The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras Episode 6 Recap: 10 Biggest Takeaways
The 6th 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 10 Biggest moments/takeaways from Episode 6.
If you prefer audio/video, my podcast recap can be found above/below:
10 Laurel & Cara Part 875
In my recap last week, I mentioned how it’s rumored that Cara Maria had to leave the house for a couple of days following the fight with Laurel to get some therapeutic help. Based on the editing of the end of last week/this week, they’ve swept that under the rug. We did get to see Laurel come back to the house and call Cara Maria her annoying little sister for the 8000th time in the last 15 years. The metaphor no longer hits the same as sisters love each other, and at this point, there’s no genuine love between these two, only toxicity, mostly stemming from Laurel. It also doesn’t hit quite the same as Laurel is the more annoying one these days and has been a menace blowing up on multiple cast members.
At this point, I’m tired of talking about the two (except I have to talk about them again later in this blog)
9 Am I Jenny West?
It was hysterical that when Jenny West cursed out her teammates for once again getting nominated, she did so while lying on the bed and not getting up to do so. I don’t blame Jenny for being frustrated, as it’s tough to play a social game with so many people who enter with pre-existing relationships and connections. At the same time, The Challenge is inherently a social game. For that same reason, people can’t get mad when Jenny doesn’t throw Bananas & Laurel into elimination, as Bananas is one of her only legitimate allies in the house.
When Kaycee, of all people, was roasting Jenny’s personality, I felt attacked. First, Kaycee roasting someone for being boring when she is wallpaper herself is insane. Second, when she mentioned that all Jenny talks about are snacks, her pets (guinea pigs), and working out… I realized… Those are basically the three things I talk about the most in my daily life!
8 Broken Legs & Bursted Balloons
Obviously, time would be the tiebreaker if all teams had gathered the same amount of balloons. It was clear early on that these balloons would not be easy to transfer from one end to another. Kudos to Era 4 for being patient during this daily challenge. Because of their inexperience, you would assume they’d be the team to try to sprint through the daily challenge errantly. Nope, they got the win again.
Jordan’s attempt to speedrun the daily challenge was idiotic, and it’s another week where his demeanor has been a detriment to his Era.
Era 1 was a mess, like always, and Derrick “broke” his leg. I love Derrick and think he’s one of/if not the toughest man in Challenge history. Derrick competes with so much heart, and he wears cuts & bruises as if they are badges of honor. There is a clear line between tough and stupid, though. In a daily challenge like this, where protecting your balloons is of the utmost importance, Derrick’s leg was a liability for his team, and if the medical team said he could sit out, he should have. His team had to drag the balloons and him at points during the daily challenge, and he was at risk of injuring himself further.
The other notable thing about the daily challenge is Cara chose not to throw it. Although Cara loathes Laurel, she’s devoted to upholding an image she’s built up as a true competitor and doesn’t want to give fans (or Laurel) ammunition to say she’s playing the same way as Laurel.
7 Josh is a Challenge Producer’s Dream
Josh is a powder keg of emotions & drama as he’s quick to shed tears, get into confrontations, and is always loud on camera. In terms of storylines, Josh is a member of the Vacation Alliance, and he’s part of a love triangle with Nia & Kyland. Importantly, Josh is someone who production can consistently clown on, knowing he will always come back. On Double Agents, they labeled him The Goof; on WOTW 2 & Double Agents, they edited his opponents talking about how they’re beating him mid-elimination. This week, they literally made a graphic of him as a court jester.
Whenever people ask why Josh gets cast on the show, this week’s episode is precisely why. On top of all the drama and unintentional comedy he brings, Josh won the daily challenge and played a part in saving both the face of the franchise (Bananas) and the person creating the most drama & storylines this season (Laurel). He is The Challenge producer’s wet dream as we get a couple more weeks of Bananas & Laurel guaranteed.
6 Laurel Gets Off Scot-Free
Look, I’ve torn into the Laurel for the past month, and yet I had to chuckle seeing her getting to be carefree during the night at the club, knowing she wasn’t getting voted into elimination despite being up for nomination. Laurel has caused a ruckus with her behavior, is coming off a win, and is just chilling.
If Cara & Ryan knew this would be the case, they might’ve thrown the daily challenge.
5 Cory plays a confusing game
Including USA 2, Cory has gone to the Final in three out of his last four seasons. He didn’t go into elimination on USA 2 and wouldn’t have gone in on Total Madness/Double Agents if he didn’t have to earn a Skull. To which, he went in once each, got the Skull, and never had to see elimination again.
When you see those results, you think to yourself, “Well, Cory is good at the game.”
Then you remember Cory’s never won a Final, so even though he’s getting there, he’s not making big enough moves to give himself the best shot to win. Yet, he’s clearly pushing for people to take big shots, except he’s not doing it himself. He’s not doing it himself because he doesn’t want a big target on him, which allows him to make the Finals, but then he loses the Finals. And I’m going in circles here just to say…I have no clue whether we should classify Cory as a good or bad player. It’s hard to play and win this game, especially when you aren’t a perfectly well-rounded player like Cory.
Everything Cory does is hit or miss for me. I thought Cory choosing not to save Amanda in Week 1 when Tori, Averey, and Nia have men they will prioritize over him was a questionable move. Some would argue Amanda can be a liability, and putting your game on the line for her is dumb. Meanwhile, this week, I loved Cory telling Josh to his face that he’s taking getting voted in as a shot at him because you could see Josh shitting his pants live in the moment. Again, it’s not a perfect move; hell, it might even be a bad one, as most would say that Cory’s action toward Josh & Jenny paints a bigger target on him. Still, I enjoyed seeing how Cory carried himself while under fire. My head hurts from dissecting Cory’s game — which is how he must’ve felt trying to do math during the Invasion Final.
4 OG Bananas Might Be Making A Comeback
I don’t think Johnny Bananas has the same fastball anymore, and he’s even admitted that in podcast interviews recently. That said, Bananas still has a wicked curve ball and bag of tricks that hell used to win, and we saw them in full display this episode. We watched Bananas use Josh’s emotions and guilt over his move to guarantee his safety this week. Once he had that safety, Bananas began to play pot-stirrer by telling Michele that Devin might be using her for the game rather than genuine romantic feelings.
To me, this was a calculated move. While Devin, Michele, and others were able to cut through the bullshit when Bananas attempted to lie and say that he didn’t say that…Ultimately…I think Bananas goal was to get Devin to start playing emotionally.
Devin has controlled the numbers and ran the house politically during the last couple of seasons he’s competed on. Bananas knows that if the game continues to go as it is, Devin will have a stranglehold on the numbers and can gather the votes to knock Bananas out easily. Devin has proven to be an excellent chess player who plays the game deliberately and logically. So Bananas isn’t going for his brain; he’s going after Devin’s heart and trying to force him to play emotionally. It might backfire on Bananas, it might be genius, and it might blow up both their games, allowing someone else to profit. Regardless, Bananas will do whatever it takes to win, and I welcome it. It’s awesome to see vintage Bananas back.
3 Cory vs. Brad
While the scoreboard result was 4–3, this elimination wasn’t particularly close. Cory was much better at scoring points/making accurate throws and could have theoretically scored more. Instead, Cory went with the NFL strategy of kneeling the ball/giving Brad as little opportunity to score as possible. Cory outplayed Brad from all angles in this elimination and earned the win.
For Brad, it’s the third straight elimination loss he’s had air on TV in less than 11 months. While he had his showmance with Emily, I feel comfortable saying this was Brad’s least noteworthy season since probably…Gauntlet 3…and even then, he met his future wife that season. Brad is such a massive figure, and he was just in the background with his big eyes this season. I guess that’s what happens when you have a 40-person cast stacked with legends.
2 Rachel vs. Jonna
On All-Stars 4, Rachel got thrown into an idiotic ninja-throwing star carnival game elimination against Cara Maria, where the two of them were made to look like fools. So when Rachel got thrown into this elimination where she could show off her basketball & volleyball skills, she took it seriously. Rachel crushed this elimination and took such a massive lead so quickly that she was able to play defense and shut down Jonna from scoring. I don’t think Jonna did that terribly in this elimination and would’ve been competitive against a decent amount of people — it’s just Rachel killed it. With the win, Rachel guarantees that she’ll be here till Episode 8 and will continue to fight.
It pains me to see Jonna go out this early & anticlimactically because her quick exit will lead to people who didn’t watch All-Stars to disregard her championships and the spin-offs as a whole. Jonna has become a strong competitor; I hope people see more of her. What sucks is I don’t think Jonna did anything wrong. She was a solid competitor in the daily challenge and solved the riddle for her team in this most recent challenge. Yes, she put a target on herself by not self-nominating, except as we saw this episode, she was right to be afraid of going into an elimination with Rachel, Laurel, etc.
1 New Targets
Something curious that we found out this week is that players are not allowed to be Targets two weeks in a row, even if they avoided elimination. So, along with getting saved this week, Laurel will be safe next week , which will drive some fans nuts. Unfortunately for Laurel, Cara will be alongside her as Cory picked Aviv as the Era 2 target. With Tina as the guaranteed target for Era 1, it was funny to see women like Nia & Michele eagerly stepping up for nominations. Considering Era 1 is down to 4 people and half of them are injured, Tina is likely to be in elimination, and while Tina is in the best shape of her life, she’s a less intimidating opponent than Rachel and all the other women from last week. I’d love to see Tina get another elimination win because her confessionals bring so much comedic relief and joy to the show.
On the men’s side, Darrell & Jordan volunteered for their Eras as it was their “turn.” Nehemiah got picked by Jenny as the two have gone tit for tat with one another the last three weeks. I found it interesting that Kyland volunteered to be a target yet again, even though Theo has never held the responsibility on their team.
If two more Era 1 players get eliminated next week, it’s hard to imagine the team format will continue unless we see some sort of merge.
