Challenge War of the Worlds 2 Episode 9 Recap : 10 Biggest Takeaways
Episode 9 is in the books and I decided to focus on the 10 Biggest moments/takeaways from the eighth episode. Since you’re Challenge fans reading this, I figure you likely have watched the episode already. These will be integral storylines that the eighth episode focused on. I’ll breakdown why they matter for the season:
10 Unfair Puzzle Tiebreaker
Did anyone else feel bad for Team UK in this daily challenge? Because the crate turned upside down, forcing the UK players to scurry to the US side and then wait for it to overturn, Team USA got a 10–20 second lead on them. It gave Team USA enough time to pull out the win, which came down to only a couple seconds. Had the crate turned the other way, Team UK wins the challenge.
9 Dee is in the HOT Seat
Dee is an optimal spot in the game. She is in the alliance of UK players who have a connection to the US team. In this episode, we saw Dee get a heat stroke as she attempted to keep up with Tori while running. A sad moment for Dee as her team now views her as having subpar endurance. Ironically, it makes Tori look incredibly formidable. She did not struggle with endurance last season, but Dee having this moment of weakness will not look good as the final is approaching, and Team UK has some big decisions to make. They cut off Idris this week. Who is to say they won’t throw in Dee next week?
8 Charming Rogan
During the first four male eliminations and nomination ceremonies, Rogan was in consideration for elimination each time. This time around, now that the opposing alliance has been taken out on the male side besides Theo, Rogan had no problem telling Idris to prove himself when Rogan has never seen elimination.
Rogan is an incredible manipulator who does not leave all his cards on the table. He might be crude, but Rogan plays the role of idiot jock so well that it lulls others into a sense of security. Is he good in the challenges? No clue. Does he have an excellent social and political game? Yes.
7 Tori is rationally trying to prove herself
We are seeing a Tori who is openly talking about her wants and desires on the show. When I blogged about Final Reckoning, my biggest problem with Final Reckoning was that Tori was a template for a character, but not an actual human being. This season, Tori is showing personality. She is honest and vulnerable, and more than anything, she wants to win the Challenge, and be a top dog. She understands that to become the alpha, she needs to be able to either match Cara or beat her.
However, I do not think Tori is playing scared for not wanting to go into elimination with Cara. Tori is not afraid to mix it up when pushed into an argument, but she knows that if she agrees to the deal, she’ll likely regret it in the future. Tori is rational, anyone can lose an elimination, and you don’t want to go against the face of the franchise when production cares about all Paulie/Cara storylines.
6 Jordan vs. Cara and his team
I think Jordan respects Laurel, Tori, Bananas, Emily Schromm, Sarah Rice, and maybe Darrell as competitors. And then literally nobody else. Jordan has won two highly challenging finals, holds a 5–1 elimination record, and has succeeded despite his disability. In Jordan’s mind, if you’re not to his standard, or if you don’t improve a remarkable amount over time, you’re a disappointment.
We as fans see Cara, Wes, and CT as All-Time competitors who make the show what it is. Jordan sees them and knows he has won as many times as they have in 9, 8, and 12 fewer attempts. In Jordan’s mind, he thinks, “why haven’t you won 7 seasons if this is your life.” In my mind, it is a bit unfair as Cara is a beast who has improved exponentially since debuting on the show. I think she has plateaued a bit in recent seasons as we have not seen a dramatic improvement from her since Bloodlines. She does have the most Finals appearance in Challenge history and is a badass.
Jordan picks at Cara mostly because he hates everything she represents. Cara loves to paint herself as the underdog, while also wanting to be put on the pedestal as an all-time great. To Jordan, that is ridiculous. Jordan has a disability, he doesn’t come on every season and has his own business, he has personal situations setting him back, but he views himself at the top dog and acts that way. Jordan is a dickhead who picks on people, but he sees a hypocrite and is going to point it out. Cara sucks, Jordan sucks, this show sucks, and it’s also great.
5 Paulie vs. Josh
Paulie and Josh are like a couple going through a bad break-up where they pretend never to have had feelings for each other. These two once had a relationship built upon the fact they both played Big Brother and nothing else. Paulie and Josh co-existed and were able to stay friendly with each other because the relationship was mutually beneficial. Josh got to align with a top player, while Paulie had a friend who he could vent to and keep under him on the totem pole.
Once Josh made a play for his own game, they had to cut ties. This weakly structured relationship then blew up because now they could finally let out all their grievances about one another in a public forum. Josh talked shit to Leroy about playing Paulie’s game, while Paulie called Josh a bitch, and so on. Josh did have a great line of the night where he told Paulie that his bank account does not match his (Josh won 500k on Big Brother).
4 Paulie vs. Theo
One of the weirdest fucking arguments/fights I have ever watched. I love Theo this season because he understands that despite being potentially the best player on Team UK, he is at the bottom of the totem pole for both Team USA and Team UK. He has no reason to regard anyone else’s feelings and will pick at their insecurities without remorse. It is a dick move, but he’s already at the bottom, so might as well take some shots.
Paulie got in Theo’s face, and it looked very much like he was trying to make-out with him/lick him. Paulie, if you’re trying to fight someone and be tough, you put your fists up, you don’t put your tongue out. You’re not Toad Tolansky from X-Men, you’re just trying to lick dudes to avoid actual physical confrontations. Nothing was weirder than Paulie saying he stole Cara from Kyle, mostly because Cara was madly into Kyle while he was hooking up with Faith and Ashley. It got even weirder when he said he would steal Theo’s girl (whoever that is), and Theo cleverly retorted that it would be awful to cheat on Cara, which is 100% true. Imagine if your boyfriend said he was going to go fuck someone else’s girlfriend for spite? Jesus Christ. AND THIS IS ONLY THE FOURTH BIGGEST THING FROM THE EPISODE.
3 Kam the Polidicker
I am aware that Leroy and Kam had a relationship in the past, and the two had real feelings for one another. The fact she got under the sheets with Leroy when he was the critical swing vote this episode is more than a coincidence. I respect Kam for making the play. Leroy is a strong male competitor whose vote she now owns. Cara and Paulie have each other; now, Kam has Leroy. A critical romantic encounter as it broke any chance of Jordan’s alliance ever becoming the majority again.
Part of the reason Jordan had his fight, later on, is he is venting his problems with his team and is already questioning whether he should become a turncoat. Kam drew a line in the sand and in some ways, made Leroy the first turncoat of the season, as he was the ultimate floater, and now he’s picked a side.
2 So long, Idris!
Watching Idris perform in the challenge and elimination made me happy Sean got eliminated in the first episode. If Sean could not beat Idris, then he had no chance this season.
I am just so disappointed. Idris seemed like a great person, incredibly fit, and in the end, he got treated like a spare part by Rogan’s alliance. In his elimination, he lost in the physical portion and got devoured in the puzzle portion even with the entire crowd on his side — telling him how to do the puzzle. Tough look for Idris.
The elimination also made Theo 4–0. After his spat with Paulie, there is no reason for him to turncoat.
1 Jordan vs. Turbo
This note is pigging back onto the previous one regarding Jordan’s respect for his teammates.
From everything Jordan has seen, Turbo is a sub-par competitor. We know differently, but from Jordan’s eyes, he has seen a guy be lazy, non-cooperative, and has anger issues. Sidenote: He also cannot comprehend how Paulie views himself as a king when all Paulie has done is finish third place in a final where he got eliminated three times during the season.
When Jordan voices his issues with Turbo, it is game-related. Turbo takes offense to Jordan talking trash about him, which Jordan tells him to his face that he does not believe Turbo is that great of a competitor. Respect is such a big thing in Turkish culture (obviously for all cultures), so for Turbo, he views Jordan’s words as a more significant assault than Turbo trying to put his hands of Jordan. I’m anti-violence, so I don’t have respect for Turbo continually trying to fight Jordan, but Jordan eggs Turbo on and on, especially when he mocks Turbo’s victory strut. Weird statement, but I don’t think Jordan fears Turbo at all. I think if Turbo chopped Jordan’s head off with a machete, Jordan would die with a shit-eating grin of his face, where he’d think he won because he got the better of Turbo. Part of me thinks Turbo knows this as well. Turbo lives his life in Turkey as a Superhero; he cannot understand Jordan’s psyche and lack of regard for him. MTV choosing to tack this fight on in the final ten minutes of the episode instead of ending in the elimination is a stroke of editing genius. I want to watch next week’s episode so badly right now.
Ashley instigating the entire situation is a peak Challenge moment. Johnny Bananas worked so incredibly hard to make “NoteGate” a thing when all it resulted in was anti-climatic BS. Ashley walks over to Turbo and potentially creates CT vs. Adam 2.0. She is an all-time Challenger.
