The Challenge Spies, Lies & Allies Episode 15 Recap & 10 Biggest Takeaways
Episode 15 of Spies, Lies & Allies 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 the 15th episode. Above is our YouTube Podcast Video recap, and for those that prefer Audio Only, Spotify and Apple Below.
10 Aftermath of Amanda’s Elimination Win
Amanda came back into the house with a massive smile on her face and a new green background in her confessionals; meanwhile, her teammates’ reactions to their new team member was lukewarm at best. Emanuel welcomed her but said she needed to take the challenges more seriously (she should), Josh told her that she needed to be running laps with him in the morning (wouldn’t hurt), and Devin/Kaycee/Josh had a team conversation about handling her. Which is absurd; while Amanda has competitive flaws, her intelligence is a clear asset, and for them to not openly talk about that is wild, as they themselves are very flawed players. Amanda even notes to Josh, her skill-set is complementary to those on their team, whereas Tori’s skill-set is a redundancy.
Before last week, Emerald had been steamrolling through the game, and now they are crumbling mightily at the first sign of any opposition. If anything, it feels as the Emerald Men want Amanda on the team, so they can point the finger at her when they lose for whatever reason.
9 Tori Works Well as an Underdog
The most likable Tori has ever been on the Challenge was on War of the Worlds 2 when she played from the bottom with no fucks to give. Most fans’ issue with Tori is her artificiality and sense of entitlement. From Day 1 of her Challenge Career, she got labeled a top player, where she got named Rookie of the Year, made a mercenary, and put on Champ vs. Stars all after one 3rd Place-Finish. From there, it’s been easy to pick at all her flaws and losses. We saw a bit of WOTW 2 Tori in this episode, and it was good to see her act like an actual human being.
Tori decides to make the best of a bad situation and gives a pep talk to her new Ruby Teammates, and says she’s been to Finals before, Kyle and Nelson have as well, and she thinks Big T is ready to take one on (not sure if Tori believes that, but she said it). Did she need to be wearing a cape pretending to be a superhero while she gave the speech? Absolutely not. It was super corny, though, she came in with a good mindset. Tori’s skill-set and personality are more of an asset to Ruby than Amanda, and I think inversely, the same goes the other way. She also acted politically by cutting a handshake type deal with CT that Ruby and Sapphire will try to work together in the next daily challenge if given the chance, as they could not let Emerald continue to dominate.
8 Daily Challenge — Kyle’s Big Blunder
For the daily challenge, players raced through pits, grabbing sticks of TNT from an opposing team bunker back towards their bunker. Once a team gets 20 sticks of dynamite, they win the daily challenge.
The daily challenge starts, and Ruby and Sapphire smartly team up against Emerald, which did not look mega suspect when you consider they were teams of 4 and 3 going against a squad of 6. It would be idiotic not to team up against a fully loaded group. Things are going swimmingly until Kyle randomly decides to steal a dynamite stick from the Sapphire, which ironically, the first people to call him out for doing it is his teammate Tori. His own team was pissed off by his actions. What was Kyle thinking?
Considering that Kyle’s best friend is Devin, I think he tried to steal one from Sapphire, hoping that they would see him as an ally and pick Nelson if an Emerald player got voted into elimination. Instead, the Sapphire team got mad at him; Emerald decided to target Ruby from thereon, sealing his fate. Kyle’s decision was a boneheaded play that directly led to him being the House Vote. My favorite moment of the ordeal was Team Ruby trying to apologize for Kyle’s headassery, to which CT yells out: “WHAT? HE CAN’T READ COLORS?”
7 Daily Challenge Highlights — Big Hits
There were some good hits in this headbanger daily challenge.
Josh tried to get Nelson with a late-hit up against the Wall, and even with the size and momentum advantage, Nelson kind of just shrugs Josh off with ease.
Nelson accidentally hit Logan running with too much momentum, which lead to Logan pushing Emanuel, who was not even competing at that time.
CT popped Kyle with a last-minute choo choo after Kyle stole the dynamite stick from Sapphire.
Amanda tried to dodge Tori’s tackle and ended up getting Hockey slammed into the wall.
Josh and Kyle wrestled around for a long while.
Which led to my favorite moment, old man CT hurdling over the two big babies.
Tori talks a whole lot of shit about how nobody should want to get physical with her.
Tori then gets absolutely trucked by Kaycee.
Kaycee has another stellar hit where she is able to take down Tori, even with Tori having the downhill momentum on her side.
Shout-out to Emy for being the only girl on her team, racing back and forth for multiple rounds with zero breaks. Sidenote: I think Emy believes Mr. TJ is a Stand-Up comedian in American, because she laughs at everything he says as if he was Rodney Dangerfield.
6 Devin Has Gained Bananas Ego Without The Accomplishments
After the daily challenge, Devin just goes at Tori, saying she fucked over him, Josh, and Emanuel, three guys in the game who had her back. Devin was so offended by the concept of Tori wanting to win a daily challenge for her actual team rather than ceding a victory to him, the God of all Challenges. It was the type of reaction I’d expect out of Johnny Bananas during the Rivals/Exes era of the show, where he was bitching about any move someone made that wasn’t in his favor. Except Bananas was winning Championships in that era, and Devin might make a final this time around?
Devin kept saying Tori was a real-life friend, except a good friend wouldn’t treat a real-life friend the way Devin treated Tori; he had her in tears over the fact she played the game for herself. He tried to make an excuse that because it was a guy’s elimination day, Tori should have tried to help Emerald. If it was the other way around, it’s hard to imagine Devin telling Kaycee & Nany that they need to throw it to protect Tori. I spent the first twelve weeks of this season praising Devin, and it seems as though he’s gotten too into his own hype; he is acting so desperately now that he can’t fully control people.
5 Kyle vs. CT
It’s a running gag at this point. CT and Kyle get into it every single season at some point, and CT throws Kyle into elimination. All of CT’s actions towards Kyle reflect no friendship, and yet, Kyle keeps insisting they are friends. It does not help that Kyle continues to make little snakey moves, which fuel CT’s fire against him. During their argument, CT gets loud and says that he is getting loud so everyone can hear what he is saying, and thus, they know he isn’t lying, which was a fascinating tactic.
Most of this comes down to is that CT has never trusted Kyle since he teamed up with JP to take him out in their WOTW 1 elimination. Kyle needs to realize this and stop operating with the mindset he and CT are cool.
4 The Fessy Socks
Josh mistranslated and took the expression, “big shoes to fill,” too literal by wearing Fessy’s socks in preparation for his potential elimination with Kyle. I don’t know what’s more embarrassing, these socks existing or Josh wearing them? I guess it is fun to play dress-up as a kid with your dad’s clothes.
3 Croatian Burgers Look Solid
Before Kyle goes into elimination, Amanda acts as his #1 cheerleader, pushing to make whatever move is best for his game. It is hilarious to watch her show legitimate care for a guy who continues to call her Satan in his confessionals. Nonetheless, my big takeaway, was that the Croatian Burger and Fries looks pretty solid. Actually, not sure if I’d call those fries, they seem more like potato wedges. Looks good regardless.
2 Josh vs. Kyle
Kyle sees an elimination that will likely require balance, and thus, he does not want to face Emanuel, and instead, he picks Josh. These two faced off on Total Madness, with Kyle murdering Josh in a variation of Knots So Fast. This time, in a close battle, Kyle beats Josh 16–15 in a bridge-building competition. I found myself unimpressed by both guys in this elimination. Josh seemed clumsy and uncoordinated, and it felt like Kyle was choking away them elimination himself, except, because Josh was worse, he was still able to take the win. The elimination felt that if Kyle was facing anyone else, we would be making fun of his loss, rather than what we got, which was him being in the lead basically the entire match and pulling out the win.
Josh becomes the first male player to debut since Cutthroat not to make a Challenge Final in their first five appearances. He is now a career 1–5 in elimination. The male cast the last few seasons has gotten weaker, and Josh still can’t break that glass ceiling. Josh talks about his desire to become a Champion, and I just don’t see it, especially when people call him out for elimination the past couple of seasons as they see him as someone they can beat. Even with Josh getting in better shape each season, he is not a natural athlete, and his problem-solving skills are subpar. Josh’s pretty close to being the best player he can be, and sadly, that still might not be good enough to make a final.
Kyle is now a career 6–6 in eliminations, and for the first time since he was 0–0, he no longer has a losing elimination record! I did find it funny when looking back at Kyle’s elimination history; besides his weird 3-way elimination with CT & JP, all of Kyle’s elimination wins have either come against players in their Rookie Season or Josh. Not a great resume, but at least he is beating the people he is supposed to defeat.
1 The Aftermath
Kyle switches over to Sapphire and takes Logan’s spot, switching Logan over to Ruby. I’m hoping next week will be a Double Elimination as this season needs to start wrapping up fast. Suppose next week is just a regular female elimination day. In that case, I fully expect Big T to go into elimination again, either as the Agency Vote or picked out of the line-up by whoever gets voted in. Unless Ruby wins the Daily Challenge, which I don’t see happening.
Make sure to stream All Stars Season 2 on Paramount Plus, Episode 2 drops at Midnight PST and the episode will have you emotionally enveloped quickly.
