The Challenge Spies, Lies & Allies Super Trailer Breakdown

WELCOME BACK! While I always do trailer breakdowns, I have to say; this is easily the most detailed and longest one I have ever done. It’s been a stressful week, and then I found my dyslexic ass going 4000+ words deep at 3 AM trying to figure out what’s going on in the trailer. So if there are some slip-ups in wording, I apologize. I read this through, but my brain already mixes up letters and words without me noticing, so throw in lack of sleep, and it’s not always a great mix. Now let’s fucking get into it, because from a pure content standpoint, this trailer breakdown rocks.

I will be breaking down the trailers of the Challenge Season 37 Spies, Lies, & Allies as I do every season. There are no spoilers in this article that you won’t figure out by watching the trailer super slowly. YES, there are spoilers, but they are spoilers via inference and analysis. Essentially, if I see something with my eyes in this trailer, it is not a spoiler.

Here is the trailer in video format if you have not seen it. ^

They kick off the trailer by putting their pedal to the metal. We see players draped across the roof of a car speeding erratically. It looks like a pairs challenges, and I believe the first team we catch a glimpse of is Fessy and Nigerian rookie Esther Agunbiade. The trailer shows the car approaching a tanker truck as the vehicle drives in circles. I assume the players have to memorize the colored logos on the side of the truck. It also seems that at least two teams are competing in this daily challenge at once. I’d guess this is Episode 2 or Episode 4, once we are down to an even number of players/pairs.

You can see Amber B attempting this daily challenge, meaning she comes in relatively early into the season. Kaycee throws out a “let’s go!!!!” maximizing her excitement quota for the season in two total words. Big T is having the opposite reaction to the challenge as her body flails. Big T must have tried to pizza when she should’ve french fried, and she’s straight-up not having a good time. Based on the person’s helmet next to her, it looks as though Love Island Rookie Jeremiah White is her partner.

We get a beautiful skyscape of Vrsar, Croatia as a CT sound byte says: “I think the name of this game is Survival.” With 34 players on the cast and 8–10 finals spots available, I’d say he’s right. We are likely going to be getting lots of double eliminations this season, which leads us to what we see next.

Players walk into the elimination arena, which looks super cool this season. Then we get footage of three players superimposed over all the others — Cory, Kyle, and Ashley. They look as if they are hyping themselves up to go into elimination. These former young guns are now long-time veterans of the franchise.

The first TJ sound byte is surprisingly not him saying welcome to the Challenge Spies, Lies & Allies, but him jumping right into the action by saying, “Agents, here on the Challenge, missions are harder.” We then see a player hopping from a steel beam twenty feet over water to another. This is a more extreme version of a daily challenge from The Challenge All Stars where players hopped across beams on a moving car. In that challenge, you at least had a harness; in this challenge, the jumps look longer, you’re hitting the water potentially with zero body control, and as you can see in the second photo, players are shooting a high powered water hose at you as you try to jump. The sabotage element is reminiscent of players shooting tomatoes at their opponents as they sat on the wall during Dirty 30.

One of the most terrifying moments in the trailer is Big T going for a jump, eating it, and then falls fast with zero body control. Luckily, she falls feet/ass first into the water. Had it been head first, it would have been infinitely scarier. Considering Big T is already afraid of heights, this must have been her nightmare. I wrote an article about the Top 10 Most Dangerous Daily Challenges, and this one might get added to the list.

Top 10 Most Dangerous Daily Challenges in MTV Challenge History

TJ’s following line is “My eliminations? Tougher.” That line makes me assume he recorded multiple lines referring to the dailies as “my challenges” and the final as “my final,” and then they forgot about continuity. More importantly, we got two of a couple of crucial elimination glimpses. As players walk into the elimination arena, you can see two ropes hanging, one for each player, and then a small perch with a bag next to it. I assume one player will climb the rope and detach the bag with puzzles pieces inside, and then pass it to their teammate on the ground, who will solve the puzzle on the panels/board to the right/left of the ropes. Or it is a solo elimination, and the players have to do all of what I mentioned. The direct comparison is the Ascender elimination from Duel 1. These are the eliminations I love, a good mix of athleticism and mental fortitude.

What I wrote in the previous paragraph was a logical projection, whereas what we see next, I can tell you for a fact what we are seeing. Four players are competing in a 2 v 2 backpack type elimination where they have to reach one side to score a point/win. This elimination got played 1 v 1 on Dirty 30 between Hunter & Nelson and Britni & Nicole. Based on the second photo, it looks like Survivor Rookie Michael Bradshaw and Dutch Rookie Renan Hellemans are taking on fellow Survivor Rookie Michele Fitzgerald and one of the Black rookies on this season (either Corey, Kelz, or Jeremiah). All I know is I hate that Michele & Michaela are facing off in elimination because I love both of them. My dream is they tie, and TJ allows them both to stay in the game. I also hope Fessy and Josh face off in elimination, and they both get ruled the losers and have to go home. My birthday was this year, and I hope MTV grants that wish for me.

Sidenote: While the elimination takes center stage, the viewers are important to note as well. As you can see, all the viewers are wearing their elimination gear, meaning this is another season where there will either be secret voting or the daily challenge winners don’t make their decisions until they get to the actual arena. The only two players not in their elimination gear are the daily challenge winners. Sadly… I did some math, so if you want to avoid a spoiler, either exit this article or close your eyes and frantically scroll down.

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Ok, so the math I did was I counted the players viewing the elimination. In total, there are 30 players. There are also four players competing in the elimination, putting our total to 34. This cast has 34 people in total, meaning we are looking at the season’s first elimination. Meaning, either Michaela or Michele is going home first, and I fucking hate life.

TJ’s next line is him saying, “So I brought 34 of the world’s most elite agents from around the world to test your skills .” We then get a GIF-like graphic of CT with a wall of agent cast photos behind him.

They then show off some prospects. The first person they show is Ed Eason from the Circle US, which is a wild choice because he is not even on the official cast yet. Then they show UK Rookie Priscilla Anyabu whose arms look like they were made to rip the lids off of pickle jars. After Priscilla, we see Polish Rookie, Pumped Gabo.

While showing off the prospects, we get a peek at a cool daily challenge. Players are trying to unravel chains trapped inside a concrete fortress. As you can see from the photo on the left, players are using different strategies when it comes to how they will unravel their chains. Some are being methodical, whereas others are smashing everything in sight. We see Nigerian Rookie Tacha Akide reeling in some chains alongside a partner, who I think is Jeremiah based on the “H” at the end of his helmet. The only other male whose name ends in H is Josh, and that does not look like Josh. This image means partner-swapping is potentially in play as we saw Jeremiah compete with Big T in the car challenge. Then again, they could have been partnered due to an injury or DQ since we know that Amber/Ed enter the game for whatever reason.

One of my favorite parts of the trailer is we see some house party fun. Tacha and Esther are living it up, Romanian Rookie Emanuel is vibing, and it just seems like people are having a good time.

We get a dual Cory-Devin sound byte during this portion. Cory generically says, “We have new young blood.” Devin proceeds to be even more generic and states the fact: “We have 17 international agents.” Then Cory revs up the intensity a little by saying, “Trying to take it over, I’ll be damned if I let that happen.” Cory, once a young buck, is now the hunter with a gun. The oppressed has become the oppressor. As Cory says this, we get a close-up shot of Emanuel and then one of Cory. Could there be a rivalry between these two?

A nervous looking Priscilla is seen saying “The game has fucking started.” The trailer volume ramps up a bit from there.

CT shows he still has some wheels on him as he’s out-running a man behind him as they carry duffle bags (likely weighted). When CT drops his duffle bag, an explosion happens for basically no reason other than to look cool for this trailer.

The first proper prospect focus of this trailer goes to Emanuel Neagu. He says he is very confident in his power and is not afraid of anything. Based on some of his tattoos, maybe he should have been afraid of some things, but he does look impressive and charismatic in these promos. You can see him wooing Tori Deal with his dance moves (he is a professional dancer). Many people have compared him looks-wise to Jordan Wiseley, and at one point in time, Tori and Jordan were pretty close friends.

Right after, we get some Tacha, and I might be wrong, but I believe she says, “I’m clearly attracted to this game, I’m ready for this.” She looks mighty fierce in the back-to-back shots. In the second one, she has a helmet on and the elimination arena lighting behind her.

Fessy gets a sound byte where he states: “What makes a rookie dangerous is we don’t know anything about them.” They then flash quick shots of Survivor Season 39 Winner Tommy Sheehan, Survivor Romania’s Emy Alupei, another Survivor Winner in Michele Fitzgerald (looking real hot btw, bonk), and lastly, Survivor Spain Runner-Up Logan Sampedro. Showing them in order might be hinting at a Survivor alliance.

After Fessy’s sound byte, we see UK Rookie Kelz Dyke (Too Hot To Handle) telling someone “They’re scared” in reference to the vets this season, as the trailer editors flash quick worrisome looking shots of Fessy and CT. Kelz then says, “I’m going to take everyone’s head off.” Kelz is an intelligent 6'6 football player. Going into this season, my worry for Kelz was that he would try to be too strategic because, in reality, he can easily coast on his size, whereas if he tries to play an active game, it might put a massive target on him. It looks like my worries are coming true.

From the looks of things, they are bringing back the Dug Out/Rampage challenge from Rivals 1/Free Agents. One of the more dangerous daily challenges ever, and as you can see, a female player gets completely laid out. Thrilling stuff.

Devin tells someone that “smarkie” consistently comes in the top 3 as they flash a shot of Logan and Rookie Corey Lay. Who Devin is referring to is unknown, however, if one of these two rookies turn out to be beast, that is a welcome surprise.

Nelson and Kyle enjoy life at sea; meanwhile, Tori and Aneesa game-plan storylines to use for their podcast. We see Nany actually playing politics/strategizing. She is wrangling the vets together for an alliance, and as much as I love Nany, this disappoints me because she wants to stick the same who have beaten her over the years, random then make big moves. Ashley looks super happy with the idea because she knows she can beat most of these people in a final.

I think we see one of the weirdest daily challenges ever. A helicopter flies in the sky with two cars driving below. You can see Aneesa throwing an item out the side of the helicopter, and then we see two players hanging out the sunroofs, trying to grab whatever is getting tossed. Did MTV turn a game of catch into a daily challenge, except for some reason threw in cars and a helicopter?

In my befuddlement, I hear Kyle say, “The veteran alliance is a very fragile one.”

To no surprise, they show Nelson telling Fessy he doesn’t trust him, which is very reasonable after Fessy’s snake-ass move last season. There is a Big T sound byte right after saying, “it’s not going to last,” likely referring to the alliance. You then see Cory with a disappointed face as he is communicating on a walkie-talkie. Cory’s face is likely inconsequential to anything alliance related and is likely added for dramatic effect.

They show us Tori followed up by Nany saying, “She’s a nasty person; she cannot be trusted.” I don’t imagine Nany is talking about Tori though, I believe it is a misdirection, and she is referring to Ashley as the two of them have thrown shade toward one another in recent years.

Nelson pitches to someone the idea of stabbing another player or players in the back, and then the trailer editors throw up a shot of CT & Fessy. They proceed to show us Devin & Nelson fist-bumping. Nelson and Devin go all the way back to AYTO Season 3; seeing them work together is fantastic. Since Devin is good friends with CT, I expect the back-stabbing to go only Fessy’s way.

Amanda gets her first featuring in the trailer and drops the sound byte: “I’m going to give these people a hell of a time.” It makes me happy that Amanda knows she brings good reality television and is ready to serve some up on a scorching hot skillet.

Tori has a sound byte: “Things are going to boil up. The vets are gonna come for each other.” As she says this, they throw up shots of CT, Nelson, Fessy, and Kyle. Which makes me assume that these will be our big contenders/male stars going into this season. A bit shocked not to see Cory included with this bunch.

Hilariously, they don’t show us any of these four fighting each other, but we do get best buddies Josh and Fessy getting into it. Fessy puts his hands on Josh to hold him back (Ed Eason pops up again and is so happy to see the drama unfold). Fessy tries to smush Josh’s face, and in the process, accidentally whacks a production assistant in the face with his forearm. Josh, in retaliation, throws a bottle/glass at Fessy, which is something he has done on a past show. They are both a mess.

Kyle laughs at Josh and Fessy.

Hook-up alert: Amanda tells Fessy, “it feels good to be bad though, right?” They then make-out. Amanda has been physically attracted to Fessy since his Big Brother season, and as a whole, has always described her type as dark and handsome. She gushed over the attractiveness of JP going into War of the Worlds 1.

There is a sound byte, I think from Irish Rookie Hughie, saying, “these people look ridiculously hot.” We get a look of a wet Amber Borzotra walking out the pool in her bikini, and my god, did I miss warm weather seasons. They then show off someone’s impressive set of abs.

Another Tori sound byte pops up, saying, “this season is about business and pleasure.” We then get a shot of Renan (who works as a sex therapist), and then one of Jeremiah looking shredded as he runs. We hear Tori’s voice more than we see her, or at least it feels that way.

Josh gets his first sound byte, and it’s him talking about how the Survivor showmance of Emanuel and Michele is dangerous. Michele lived on an Island for 78 days through her two seasons of Survivor; thus, her making out with a guy who looks like he still lives on one is not shocking.

I don’t know why I’m making fun of Emanuel so much; I genuinely like the guy.

Jeremiah and Amber B share a kiss. Hot.

We see a wet Ashley walking out the pool, and again, I am very thankful we got a warm-weather season. Nelson is all over Ashley, and the two have hooked up in some capacity in the past. They made out on Invasion off-camera, and if you keep up with Nelson on social media, the two looked exceptionally flirty when hanging out in Texas last Spring.

Nelson tells Ashley at a club that he doesn’t like her for the way she looks, he likes for the way she is. Which is not the best line to tell a woman on paper, however, it comes from what sounds like a nice place.

Then a big switch-up happens, and we see Nelson kissing Turkish/German Rookie Berna Canbeldeck! In a completely different scene, Ashley, who looks like she might be a bit intoxicated and might have been crying, yells at Nelson, “Don’t look at my damn girlfriend.” In this scenario, I believe she is referring to Amber B (a platonic friend).

Kaycee and Nany kiss, and right after, Kaycee goes for the neck. I never see any of the guys on this show pull off anything that smoothly.

An Amanda sound byte shows up with her saying, “I’m tired of people hooking up here. I’m here to fight and argue and win some money!” Which is real hilarious since we saw her hook up in this trailer. As she says this, Esther throws a drink at Amber B, which is shocking because Amber B doesn’t ever do anything.

The trailer begins to portray anguish. Pumped Gabo and Josh look exhausted and covered in mud. Aneesa receives medical attention.

Anguish turns into frustration. Big T tells someone that she will not be used as a pawn. Tacha is cursing someone out either after an elimination win or loss.

Frustration turns into sadness, a tearful Big T gets some comfort in Jeremiah’s arms. Berna is in tears and looks exhausted as someone behind her (likely her teammate) receives medical attention after what looks like a water-based challenge. It is crucial to note, Berna had a massive injury on Survivor Turkey All-Star that knocked her out of the competition. Watching her teammate get hurt could be reminding her of that moment. This could be the daily challenge where Big T took her big fall.

Sadness turns into reinvigoration. They signify growth by showing Logan helping Swedish Rookie Bettina Buchana up off the ground.

Edit: I was writing this at 3 AM, and my sleepy eyes only saw the hair and thought Bettina. He is helping Big T up.

Kelz has a sound byte during these scenes: “It’s like the mental stuff. You know how you see how everyone backstabs you and stuff like that. It’s just life isn’t it? At the end of the day, it’s all about securing the bag.”

A mud-pit challenge has become a modern Challenge staple. Counting Spies, Lies & Allies, we’ve had players wrestling in a mud pit in some form in 4 out of the last 5 seasons. While the pic on the top left is blurry, I believe it is Logan and Ed fighting for a ball/object. The pic on the top right is Cory absolutely sticking Josh with a massive tackle. Right after, we see Cory yelling at him, “it’s a dirty game, bruh. You think we are down there playing patty-cake?”

Michele Fitzgerald looks absolutely badass swimming in the water with a bloody nose and carrying some item over her shoulder. She has a sound byte where she says: “watch me burn this whole house down.” The Challenge is bringing out a much more vicious side of Michele that I doubted was there and it’s a fucking awesome.

There seems to be another physical/rugby type daily except on grass. Amanda swipes at the last minute to try and take Nany down. Curiously, she has a wrapped up left-arm. Maybe Amanda gets injured at some point in the game and continues on.

Edit: my friend pointed out to me that Nany also have a sleeve on and its color is green and that it maybe represents what team they are on. You can see a hint of blue on Ashley, so I’m guessing this is a team challenge similar to the Rugby challenge from Final Reckoning (ironically that Amanda won). So Amanda likely did not get hurt.

They throw up some shocked and less shocked reaction faces. We see Michele, Bettina, Emanuel, and Corey.

There is a dramatic look of CT with the sound byte, “if it comes down to it, and it is my time, just tell me.” CT just wants a warning if he is going into elimination.

There is a big obstacle course daily challenge that I believe is going to be the first daily challenge of the season. Players dive under a cargo net, reel in some ropes, traverse over a mini-rock wall, and then solve a puzzle/code. The winner probably gets to pick their partner just like on Double Agents.

Aneesa tells someone “heads are about to be chopped off.” I have no clue what she is referring to in all honesty. Amber B curses out Fessy saying “you wanna tell me that’s not a blindside?” Either she or one of her best friends gets blindsided this season, or she is referring to the final elimination of Double Agents where her Big Brother allies voted her in.

Right after, they show us a clip of Amber struggling in elimination with a partner. In what looks like a classic partners elimination where two players try to build a bridge/ladder, Amber struggles to hold on and drops one of their beams needed to complete the elimination. She and her partner then release their grips and literally falls back towards the ground.

Berna has a bloody nose in the elimination arena. It looks like she also playing a climbing-type game. Emy is in tears after and elimination loss or win.

After those intense elimination scenes, they switch to a more wipeout type vibe. Players try to race across a path over water as their opponents try to sabotage them by throwing what look like bean bags at them. They had a similar challenge on Rivals 2 that Theresa & Jasmine won because no team tried to hit them. Expect some teaming up to happen in this challenge.

Fessy tells Cory and Nelson that it’s not about who’s the biggest and fastest because you don’t know what is going to hit you in this game.

Players cliff dive into the water for a daily challenge. CT and Berna (partners?) hold on to what looks like the end of a boat. Tacha holds on to her partner for dear life.

A decently confusing daily challenge. A fake airplane gets submerged in water, and it looks like the players have to escape. Maybe they are simulating what someone in the Air Force would have to do in the case of a crash in the ocean? When I first saw this, I assumed the players would have to solve a puzzle underwater the same way player on War of the Worlds 1 had to when they went into a turbulence simulator.

A gorgeous swimming challenge. I think this is the cliff diving challenge, and I believe this is the same challenge where Michele got a bloody-nose as I believe I see a player carrying something over their shoulders similar to what she had in that image above.

We then see a male player gunning it during a daily challenge. He is sprinting with a duffle/gym bag in hand, and while running, something drops out of his bag. I finally put two and two together. In the Challenge where we see CT sprinting, the bag he is carrying holds some weight that the players in the helicopters dropped. Maybe the team who recovered the most amount of weight in the fastest time wins?

Nelson yells/cheers for someone in elimination, saying, “Go. Go. Go.” We see Esther wearing Hall Brawl gear and that makes me nervous as she’s not the biggest competitor in the house.

The Hall Brawl happens, and is it just me, or does the Hall look not as long this season? Berna looks shocked by how wild an elimination can get.

The ending sound byte comes from Devin saying, “this is why you have to play a dirty game. When you play a clean one, you get fucked.”

Of course they visually end the trailer with CT, giving fans what they want.

QUICK NOTES

The people we see most prominently in this trailer are:

• Nelson
• CT
• Fessy
• Kyle
• Cory
• Emanuel
• Logan
• Kelz
• Jeremiah
• Ashley
• Berna
• Amber B
• Amanda
• Big T
• Michele
• Esther

In the original trailer, Nelson and Ashley were shown far and away the most of any two cast members. This version spread the love around more towards other cast members.

People we see a decent amount:

• Josh
• Devin
• Corey
• Ed (Lol)
• Nany
• Kaycee
• Tori
• Aneesa
• Emy
• Bettina
• Tacha
• Priscilla

People we see once or twice:

• Gabo
• Renan
• Tommy
• Michaela

People We Don’t See or I Just Plain Missed Them:

• Nam
• Hughie
• Tracey
• Lauren