They would seem to be safe with Natalie/Paulie in power, but you never know.
5) Johnny/Tony: Paulie had that huge beef with Zach, Brad, Kyle and kind of Tony who are all Bananas’ boys, plus they could just see them as the biggest threat.
4) Shane/Nelson: If Paulie/Natalie just look to take out the biggest threat on the Lavender Ladies, I’m not sure if they go after Shane/Nelson but it’s possible Johnny and Cara push them this way.
3) Paulie/Natalie: Power does a lot for you this late in the game, and if they use it correctly they could really set themselves up well here.
2) Hunter/Ashley: Hunter really came off the most rational of any of the other guys in his alliance in the brouhaha, which could be enough for them to fly under the radar for a week.
1) Sylvia/Joss: Their Winners’ edit continues in pristine form so no reason to go down at all.
