The Challenge War Of The Worlds 2 Episode 12 Recap And Power Rankings
The episode picks up with Jordan carrying Tori into the house in his arms, and are super pumped from their engagement. Cara is very perturbed by this engagement, claiming it to be fake news and a conspiracy. Zach and Josh are complaining about Cara and Paulie for the 1,000,000th time this season, saying they have a crew of minions willing to do whatever they say. I’m not sure why Cara and Paulie continually get the cred as the leaders of this alliance when Kam, Kayleigh, Smashley, and now Leroy have been as involved as anybody, but for whatever reason, they take all the heat.
Nany and Zach set up an engagement party, and everyone in the house is there in attendance, outside of Cara Maria, who is reading a book in her bed. Zach gives a speech, followed by everyone cheersing (doing a cheers?) the new couple. Jordan and Tori thank the house for the party, while Cara sulks around eating food.
Paulie and Tori are talking, and Tori says she likes Paulie, so she is upset that due to Cara and Jordan’s relationship they are on opposite sides. Tori and Cara actually had by all reports a good relationship going into the season, so I thought there was a significant chance they would work together this season. That has of course not happened, and it seems the rivalry between the two couples will be what this season is remembered for.
Leroy is talking to Kam, and Kam asks Leroy if Nany is his number one. Leroy says she is, but Kam is there too. Leroy says he wants Kam and Nany to be solid, but that really is not going to happen. Elsewhere, Rogan is talking to Dee, and they discuss how Dee needs to harden up. Dee mentions Rogan being her number one and she wants him in the end. Rogan is talking to Paulie and Joss, and he seems to have different plans. He says Dee hasn’t been training at all, so he wants Paulie to throw her in for him. I’m not sure why Dee sticks out as being worse than Kayleigh, but an all-time backstab from Rogan and pretty messy gameplay as well. Rogan and Joss resolve to throw the mission and have Team US put in Dee.
We head to the mission, entitled Escape to Freedom. There is a powerboat towing an obstacle course. Each team must have their players traverse the obstacle course and get past a blocker of the opposing team. Team to get the most players to the bell in the least amount of time wins.
Since there are more US women than the UK, TJ has to draw their names out of a hat. TJ pulls out Kam, Cara Maria, Smashley, and Ninja; leaving Nany out of the alliance and the game as a whole. The US elects Kam as the defender, and Jenny is facing her first. Kam is able to throw Jenny off, although she is able to pull Kam in with her. Tori hops on, but she falls off right away unforced. Dee is next, and she gets through pretty quickly. Kayleigh is next, and she also completes the course.
The US women are next, and Jenny is the defender. Kam moves through first, and she and Jenny both hit the water again. Ninja moves through quickly, and Cara goes next also blowing through the course pretty fast. Smashley goes next and seems to move a tad slower, but she also completes it.
The UK men take on Zach as the defender, with CT up first. CT plays rock-paper-scissors against Zach for a while, and then starts taunting him, and just wastes all the time for the UK men so they get no points. TJ just calls the mission right there for Team US, giving them the win. CT and Jordan bark at each other for a bit, but nothing that revealing comes out. TJ asks the US for their Tribunal, with Kam as the speaker and bringing in Leroy and Nany. Throwing missions is engrained in Challenge culture, but to do it as blatantly as CT did was pretty appalling.
We head to nominations for the UK, and I was actually pretty curious to see how things go. CT calls it and their whole alliance votes for Tori. It takes about ten seconds, and Tori finds herself in elimination. Not much happens really, only that Nany does not agree to say the same name Leroy and Kam do. I don’t see why that is such an issue, but Leroy doesn’t seem happy about it.
Cara and Smashley are talking, and both are surprised by how quick this discussion took. Cara still seems set on the proposal being fake, which I just don’t see. We head to the bar, where Leroy and his former alliance are arguing. Kam wants to talk to Leroy, and she pulls him away. Kam starts to bark a little bit at Leroy, who says he wants Nany in the final with him.
Back at the house, the badgering continues with Kam still questioning Leroy and Cara trying to mediate. Nany comes into the room all of the sudden and is asking what is going on, to which Leroy replies nothing is (which is kind of true), and Leroy seems to try to just move on from the conversation. Nany and Kam keep arguing while Josh hangs around in the background. Kam starts hugging Leroy and gets in bed with him, still trying to appeal to his senses.
Paulie is talking to Joss and Rogan and says he is going to try to put in Dee. CT is talking to Leroy and Paulie and Leroy says he doesn’t want to just blindside the team, he wants to talk to his women first. This plan has been about as cleanly executed as Mark Sanchez trying to execute a play-action QB draw and has now gone to absolute tatters. Kam makes the point if the UK men wanted Dee in, they should have just done it themselves and not had the Tribunal do it.
Rogan has gone from a pretty successful political reign to now turning into Caligula, and CT resolves to talk to Dee. Dee is of course not happy about this, and she starts crying and has a meltdown talking to Rogan. CT comes out and doesn’t do anything to quell the situation, and Ninja goes to calm down Dee. Dee is now seemingly ok with just distancing herself from Rogan, but what happens next will determine that.
We head to the elimination, which is clearly a Hall Brawl of some sort. Nany votes for Kayleigh, Kam votes for Jenny, and Leroy votes for Jenny; putting the Dee plan on hold and sending in Jenny against Tori. TJ announces the game as Hall Brawl, with each competitor having to run through the hallway and ring the bell on the opposite end. Whoever wins two of three rounds will continue.
They line up for the first round, and Tori seems to get a better hit on Jenny as they meet in the middle. Both girls seem to get to the bells at the exact same time, forcing Production to check the tapes. Tori gets the first point, meaning she only needs one more for victory. Tori absolutely dusts Jenny on the next round and drags her to the other side of the hallway, getting the final point and the win. TJ sends Tori back to the Brits, and Jenny is dismissed.
Eliminated
Jenny: I’m always hesitant to crown rookies until they’ve put something on tape of their performance, and this is an indication of why. You can look as impressive as anybody, but until you get hit it can be hard to judge somebody’s ability. I still have high hopes for Jenny, but she is going to need to be significantly more cutthroat next time around to succeed.
Power Rankings
16) Nany: Nice to see the US give her a break but she’s still the likeliest person overall to be thrown in at any point.
15) Josh: He’s basically in the same position as Nany just on the male side.
14) Dee: Pretty disastrous episode for the UK side of that alliance. She’s a complete wildcard all of the sudden, and really anything is in the cards after Jogan completely went haywire.
13) Kayleigh: She seems valued over Dee for Team UK, which I find notable but she is also all of the sudden is open to go in at any point.
12) Rogan: Some blowback for Rogan is entirely on the table, as his plan was just horrifically executed. He also hasn’t shown anything of significance competitively and is now fully on the chopping block if things break a certain way.
11) CT: I’m curious if he’ll be able to skate by as he usually does or if throwing the mission will have some sort of repercussions.
10) Joss: It’s hard to see how this failed backstabbing will affect the game but I’m fading the UK men at this point until they show some security in their alliance.
9) Jordan: He seems set to go into most eliminations but outside of Zach it’s hard to see who I wouldn’t favor Jordan against.
8) Tori Deal: Monster performance in elimination, and after taking Jenny out and having Nany as her likeliest elimination opponent I think Tori looks pretty set here for a final run.
7) Zach: The US clearly values him, but he still might have to go in against Jordan if the matchup breaks right.
6) Ninja: I still have the US majority alliance on top, but it was certainly more difficult this time. It’s funny how so much of the narrative on Ninja has shifted, from coming into the year being talked about as potentially one of the top females ever to now being considered a lower rung competitor.
5) Leroy: Slight fall for Leroy as he got caught up in a bad argument and seemed to lose a bit of trust with the primary alliance. He also does have some glaring weaknesses that could be exposed in a purge.
4) Kam: The top four feel really interchangeable, but Kam has some significant holes in her game compared to the other three (eating, swimming) and felt a tad unstable in today’s vote.
3) Cara Maria: People rag on Cara a ton now, and she did seem very curmudgeon-ish this episode, but she has seen one elimination from Dirty 30 to now and has made the final each season, provided she sticks around for this one. Pretty ridiculous track record politically.
2) Paulie: He moves back up a tad as he has actually been kind of quiet lately and is overall a very well-rounded competitor.
1) Smashley: She hasn’t heard a word mentioned about her outside of a few shots by the UK, and also has a very solid all-around game to keep her through any Purge situation.
Extra Notes
· Make sure to vote in our Top Male Competitors poll. Voting functions the same way as the Top Female Competitors poll.
Fantasy Scoring
