Challenge Dirty 30: Jenna needs to start winning daily challenges
It’s time to talk about the girl also referred to as Barbie Beast. As a personality in Dirty 30, Jenna has done well thus far. She has had some of the most refreshing confessionals this season and has been honest about the game and herself. During the premiere, Jenna noted that she wasn’t actually a dirty player — she’s just guilty by association. Being friends with some of the worst people on the show (Bananas, Camila, etc.), she has been witness to some messed up events. This past week, in the daily mission, Jenna was open about the fact that her team would need to cheat to win.
In a game of dirty plays, so far, Jenna has not made a bad move. Her decision to keep Jemmye in the game during the Purge may have got her thrown into an elimination later, but keeping Jemmye in the game was a great idea, she is far and away the WORST physical player in the game. The concept of the double-cross has still not reached fruition either. As we’ve learned from Twitter and a couple previews, Cara/Camila have had an alliance with Kailah/Jenna since the second week. This is a smart choice and reminiscent of the alliances from the JEK days. If you have the game’s best players and consolidate an alliance, you should always dominate the daily missions and inherently hold all the power. This form of gameplay makes it incredibly easy to make it top 5, however, once you’re there, you have to compete with the best players.
The double-cross has been a thorn in the side of the game’s good players. The possibility that a bad player can pull the double-cross and make a big move against a good player is huge. We’ve seen it three times already, Aneesa picked Tori, Jemmye picked Jenna, and Nicole picked Kailah. Ironically, it’s failed every time, except when Jemmye picked Jenna. In order for the good players to remain successful, they have to keep themselves out of the double-cross and, ultimately, win challenges. Sounds easy for a “good” player, right? Well, for Jenna, daily missions have been a major issue. She has a great elimination record: 5–1, won the final rounds of The Purge and Redemption.
When competing in actual daily missions, over five seasons, from a statistical perspective, Jenna has been one of the worst competitors ever. There’s an awesome guy on Reddit named Will Seamon, whose tracked the entire history of daily challenges. Will has created an “expected wins” statistic e.g, if there are 12 competing players or teams in a daily challenge, their expected wins would be .083. If there are two teams, it would be .5. Jenna has been on 5 seasons has a total expected wins of 11.03. However she’s only won 6, a -6.03 differential. Out of 279 Challenge players, of players with the best wins vs expected wins differential, Jenna ranks 275th. She has competed in 42 daily missions, totaling only 6 wins. With the expected wins of 11.03%, her ratio stands as the 10th worst all time.
Do these stats mean Jenna is the 5th worst player in Challenge history? No, not at all. One of the reasons she’s at the bottom is because she often makes it far in the game. Jenna has competed in every single daily mission for four seasons — excluding the final mission of Invasion. Let’s get this straight: anyone who’s won 5 eliminations and made 3 finals in a row is not a “bad” player, by any stretch of the imagination. However, for her to actually get some validation and prove her believers right, Jenna needs to finally step up and start winning some dailies. On Invasion, she finished fourth among the Underdogs despite being the most experienced female in the group. And now, in many ways, Kailah and Tori have shown to be the new female powerhouses.
By not winning daily challenges, Jenna places herself in the double-cross as an easy target. So far on Dirty 30, Jenna has yet to win a daily mission, and has been in the bottom for every mission, excluding the one in which she finished 4th with Johnny Bananas, barely avoiding the bottom.
For Jenna to win The Challenge and evolve into greater player, she needs to win, simple as that. She doesn’t have Cara Maria or Kailah’s physicality or endurance, the Sarah Rice’s puzzle kills and swimming ability, or Paula’s eating ability. To succeed, Jenna has to carve out a skill that’s not being the best of the worst.
Next week’s daily mission is trivia. Ironically, one of the few daily missions Jenna has won was trivia on Exes 2, with Jay. People give Jay a lot of shit, however, he’s the main reason they won that daily. Jay spelled the word erogenous correctly. That’s a tough word, I needed to spellcheck it the first time I ever typed it in an essay, and growing up, I won my district spelling bee. It’s a bit far-fetched to expect someone on the Challenge to know it. Maybe Jenna has some luck and gets some easy questions this week, hopefully she can at least not finish at the bottom.
