The Challenge Vendettas Episode 8 Recap and Power Rankings
The Challenge followed up last week’s strong episode with another content packed episode this week. This episode opened with Veronica having her broken finger examined by the medical staff. They confirmed that she was too injured to compete. TJ dismissed her and she hugged the crowd, ending her run on the season.
This took us to the next elimination of the night, Kam vs. Tori. The first round opens with Tori beating Kam to the 8 slightly but both are able to get their arm in it. They wrestle around for a little bit, but Tori is eventually able to rip the 8 from Kam and take it back to her pole for a point. The next round, Kam beats Tori to the 8 but Tori hope on top of her and both are wrestled down outside the ring, ending the round in a draw. Kam gives Tori a push after she lands outside of the Ring, causing a production member to come between the two. The two start in the middle for the next round, and this time Kam rips it away pretty easily and scores a point, tying it up. In the fourth round, the two tumble for a little bit before falling outside the Ring. They start at the middle again, but this time Kam starts with a reverse grip on one of her hands. This gives her a bit of additional leverage, and she is able to throw Tori around for a little bit before gaining control of the 8, and she is able to outrun Tori to the pole giving her the point and the win.
A lot of people (mainly MTV) have been hailing Kam for this elimination win, while a lot of others have been saying it looks like Tori purposely tanked it. I think saying Tori purposely lost is a bit much, she clearly did try in that elimination. I do think that maybe even on a subconscious level, Tori probably didn’t give her full effort in the elimination. She had just seen Veronica break her finger, and she didn’t really have anything to gain from winning that we know of. Tori did mention on the ChallengeMania podcast that this elimination inspired her to really increase her training regiment, so I think Kam definitely deserves due credit for her performance here.
Now we get the main event of the episode, Derrick vs Joss. This has been maybe the most hyped elimination since Beth vs Coral on The Gauntlet III, with many of the challengers hyping up the battle. TJ blows the horn and the first round starts, and Derrick beats Joss to the 8 while Joss tackles Derrick to the ground. I don’t to do a detailed recap of all the rounds as that would be an article in and of itself, so I’ll just offer a brief summary instead. At the beginning, Derrick seems to focus on covering the 8 and wearing Joss out while Joss continually drives him into the ground with the intention of doing the same to him. In Round 3, Derrick switches up his strategy and instead of covering and going to the ground he instead brings the 8 to his chest and holds on while Joss swings him around. In Round 6, Joss witches up his strategy this time and attempts to alligator roll (similar to what Jordan did to Shane before) and shake Derrick off that way. However, Derrick keeps hold and the 2 fall outside the ring again, keeping it scoreless. The next round, after tussling for a bit, Joss sweeps Derrick’s legs, causing him to fall but he still hangs on. The two fall outside again, causing another reset.
Before the start of the next round, TJ announces that from here on out it will be Sudden Death, and the 8 will be hung for the next round. This time, Derrick hugs the 8 while Joss picks up both Derrick and the 8. Derrick has his shoulder through the 8, and TJ starts telling him to take his arm out but the two fall down outside ending the round in another draw. In Round 10, Joss pulls viciously on the 8 while Derrick lies on the ground and at one point the 8 hits Derrick above the eye, causing a huge gash and blood to start to fall. Joss eventually throws Derrick outside of the ring, ending it in another draw. Before Round 11, both competitors crawl to the 8, clearly exhausted. The two swing around for a bit, before Joss steps outside the Ring and lets go of the 8. However, Derrick did not leave the Ring, and keeps control of the 8 and takes it back to his pole.
I completely give Derrick credit for the win, he had a good strategy of waiting for an opening and playing until the whistle blows. However, when TJ read the rules to the competitors he clearly stated “If you step outside the Ring, you will be reset to the middle.” He did not say if both competitors step outside, if a competitor hits the ground outside, or anything else to that effect. This implies that if one of the competitors steps outside the Ring, the round will be reset.This is clearly stated through voiceover so it’s possible the competitors were told something different on the scene of the elimination. However, I can clearly understand how Joss may have misinterpreted the rules or maybe they were executed differently than they were stated.
There’s also been a lot of buzz declaring this the best elimination of all time. While this may have been the most brutal elimination of all time, I don’t think it was the best and I’m not sure I would even have it in the top five. It was very entertaining and actually edited pretty well (we didn’t have obnoxious music or egregious cuts like the Hunter-Leroy elimination on Dirty XXX); but there are two main points that drag it down. The first, the circumstances surrounding the elimination drag it down. Only Joss would have been able to come back into the game, and Derrick didn’t have that opportunity. While this also speaks to Derrick’s incredible will to win, it also brings down the importance of the elimination. When you compare it to Wes vs Derrick on The Duel, Evelyn and Luke vs Landon and Carley on Fresh Meat II, or Laurel vs Camila on Invasion of the Champions; those eliminations all had dramatic impacts on the outcome of the season. In those three situations the winner went on to the final and in two out of three cases won. Secondly, the ending was very anti-climactic. This elimination was physical, brutal, and exhaustive. I wanted to see the two competitors pushed to their limits and the end be one ripping the 8 away from the other, not one stepping out based on a hard to understand rule system.
After Derrick emerges triumphant, TJ dismisses the competitors. Shane asks what will happen to the money accrued in the competitor’s bank accounts, and TJ says it will go to the final pot. I’d personally prefer the bank accounts to be awarded to the victor of the elimination, just adding them to the final pot when you need to make the final to keep your account anyways seems a bit redundant. He also tells Kam her three choices for grenades: Lube Up: one competitor must cover themselves in lube, Endure: one competitor must do twenty burpees directly before participating in the competition, and Flip Out: one competitor must wear flippers while participating in the competition. This takes us back to the house, where Bananas and Kyle are thanking their lucky stars Diesel Derrick came in to take out Joss for them. We then go to Kam, who is sitting in the bathtub declaring everyone must call her Queen Kam. While she is sitting in the bathtub, Natalie comes up to her and tries to make a deal so the grenade isn’t used on her. Kam says if she makes a deal with her, she makes a deal with her room (Kailah and Marie as well) and Natalie agrees. Marie isn’t buying it, and Natalie’s over politicking seems as if it could really start causing her problems. Kam also talks to Cara Maria, who is much subtler in their conversation. Kam doesn’t explicitly say she’s going after Cara Maria, but that message is clearly broadcast through their talk.
We go to the mission; which TJ announces is entitled Car Crash. The competitors break into four teams (decided by the Troika) who then have to traverse across a set of five cars elevated above the water by moving through the inside of the car and jumping in between them. The team that has the fastest individual time will win the mission. Conversely, the team with the slowest individual time will be forced to throw someone into elimination. I’m not sure what would happen if they both came from the same team, but I guess the producers probably had something in mind to fix it. The cars also will have water raining down upon them and be covered in lube. If just the fastest individual time matters, I have no idea why this is in teams. TJ then asks Kam who she will be using her grenade on, and she says she will use the Lube Up grenade on Cara Maria. Cara says before she locks that in that if she gets last she will ask for her in elimination, which I think is a really good game move. Kam may be intimidating, but you do not want to see Cara in an elimination. However, Kam follows through with the move and Cara dumps a bucket of lube on herself. TJ then asks Tony, Nicole, and Kyle to make the teams for the mission. They choose:
Team 1: Cara Maria, Bananas, Natalie, Nelson
Team 2: Zach, Tony, Kailah, Nicole,
Team 3: Marie, Kam, Jemmye, Brad
Team 4: Devin, Kyle, Leroy, Britni, Kayleigh
The first two teams get ready to go, and it’s clear this is going to be a difficult mission. Kailah and Natalie go first, and Kailah falls almost immediately. Natalie gets a bit father but falls on the third car. Zach and Nelson go next, and they both are actually moving pretty well. When Zach jumps to the fourth car, he actually breaks the windshield but is able to hang on. This gives time for Nelson to pass him, and both guys finish the run. You’d think this might set the pace for the rest of the team, but Bananas falls pretty quickly as does Nicole. Cara Maria then starts to go, and she’s actually doing pretty well. However, she slips when moving from the inside of the car to the outside and falls. Tony is the last one going, but he gets disqualified from holding on to the chain holding up the car.
This takes us to the second heat, which consists of Teams 2 and 3. Jemmye, Kayleigh, and Kam all just fall off immediately without trying, while Marie and Britni don’t even make the second car. Kyle falls off at the third car, while Leroy takes a huge spill at the third car that causes ambulances to come in and the whole event to be shut down while he gets checked out. Brad goes and is doing well but slips before the third car. Devin is the last to go, but he falls as well.
Bananas revealed some information after the episode that showed this mission was even more of a disaster than it appeared on screen. He said both Nelson and Zach put out windshields (you can clearly see Nelson had put out a windshield at one point.) He also said that after they went, they actually stopped the mission and had them come back the next day where the windshields were replaced with solid black covers (which you can also see by the weather in the background of the event.) He also said six people ended up having to go to the hospital, and the cars were lubed up in addition to the rain. I’ve had a lot of issues with decisions production has made this season, from the way too powerful Troika to the ridiculous voting system, and this mission did not help matters at all.
After this, TJ brings the teams together to announce the winner. Nelson ended up winning it for Team 1, and they have to select three members of the team to be the Troika. They go with Nelson, Bananas, and Natalie. TJ also announces Team 3 as the losing team, and they have to vote one female member into elimination. Brad goes first and immediately votes Marie, while Marie goes next and votes Jemmye. Jemmye returns the favor and votes Marie. Kam is last to go, and Marie and Jemmye are both chirping her to vote a certain way. She ends up going with Marie, sending her fellow Dolphin into elimination and ending the episode.
Eliminated
Veronica: Down season from Veronica, she didn’t really get to flex her political muscles this time around and hopefully if she shows up again she will.
Joss: Man did the rest of the guys get lucky here. I was surprised he wasn’t targeted earlier, and if he sticks on the scene for a while he could be a monster for years to come.
Power Rankings
17) Marie (-3): Being in elimination sticks her in this spot.
16) Kayleigh: I really have no idea which way the Troika is leaning, Kayleigh ranks here based on her abysmal athletic performance so far.
15) Jemmye: I don’t think she goes in now, but she also is not winning the whole thing either.
14) Devin (-2): Ranking Devin as the bottom guy feels wrong, but there aren’t many guys left (only eight to be exact) and they are all athletic monsters.
13) Britni: She could be thrown in, but I like her chances against Marie.
12) Kam (+5): Good win for Kam, but we’ll see how her move against her alliance will impact her game.
11) Kailah: Hasn’t impressed this season, but her name hasn’t come up for it either.
10) Nicole Z (-3): I think she could be in trouble with this Troika.
9) Natalie: She’s safe for this elimination but I think her relentless politicking will hurt her eventually.
8) Brad (-3): I still think he’s overall a top three competitor in the house, but the numbers keep turning against him.
7) Nelson (+3): We’ve seen how powerful the Troika is, and if Nelson plays his cards right he could really set himself up here.
6) Leroy (+2): I’m not worried about his health, and he is on nobody’s radar.
5) Kyle (+1): I’m still not sold on him athletically, but his social game has been impeccable so far.
4) Tony: He’s been great so far and is looking like a legitimate threat to win.
3) Bananas (-2): It seems odd to move him down when he’s in the Troika again, but Tony and Zach have both turned on him before and I don’t think his position in the game is secure.
2) Cara Maria (+1): Getting left out of the Troika sucks, but I don’t see how she doesn’t make the final.
1) Zach (+1): Has caused no house drama while dominating athletically and is in a great position socially.
