Challenge Total Madness Season Recap & Awards
The Challenge Total Madness is over. Was it the worst season of the Challenge ever? No. Was it a good season? No. The season was a consistent “meh,” with the Red Skull twist limiting the political game as people were volunteering for eliminations. It allowed multiple players to float through the game. The male cast itself was underwhelming and weak. I think Total Madness succeeded based on the fact that the format and cast were never going to lead to that great of a season. Total Madness is like the Cleveland Browns having a 5–11 record. It’s a bad record, but when you’ve seen worse, you’re content with 5–11. At least Total Madness wasn’t as bad as The Island.
Now, I decided to recap the season by doing an Awards Column. A few years ago, I wrote Awards Columns, detailing the MVPs, Rookie of the Year, etc., for different seasons.
The Rules: I will be giving out an MVP award for both male and female competitors. MVP does not just go out to the pair that won the season, but the individual competitor who brought the most to the show. I will be naming First Team All Challenge and Second Team All Challenge. These will be five-person lineups consisting of the best/most essential competitors from that season using the MVP criteria, and it can be 5 guys and 0 girls, or 5 girls and 0 guys, or just 3 guys and 2 girls. It will consist of 5 competitors, regardless of gender.
THE AWARDS
Least Valuable Player: Dee Nguyen
Dee getting banned unequivocally negatively affected this season. Before the ban, Dee was on pace to be this season’s MVP. Not because she was a hero, but because she dominated a majority of screentime for the female side this season and was becoming an all-time hate-able character who made herself worse by her social media behavior. Fun Fact: the first episode that Dee got edited out of, she was initially supposed to have 22 Confessionals. That’s more confessionals than Fessy or Kaycee had at that point in the season (through ten episodes). It resulted in the episode’s editing to be incoherent at times, less so as the season went on, but the first episode after the ban was unwatchable.
The blame goes to MTV as well, as most fans on Social Media felt they should have aired the show as planned initially, keeping the disclaimer about Dee before the episodes. MTV had set-up Dee to be a presence for many seasons to come, and she fumbled her bag with ignorance and stupidity.
Most Valuable Players: Johnny Bananas and Melissa Reeves
Bananas winning MVP for this season is like when the WWE decides to make Randy Orton or Triple H the World Champion out of indifference. Yeah, they are big stars who put up good performances, yet, they are shells of their former selves. Bananas’ season was impressive as he worked with Wes to knock their biggest threat out of the game (Jordan). He eliminated the second biggest threat (Wes), and he got to the final with very little opposition. At the same time, he didn’t have any real fights, no hook-ups, and the Red Skull twist benefited him greatly. He didn’t have to worry about getting thrown into elimination (except one time early in the game) as people were volunteering themselves. A winning Bananas is far more fun than an early exit Bananas.
For the Female MVP, it came down to Melissa and Jenny. Melissa was the biggest benefactor of Dee’s ban as her screen-time dramatically increased during the final portions of the season. Yes, Jenny dominated the final and killed the season physically, but when we look back at this season in 3–5–10 years, it’s going to get remembered as the season Melissa made it to the final while pregnant, and ran Day 1 of the Final while over 4 months pregnant. Not to mention, Melissa completely eviscerated Josh at a nomination ceremony, lambasted Nelson in a Czech bar, and stayed loyal to her friends and allies, even if those allies were playing opposites. She also won a physical elimination while 3 months pregnant! Also, her baby is now born and is healthy and beautiful!
1st Team All Challenge: Johnny Bananas, Jenny West, Nelson Thomas, Melissa Reeves, Aneesa Ferreira
Since I listed Bananas and Melissa as MVP’s, it’s obvious they are on the “First Team.” Nelson is the MVP runner-up this season. As a whole, this season was dry when it came to drama, and Nelson brought that. Yes, it sometimes happened in the fashion of being an obnoxious chauvinist, but the Challenge needs villains and filled the role. His sacrifice for Cory in the end-game, him being there for Aneesa, and his acceptance of being a loser by the end of the game even crazier. Nelson had a massive character arc in one season and added a dynamic profile to the show, even if he can’t spell dynamic.
Aneesa’s facial reactions created an entire camera roll of memes to get used at any time. I soured on Aneesa for a long time, but in her 13th Season, she was ironically a breath of fresh air. The way most Challenge competitors operate and compete is a little word of hysteria where once you decide someone is strong/weak, that’s what everyone believes. Aneesa was able to see through the BS, and pulled off a big upset win against Jenna in an endurance competitor, and held her own all season. Jenny physically dominated the final and killed it this season from a performance standpoint. It will be interesting to see how her win gets viewed over time. She’s physically on par if not better than someone like Emily Strong; it’s just unclear how this season ranks because of the Total Madness format. Fun Fact: Jenny is only seven months younger than Evelyn Smith!
2nd Team: Wes Bergmann, Faysal Shafaat, Bayleigh Dayton, Cory Wharton, Jay Starrett
A pretty meh Wes season. A meh Wes season is still guaranteed to be on a First or Second Team. Wes regularly got into arguments with random people and played pranks with Bananas, all while wearing a giant red beard, yet referred to it as his “possum” game. Had he beat Bananas in their elimination, there is an argument to be made that he probably goes the distance and maybe wins the final. Fessy became a fan favorite due to his competitive abilities and being hot. Once Dee got banned, he got screentime, talked about his upbringing, and now fans are in love with the guy. Also, he eliminated Jordan! Cory learned from his mistakes from past seasons, won an elimination, made it to the final, and his body didn’t give out on him! Growth!
I had to choose between Bayleigh and Swaggy for one of these, and Bayleigh has to get it as she was the more dominant personality, made it to the final, and had an intense fight with Kaycee that was a top post on both the Challenge and Big Brother subreddits. The most audacious choice on this list is Jay being on the second team. When you think about this season, his elimination win over CT was easily the peak of this season. Fans fell in love with this guy, and for those first five episodes, he was the most rootable underdog. Not to mention, he only had four confessionals less than Kaycee all season, so his presence was quality over quantity.
Honorable mentions go out to Rogan and Big T.
Best Villain: Rogan O’Connor
Rogan’s screentime in the second half of the season got utterly crushed once Dee got banned from the franchise. Had he gotten a regular edit, he would have been on the 1st or 2nd Team. As a whole, the guy has filled the villain role on the Challenge quite well. The guy constantly lies, will often play a scared game, and only “volunteers” when everyone knows he is the one getting voted into elimination. Rogan is a con artist who actually happens to be a great physical competitor with some puzzle prowess. So while his style of play may grate on you, he is still able to back it up in the physical realm of competition.
Best Hook-Up: Kailah Casillas and Stephen Bear
I wanted a special section for Bear and Kailah’s hook-up because they didn’t get included on the 1st or 2nd Teams. Watching Bear horn after Kailah while she attempted to ignore him was a hilarious side plot that escalated once Bear thought it’d be smart to shoot an entire room with a fire extinguisher to get her attention. When they finally hooked up, social media popped off like crazy. I also wanted to note; their bathroom kiss was pretty intense. Kailah and Bear both seemed like professionals in the kissing department. We shouldn’t celebrate adultery. Except in the world of trashy Reality TV, we welcome it with open arms. The person getting cheated on at home is a cringe-y fame-whore who even the MTV editing team was clowning on.
Funniest Player: Aneesa Ferriera
Johnny Bananas comes into the season with pre-written jokes he found off the internet or stole from funnier friends, and Aneesa can outdo him by just reacting with zero words.
I’d also like to give honorable mentions to Nelson for being unintentionally hilarious as always. Wes convincing Jenn Lee to give a speech and then be the first to vote her into elimination deserves mentioning. Melissa’s brutal honesty at times is quite good as well. Also, Big T has the best accent in the world!
Rookies of the Year: Faysal Shafaat and Bayleigh Dayton
From the jump, the Big Brother rookies made it known they were here to play the game. Fessy terrifies people. They don’t want a Hall Brawl, a Pole Wrestle, and most wouldn’t even like a puzzle against him either. Had the final not been in the snow, I think there is a good chance Fessy walks away with the win. Likewise, Bayleigh came in confident and immediately got regarded among the cast as a top female. Had she not torn her MCL, it’s likely she finishes in second place as Kaycee timed out on the puzzle.
Worst Move of the Season: Dee planning to blindside Jenny and not going through with it
In the first week, Dee gave Jenny a free red skull because they were each other’s #1 in the game. A few weeks later, she decided it would be best to blindside Jenny. The problem is, she told Rogan (as well a ton of other people), and Jenny caught wind, exposing Dee’s disloyalty. Dee then chose not to put Jenny in against Kaycee, meaning she’d have to deal with all the negative repercussions of throwing Jenny in without actually throwing her in.
Best Elimination: Jay Starrett vs Chris Tamburello
I want to give honorable mentions to Jenna vs. Tori and Rogan vs. Nelson. One was an intense endurance battle between two awesome female competitors, and the other was an intense physical battle between two men. Jay vs CT takes the cake because of the surprise factor. CT threw himself down thinking Jay would be the easiest Red Skull of the season. Also, he’d be playing in an elimination similar to the one he beat Darrell in on Invasion of the Champions, so he must have felt incredibly confident.
Little did he know, Jay was here to play. In the elimination, players had to barricade their doors to where their opponent cannot fully open it. Jay intelligently stacked as many tiny door barriers so that even when CT began to break the chain lock on the door, he’d struggle getting it all the way open because of all the doorstops. When Jay got through CT’s door and rang the bell for the win, the crowd was gobsmacked. The whole time, everyone thought CT had it in the bag as the elimination went on. I don’t know when we are going to get a genuine massive Challenge upset like this again.
