Previously on The Challenge…
Laurel and Cara Maria fight. Cara Maria and CT get voted into the draw.
We ended last week’s episode before the elimination challenge. Though TJ never announced what the challenge would be, there were plenty of shots of the wall where contestants have to punch their way through to climb to the top and ring the bell.
Leroy pulled the kill card, making Johnny Reilly the luckiest contestant in Challenge history. He went to the draw seven times and never had to compete in an elimination. First up to compete is the guys. CT vs. Leroy is a pretty good toss up, so there really is no safe bet here.
The only time this competition is even is at the beginning when there’s a cool slow-mo shot of both guys making their initial punches. CT absolutely smokes Leroy up this wall by about half.
Cara Maria was voted in and Laurel pulled the kill card. As much as you want to root for CM because she’s the clear underdog, she really has no chance. Laurel goes into zombie robot mode and easily makes her way up the wall while CM can’t figure out a strategy to make even one hole in the wall. She eventually gets a few, but needless to say Laurel handily (pun intended) beats CM.
CM and Laurel have some weird make up scene and then TJ announces the location change. Shit is about to get real here. The remaining eight contestants are headed to Chile.
[Insert requisite celebration scene for making it nearly to the end.]
They arrive at the house after traveling all night and take in the gorgeous view, which includes a volcano. Bananas points out they probably have a view of the volcano because they’ll be climbing it at some point. I’d be more surprised if they didn’t.
Later, there’s a scene with all the guys shirtless in the hot tub. You could end the show right there, because the viewers are the real winners at this point. I wish I could screen grab it for ya’ll.
After just one night in the new house, the contestants are up for one more draw. No competition, just everyone pulling cards. Two guys and two girls get blank cards (and a spot in the Final Challenge) while the other two are left to compete against each other for the final spot.
And this last competition? Is puzzles. Puzzles!!! Forget the brawn, it’s all about brain in this one. Laurel and Theresa are the unlucky girls and CT and Bananas are the unlucky guys.
This challenge is made up of three different puzzles. The first one is a tangram. The second one the contestants are provided with squares that have lines on them. The pieces must be placed in such a way that the lines form an unbroken line. In the last one, the contestants are provided with 9 squares that have numbers on them. They must place the squares in such a way that every row, column and diagonal equals 15. Each puzzle must be completed before moving on to the next one.
The girls are up first. Laurel solves the tangram pretty easily to move on to the second. She also gets the second one pretty easily. Theresa is visibly frustrated and looks to be near tears as she struggles with the first puzzle. Laurel moves on to the third puzzle before Theresa is done with the first.
Theresa finally gets rid of that mental block and solves the first puzzle and shortly thereafter gets the second. We have a competition again. Theresa asks for her third puzzle to be checked first, but she’s not correct. Laurel asks for hers to be checked and she’s correct. Bye, Theresa.
The guys are up next and Bananas seems to follow in Laurel’s footsteps. He gets the first one pretty fast. But CT makes this a competition and gets to the second puzzle shortly after Bananas. CT struggles a bit with the second puzzle as Bananas completes it and moves on to the third and final puzzle. Bananas finishes the last puzzle before CT gets the second and he gets to move on. I wave bye to CT very sadly. Now, I’ll just have to troll his instagram and twitter even harder.
The next day the contestants arrive for their final challenge. It will be broken up into 5 stages. Just like the rest of the season, they will work in pairs for some (the first 3) and alone for some (the last 2). The first three will be guy/girl pairs and every girl with work with every guy and vice versa. Their final quest is to scale Villarrica, which just happens to be an active volcano. Once the contestants reach the top of the volcano, their times from each stage will be added up. The guy and girl with the fastest times will be declare the winners and receive $125,000 each. Second place gets $35,000 and third place gets $15,000. Not a bad payday for maybe 8 weeks of work. TJ reminds them that in order to get paid, they must finish. (At this point, I would put money on Devyn not finishing.)
The first pairings are Zach/Devyn, Bananas/Laurel and Nany/Johnny Reilly. The first challenge is for the pairs to kayak down river to the base of the volcano. Bananas and Laurel are killing it, as to be expected. Nany forgets for a minute that she has two hands and complains about her hood being in her eyes before getting it together.
Devyn has proven to be completely useless and I’m not even sure her paddles touch the water at all. Until she and Zach hit some rapids and capsize. The kayak hits a rock and both of them fall out of the kayak. The Challenge rescue boat has to come retrieve Devyn. But Zach is nowhere to be found.
The previews for next week’s season finale show Zach struggling to come up for air and possibly drowning.
I can’t wait to see who wins this one. I wonder if Devyn even completes it and how Zach is penalized because he got stuck with a completely useless partner.
I am so excited that EnthologyNerd has her computer back and will be with me for this week’s season finale! I bet this recap won’t even be a week behind. See you in a few days!
Image via MTV.
