The Challenge Total Madness Episode 2 Recap And Power Rankings
We return from the elimination with the house trying to work through the elimination twist. CT asks Jenny a rhetorical question of if anyone would want to throw her in to get her a red skull. Jordan makes a point of saying he’ll probably just hang back and go in whenever. Jordan’s an exceptional physical competitor, but his political game has never impressed me much.
In another room, Rogan and Jenn are sitting by a chessboard (whether or not they are playing is unclear) and talk some strategy. Dee and Tori are also talking to each other, as Dee talks to Tori about her mixed feelings with Rogan. Dee’s clearly still pretty hung up on Rogan, and Tori is telling her to move on. Jenn and Rogan don’t seem to get much of anywhere with their strategy talk, and we head to the mission.
The mission is called Airdrop Extraction. The players will be put in teams of three, and there will be two stages. The first stage consists of moving fifteen crates from one end of the locale to the other, with the first three teams to finish that portion making the second stage. In the second stage, the teams will separately board a helicopter and attempt to drop crates on a target. The team with the most crates of the nine they drop will win. The teams are as follows:
Team 1: Swaggy C-Dee-Cory
Team 2: Jordan-Jenny-Wes
Team 3: Bear-Jenna-Smashley
Team 4: Josh-Jenn-Bayleigh
Team 5: Rogan-Mattie-Big T
Team 6: Kaycee-Jay-CT
Team 7: Johnny-Aneesa-Nany
Team 8: Nelson-Kailah-Tori Deal
Team 9: Fessy-Kyle-Melissa
Team 2 immediately jumps off the page, and they torch everybody in stage one. Team One and Team Nine take up the other two spots; with Team One utilizing a smart strategy of a relay where they meet at third of the way and pass the crate. Jenn really struggles in this mission, and Josh has to help her carry her crate as well as his. In the second stage though, for whatever reason Team 2 is forced to go first and only hits two of nine targets. I was exceptionally annoyed by this, as going first is a massive disadvantage in almost any mission and Team 2 killed the first portion. Team 9 and Team 1 follow, with 9 hitting seven targets and 1 hitting all of theirs; putting Dee, Swaggy C, and Cory in the Tribunal. Jordan has a mini freak-out about losing and it’s hard to tell who or what it is directed at but the rest of the cast seems annoyed.
The cast heads back to the house, and Dee and Rogan are talking. Dee tells Rogan it looks like the girls are all voting in Jenn and she mentions that she is fine with it as she is the weakest and involved with Rogan. Dee comes off somewhat petty but at least she is pretty upfront with why she wants Jenn gone. Jenn is talking to Wes and Johnny, looking for advice. Johnny and Wes get a double confessional which will hopefully become a staple of the season, saying they know the nomination is set to be pretty one-sided and wanted to have some fun. Wes proceeds to give an elaborate set of notes that only Wes can give, as Jenn literally takes out a notepad and writes it down. Nelson, Rogan, and Bear slowly trickle in to listen to the advice as Wes and Johnny basically tell Jenn that she should present herself as a layup to take to the final. Normally, that advice would work relatively well, but with this season’s elimination twist I don’t see it really.
We head to nominations, and Wes takes over for CT as chairman of the board. Wes announces Jenn has a speech prepared, and she is caught off guard as she fumbles through giving off some stuff off-hand about being a stock. At one point, she says it should be rookie vs rookie not rookie vs vet; both of which scenarios could include her. I think the pitch could have worked if the rationale had been more based on her being a weak player and unless they were aligned with Dee not being likely to go against her. Regardless, the speech fails, and Wes starts the vote with a shot right at Jenn. Three votes get thrown at Big T, but all the rest go to Jenn.
The cast now moves to what appears to be dinner, and Bayleigh is campaigning somewhat to not go in. Interesting that the rookies appear to want to avoid going into elimination while the vets would seem to prefer to go in now. Dee and Jenn start to get into it a bit, with Jenn telling Dee she heard Dee was campaigning to get her voted in. Dee asks her who said that, and Jenn refuses to give an answer. Jenn accuses Dee of watching her in her sleep, which is pretty wild. Jenn eventually just leaves, and that ends that conflict for now.
On the gym floor, Dee is talking to Tori about the elimination. Tori and Dee talk about their alliance with Jenny, and Tori is gung-ho to go into elimination right now while Dee wants to wait. Tori says she wants to go in, and Dee says she already told Jenny she would put her in. Tori doesn’t seem pleased with this and talks to Jordan about the situation. Tori tells Jordan that Dee said Jenny was her number one, and Jordan tells Tori that they won Dee a share of a million dollars so if Dee doesn’t prioritize Tori, he is done working with her. Tori then pull Dee aside and tells Dee “this is not a threat”, which when said during a reality competition show will almost always be interpreted as a threat; and tells Dee if she doesn’t pick Tori to go in against Jenn; Jordan will no longer be aligned with her. Dee says she will stand her ground here, as she did already make a promise to Jenny.
I think this is an absolute political disaster on all fronts. From Dee’s perspective, even if Jenny is your number one, there is no need to tell Tori she’s not at the top of the totem pole and you could simply say you already promised Jenny she would get this one. Once one of them wins again Tori can have next pick on who to go against. Also, if you do give Tori her win now, Jordan’s top priority will move from getting Tori a win to getting you a win as well as Tori, giving you two additional competitors willing to set you up in any way possible. However, Tori and Jordan’s method of convincing Dee is an absolute disaster. They have the logical position behind them, but instead of choosing to explain that, Jordan threatens Dee and in essence, tells Dee Jordan is the reason she won the money. That’s an insane statement, as Jordan was working to keep Dee out of the final all season and Dee more than held her own in the final from what we saw. More importantly, it puts Dee in a position where she has to surrender her emotional fortitude and feel like she is backing down to give Jordan and Tori what they want. Two of the top line rules in negation: to change someone’s opinion you have to respect the one they have, and never make someone have to surrender their ego to come to your view, make them surrender their ego to go away from you. Not saying Dee is egotistical or illogical, but those are basic tenants of negation that are forgotten here.
We head to the Tribunal, and Dee, Cory, and Swaggy C discuss who to put up. Dee explains to them her conversation with Tori, and Cory says he was annoyed with Jordan’s attitude at the mission. Cory says he owes Jenny one from the first mission, and Swaggy says they should at least bring Tori in to see what she has to say. I’m surprised Swaggy isn’t campaigning to get Bayleigh involved here, but perhaps she just would prefer to take a wait and see approach in regard to elimination. They decide to nominate Jenny, Tori Deal, and Big T. Big T is first in and says she would want to go in but doesn’t make a hard push. Swaggy C asks Jenny what she can offer in return, Jenny says she’ll look to help out Swaggy or Bayleigh when given the opportunity. Tori says the slate is clean, but Dee counters by saying if the slate is clean why would Jordan be annoyed if Tori isn’t picked for elimination. Dee says she never shook Tori’s hand, which Tori doesn’t buy as a solid reason. There’s a lot of conjecture being thrown about here, and perhaps a more logic-based approach wouldn’t always work in these situations but to have these decisions hinge on who shook whose hand and who ran a final with whom doesn’t hold much water to me.
We head to Purgatory, and as we are walking in Jenny tells Dee she wants this elimination. As they arrive at the elimination, TJ tells the Tribunal that they can nominate themselves if they want. I had sort of assumed this would be the case, but to wait to tell Dee until she is in jeans and hungover from the night before (according to Weston Bergmann) is wildly unfair. They also failed to mention this to the first Tribunal, so if Rogan or Cory would have wanted to go against Jay, they were unable to. My preference would be for each competitor to be given a sixty-page rulebook detailing the ins and outs of the season prior to it beginning so we could actually watch them play the game instead of being blown around by the whims of when the producers tell them something, but unfortunately that’s not how this works. We get to the voting, and although Dee considers jumping in herself, the Tribunal all votes for Jenny.
TJ introduces the elimination as Flip The Switch. There is a hallway of barrels attached to poles. Each competitor has ten. The first person to flip all ten barrels and flip the switch at the end wins the elimination and a red skull.
This is not particularly close. I’m not sure Jenn gets one barrel over, as Jenny does them all in one swoop. TJ dismisses Jenn, and Jenny is given her Red Skull. Jenny rejoins the cast, and the episode concludes.
Eliminated
Jennifer L: Felt kind of bad for Jenn here, this elimination was as not to her strengths as one could be seemingly and ran up against a monster.
Power Rankings
26) Big T: More of a last by default, being the token Tribunal pick isn’t great and makes her liable to go in soon.
25) Bear: May seem low, but I’m not really sure where I’d favor him in elimination and without Theo and Georgia around, he seems to be low on allies as well.
24) Bayleigh: Much room to move up but simply doesn’t have enough of a track record or alliance web to move up.
23) Swaggy C: Good job getting in the Tribunal and getting something out of Jenny if he and Bayleigh can link into a strong alliance he could move up a lot.
22) Josh: He seems a lot more built as a small cog in a machine of a team format, I don’t see it with him this season.
21) Melissa: It will be interesting to see who her allies are, and I think there’s a competitor in there if she gets the chance to show it.
20) Fessy: He’s an athletic monster but hasn’t had the tape to move him up.
19) Jay: I’m curious how the Red Skull will be treated but having one to go along with a brain puts him in a good spot.
18) Aneesa: Some funny commentary but not much else from her so far.
17) Jenna: Radio silence so no real movement.
16) Kailah: Similar to Jenna, not enough action to warrant a big jump or fall.
15) Nany: Not much from the Holy Trinity this episode, but Nany has more room to pivot to another route if needed.
14) Kyle: Perhaps he is in with Wes/Johnny, but there aren’t many layups for him to take out here.
13) Kaycee: Could be too much projection, but she has such an athletic track record compared to the other females she’ll stay for the time being.
12) Rogan: Strong performances thus far from Rogan, interesting to see if he is in with Wes and Johnny or not.
11) Mattie: She has connections and is probably the second most physically intimidating female on the cast.
10) Cory: Being both of the first Tribunals bodes well for coming in better shape this time around.
9) Nelson: He’s the only player that fits between the mid-tier guys and the top end.
8) Tori Deal: Bad politics this episode, but good enough competition to not fall too much.
7) Jordan: His track record keeps him this high, but not looking good for the mustached maven.
6) CT: Strong chance he’s clued into the Wes-Johnny dynamic.
5) Johnny: He’s let Wes take the more active role so far, but his recent seasons have been bad enough to prevent him from being too high.
4) Smashley: Has kept quiet, am curious where her politics will line up.
3) Dee: Didn’t like the decision to throw in Jenny, but very connected and has performed very well so far.
2) Jenny: Thought about putting her number one but doesn’t quite have the political capital yet and the Red Skull could make her a target.
1) Wes: He’s pretty front and center, which can pose problems but for now he’s the ruler of the roost.
Fantasy Scoring
