The Challenge Total Madness Episode 9 Recap And Power Rankings
The house returns from last week’s huge double elimination. With the biggest competitive threat and the biggest buffoon gone, the house is in a major shakeup. Cory, Fessy, and Nelson are talking about how well the night went. Josh complains to Kailah and Nany about Swaggy C being aligned with Wes; while Wes discusses the situation with Swaggy C. Dee is having a conversation about the current situation politically with Rogan, and says she is worried about running against Jenny in a final. After that, we prep up for the mission of the episode.
We start off by TJ saying Big T is medically unfit to continue and has been disqualified. Sad exit for someone who had a much-improved outing this time around. The mission is entitled Tunnel Rats. This game is split it into teams of five and four. The teams are dropped into a sewer, which they have to run to find puzzle pieces. The first team to collect all pieces and build the puzzle wins. The teams are as follows:
Team 1 — Nelson Kaycee Fessy Jenny
Team 2 — Rogan Johnny Kyle Melissa Jenna
Team 3 — Bayleigh Cory Dee Wes Nany
Team 4 — Swaggy C Aneesa Josh Kailah Mattie
Really cool mission this week. It tested a lot of different areas, and also did not take an inordinate amount of time as the teams were split into four with only two heats to go through all four teams. Swaggy C really struggled on the swim, so Josh had to go twice for their team. Team 3 pulled out the win, with Wes and Cory surprisingly enough contributing to the puzzle.
Back at the house, Melissa says she does not want to go into elimination. Dee points out that with two women being put into elimination, only one will not be called into the Interrogation. We head to the bar after that, although it is a different one than has been in the past few episodes. Jenny is complaining about Dee, saying she is acting differently and does not trust her now. Josh is also complaining about how “fake” everybody is being, to which Swaggy C is calling him a hypocrite. Their fight escalates pretty quickly, to the point where security breaks them up and Swaggy calls Josh a “6”1 Soft Marshmallow”. People complaining about fakeness on The Challenge has always been strange to me. The cast is on a reality competition show, “fakeness” should probably be expected to a degree. Perhaps it is just a misinterpretation of what is going on my end, but isn’t part of the game to be somewhat duplicitous? Either way, the fight eventually deescalates after Josh stands on the bar and shouts and they sit everybody down.
We head to the Tribunal, where Bayleigh, Nany, Dee, Cory, and Wes set up. They agree to put up Melissa, Jenny, Jenna, and Kailah. Kailah says she wants to go in but would much rather match up with Kaycee instead of Aneesa to prove something extra since she has already beaten Aneesa. Melissa really does not want to go in and takes the Big T strategy of telling Bayleigh and Nany they could beat her so they should keep her around. Jenna claims to not want to go in, but the Tribunal seems skeptical. Jenny talks a mile a minute, saying she pledges retribution if the Tribunal does not meet her demands and will help them if they do not. Cory actually makes some pretty good points here, saying he doesn’t see himself advancing past a huge portion of her allies if he doesn’t throw her in, which I thought was a strong point.
Purgatory is up next, and we head in to see two crates loaded up with medicine ball-esque objects. TJ asks the Tribunal to vote for Kaycee’s opponent first, and everyone except Nany votes for Kailah. Same thing occurs when voting for Aneesa’s opponent, as everyone votes for Jenna except Nany again. TJ introduces the elimination as Bombs Away. Each competitor must empty out their tin of 100 bombs. First to do this and light off a smoke bomb wins.
Kaycee and Kailah are up first. It’s kind of hard to tell what is going on with this elimination, as all we really have is audience reactions and side by side shots to see where each competitor is. However, Kaycee seems to be going 100% the whole time, while Kailah slowly dies out. Kaycee pulls out all the bombs and gets the win, sending Kailah packing with Bear.
Jenna and Aneesa are next up. Jenna starts off seemingly pretty quick, but eventually slows down. Meanwhile, Aneesa stays pretty consistent and uses some veteran savvy to push forward. Aneesa eventually pulls out the win, getting a red skull and sending Jenna home.
TJ dismisses the women and gives Kaycee and Aneesa their red skulls. Wes gives his best wishes to Kailah and Jenna on getting their life back together, and that concludes the episode.
Extra Notes
o Nany claimed that Jenna made a deal with Wes to get her thrown into elimination. Supposedly it was not caught by cameras, but interesting background info, nonetheless.
o In addition to releasing a new song, Tori and Jordan are also making masks to sell to the public. Please check it out, as each mask bought will also result in a donation of a mask to workers on the frontlines. Always great to see Challengers supporting the community in this trying time.
o Not Challenge related, but if anyone is in need of objective and useful COVID-19 news, check out Nate Duncan and Ben Taylor’s COVID Daily News podcast. Easily the most unbiased news aggregation service I’ve heard and gives much useful information including best practices for the virus and projections on how things are developing.
Disqualified:
Big T: Sad to see her go, her storyline was one of the few that provided levity
Eliminated:
Kailah: Somewhat disappointing return from Kailah. The producers only seemed to give her screen time when she was with Bear or the Holy Trinity. Hopefully, she comes back and gets more of a well-rounded story.
Jenna: The Zach drama was just too much for me, she did have an extremely impressive win over Tori but eventually petered out.
Power Rankings
17) Melissa: She’s in a rough spot right now without many clear allies and not any layups left.
16) Josh: His politics are all over the place (Swaggy is working with Wes so he is the enemy yet he is talking to Johnny every other scene) and I don’t see many people he can beat at this point.
15) Swaggy C: Hard to see where his win is coming from at this point.
14) Bayleigh: She still has some bottom feeders to pick off here and is in a good spot.
13) Kyle: He’s moving into a tough spot
12) Aneesa: She has her skull and should have her ticket to the final booked already.
11) Cory: I still like his position, but he needs to take his shot to get a skull here soon.
10) Fessy: It is hard to see him getting put in again with how many guys still need Red Skulls.
9) Nany: I seem to be more in favor of her position than other people, if she gets the right setup in elimination, I think she is in a really good spot.
8) Kaycee: She has a red skull and seems to be under the radar despite her physical prowess.
7) Mattie: This might be a tad high at this point, but I think she is still in a strong position.
6) Nelson: For his sake, hopefully he just sits back a bit and you would think the other guys are going to be stepping over each other attempting to go in.
5) Rogan: I didn’t like the move to tell Jenny what Dee is up to at all, his best shot is if those two stays together.
4) Wes: Is in a good position politically but hard to find where his spot is going into elimination.
3) Johnny: The rankings are very muddled at this point, but he seems to have a very good hold on where things are going right now. Similar to Wes though, he is far from a guarantee against anybody left in the house in elimination.
2) Dee: She should probably get Wes to build up the bridge between her and Johnny at some point, and her gameplay was really sloppy this episode, I just struggle to see who to put above her at this point.
1) Jenny: Almost moved her down considering she had some heat on her, with how this game has worked I’m skeptical she’ll have the trigger pulled on her until it happens, so she stays on top.
Fantasy Scoring
o NOTE: I periodically go back and check through the scoring throughout the season, so these are liable to change. If you have a specific matter you want to address, email rmcintyre1699@gmail.com.
