The Challenge: Cutthroat Recap | Episode 10

0:00Challenge specialist, John and Alex are back here recapping the challenge cut throw episode 10. Alex, did we just watch a filler episode of this season? No, we didn't watch a filler episode. Season we watched synergy happen, John. Synergy is what happened this episode. But I will say it's interesting because obviously, it's not like we're bearing belief here. This was the UFC episode of the challenge and honestly, in a different world where we don't have the four men leave within a 24 hour period and numb them by elimination. I think there's the makings of a fun episode where it goes against the norm because you will still have opportunities where people could have gone home. They would have had to alter the rules, like a lot, considering like some of the rumors

1:00of who else was there. But like, I'm not going to say I hated the episode. There are worse episodes to have. It just wasn't a challenge episode. Honestly, we've had worse episodes this season of the challenge, I will say. Like, despite the fact that we don't get any strategy to talk, despite the fact that we don't have a daily and we have like this double like elimination between mercenaries and I've seen captains instead, it was still somewhat entertaining. I mean, I think they made the right choice of which eliminations to showcase in this moment. Do I think that I fit the right competitors for those? We'll get into that a little bit later. However, I think this was honestly better than I thought this UFC crossover would be. I know Alex, you know we're talking offline last week about this fear. Like, can we know this UFC crossover is coming? What is it exactly? How is it going to work? I never actually thought that like this UFC person was coming just to, sorry, this UFC person

2:01being Valentina Shifchenko, sorry, not UFC guys. So I don't know how big of a deal this is. It's two time world champion. It's something from what I was seeing from other people. It sounds like a really big deal. Like I, I dabbled in UFC here and there. Honestly, it's a lot easier now that it's on Paramount Plus and not on paper view. But and there I go again, synergy. Where's my paycheck Paramount or Sky or whatever it is now? But it's interesting and I do believe from my heart, like that's always what I expected if they brought someone from the UFC in would have been like that. Like I was wanting to have someone like bring the bring announcer in to announce the elimination. I think that would have been really fun. But she, you know, she was serviceable. Like I, I saw a lot of comparisons to like, oh, this is no different than when they sponsor an episode with Burger King or a movie that's coming out in the near future or sometimes

3:06they do a top gun maverick and it comes out three years later because of COVID. Like it is a little bit different here, but I think if you're always intending to combine it with the mercenary twist as like your call back to OG cutthroat, I think it's a really good pairing to have. Yep. And I think it's necessary if you have to have both on this season, it makes sense to combine them together. Yeah, I agree. And I'm actually going to throw it over to something that West said on Twitter. Sorry, that's. And he said, I don't know you had to write. I don't think that it's quite understanding the importance of the US is the challenge now in commercial real estate. The only reason a gourmet boutique restaurant can exist in a cool mall or shopping district is an anchor is an anchor tenant like a grocery store or a big corporate business that anchor tenants incredibly long expensive lease is how those districts get built and subsidizes

4:08the lease of the smaller tenants around it. The UFC is the anchor tenant of Paramount Plus. We as the challenge or new roof to Paramount Plus and Paramount Plus owes more of its terminal value to the USC deal than anything anything else. She hoarding in a collaboration, especially one that played out nearly perfectly is worth it for longevity of the show complaining about this would be like telling your favorite NFL team to get rid of the brand sponsorships and then complain when tickets become five times more expensive. This is business, business is how you don't become MTV. Everyone should be taking notes. I know I am. I really agree with with less sentiments here. This is what it comes down to. These types of deals, right? We see sports kind of moving this way, right? Like a lot of sports. Yeah. Or moving, just streaming, especially like these combat sports that were historically locked behind pay for you, right? So you have you have WWE moving over to Netflix. That was a kind of a big deal, right?

5:09It makes it a lot more accessible. USC moving to Paramount Plus, a big deal. And that's where a lot of the money for Paramount Plus comes from. Is US. Yeah. USC generates so much revenue for Paramount Plus that you can have shows like the challenge on here. And especially like a show like the challenge. Doesn't have that big of a budget in comparison to a lot of shows. That's why it was able to blast on MTV when MTV had no other programming for years. Because it does it also a lot to make. And the shift over to Paramount Plus is really, really good. As we've seen in this season, yes, we've had a bit of lackwaster moments in this season. We have the triple DQ, which obviously kind of halted this season in its tracks. Made us, we had some really weird format in going on. Made us, we have this essentially gone elimination episode of the challenge, which always feels a little dirty to me when we get to an episode like this. However, there was still an opportunity for someone to be eliminated in this episode. So I'm taking it kind of with a grain of salt.

6:10Was it the most exciting episode? No. Did we learn a lot about like some of these challengers? I absolutely think so. I think there are some people who really kind of cemented themselves as like long-term challengers this episode. And I think that's really important. And if this means we have to deal. If we have to go with this one episode with pairing with UFC once a season, I don't care. Like it's not like, um, Shepchenko was coming in and like fighting these women as it seemed they thought they were doing it at some point. Sure. That would have been entertaining. Sure. She would have wiped the floor with them like no contest. No, and see, this is where I'm like, here's how you tweak it. This episode, this podcast folks isn't really about summarizing the episode. The episode is a summary. This is about like, what could have been tweaked? What could have been different? And like I understand, they were like trying to keep like a strict like, I feel like we've been in this strict like 44 to 47 minute bubble per episode.

7:16But when you're on a shooting service, I feel like you have a little bit opportunity to like expand a little more. You have like a bigger episode that you want to hype and you have like UFC episode. You could still have the entire thing just be about the captains and done something where it was like instead of the coin flip, you have like this little short daily, like this one little like headbanger or like something where your competing, you both are also competing against this UFC fighter in some sort of thing. And then like, like based off of what happens, that determines who gets what match up. You get to pick the mercenary you pick face or you can pick the elimination that you face. And such as being, here's a coin with my face on it. It's so funny, right? I mean, it's kind of funny. I do appreciate that kind of humor from TJ. Let me get these stuff of props in the challenge. But I think what this episode, sorry, lacked was involvement from the other people in the season. Right? Yeah, because like outside, because what?

8:17We get new grade team talking about their wives and like, sort of shitting on all the really. I don't know. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. Yeah. Because that is how the episode starts off, right? Like obviously it's like Justin celebrating and stuff. And we want to controversy about Justin's win last week. Oh, you don't want to talk about Justin's brute strength. Nope. It was a great showing of his brute strength. We can't really go on anything other than conjecture here. Let's just say some people are not very pleased with the outcome from last week. And there are reasons why they might not be pleased about it. And guess what? Based off just the beginning of this episode, Justin is still contender for our school this episode from me. Yeah, that's fair. Because he is acting very high in my start up as episode. But we then get this scene where the grade teams all together and they're like, hey, we're women. Like, we're only women now. Like, we don't have a guy here. We can still win this final, but like we need to become more cohesive. And that is kind of what we've been saying about this blue team the entire time.

9:19It's like this lack of cohesion is really dragging them down. It's preventing them from being successful. And as they combined with gray, that cohesion exists, it continued to exist because I think gray is just trying to figure things out based on, you know, losing a bunch of their, gray lost three people without being eliminated this season. They lost a lot of valuable pieces to their team and they were a team that was very beneficial of like the sum of their parts. 100%. Like Corey was a very valuable part of their team. Like didn't need to be the brain. It's like, sure, he had the captain's title, but he didn't need to be the brains and wasn't active, like actively choosing to be the brains. He's just camaraderie. And like, you know, he has the team background style between him and Chris. You have all that. Leo is still like to me like a very underrated performer in these daily's and would I think would do well in a final format. And then like I still believe that Cassie has the great for our final if she is able to

10:20get there. And then you have Adrian and Adrian is just someone who, especially with this episode, like if you weren't already thinking that she was someone who could be like a mainstay, like I think this episode really like for a lot of people who are like that, you need to earn it in the sand and like by yourself type of people, you got that tonight. So there's really nothing else that you can really take to be like Adrian isn't worthy of being a constant figure of this new phase of the challenge. Yeah. And before we get into Adrian, because I have so much to say about her this episode, I think there's a real coming out episode for Adrian and now that she wasn't already a presence in the challenge, but I think this is the episode that like again, I think this really sets her up to be on this show for many seasons moving forward. Kind of like a like Tory role essentially. Right. I feel like she's going to have that type of staying power in the challenge if she wants it. But Gray also lost Sydney too, right? Like they lost another strong female competitor. There were three people from Gray team that were just taken out of the game by either injury

11:24or GQ and that or, you know, their daughter is having terrible health conditions, right? Like so there's so much going on and it's just such an unfortunate set of circumstances that made it so great off into this position. It was discombobulating. It made it so they weren't really cohesive, especially when they're combined with this blue team. And it was so nice just seeing the girls like these women sit down and discuss what's our why. And there were some really good wise. I'll be honest, I missed Anna. Elise, why for some reason? Elise was her and her husband had been having like conceiving issues. Okay. So like essentially this money would go towards IVF. IVF, yeah. Yeah, that's huge, right? Like that's like, okay, I know a lot more about Annelie now. I understand why Annelie's competing. The only person I was like kind of disappointed in was Ledy, but that's because Ledy's

12:24job wasn't. I like winning. But the thing is it's like that's disappointing in comparison to these other women who are saying. I'm struggling with like, like, Cara being like, yeah, my mom just died and I'm struggling with a breakup. And it's like really making me have to like redefine myself again. You have, um, capacity with everything with like, you know, her sister dying and her mom having to take care of the kids and everything and like how much that money would really help. Why do you so funny here? Just being like, ah, my parents were my coaches and they just taught me that like I have to win. So like, I need to do that. And like, it just seems so minuscule in comparison to everything else, but I think that's also great. I think it's great to have that type of motivation in the challenge. And I think it's great to have this not everyone with like this sad story here. And again, I love Ledy. Ledy is one of my favorite rookies in a long time. So I want to see more from her because like we're not getting a lot of her anymore. But then to go into Adrian and her story about, you know, her mom struggling from MS and

13:31how it took away her mobility and that really like motivated her to take advantage of these opportunities as they present her because she doesn't know, you know, is this something that I have to look forward to now? Like is this am I going to just like not be able to walk at some point and to see that to see her like fighting for her mom's memory and fighting for her family? And also, I mean, if you're not paying attention to Adrian's social media and stuff, she's talking about like her weight loss journey and it was just a spectacular weight loss journey. And anyone who's going out there being like, don't post these. They're not very attractive. Like who cares guys? This is she is such an inspiration and hearing all of these, hearing this story and this episode is highlighting of her. It was really huge. I think Adrian is one of the most inspirational challenges you've had in a long time. And it's really great to see her get so much focus in this episode. Well, like she does all the things that you would want from a reality TV person. Yeah, I'm sure. Like she does have like the story.

14:32So if people who like to have the story, you have the story. You have, she's a hell of a competitor. Definitely physically, she's shown that she can run like she, so physically and sportswise for like the derrick of the world who only care if things are like a sport. You have that. And but you also have like the drama. You have her constantly trying to hook up with some people during a season and also the delusion where she tries to get like even the viewers and confessional that we did not see the things that we saw. And I'm like, this is like all the makings of what I want out of a challenger and a reality TV confessing. So I'm like, even when I dog on her in like previous episodes, I'm like, I'm dog on her from a spot where I'm like, I'm enjoying the fact that she's trying to guess like me right now. Like this is hilarious. And so like I think she's a really good captain in that sense because like she's just trying to like do what do we need to do in order to be the best scene that we can be in order so I can help motivate these people get together and get to the finish line, which

15:36makes it funny when you have a letty who's just like, girl, I don't need to be inspired. I am the inspiration. Like she does. It's literally like letty is like a laurel in that sense where it's just like I don't care about the sob story. I really muted out what everyone was just saying. I just want to win. I know you're really strong. I know I'm really strong. So I want to run the final with you no matter what. And we can win it even if it's just us two type of like deal. Yeah, I agree. And I think and then you have this juxtaposition in this scene where you have the orange team kind of just like clowning on the blue team not being able to be cohesive and everything like that. And the blue team like really bonding. And it's very interesting because from an editing standpoint, this isn't something we usually see on the challenge, right? Like we don't usually see this type of editing where we're really setting up the great team. Sorry, it's the great team of the blue team. The great thing is really being set up as an underdog and like a rooting interest underdog

16:41in this episode. That is the big thing I'm taking away from this is we are looking at a team that seems like they couldn't get their shit together for most of this season. And now all of a sudden it's like, oh, I think we're supposed to be rooting for them. Like I genuinely think that we're supposed to be rooting for them and the editors want us to do. That means they're going to win a final, not necessarily. But you I think like it's leaving it open so there's not a sour taste in our mouth if they do win a final. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, it's very clear. They want to give us a rooting interest where it's like this is your David versus Goliath style like phrasing and like how funny it is because she essentially says it without saying it in confessional. The car is essentially giddy at the fact that she's in this underdog spot again. Like an actual legitimate underdog spot where like you're all rooting for them. And she says it in her conditional about like winning, um, vendetta right like when she

17:42was by herself. Like she's being in this position. Right. And that's where I was going with it. I was like, so like you have two outcomes here. You have the outcome that like people are expecting and the thing that people are expecting is that sometimes your best chances isn't good enough and just the better team wins. And that's going to be the orange team win, which like will be a boring outcome. But it's not something that I'm like upset about it. It happens. Gray team winning would be like that, you know, it's every hallmark like Disney channel sports movie where you make the shot the last second, the underdogs, bad news bears like all that stuff and that happens. But it's like you said, I think and what Tori is very much discounting is like, Oh, well, they have no men under team anymore. So they all and Magley will lose. I'm like, that's just not the case. Like will it be harder for them for some parts of the file probably, but we have seen smaller

18:44teams win. We have seen women beat men in individual finals. Multiple times where if they were running individually, where the woman beat the man who ultimately gets the win, it's possible. So it's like, am I thinking they're going to win? No. But am I rooting for them more now than I was a few weeks ago? Yeah. I think I'm actually genuinely out of spot where like reflecting on the season and how much we spent with like this blue team, right? And how much we spent with just like the combination of like ledie Cara and Anna Lee at this point. I do prefer them to win at this point because I think the orange team's kind of been coasting a bit here. They haven't been really challenged. And I would rather have this blue team and this great team like and part of that comes from like, you know, rooting for Cassidy in 43 and stuff. And well, actually, essentially, but you know, you know, having known Cassidy from 43 and spending time with her as a survivor of an and stuff.

19:46And then even just looking at Adrian again, like we said, right, like so inspirational. I think when you combine these two teams, if they are just like one of these packages, they're like, yeah, I want them to win because like, you know what, this banana need his eighth win. Does season six win? No. Like, sure. I would love a Michelle win. I don't want to Michelle win like this. You know, it's sort of interesting in that regard. Because I was hearing other people talk about this. So I was like, what? Like, bananas gets his eighth, CT gets his sixth. Like the only thing you can really say there's, okay, well, CT separates from Jordan with that win. Uh, bananas continues to push up. But you're not really looking at this as like this amazing win. And then like when you have Michelle, like. Or I will be happy that she's a challenge champion, but I won't feel it the way that

20:46I would have felt if she ended up winning 40. Yeah. You know, and then Will's there. You know what? I also just don't want Justin to be a challenge champion. Look, there's still time. There's still time. Look, I'm still on the fence. I'm still on this that they're going to have two more eliminations. We have time. I think we have at least one for sure. I think we have one more women's elimination. And we know for sure there's one for sure. Well, yeah, because we know that our final match, too. Well, we also saw the mid season trailer and the preseason trailer. We still have not seen Tori back to back with someone. That is true. That is true. Um, but let's get into this UFC thing. Um, so T.J. comes to the house and is like, Hey, guys, by the way, uh, Valentino Shupchenko's here. And captain's you gotta do something. How do you feel about this aspect of it where we've kind of spent this entire season really criticizing this formatting because the captains are safe the entire time. If we, if we as an audience knew that these cap and perhaps we should have just suspected

21:52that these captains were headed into about with a mercenary no matter what, would we have felt better about their safety throughout the season or that still like not quite enough to justify what they're doing. And I'm like sort of about it all just because also I'm not sure if this was always going to be the case because like I know at least speculated there were two women mercenaries there and two men. Yes. Uh, allegedly. This is all legit. Uh, I suppose that does have to do with. Your paycheck date could soon become the most irrelevant date in your life. Earning is a non bank finance app 5 million people in growing. The concept is almost annoyingly simple. You earn money, you access it up to $150 per day of what you've already worked for up to $1,000 between paychecks. Tips are optional and standard transfers take one to two business days with no mandatory fees. Expedited transfers started 399 and cap it 599.

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23:59So we plan for the plot twists. Every booking is automatically backed by our Verbo care guarantee giving you confidence from the very start. Whenever you need help, it's ready. Before you stay through the moments in between and after your trip. Because a great trip starts with peace of mind. And maybe a good playlist. But we've got the peace of mind part covered. I don't know if this is me or him. But I'm going to talk while I believe John is frozen. So I just don't know. I don't. John's internet did die. So I will just continue from here. So the whole twist of it all being captains is just, I don't know, it's just weird. And I feel like there's a world where if we don't have all those DQs that they could

25:04have had a daily or like had people be representatives of what we're doing. And so, but we had the face of the reality that we were here. So even if we had three teams, maybe they have total of three mercenaries and they add a third physical elimination. I would assume a haul brawl. But for sure, we are getting pole wrestle and we are going to be getting balls in. You want to have basically every single physical, iconic elimination of the challenge on the table. So when they say that the captains are up for it, I enjoy this twist. Because if you're going to have this filler episode, but still have some sort of sakes to it, this is what you do it. You put the captains at risk. There's one final time. If they win, they get to keep the captain ship. There's no more even attempt at a mutiny. And there's, yeah.

26:04And then you just are in the final. You're in the final, which is like, yeah, sure. You would expect that because at this point, you're picking, you're already going to be in the final after this episode if you're one of the contestants. So we have that twist happen and we go into the montage. And I found the montage pretty humorous. But you have letty helping train Adrian to do these one, two punches. They're thinking that they're going against Valentin. I'm like, good luck. A couple hours of training ain't going to help you against a former UFC person. You know? And John's back. So I don't have this. I don't have to keep rambling. But I'm talking about the montage now, John of his training montage. Yeah. I was saying how funny it was having letty just put all of them in chokeholds and giving Adrian one, two punches and going. And at that time, they're like, oh, well, maybe we're going against Valentina.

27:08And I'm like, even if you're pretending to think that I just are running because if you told me I had to go into a physical elimination with a UFC fighter, I'm lying down. Yeah. I'm going to fold Devon Walker mode of like, I'm just going to drink until the elimination. And then we'll see what happens. And then on the other side, you have Johnny giving his rumble advertisement and giving combo numbers to Tori. I think these were the two right people. If you were going to have the women like going down there, like the only difference you could potentially have is like, oh, well, we would want to see like Tori and Cara both down there to see what happens. But I like the fact that we have like an established person and essentially a rookie going down there, not knowing what's going to happen. I just, I do wish that there was space off the speculation of who was there. I really wish that we did have some men able to go down there into elimination because

28:11like they allegedly everyone, they can't confirm it. It's probably under contract that they can't confirm it or really talk about it. But allegedly Zach and Dorel were both on location. And the C Dorel and another pole wrestle was sewn in and potentially take them out and Zach probably would have been in. Balls in. I was mentioning how if they had three people there and they had like Corey still there's Captain maybe they add Hall Brawl as a third that be all three iconic like physical challenges. And then you just have Zach do Hall Brawl obviously because that's what he's more known for than the other competitions. It would have been really cool. But with what we have and what we know is coming up, I like the matchups that are coming down because you have someone who's established who like, oh, maybe if Tori gets taken out, it makes things a little bit interesting for Orange. Grads with Gray, Adrian again taking out would be a very hard blow for them.

29:16Yeah, 100%. And I think that's really what this comes down to. It did lead to there being some intrigue into what was going on. We weren't sure going into it whether or not the captains were up for elimination here. I have the assumption they were because that would sense based on just some ordinary sense you're going to do arena. They're going into the arena exactly. So we get into the arena. It's called trial by combat and I wrote this down. I'm not sure if it was true. They went tickets to the UFC out of this or they was given tickets to the UFC. Let's just say they were given because I'll be honest. I didn't listen to that part. My ears tuned back up when they were like, oh, and if you win your matchup, you get $25,000 for your team. In that case, and we'd see at the end of the episode, I'm in 100% agreement with the captains winner lose. I'm keeping that 25k to myself. I'm the one who actually earned that 25k. Yeah, absolutely.

30:16And because it's part of the divvian and everything, you can figure that out. And the money, I think it was very important, not so much for the players, but for the mercenaries. So I'm assuming they got some sort of stipend to show up, but to add that into the game, because I'll be real. We've seen it. There's a lot of mercenaries who come in. The success rate of a mercenary is very low on this show. We all think about the CT moment, but most of the time, and I guess you could all say that Derek and Joss, but outside of that, they don't have a huge win record. Nope, they lose a lot. Think about like 39, which is the last time we saw mercenaries. It was kind of dope and unexciting because they all lost. But because they had no other incentive into the game, unless they were brought in against someone that they actually hate in real life.

31:19But in this case, you have Rachel and Sarah coming in and they're not really going to feel any animosity towards these people. No. Well, let's get into that because there are some combinations where I think there is some animosity with someone like Rachel coming in. So obviously these mercenaries are coming in. It's exciting. There's speculation throughout the entire season, like who these mercenaries were and stuff. And it is exciting as someone who talks about the challenge and it was the challenge, right? It's exciting to see who they bring into these. And then they have the coin flip and the determination of like, okay, we have falls in, we have pull wrestle, like two iconic challenge eliminations. So it's great to see. These are eliminations that if you go a season of a challenge without these eliminations, is it really a season of a challenge?

32:19No. Well, I will say balls in. I can give and take. It depends on the matchup that we get for it. But you live with pull wrestle in this game. You live for the most part with Hall Brawl in this game. Like we love our CT folks. We know that. But it's interesting because like I think both win their matchups regardless of who is attached to who. Oh, boy. But like the odds of like, it's obviously a 50% on both times where like Tori gets a go second. Adrian is going first in a matter of what, but then you spend the wheel to pick your matchup. And if I'm Tori, I think I would have rather, if you knew that it was going to be two elimination moments with the coin flip, I would have rather the coin flip helped me determine like I get to pick the elimination form. 100%. 100%. I don't think it matters going first or second here. I think no, because you're not going against the same person and you're not doing the

33:22same event. But that I think is the huge thing, right? Because of the way the mercenary's tend to work previously when they bring this in with two people going in there, it has been the same person going in back to back, right? Like if we go to the original cut pro, right? And then it goes against Tyler afterwards and Tyler wins because it does, has CT just used all of his energy getting up and down? Not all of it clearly, but like a lot of it. And it's why Tyler can last longer than Johnny, even though like maybe he shouldn't last longer than Johnny and that elimination going second is generally advantageous when going up against mercenaries. However, bringing in two different mercenaries for two different types of eliminations, I think it kind of works in theory. I think it makes it a little more fair for both competitors and doesn't mean that the person who just happens to be going second gets an advantage because the mercenaries are a little tired.

34:22Right. So we're going to break this down in the next 10 minutes of each matchup. So we're going to do the first one now. And I think the matchups that happened, well specifically for H3N, was like, this is how I would have scripted it if I was scripting the episode was Adrian gets a harder matchup against the person who's now, whether some of us agree or not agree, is now considered a almost de facto goat of the women's side of the challenge board in Rachel. I mean, she's a three times challenge winner, right? Two. Two. Three times challenge champion. Two. Sorry. I don't I'm Jenny one season four straight up. I don't I don't the giver or two and a half giver. They like, you know, people always say LeBron James has the Disney championship challenge 40 is Rachel's Disney championship. And I think that they use it to proper up when they could just use her other wins that

35:25are I would say more impressive because her other wins are coming from an era that no one even watches anymore. That's why I don't care. I know. Second iteration, right? Even when Rachel was announced as on this season of the challenge, right? And like, Phil and Will were breaking it down is like, I have no idea who this is. It's like, yeah, she's a three time challenge champion. Like she is like a stud of the challenge. She's been here a long time. Like, he's a big deal. But people don't know that because her wins came so early, right? She's she's an old school like role rules competitor. Right. I would argue then that because she is old school road rules, that makes her more known than most challengers have come out post 2010 for like a regular reality TV person. I didn't personally know. Road rules existed until I started watching the challenge though. So I mean, same. But then you like, I do my history and like, I know not everyone does that. But Rachel and Adrian was a great match up.

36:27Like Rachel comes in and I'm like, okay. This is good. This is an actual physical person like Rachel. Like, this is where like age isn't even a factor because of like Rachel fitness. Like she is ready for this type of challenge. And like, this is why I found the elimination so fun. Because like, there was a possibility that Adrian goes. And I actually thought Adrian lost when you get to that final scene and she's ripping the pole at Rachel's hand. I could have sworn it was in Rachel's hand. Like, that's how close it was, how devastating it was. But like you said, this is the perfect scripting, right? It goes to the last, the last head to head match here. It goes to fight. It goes the full distance. It's Adrian pulling off this win against whether you agree or not, one of the female goats of the challenge. But like, to be clear, I'm saying she is not number one. Yeah, okay. That's fine. I'll easily put her on a mount rush more for the women.

37:30Like, that she is easily a mount rush more. Like, she has one solo. Like, she is good. Like, I will give her all the credit in the world there. And that's why I'm like giving her so much kudos for this elimination. Because like, she didn't need to go as hard as she did. She does it for the love of the game. Yes. And that's why I do really appreciate about her is how much she rocks for this show. Yeah. Because she doesn't have to. And she goes hard in this. But like, when people always say the rookies need to earn their stripes. Well, God damn Adrian earned stripes and then some. And that's why I think she's really established herself by this. Like perennial challenger from now on, right? Like, she's been delivered. She has five and oh in elimination. Yeah. That is impressive stuff. Obviously, four, four as a team. But still, it's like, now she doesn't even have that. That has something that people can go against. Like, there, okay, she has four wins with a partner.

38:33Well, she just beat one of your goats on that, well, a national streaming service. I was going to say national TV. But on, on this show, on the main show, she beat one of the legends of the game. And while the legend was not like in a retirement home, like, she is still very much game. And Adrian gets to come out on top and gets that 25k. And you're not good for you Adrian. I mean, Darryl Seymour says it here. Sarah wasn't as fit as Rachel. Darryl, there is, there are very few people as fit as Rachel. Like, that's just what it comes down to. It's like, that is an incredibly fit woman who runs a fitness company. When, when Lerley, every single female challenger posts on their Instagram story, when they're trying to get in shape for the challenge that they are using Rachel fitness to get ready. That's the level. And like, let's, so let's talk about it. We now have the great reveal 10 years later of Sarah Rice. We have not seen her since she ran away on during the reunion of Rivals 3.

39:39This is one of those moments that it's just like. Of all the people I could have possibly expected to come out as a mercenary here. She was not one of them. I would have never put money on Sarah Rice. But I would never have put her on as a physical elimination. Because like, there are many things that Sarah in her prime was amazing at. Her least great thing was like straight up head to head, physical comp. Because she was great in endurance comps. She was great at puzzles. She's great at like, carny games. Like, there's so many, a balance. Like, there's so many things that she was above average at. And physical when she also, and she's also skinnier than when she was 10 years ago. She has lost weight. She was great. And not saying that she was even heavy back then. But you can tell she is skinnier than what she was 10 years ago. Some of that weight could have been used in this episode. But like, we are going against Tori who is also a former athlete. Works out all the time.

40:41Like, this was child's play. Like, I'll be real. I think it wasn't a shut out only because Tori decided to play with her food. I think what it comes down to is this is a challenge that Tori was never going to lose. It didn't matter which person you put in here against her. Like, even if she goes up against Rachel here. Take any past female challenge competitor. Put like, I don't know if we're talking like the goats of the challenge. I guess like you put like laurel or something in there, right? No, that that I was going to bring this up. Like, I've been sitting on this where I was like, if you were bringing people in specifically. To be legit killers and not just because I understand bringing Sarah back. The shock and awe, the shock and awe because we have to also remember as of like less than a few years ago. Sarah was still on an adamant. I will never take a call from the challenge. I that part of my life is done forever. I want no part of it. And then a couple of years ago, she started putting little feelers out there of like,

41:43hey, I wouldn't mind coming back for like an all star season. I wouldn't mind like bringing myself back and started talking about the challenge more often. Instead of just our pop culture stuff that you do on the podcast with Susie, myster. And now we're in a spot where I can even ask myself when this episode ends. I'm like, do we do we get Sarah back on a new season with the shorter time schedules? Work guys, catch up or an all star season like because the thing is is not only was Sarah like saying she was adamantly done with the challenge. She was also like negatively talking about production on the challenge. Yeah, something where it was like, so seeing her on here is such a big deal that I think like casual viewers don't really realize. How much of a deal it is to get Sarah here, even just like the way Sarah is talking about the challenge in confessional. I think she wants back. I think she wants back to either the shorter season for this or like an all stars.

42:43I actually think she's like more suited for an all stars obviously, but. Sarah has always delivered entertainment. She is the type of person that you really enjoy. I've always enjoyed watching Sarah, right? I think she is fantastic to watch. I think getting Sarah and Johnny on the same season would actually be good television. Yeah, like they haven't swash that beef. I don't know if he still he still has not followed her on his set. Did her firm request on Instagram? I also saw that today. So yeah, like these two people are not friends and that the intention would be fantastic. Look, her quote. Didn't make me straight belly laugh where she goes he took the money and ran by you ran in a circle. Yeah, that was funny. But again, that that's what Sarah brings right? Like Sarah is with you. She is someone who is intelligent. She's very strategic. Like you said, she is excels at so many different types of challenges.

43:44There's a reason why like during that stretch during the 20s. She was quite dominant and you know, she had a quite a few unfortunate circumstances where she's taking out of finals because her partner suck. Still manages to be a two time challenge champion. Yep, went and went well wins with two goats also like a she wins with she wins with Jordan as Jordan starts to get his like ascension. Jordan's second win. Or is it his first win? I think it's his first. I think it's his first win, right? I think it's both of their first wins, but he was just viewed as like this. Like top tier guy. And she does this cut through a thing of cutting Johnny and not any who she's been working with the entire season at the end. And I loved it. And like this is coming from a bananas fan. I loved every minute of when that happened because I was like, oh, like this shot because you just did not expect her to make that call. You were like, she always said, almost always says right by her friends.

44:46And like this is the first time she's like, I am playing for me and does that move. So I'm like, I love it. I love bananas taking the money from her. I think that's also hilarious and was needed for the show. But so like, while I'm disappointed that they brought her back just to be essentially a feeder in this is like the fact that they brought her back at all is very telling as well. It's a fact that like in the alleged that Zach Nichols was there who essentially has been blacklisted by them. Like wasn't even allowed to or was getting like pseudo calls, but not real calls for the last all star season where all of his other San Diego people were all on the show. And he was like, man, I really wish I was on that. I wanted to be there with Frank and all that. So like we're seeing with this move the Paramount plus there's also other decisions being made in the background back could open the door for things that and returns that we may have never expected to ever see again on this show.

45:54And I think that's what the real big thing to think of this episode is like obviously aside from the Adriana that all is this shows us the Paramount plus 10 year of the challenge is different than the MTV challenge. And whether that is means that we have different people working behind the scenes or whatever is going on or if people were just like you know what we're new we have to do something maybe it is just a stunt right getting these people back. It could be along. But you know what that's fine. I'm fine with it because the moment where Sarah takes her put off could only be better if anyone there that wasn't Kara CT or Johnny recognize who she was. Oh yeah they show Michelle with the shock face on like she's not shocked because oh my god there's a killer here she's like I don't know who this woman is. Who is this woman she might they they've shown clips of Sarah right all the time in like every season ever what you mean so she doesn't watch the show. Yeah she probably watches her own seasons. She definitely watches we know she watches her own seasons with her family she's posted about that before so we don't look she's in the castle right now we don't know that's true.

47:03But I mean so you actually feel like Tori's reaction was to anyone I do feel like Tori yes because she was you know with Jordan for a very long time so she would know about the person that Jordan probably that Jordan won his first challenge with. But yeah I think this just would have hit more if it was like a little bit more recognition of who Sarah was but as a fan of the challenge seeing her back was so delightful and it was the only thing that I think the challenge needs to embrace a little bit more I don't want to get too heavy with it where it's like look at this person bringing back is not like like oh yeah no it's spring. Like we don't need a V back right like I get it by but but do this everyone so well in a mercenary scenario in an all-star scenario even like bring a person back is a better. If Sarah writes is on a season I'm going to be happy this was very entertaining. I'm very happy with it both so both Tori and Adrian win which makes this more but filler episode it wouldn't be a filler episode if one of them lost.

48:07So we sort of end up where we left off except both of them are 25k richer and then you have Tori just you know like we know she's not actually contemplating taking anyone's money and she is she is giving everyone an equal amount and maybe giving herself 25k. I even the data she's even going to do that because she's two she's always been this way where it's like I have to think about my good karma and I have this with this off evenly to the penny or else like something bad is going to happen. It's too messy to divide between six people though. Five people easy. Six people's a little too many but I think what it really comes down to here is yeah was this episode a bit of a filler episode. Sure like they neither of them went home wasn't a big deal Tori kind of do it was master class of balls and I will say one thing I haven't mentioned I love that this was the OG version of balls in and didn't have the stupid safety circle. Oh my god. I'm so glad that this was an actual competition of balls in like I said Tori was going to donate anyone in this challenge like we can't really put it past Tori we know Tori is one of the best challengers currently.

49:18She is saying more active than most people are you bring someone in unless it's like a specialist and unless it's a challenge that like Tori is not suited for at all she's probably going to win against any mercenary you bring in. But the other big thing we haven't mentioned Darryl Seymour is pointing it out here in the chat to Adrian Tori are now garing to be to be in the final mutants are not allowed to happen anymore they are garing to be captains. What do we make of that. I was talking on it a little bit when you're in an entide and I was saying like how I liked the twist I think it was a good way for them to also just be like hey this just so mutiny thing isn't really working out so we let's just have something that can get rid of that real quick and now we have a fun way of doing it like oh when you're elimination gets a mercenary now you stamp your thing to a final and we can't look at you and say you haven't done anything and go down to the sand. And anymore to now you've done it you've done it and but and then we end the episode essentially with them all like sort of pissed because he's like oh we'll see you I'll see you at the next daily and Michelle's just like back into her woe is me of it all I'm like oh no I'm going when unfortunately because of how they do promo.

50:36We know she's not going into the sand I know I know however we'll see what happens I think we have another week maybe two elimination inspired to the final I think 13 makes more sense and we know there's no we know there's no reunion now we have been confirmed there's no reunion for the season I wonder why very clear why they're not doing that I wonder why folks we know there's no reunion I would say 13 is probably what we can expect I would say we probably the challenge for three more weeks which means either what we're doing is not going to be a good thing. It means either one more elimination and then a two part final or two eliminations in a one part final I'm kind of leaning towards the former of those I'm leaning on the ladder yeah I could go either way we'll find out but go stars and red skulls yeah let's start with the chemists yeah sure my Kenna's red skull she's an honorary red skull for production. Oh everyone boo her for all the time she booed me for saying even honorary for production boo I know but she's a little disgruntled about Sarah coming in for balls in of all eliminations I said if you know something that she does like a puzzle or endurance but I also get it because you don't want to bring a mercy for a puzzle or something like that I get the decision here.

51:54Her actual red skull is going to bananas because justice for Sarah and second week in a row where we're going to get off get away with shenanigans and when she's back this is not allowed anymore. Next week she'll pay for it next week that's all and her goal so our goes to agent because in her words who else am I going to give it to that was an actual fight in Rachel as a physical beast you just back to the win in nature and went to tell with her and I can't help but to agree there is no one to get it. I don't want to agree there is no one to give it both start to win this episode other than Adrienne in my opinion she is absolutely again she's a challenge mindset I don't see any way around it here she gives you strategy she gives you drama she gives you relationships she gives you bad ass competitor I don't know what else you could possibly ask of anyone like give me Adrienne maybe not every season but like two out of three every two out of three seasons give me Adrienne like I'm I'm all on board the Adrienne train now. My red skull I am going to give it I really want to collectively give it to the orange team but I can't do that because I would be cheating I could specifically give it to Tori which makes maybe not a much of sense after she like goes into this I debated this I debated this Tori and everything she was saying about the blue team listen when you are a competitor you can't underestimate your opponents and that to me feels like I'm going to be a champion.

53:21That to me feels like what Tori is doing here Tori feels like she's already won this season and I don't think winning this elimination against Sarah is going to change her opinion about that I just think like it's such a bad look and the edit is really making us not want to root for Tori and I'm okay with that because I'm trying to look at with Tori and Avila Mara. I'm fine with that. I'm going to just finish the sweep here. I'm going to give Adrienne the gold star because duh folks like she she's showing how great she is as a captain. She goes down there earns her stripes like legitimately earn those stripes tonight she's stamped herself as a challenger and like I'm going to give her all the kudos in the world for that and it's basically gets to help me set up what I wanted to do last week before I decided to go last and so Adrienne get to have my gold star finally but my red skull goes to Justin.

54:25Justin has not learned Justin still has an arrogance about and I get it you're I would have some arrogance to if I just took out the matter how the matter how taking out someone who everyone deemed as essentially one of the biggest threats who wasn't Johnny or CT like so and then company constructs well now she has to kiss my ring and I was such a fruit I hope this proved my work. And this is why I think we have two more I think we have two more because they're going to do a mix gender elimination and Justin's getting put right back down in that sand. I hope so please I would love to see someone like let he just hand Justin his ass on a silver blotter. I am just putting it out there to the universe that that's what's going to happen and that's why this red skull is coming with a message for Justin and the clock is ticking and that clock is less than two weeks away.

55:25Well there you have folks talk a lot longer than I thought we would but there was a lot of interesting things that I said here just from like a standpoint of like where the show is going and everything moving forward to the conclusion of this season I'm really excited to see what happens I really hope this great thing falls off at this point like I'm really rooting for them. They're a brutal bunch. Survivors in full swing in let me tell you man 10 person or 10 person drives are way better than six person drives that's what we've learned so far in the first two weeks we have one of the wildest episodes of survivor ever on Wednesday and if you haven't listen to fill and we'll break it down make sure you go and do that fill in wake. Well we're doing dig in deeper a little earlier today Alex will be joining me on the rewind this week so we'll be talking the episode tomorrow at 4 30 Pacific 7 30 Eastern fill is being joined by. The one and only R.I.Z.G.O.D. Riz God baby on Sunday for the power rankings that'll be a lot of fun.

56:28Tag with is being joined by I just had it up here. Tag with is being joined by Sophie Bollerti on. One day for the match up so that should be a fun one and then fill me back with the prop bet predictions on Tuesday and then we do this all again make sure you like the video subscribe to the channel become a patron. Patreon dot com backslash the specialist we have lots of content going on over there and the boys are almost done ghost island and moving on to David risk life and everyone likes David versus go I have a lot more than ghost island so. Head over there and check that out there's a bunch of other stuff there Alex is joining me on the rewind over there this week too so. Thanks for tuning in and we will see you next week.