The Challenge Spies, Lies & Allies Episode 16 Recap & 5 Biggest Takeaways
Episode 16 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 16th episode.
NOTE: Only 5 Takeaways and no Podcast this week as it’s Thanksgiving and I’m enjoying time with friends and family back in town. If you want some extra content, I threw in some quick reviews/suggestions at the bottom.
5 Simple Daily Challenge
The daily challenge was a simple cardio mission with no bells and whistles, only a question of endurance and basic strategy. We saw the smaller Ruby and Sapphire teams play to their strength of having fewer people by going more fast-paced. Emerald took advantage of their numbers by focusing on efficiency and filling their bags with as much money as possible.
In the end, Emerald took home their sixth win this season, earning safety for Kaycee, Amanda, and Nany. The Emerald win essentially guaranteed that either Tori or Emy would be going into elimination to face Big T.
4 Nelson’s Big 50
Nelson accomplished the unimaginable. He has now lost 50 consecutive daily challenges dating back to Vendettas. Hilariously, Nelson sets the record during what is probably his best daily challenge performance on the season. What Nelson has done defies statistical reasoning. Based on the 50 Daily Challenges Nelson has competed in, mathematically, there is more than a 99.9% shot that he should have won at least one daily. He needs to keep losing at this point because it is honestly becoming impressive how he continues to stack this record.
Sneakily, the funniest part of this streak is the last daily challenge Nelson won was the dangerous car-jumping challenge from Vendettas, where he and Zach were the only two players to complete the challenge after breaking the back windshields of the car and getting themselves cut up. They were two of the first players to compete, and after the windshields got broken, production had to stop filming and fix the challenge so players could compete for the next day, to which nobody was able to because it became impossible. So really, Nelson’s last daily challenge win was just a battle between him and Zach.
Also, I did the math in case you were wondering; what were the chances of Nelson losing 50 straight dailies based on the challenges he played in.
The Statistical Chance of Nelson Losing 50 Straight Daily Challenges
By the End of Vendettas (5 Dailies into Streak): 10%
By the End of Final Reckoning (17 Dailies into Streak): 2.02%
By the End of Total Madness (31 Dailies Into Streak): 0.105%
By the End of Double Agents (35 Dailies Into Streak): 0.077%
By the End of Spies, Lies & Allies Ep 16 (50 Dailies Into Streak): 0.0024%
3 Devin Continues To Be a Psycho & Tori Shows Some Self-Awareness
All Tori wanted was a simple apology from Devin for making her cry and feel terrible, and he could not give her that. If you posted a picture of Devin on Twitter, the character limit would not allow you to post enough Red Flags to capture how much of a dickhead this guy is. I’ll give Devin his props; I’ve thought he was the 2nd best male vet this season behind CT, except he has a critical point of ego that is torpedoing him down fast. Devin made Tori cry and has hurt long-time friends (Kyle, Nelson, Amanda) through his words and actions. He used to be the guy trying to knock the worst people on this show down a peg, and now, he’s not only become what he hated. Devin’s a toxic element bringing taking his friends down with him. Sometimes you need to play a dirty game on the Challenge, but you don’t need to be a bad human being.
On a complete side note: I respect that Tori acknowledges Big T as someone who could beat her in elimination. She’s seen her losses the past couple of seasons and knows anything can happen in that arena, and Big T has some skills. Big T dominated Aneesa in elimination last season, the same person who eliminated Tori herself.
Devin did at least acquiesce to Tori’s demand not to make her the Agency Vote. Big T basically begging to get thrown in at deliberation also forced his hand a bit.
2 Big T vs. Emy
Seeing the water element of the elimination, Big T picks to face Emy as Tori had won a swimming daily earlier in the season (although Emy is pretty damn good in the water herself). If you had to write up the proper elimination for Big T to play against Emy, you would include her best skill (swimming) and Emy’s worst skill (puzzles). This elimination had both, and Emy was still able to pull off the win. Yeesh. It speaks volumes about the competitor Emy is while also showing that even though Big T has a lot of heat, she has clear limitations as a player. Ultimately, this entire elimination came down to the puzzle. Any time you are working thicker 3D pieces, things get a lot more difficult because once you mess up, you essentially have to tear everything down again. The most significant factor working against Big T was nobody in the crowd wanted her to win as they did not want her to join their team(s), and thus there was no encouragement and no puzzle help. Meanwhile, CT was trying to solve Emy’s puzzle for her from 50 feet away (how much he helped is up for debate).
Big T is now a career 1–4 in eliminations, walking away with two Ls this season alone. I love Big T; I just wouldn’t mind a 1 or 2 season break from her at this point.
1 Emy joins an Elite Elimination Group & Final Thoughts
Emy makes history with this being her 4th Elimination Win in one season. She is the first player since Leroy on Exes 2 to achieve the feat, is the first female to do so since Laurel on Free Agents, and is now only the 7th player in the entire history of the franchise to win more than 3 eliminations in one season (Sarah G, Derrick, Wes/Casey, Leroy, Laurel as the others). While Emy has not gone against the most stacked field, as we know, eliminations can be random. Statistically, they are a 50% chance you are going home, so you take that 1/2, exponential it by 4, and you realize there was a 93.75% chance Emy should have lost an elimination at this point. Emy beat those odds and potentially might be the only female rookie to see the Final this season, with a decent shot of winning the game.
Next week will be a male elimination, hopefully the last one this season before the final.
Stay tuned for my All-Stars recap on Friday/Saturday, and have a Happy Thanksgiving.
ALLAN’S MOVIE REVIEW & SUGGESTION SECTION
If you have time over the Holiday and want to see a movie, here are my ratings for the movies I’ve seen over the last week:
King Richard (HBO Max) — 8.6 out of 10: One of Will Smith’s best performances in a long time, and the actresses who play young Venus & Serena do an impeccable job.
Red Notice (Netflix) — 5.3 out of 10: The Rock & Ryan Reynolds surprisingly lack chemistry. An action movie that gets the job done.
Ghostbusters Afterlife (Theaters) — 8.4 out of 10: My expectations were low, but this movie was genuinely fun, and the lead actress (McKenna Grace) does an incredible job in the role. I knew the movie was good once I whispered to myself, “Damn, how are they going to get rid of all these ghosts?” While there is a lack of overall humor in the film compared to the original, making it more of an action movie rather than trying to live up to the comedic stylings of Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd is probably wise.
Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City (Theaters) — 5.5 out of 10: Gosh, this movie felt very cheap, and setting the film in 1998 (when the game came out) does alleviate that fact a bit; it still hurts, though. The new Resident Evil is another harsh reminder that adapting a video game onto a screen is genuinely challenging. It’s not a terrible movie, but it’s not great either.
