Challenge Vendettas Episode 11 Recap: A Stacked Deck

With Johnny Bananas eliminated, the house can finally have some fun with the knowledge that there is an open field for a new champion to emerge or for former champions to achieve their second title. Everyone is having fun, especially Devin, basking in his victory while nude in the pool, except Leroy, whose eating Oreos alone in his room, sad about Bananas leaving.

Leroy after Bananas is eliminated

At the end of the night, Nelson and Natalie seem to be bonding with one another, two scorned lovers coming together.

Nicole’s birthday is the following morning and Natalie surprises her with a peanut butter and nutella birthday cake. Nicole reminisces about Laurel and misses the female companionship she has always had on the Challenge.

The Daily Challenge

They challenge will take place at the beach in three teams. Teams will be stacking wooden palettes up until they have forty-five palettes, on which they will climb and hoist a Spanish flag for the win. It is a double elimination day, the winning team gets 25k, and picks the Troika. The last team must vote a guy and girl straight into elimination.

The challenge has three roles, one to two players will be receiving and stacking up all the palettes, one to two players will be running the palettes back and forth, and the remaining players will be taking the palettes and either loading them up for their runners, or stealing palettes from the opposing teams. Once these palettes are stolen, the other teams cannot get them back. When a team is out of palettes, the loaders must run out to a reservoir and run the palettes back all the way to the runners.

Devin uses his Grenade to try and stack the teams in his favor.

Red Team: Devin (receiver), Brad and Nelson (runners), Kailah and Kam (loaders)

Green Team: Tony and Britni (receivers), Zach (runner), Nicole and Natalie (loaders)

Blue Team: Leroy (receiver), Kyle (runner), Cara and Jemmye (loaders)

Devin’s focus was to stack his team, and make sure that Leroy and Cara lost.

The challenge begins and the teams immediately start. Despite being in the middle row and easiest to steal from, the team that has the least amount of palettes stolen is the Green Team. The Blue team is stolen from the most.

THE DIFFERENCE MAKER: Zach displays his best performance of the season. He treks through the sand carrying the palettes like an absolute workhorse, reminiscent of Joss Mooney. Meanwhile, Brad is completely gassed. He forces Nelson to go at a slower pace, and by the end they are both completely fatigued. Kyle does surprisingly well in this event. The best part is Leroy talking shit to Brad and Nelson, calling them bums.

In the end, the Green Team pulls off a good win. And for the losers bracket, it comes down to a battle between Cara/Jemmye and Kam/Kailah. Kam and Kailah are run out of the building. Cara hulks this challenge for the girls, while Jemmye does well enough to keep up. They finish in second, forcing the “stacked” Red Team to vote two of their players into elimination.

Troika: Tony, Zach, and Natalie.

They decide to give Zach the Troika spot for killing it, as well as Tony because Tony is always in the Troika this season, and to Natalie so Nicole doesn’t have to get her hands dirty. Britni desperately wants to be in the Troika, but they assure her she is safe.

Elimination Vote: Brad and Kam

With the first vote, Brad votes for Nelson and Kam. Nelson throws a vote back to Brad, and because Brad has already said Kam, Nelson votes her in. Devin follows suit voting in Kam, as he owes Kailah one. He votes in Brad, citing Nelson as his day one from Are You The One.

Nominations for elimination: Nelson, Leroy, Kyle, Britni, Cara Maria, and Jemmye.

This week the eliminations are cut and dry. Zach and Tony have put their target on Nelson and Britni. They know Britni has three guys over them and Nelson has been on the opposite side of the house the entire game. Nelson is upset that his #1 in the game (Natalie) has allowed him to be nominated (and put in elimination).

Wanna see Brad when he finds out Britni is nominated and is going into elimination?

Elimination

As expected, Britni is voted in 3–0, even though Tony and Zach told her they would give her a heads up prior. Nelson is voted in 3–0, which is cold considering Natalie could at least burn her vote to show Nelson at least a tiny bit of loyalty. Hunter did this on Dirty 30, and got Veronica to save his ass another week.

Like the previous double elimination, the mercenaries are in the building once again — Darrell Taylor, Frank Sweeney, Laurel Stucky, and Ashley Mitchell have all come in to wreck house.

They flip coins to decide who will face who.

Brad versus Frank: Battle of the San Diegos, two Champions.

Nelson versus Darrell: Nelson is 6–1 in eliminations, while Darrell is one of top four greatest competitors ever, if not the best.

Kam versus Ashley: While Ashley is the Champ, Kam has the size advantage.

Britni versus Laurel: Britni loses.

Rules: Players are tied together by a chain, with backs to another and separated by a circle. They will run to a bell past the end of the circle towards their opponents side. First player to hit the bell wins the elimination. Like Looper from Free Agents or Ankle Breaker from Gauntlet 3.

DISCLAIMER: Apparently, none of the eliminations shown on last night’s episode where full representations of what actually happened. There were many rounds played, and often times the ones shown to us were the final rounds.

Brad vs Frank: The version we got was Brad quickly defeating Frank by getting a better sprint, and better grip at the edge of the platform. Brad’s choice to bulk up instead of his usual trim frame was a great one.

Kam vs Ashley: We see Ashley get a better sprint than Kam, however, as time progresses, Kam does enough to pull forward and hit her bell. Saving herself. Kam has now won eliminations against Tori Deal and Ashley Mitchell on her first season.

Darrell vs Nelson: They show us two rounds. The first round where Darrell is close to winning, and after twenty minutes they have a restart. They follow this up with a second round where Nelson is even closer to winning after supposedly eighty minutes. TJ blows the horn and calls it a draw, saying Nelson is not eliminated, but he will not win a Grenade either. This elimination went on for 10+ rounds. Nelson was super close to winning in the final round. I think TJ called it a draw because if Nelson, Brad, and Kam all have grenades, then it may mess up the next challenge.

Laurel vs Britni: Brad told Britni he believed in her. Her response:

She loses the elimination (though according to others, it went more than one round). The annoying part about her elimination is Laurel’s insistence on trying to dominate. Britni knew she was going to lose, and Laurel toyed for too long, trying to run straight towards rather than grip the edge and go for the fast win. It is sad to see Britni’s game end at the hands of one of the most dominant player in Challenge history, rather than one of the girls in the actual game.

Brad, Nelson, and Kam are returning for next week.