Challenge Dirty 30 Episode 5 Recap: Did Redemeption need an entire episode?

The pace of the show has been sloth-like at this point. The show has been rumored to be 18–20 episodes this season, so in that regard the pace makes sense. It could be that MTV has listened to the fans. Last season’s final three episodes dragged on like crazy, all while minor characters were somewhat not properly introduced. Dirty 30 has felt slow, but we all got a decent look at all the competitors that were eliminated this season. Devin had an abundance of interviews without doing anything, same for LaToya, and the Darrell return subplot had Challenge Social Media stirring for weeks. You didn’t know Derrick Henry or Briana LaCuesta before the season, but you now know enough to decide whether you would like to see more of either.

We begin the episode with a look of the house with the aftermath of Tony/Jenna being eliminated. Girls are having fun at the pool while Kailah cries in her bed. She talks about how she’s lost her only friend on the show…the only girl she hangs out with. At the end of the episode she is again crying about how she does nothing and ends up having everyone hate her. My apologies to Kailah for everyone hating her, and while I think she’s a great athlete, she truly does not try to make friends enough. In order to win this game you need to be social, you need more numbers. Two person alliances almost never succeed. No matter the game, you need numbers.

Cara Maria has tweeted out that her/Kailah/Camila/Jenna are all supposedly in alliance. It’s just been edited out.

Marie when with her girls talks about how she was joking about throwing in Jenna/Kailah against each other. That is not something to joke about during deliberation. Marie needs to accept the move she made. The episode picks up and they go to what they believe is the daily challenge. TJ tells them the rules and reveals the twist that they aren’t the ones playing…

They are.

MTV chooses to finesse us by flashing back to 36 hours before the main event by showing what went down at the Redemption House. Tony and Jenna wake up LaToya and Amanda, giving them the news of how they got eliminated, and then Tony finds out that his brother was sent home for fighting with Simone.

We proceed to watch Redemption House living life. Darrell and Derrick are getting their work-out upstairs, Amanda and LaToya are shooting Nerf darts on a dart board they made, and Jenna is hanging with Tony in the kitchen. Jenna is missing Kailah and is with the people that hate her — even worse for her is that there is no space to do cardio either. TJ joins the Redemption House to ask who they want to get “Revenge” on the most. Here is the clip:

TJ informs them after this that they will be competing against one another in Redemption, with one person coming out of it.

From there we get back to where we began. TJ tells the competitors that they will be playing in order of who got eliminated: 1 vs 2 and 3 vs 4. If you’re a fan of sports, that is an odd way to seed a bracket as the first person eliminated should probably face the last one.

Round 1 Match-ups: 1 Devin vs 2 Darrell, 3 Derrick vs 4 Tony, 1 Amanda vs 2 LaToya, 3 Briana vs 4 Jenna

The Rules: They are on a circle platform that is 20 ft above water. The platform will be moving throughout. Knock your opponent into the water, first one to touch the water loses.

Round 1: Devin vs Darrell

Before the round, Devin reveals that he thinks that beating the only person to win 4 Challenges in a row might be tough. Darrell reveals that he is a bit uneasy about the match-up from the perspective of the moving platform being able to knock him off. It’s important to remember that Darrell’s biggest fear is heights, and he’s always struggled when it comes to heights related missions.

They wrestle for a bit — Devin does surprisingly well. Devin is close to being knocked off until Darrell slips; Devin can now get away and secure his footing. Instead, he decides that it is now his chance to make a big move. He grabs Darrell in hopes of flipping him over his head into the water. Bad decision, not only is Devin not strong enough to pull off that move, the lack of grip from being midair puts him in the water fast. Darrell wins. Gutsy move by Devin.

Interesting remarks: Bananas says that he would bet all of Sarah’s money on Darrell beating Devin. Britni hopes for Devin to return her AYTO alliance (oops).

Round 2: Amanda vs LaToya

In this round, Amanda immediately grabs the hips of LaToya. She decides that either she is throwing LaToya off, or she is going down with her. A quick round that ends in an Amanda win as they both kamikaze into the water together. Amanda used Devin’s late game strategy properly.

Round 3: Derrick vs Tony

The guys rounds go much faster than the girls usually do. We get wrapped in the whole Tori/Derrick fake relationship again. They fall together similar to Amanda/LaToya. Tony had the upper-hand for most of it. When they hit the water — it is super close. The replay shown by the Challenge cameras showed that Derrick hit the water first. When I replayed it, it looked like Tony did. Though I could not precisely stop it.

Round 4: Briana vs Jenna

On episode 3, Briana said she did not want to see Jenna in elimination due to the massive height and size difference. We got to see her nightmare happen in this round. Jenna made mince meat of Briana and pushed her down easily without ever hitting the water herself.

Interesting remarks: Britni said she was hoping for Bri to win it for their AYTO alliance (oops). Briana had the line of the night when she was about to lose.

Mens Final Round: Tony vs Darrell

Before the round begins, CT admits that it might be better for his game if Tony is able to win. Tony says that he if beats Darrell, then he deserves to make it back in.

They get going and the two are deadlocked for a good minute. Eventually Darrell gets him pinned down and almost completely knocked off. Luckily for Tony, his leg hits the border between the outer and inner circles of the platform. In that moment as Tony is near falling, he uses the position to make a swing at Darrell where he is able to leverage himself when falling for the win. What’s key is that he has a whole foot on the platform where Darrell is lunging forward to push him down. Tony is able to gain traction and able to put all his force into that leg where he is able to flip Darrell over.

Tony two kids defeats Darrell dos niños.

Tough loss for Darrell. Biggest win in Tony’s life. Tony should feel so grateful.

Women’s Final Round: Amanda vs Jenna

This is the best battle of the day. We know Amanda is going to lose because Britni says that she hopes Amanda wins her AYTO alliance (oops).

Camila desperately hopes for Jenna to win as she hates Amanda. Jemmye wants Amanda to win because she does want to have to face Jenna after throwing her in. Jemmye in her interview says that if Amanda wins, drinks will be on her, and that she will even defend her when Camila inevitably goes after her.

The game begins and Amanda goes for Jenna’s thigh. She grabs onto it for dear life. Her plan is to either tire out Jenna, or take her down with her. Amanda knows with the massive size difference, she’ll never be able to push Jenna off outright. This elimination was intense, and apparently was even crazier live.

Amanda would not give up when it came to holding onto Jenna. Jenna also took the rules of “get your opponent off any way you can” very seriously:

Amanda got legit hard kicked by Jenna in her stomach at least like forty times if that round went for 45 minutes. At one point near the end, Amanda actually gained the upper-hand. She got on top of Jenna and was pushing her down. Some of her friends yelled that she should try to flip her off the platform. That was probably her best chance to win. One of the most intense moments was when scuffling, Amanda hit Jenna in the back of the head — Jenna loses her mouth guard and you can literally see a pint of saliva come out of her mouth. In this moment, Jenna is able to turn around and push Amanda off the platform.

Jenna wins and proves that she is someone to be feared when she comes back in the house. Amanda is graceful in defeat and says that she hopes Jenna uses this opportunity to go back into the game and win.

With the heart she showed, Amanda wins the Derrick K/Cara Maria award for “Oh my god, if only this person was four inches taller and thirty pounds heavier”. This girl has the mental edge to win — she’s lacking the size.

Apparently during the round, Camila and a couple others might have been yelling terrible things at Amanda throughout the duration of the Redemption.

The Redemption were cool individual features, and they were somewhat like 6 eliminations in one episode. If you look at it as 6 eliminations, it being one episode makes sense. For fans of the traditional format, it makes them want to stop watching at times.

We get a Challenge next week. Here’s the trailer: