The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions—Week 7 MVPs

Folks, quick question before I dive in: have… have Amanda or Ashley ever watched The Challenge? They’re each on their second Challenge appearance, yes, but after last night I’m convinced neither has ever actually seen the show.

How else to explain the complete and utter breakdowns they suffered after enduring the gentlest of pranks? First, Johnny stole their toilet seat and sent it out into the middle of the lake on a pool float. As far as pranks go, this is nothing. No damage to personal property, no inconvenience caused to your precious sleeping area, no gross shit thrown at you.

But this little old prank causes Ashley to lose it, because apparently she has been on the toilet “80 percent of the time” that she’s been at the house (insert Darrell saying “It’s just curry, bruh” here). Amanda and a producer manage to talk her down from quitting the show, which she repeatedly threatens to do, rather than just… finding another toilet in the house?! Also, you can still puke in a toilet that doesn’t have a toilet seat, for what it’s worth. I dunno, just spitballin’ here.

But after cooling off momentarily, the Champion girls soon decide to put potato chips and wasabi peas (??) in Amanda and Ashley’s beds. Now, this is slightly more annoying than the toilet seat, but again, as pranks go, is preeetty harmless! But from the way Amanda and Ashley react, you’d think the Champions had pissed all over their belongings and thrown them onto a bonfire. In the confessional interviews, the two rookies hurl nonsensical insults at the Champs, calling them sad, pathetic, bored former nerds who have nothing better to do with their lives than pull pranks. Which, to paraphrase my boy Darrell, “It’s just pranks, bruh!”

Pranks are as essential to a good season of The Challenge as drunken hookups, poorly-executed backstabbing, and TJ advising everyone to “dig deep.” Amanda and Ashley need to lighten the fuck up.

Meg’s MVP: Cara Maria

Which brings me to my MVP of the week: Cara Maria, purely for delivering the following puns:

“Those girls really have a chip on their shoulder or something. I don’t know what they’re so salty about!”

I love you, CM. Never change.

‑Meg

These Underdogs get on my damn nerves. It feels like a better title for this season would be The Champs vs. The Chumps. Lawdhavemercy!

Pranks aside, we saw the Underdogs clown themselves yet again. They puked more. They whined more. They fought more. And in the end, they sucked more.

(*Quick Sidebar: If there is anyone else who believes he/she was MADE for this running + spicy curry + brain puzzle challenge, please email me so we can meet on a hillside and “prove ourselves” #Sylvia #AshleyK #GoHome. No, but for real, I will take anyone on in this challenge. GET AT ME, TJ!) 

But then, in the final minute of the show, one of the Underdogs showed he is not playing.

Kelaine’s MVP: Hunter

HUNTER. MY MAN. MY MVP.

Hunter already proved he had the eye of the tiger when he sprinted up the hill to win immunity. But his stock climbed even higher when they got back to the Oasis. After his ladyfriend Smashley started bugging out about the chips in her bed, Hunter came in to defuse the situation. But Smashley wouldn’t drop it #NeverthelessShePersisted and continued to flip out, overreact, and play directly into the Champs’ hands.

But Hunter, who could have taken Smashley’s side, in the name of love or whatever, opted for the righteous path. While waving around a green water gun (this is my favorite part of the interaction), Hunter calls it quits on her. And you guys already know how I feel about Love and Challenges.

Hunter is here to win. And that’s why he’s my MVP.

—Kelaine

Hey y’all,

Lotta great choices for us this week, in an episode that checked all the boxes: clubbing, fucking, competing, pranking, and fighting. I truly think that Bananas, Camila, Hunter… really anyone except for Smashley and Amanda would be a fitting MVP. But I’m never someone who liked doing what everyone expected.

Josh’s MVP: The Challenge Editors

So this week, I am giving my MVP vote to the show’s editors.

Now it’s not ONLY because a lot of my job revolves around editing video. The Bunim/Murray editing team this week went above and beyond, overdelivering on the curry puking montage. BRA-freaking-VO. They even gave us a little foreshadowing taste (ew) when Camila said she really looked forward to seeing some puking.

But it wasn’t until after the second bowl of curry when The Challenge delivered what I hope goes directly onto their Emmy reel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeUZO41WkFo

The opera! The visuals! The timing! I refuse to call anything “perfect” but this montage really tempted me. And to quote a wise (fictional) man, Andy Dufresne:

“I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.”

Amen. See you all next week.

—Josh

So… how’d we do? Sound off on Twitter. And see what you missed in last week’s episode!