The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras Episode 14 Recap: 6 Biggest Takeaways
The 14th episode of The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras is in the books. You probably have some thoughts, so let’s compare. Instead of giving a simple summary, I decided to focus on the 6 Biggest moments/takeaways from Episode 14.
I typically do 10 takeaways; this week, I did 6 because the episode didn’t warrant 10. I didn’t hate the episode; there was just stuff that I didn’t feel the need to hammer.
If you prefer audio/video, my podcast recap can be found above/below:
6 A Genuinely Fun Daily Challenge
After a bunch of weeks in a row with daily challenges that have all been about running and solving puzzles, it was great to have a simple & fun daily challenge. It was an OG daily challenge; you jump off a semi-truck and try to hit some targets — these are the cool type of daily challenges that make me wish I could compete on the show.
Now, there was a decent degree of difficulty with the daily challenge. Tori & Cara were at a distinct disadvantage going first as they were shocked by how fast the truck was moving and struggled with timing their dismounts. Tori especially wasn’t even willing to jump multiple rounds. I will note that Tori’s never done super well in these heights/balance competitions, even after years of experience. We saw Aviv struggle partly due to her lack of size/reach, and dismounting off an injured foot when you’re 40 years old can’t be easy. Now, what confused the fuck out of me is that based on what we saw, Tori & Aviv both hit only 2/10 targets, yet Aviv got the last-place penalty, and Tori didn’t? I’ve been hyping up Tori massively the past few weeks, but that felt suspect.
Moving on, Rachel killed it and ran away with the win on the women’s side. This was an OG Road Rules-esque mission, and we saw Rachel’s athleticism and experience shine — she had no doubt in all her leaps, and it felt like I was watching The Duel 2 at times. On the men’s side, Josh’s lack of hand-eye coordination and balance were on full display — even with Cory having a disadvantage, Josh sent himself into elimination.
5 Derek’s Big Win
Jordan & Derek put on a literal perfect exhibition in the daily challenge and then went to sudden death in epic fashion. I thought Jordan was going to win because he was soaring like a bird throughout the daily challenge — in the end, though, he slipped up, and Derek got his first-ever solo daily challenge on the MTV main show.
Since the game went individual, Derek has consistently been at the bottom. To watch him crush this daily challenge not once but twice in literal perfect fashion to guarantee his safety was awesome. I’ve been waiting all season for Derek to show up, and here it is — the question is, can he keep it up? Honestly, I hope so because it was awesome seeing a different person win and for Derek to get a shining moment on this show. Now, I think people labeling him a dark-horse contender is a little too much praise, considering he’s been at the bottom in the Mini Final-esque daily challenge. Regardless, it’s great to see Derek doing well, and I know he’s been wanting to show people what he’s capable of for over a decade.
The montage of LGBT Challengers as Derek & Rachel commiserated their win together was awesome to see. As a Shane Landrum fan, I was thrilled to see him on my TV again.
4 Rachel’s Loyalty To Bananas
Throughout the episode, Rachel affirmed in confessionals and to multiple people that she would not be turning on Johnny Bananas under any circumstances. To which Derek and Cara Maria pondered the idea: “Yeah, but wouldn’t it be cooler if you did?”
Rachel had so much smoke for Bananas online for a decade for the way he treated women on The Island and on The Challenge as a whole. Even in the scene at a bar where Bananas apologizes for who he was on The Island to Rachel, it ignores the fact they competed on Battle of the Exes 1 together, and Bananas personally went after Rachel. Although they’ve been aligned, Rachel had the ammunition to give Bananas a lick back after he’s ousted on her two previous MTV seasons and could’ve done it knowing she couldn’t get targeted back. Not to mention, Rachel’s had a great return, but I don’t think she will be on 10 seasons in a row after this, so it’s not like Bananas can make her life hell after this.
I loved that Cara tried to nudge her in that direction — instead, Rachel decided to stay loyal to Bananas and took a dig at the game Cara is playing. Honestly, I thought Rachel calling Cara a bad strategic player because Cara chose to align with Cory & Derek instead of Bananas & Jordan like Rachel did was a misguided comment. Bananas & Jordan have been her two biggest male rivals on this show for a decade, and Bananas was 1/2 of the vote that tossed her into the first elimination of this season. There was no world where Cara could align with those people, and in reality, it’s impressive that Cara’s seen only one elimination, considering she has so many opps on this cast.
Although I disagree with Rachel’s comments about Cara, Rachel has played a phenomenal political game since it became an individual format. Rachel’s set herself up nicely so that as long as she doesn’t come in last in a daily challenge, she’s guaranteed to be in the final without seeing another elimination. Additionally, as much as I’d love to see her betray Bananas, her game is perfectly fine without it, and she’s allied with Josh, and he doesn’t want to face Bananas either.
3 Cara, Tori, and Michele Are Besties For Life
Going into Season 40, Cara vs. Tori had to be one of the biggest storylines entering the show as they had so much heat for one another on War of the Worlds 2, during Cara’s hiatus where she made multiple shady comments about Tori, and then even got into it during the Season 39 reunion. So, to see them hand-in-hand on this season is shocking; then again, they were friends/close allies on Dirty 30! While I wanted to see them at odds, they seem legitimately compatible as friends. Seeing Cara & Tori interact, I thought their humor was so corny & cringy and stuck in the year 2012, and yet who am I to hate because they seem like they’re having genuine fun? Even though I wouldn’t laugh at their jokes, they find each other funny, which is what matters!
Also, Cara had beef with Michele going into this season, where she called out Michele for elimination on Season 39 and proceeded to have some pointed comments about her after the season. Now, Cara is friends with her, too, and they all seem to be having a good time. The game brought them together, and while they weren’t each other’s first choices, there’s a real camaraderie there. I enjoy a Challenge alliance that’s a mish-mash of different people; it reminds me of Lord of the Rings when Gimli was fighting next to Legolas.
2 The Nelly T Appearance
I’ve been covering The Challenge since 2017, and the first season I covered live was Invasion of The Champions. In that season, Nelson Thomas emerged as a major character, and he’d go on to be on many seasons where he was a core figure to this show’s identity and played multiple roles. Depending on the day, Nelson was a contender to win, an elimination beast, a supporting character, a comedic relief, a messy fuckboi, and even sometimes a villain. When you talk about the history of The Challenge, Nelson was a key figure for Seasons 29–38, and he’s inspired so many articles, blogs, and tweets that I’ve written. Nelson would’ve been a lock for Season 40 if not for his life-altering injury.
This made Nelson popping up on a Facetime with Cory a somewhat decent consolation, considering everything. At the same time, it feels weird to talk about Nelson. I would never wish what happened to Nelson to anyone, yet I’m not sure I’m comfortable with him getting championed and celebrated when his actions were so reckless and dangerous. Which if you didn’t know, Nelson drove while highly intoxicated. Not to mention the mess that was his GoFundMe campaign that excluded the reason why the accident happened. Nelson should be able to have a path for redemption — I think it’s a bit soon, given the situation.
It did make me laugh that Nelson wore a shirt that said “Nelly T” on it and had a LED sign behind him that also said “Nelly T”. Nelson made damn sure everyone knew who he was in his 2-minutes of screen time.
1 The Goof Strikes Again
I’ve been clamoring for MTV to give Cory a genuine Hall Brawl or Balls In headbanger elimination for years. Cory is one of the most explosively fast men in Challenge history, and he knows how to tackle, as he received a scholarship to play defensive back at the collegiate level. Well, we got it, and Cory lived up to my expectations of him — unfortunately, Josh performed so poorly that we didn’t even see Cory deal with any adversity.
Josh has put so much work into his body & fitness to where he’s physically crushing it and keeping up with guys like Kyland & Jordan in the Mini Final challenges from a pure cardio standpoint. Sadly, at the end of the day, Josh is not an athlete. From a basic watch-through, Cory smoked Josh and Josh looked like a clumsy clown. I watched the elimination closely to see what exactly Josh did wrong. Right from the jump, whenever TJ blew the horn, Cory ran immediately, whereas Josh looked startled, and in some rounds, he didn’t even know which foot he was going to push off first. When each player was on defense, Cory had zero hesitation when jumping on and over the hay bails, whereas Josh stopped his momentum and then tried to run and jump. Another little detail I noticed is that when Cory was an offense, he would begin running from the outside and curl inwards in case Josh met him in the middle; that way, Cory’s momentum would be going towards the bell. When Josh was on offense, he left himself vulnerable to getting pushed out easily by Cory.
With the win, Cory is now 11–4 in eliminations, and he’s won 8 out of his last 9, which; Wes is the only other man in Challenge history to ever win 8 out of 9 eliminations (he won 8 in a row). On the other side of the coin, Josh is now 1–7 in eliminations (including USA 2) and has never gone to a Final. If you watched the daily challenge this season, it’s clear that Josh is not a terrible competitor — still, his lack of natural athleticism always comes back to bite. I will say when you looked at this cast going into the season, nobody expected Josh to be in the Top 6, so he should get some credit for that. If Josh is going to make a Final on a season, it will probably be one with a weaker cast.
Cory nominated Michele in return for last week and then put the other two targets on Bananas girls Jenny & Aviv.
