The Challenge Total Madness Episode 3 Recap And Power Rankings
The episode begins with the house returning as Jenny is triumphant in elimination, achieving the first red skull for the women. Johnny, CT, Rogan, and Kyle are talking about when to put themselves in for Red Skulls. CT is willing to wait but will also jump in when given the opportunity. Dee is flirting with Jay, and there still seems to be some confusion over Dee and Rogan’s relationship. Elsewhere, Johnny tells Tori not to trust Smashley as she is a shapeshifter and always finds a new alliance every season. Smashley complains to Jenny that Johnny has been on a smear campaign against her as Johnny walks in. The two champions bicker for a bit before CT walks in and diffuse the situation. Johnny and Smashley do have a lot of similarities, both having “stolen the money” and both well-rounded players whose one weakness is in eliminations. However, Smashley has the flexibility to fly under the radar than Johnny doesn’t really; and I think that actually makes Johnny a tad jealous. While she flip-flopped a little bit at the beginning of last season, Smashley generally sticks with whatever alliance she picks so I think there are worse allies to have.
We head to the mission for the episode, entitled Decode And Detonate. Each competitor gets a puzzle board with its own code. The competitor must run to a sign to find the key to the code and then put in the correct letters in the code. First of each gender with the correct code gets to detonate a truck and are the first two members of the Tribunal.
Ok mission which seemed like something of an excuse just to blow stuff up. CT ends up barely beating out Swaggy C to win for the guys while Bayleigh picks up the win on the female side. The more interesting scene occurs after the mission, where CT and Bayleigh get into an argument over who to bring into the Tribunal. Bayleigh really wants to bring Swaggy in, but CT is hesitant over worries they will hop in elimination ahead of him. CT has Bayleigh guarantee that they will let him go into elimination if he wants to, and Bayleigh agrees so it’s Swaggy C, Bayleigh, and CT in the Tribunal. Interesting that the rookies seem to want to skate by eliminations while the bigger threats (CT, Tori Deal, Jordan) are happy to go in earlier.
Back at the house, Smashley is rallying Dee and Melissa to vote Johnny. Tori is also involved but is much more hesitant to vote someone who had been her ally for some time. Kailah tells Cory and Nelson that the votes seem to be coming up Johnny; Cory, Fessy, Swaggy C, and Kyle approach Wes about throwing in Johnny. He doesn’t explicitly dismiss the idea, but you can see the wheels turning in how to keep his alliance with Johnny under wraps without turning on him.
Quite an explosive nomination ceremony. Johnny starts the voting with Jay, and some of the Brits follow see. However, Smashley’s cronies (herself, Dee, and Melissa) all put their votes on Johnny. It goes back and forth between the two for a bit before Jordan burns a vote on himself and Jenna burns a vote on Nelson. Kaycee and Nany follow suit throwing votes on Nelson; causing him to get upset. He and Kailah get into an argument until Cory clarifies Kailah said people were voting for Johnny not that she or her alliance were. The votes continue until Wes gets to make a pivotal vote. He puts his vote on Jay, leading to the former Survivor man going into elimination and Smashley not being happy about it.
The group heads to the club afterward, where everyone is costumed up. The primary development here is Jay making out with Dee. Dee and Rogan have an inebriated back and forth upon returning to the house, which concludes with Rogan going outside to attempt to persuade CT to let him go in against Jay. CT says he’ll keep that idea in mind, but, doesn’t guarantee anything.
The Tribunal gets to select players for the elimination. They resolve to go with Rogan, Nelson, and Bear. The interrogations are pretty vanilla with the competitors flip-flopping on whether or not they want to go in. Later, Jay and Rogan get into an argument. Jay initially starts by prodding Rogan about never going into elimination the past season, and then switches more towards telling Rogan he’ll rally the house to never put Rogan in.
We head to purgatory, where the elimination looks somewhat physical. TJ asks the Tribunal for their votes, and CT announces he will be going in. TJ announces the elimination as Take Shelter. Each competitor has twenty minutes to gather a variety of objects and stack them in front of a door to an alarm. After they complete blocking their door, they then attempt to get through the debris to open their opponent’s door. The first one to ring the opponent’s alarm wins. It seems to be a more complicated version of Knot So Fast, which CT famously broke on Invasion Of The Champions when he took out Darrell.
The elimination begins and the crowd clearly doesn’t seem to give Jay much of a shot. CT puts a few heavy cinderblocks in front of the door before using a rope to tie the door down. Jay is hustling, wasting no time getting a chain tied through the cinderblocks. The competitors stack objects on top of each other until TJ blows the horn, and the house clearly thinks CT is much farther along than Jay. They then begin to start trying to get through their opponent’s door. CT starts by smashing cinderblocks that Jay looped the chain through but is already slowing down a bit. Jay begins by moving the blocks out of the way before tacking the knots. CT appears to be a step away from getting the door open, but it gets stuck on a thin chain Jay had roped through it. Jay is able to remove the last knot and open the door, giving him the win and sending the legend packing.
TJ dismisses CT as he limps off to the exit. Jay receives his second red skull, which concludes the third episode of the season.
Eliminated
CT: CT has turned into a competitor with exceptionally specific strengths and weaknesses, and I think he has become very format dependent on if he has a shot to win or not.
Power Rankings
25) Big T: She’s essentially a rookie and is easily the most unproven competitor on the board.
24) Bayleigh: Winning the mission is nice, but Challengers love the easy throw in and outside of Big T she fits that mold.
23) Jay: I hate putting him this low after toppling CT, but I don’t see how he’s not in many more eliminations going forward.
22) Swaggy C: He’s performed very well so far but he still has a bit of ways to go before he can move ahead.
21) Bear: I’m not sure what his standing on the Wes/Bananas totem pole is but outside of Jay seems to be the smallest guy on the cast which is typically strong target.
20) Fessy: He seems to have some credibility that the other rookie guys lack but until we see him in the sand, I’ll hold off on having him too much higher with how rookies have been treated thus far.
19) Melissa: She’s made some connections, but still needs to showcase her competitive ability more before I can move her up.
18) Aneesa: Aneesa’s hard to rank because she has next to zero shot to win, but this combined with her veteran status could give her an easy path to the final.
17) Josh: He would seem to be somebody the other competitors would pick out as a target and he hasn’t shown which side of the ledger he’ll play with.
16) Jenna: Throwing Nelson under the bus as the burn vote was very strange, perhaps she has something on the go with the Big Brother crew but not much to push her up so far.
15) Kaycee: She drops a bit considering how targeted the rookies have been so far, but I still believe in her competitive ability.
14) Kailah: Not sure the feud with Nelson is the best move, and unfortunately, we haven’t seen how she could perform in her return.
13) Nany: I think Jenna or Kailah may have to go for her game to really rise, but she still is in a solid spot.
12) Kyle: It would seem he’s clued into Wes/Bananas; but I also think once Josh and Bear come off the board, he could struggle to find a layup in elimination.
11) Rogan: I think Jay actually has a solid shot of beating him if that is where this is headed but I think he may be better wait around and see who emerges from the rookie storm.
10) Nelson: It hurts to put him below Cory when he has the much better recent track record, but his spat with Kailah made no sense and shows a lack of awareness.
9) Mattie: She’s stayed very quiet which is for the best considering her position at the moment.
8) Cory: He’s been portrayed as the political foil to Johnny and Wes so far, which is probably the best for his long-term game.
7) Smashley: This may even be too high for her and targeting Johnny for no real reason could put her in trouble very early.
6) Jordan: Again, he’s an outstanding competitor but with how big of a threat he is and how bad his politics are I don’t see it for him this time around.
5) Tori Deal: I actually think losing Jordan may be the best for her, his specter could loom large as the season goes on.
4) Johnny: Almost being thrown in is an issue, but maybe this has him regroup and garner some more allies.
3) Wes: Having the cover blown on his alliance with Johnny could pose some big issues going forward, but they should have enough standing to get by.
2) Jenny: She’s been the top overall competitor thus far but curious if the women follow suit with putting the red skull winner in again.
1) Dee: I still think she made a blunder in the second episode but she has been shown to have a lot of allies and has a spot in all corners.
Fantasy Scoring
