In Challenge We Trust

The Challenge: USA
Season 1, Episode 1 “United States of Challenge”
Original Air Date: July 6, 2022

New channel, same Challenge.

When The Challenge: USA and its global counterparts (the upcoming Challenges Argentina, Australia & UK) were first announced, I was nervous – nervous that these new spinoffs were signaling a near-future end to the flagship MTV show (even if spiritually, it already ended years ago), nervous that the still-fledgling Challenge: All Stars would lose production priority, and most of all, nervous that I was going to have to start watching Love Island… So last week when The Challenge: USA aired on CBS, I was prepared to hate-watch, to complain to no one but my TV screen about the most meaningless minutiae of the 90-minute series premiere. I was knee-deep in an ill-conceived, unsolicited, irrational display of loyalty to the original MTV Challenges.

But then, as I watched the Challenge: USA debut, something unexpected happened – I didn’t hate it. I didn’t love it either, but I liked it enough to want to write about it every week until it’s over, and that’s more than I can say about the past five seasons of the MTV show…

Arriving in Argentina:

What better place to film The Challenge: USA than Buenos Aires, Argentina?! We hop a bus to the cast’s mansion, a hybrid indoor/outdoor space with the open floor plan of a 2010s tech startup and a heavy, sliding door like that one in the New Girl apartment.

All 28 cast members, each from one of four origin shows (Big Brother, Love Island, Survivor & The Amazing Race), arrive together. Several use the occasion of their first interview to express love for The Challenge, but no one details what they love. What’s Tiffany’s favorite season? Which Challenger is Cayla hoping to play like? Initially, the lack of references to the flagship series confused me, until I realized that The Challenge: USA isn’t ushering in a “new era” of the preexisting Challenge franchise. It’s an entirely new entity with no ties to the MTV/All Stars canon other than its title, T.J. Lavin, and the ropes used in the episode’s elimination.

Speaking of… T.J. enters and reveals the first morsels of format, but not before reciting several cheesy one-liners about the cast’s origin shows, then trying on a new catchphrase, “This is The Challenge. We’re built different here.” None of it lands, but it’s not his fault.
  
Throughout the season, contestants can earn money in their “Personal Challenge Account” via winning challenges and eliminations. Collect $5,000 to qualify for T.J.’s Final, the winner of which receives $500,000 and the chance to compete in the first-ever “International Global Challenge Tournament” against the winners of the other three upcoming spinoffs.  

As a welcoming gesture, T.J. drops $1,000 into everyone’s Challenge Accounts. (What T.J. doesn’t tell the cast is that he’s charging 14% interest…)

Burned by the Cookout:

Origin show storylines start to creep in: A pair of Love Island exes, Cashay & Cinco and Kyra & Cashel, don’t know how to act around each other. Newly “X”-less Derek describes himself as the chess club player among pro athletes, which is a little too self-deprecating for someone who won two Vetoes and an HOH during his Big Brother season.

Derek and his fellow BB23 castmate Alyssa are featured throughout the episode as the instigators of a storyline I’ve been dreading since the cast was announced a month ago. During their Big Brother appearances, both Alyssa and Derek became unknowing sidekicks in the secret (& successful) mission to crown the show’s first-ever Black winner. The six-person Cookout alliance kept their plans hidden via a two-pronged approach: First, several members of the alliance outwardly hated each other (but that was just lucky). Second, everyone built decoy alliances with non-Cookout Houseguests, then used those relationships to control the entire season without ever exposing the Cookout until they were the last six players left in the game. Alyssa & Derek were two of the Cookout’s decoy allies, and as such, were both evicted in the back half of the season. 

Now, one year later, Alyssa and Derek are appearing on The Challenge: USA alongside four of the six Cookout members: Azah, Tiffany, Kyland & Xavier. The duo wants “revenge” for being so thoroughly duped on Big Brother, a battle cry that’s repeated throughout the episode. We just saw all these people battle it out on BB23 last summer, and now we’re gonna have to watch it all again – This time in Under Armour!

The Challenge:

As the cast slow motion walks into their first challenge, they see something almost no one ever wants to see: an intimidatingly tall skyscraper and rappelling equipment. Next, they hear something even worse: T.J. instructs everyone to pick a partner. For now, the pairs seem permanent, “the difference between making a half-million bucks or going home empty-handed,” T.J. explains, but by episode’s end, that turns out to not be true…

The challenge is called “Down to Do the Math.” Competing two at a time, pairs rappel down the skyscraper while solving one continuous math problem. At the bottom, teams get three attempts to tell T.J. the correct sum. Should all attempts fail, teams can look forward to climbing 22 flights of stairs as they make their way back to the skyscraper’s roof to try again. Fastest duo wins and banks $10,000 ($5,000 each) into their Personal Challenge Accounts. Slowest duo is sent directly into elimination inside “The Arena.”

“Down to Do the Math” is a perfectly serviceable challenge, especially as an intro into the series for both the cast and new viewers. It showcases several core components of The Challenge’s… challenges: heights, speed, partnerwork, and lately, math.

Rounds of competition are mostly interchangeable from one to the next. T.J. is consistently impressed by the speed at which people finish – Too bad we’re not shown a single team’s time, another modern Challenge trend. At the end of all 14 rounds, only Azah & Kyland stand out; unfortunately, it’s because they’re the only team forced to climb the 22 floors to the roof after messing up their math too many times. They’re also one of the first two teams to compete, turning the rest of the challenge into a waiting game while the question “Will anyone be worse at math than Azah & Kyland?” is answered. (No one is.)

Once everyone’s kissed the ground, the results are in. (None of them are the father!) Azah & Kyland are Arena-bound and Angela & Tyson win. They’re both safe from elimination and $5,000 (of virtual Challenge money) richer. After a single challenge win, Angela & Tyson are now qualified to compete in T.J.’s Final – Will every win be worth $5,000? If so, it’s not much of a barrier to entry, but it’s better than nothing. 

Unruffled Feathers, Bloodless Hands:

As challenge winners, Angela & Tyson must choose one team to compete against Azah & Kyland in elimination, to be announced at The Arena. Lately, contestants on the flagship MTV series have decided that, regardless of a season’s format, it’s disrespectful to not be told in advance if the people in power are sending you into elimination. Hopefully, little-to-no personal histories among most of this CBS cast will bring more blindsides, less entitlement.

This early in the season though, plans are easily sussed out and explained via some classic reality competition clichés: No one wants to “ruffle any feathers” or “get blood on their hands.” For now, that means no targeting people from your original show, even for Alyssa & Derek – While both want to see all Cookout members eliminated, neither want Azah & Kyland to leave right now, not as long as alliances are forming based mostly on origin series. Big Brother is represented by nine cast members, the most of the four shows. (There’re eight Love Island & eight Survivor players, and only three Amazing Race contestants.)

With that in mind, it’s (rightly) assumed that, as a former Houseguest & Survivor, Angela & Tyson will avoid targeting anyone from those shows, leaving the Islanders and the Racers as the only ones vulnerable. Filter the duos using the criteria, and one pair emerges as the likely choice: Shannon & James. Not only is their partnership one-part Love Island (Shannon) & one-part Amazing Race winner (James), but Shannon’s been vocal about feeling unprepared for, intimidated by, and disinterested in the entire Challenge experience. (In an earlier scene, she realizes she’s out of her depth after getting sore from attempting a number of push-ups she’s too embarrassed to say on- camera.) Though Shannon 180s her outlook before the first challenge and performs well alongside James, it’s tough to shake a poor first impression, especially one made at the start of a reality TV competition when people in power have the least motivation to target anyone else. If you say you want to leave (on the first day), the players in charge of deciding who might leave will take you seriously. 

Angela & Tyson and Azah & Kyland formally meet in a small conference room behind another New Girl door. Usually, these types of segments come pre-packaged with a cheesy name like “The Deliberation” or “The Interrogation” or “The Inquisition,” but The Challenge: USA benevolently spares us. Angela & Tyson offer Azah & Kyland three potential Arena opponents: Cely & Javonny, Kyra & Cashel, or Shannon & James (the only teams with neither Big Brother nor Survivor players). As predicted by the cast, Azah & Kyland choose Shannon & James as their ideal competition. Initially, Angela & Tyson are eager to oblige – Shannon’s day-one doubts make her an easy early target, and James’ lack of connections means less retaliation against Angela & Tyson for choosing him.

Rumors from the meeting circulate/escalate quickly, and after enough people ask James if Shannon “wants to quit” the show, he realizes that if he doesn’t intervene, they’ll be competing in The Arena. James warns Shannon (who responds, “I think people are underestimating us because we’re cute and we walk around.” – my favorite thing uttered all episode), then he goes to work using his reality TV savvy to convince Tyson to reconsider. Throughout the episode, several cast members reference vague knowledge of their competitors’ roles in their original shows, but James is one of the few who turns cryptic sentiments into tangible specifics. He knows to talk to Tyson because his Challenge wisdom alerts him that he’s in jeopardy, and he knows how to talk to Tyson because he’s watched him play Survivor. While James pitches to Tyson, Shannon assures Angela that her attitude adjustment is permanent. Are their pleas successful? We’ll find out at The Arena!

On an Island with Love Island:

The Challengers tear up the club, which is really a bar/restaurant with an aisle for servers that the Love Island cast turns into a dance floor. Despite the episode’s assertion that sociability is their strength, the eight Islanders spend most of the episode talking, taking shots, and twerking among themselves.

I’ve never watched Love Island. Prior to The Challenge: USA, the only Islander in the cast I’d encountered was Kyra in the latest Ex on the Beach season… Does Love Island require more relationship-building skills than Big Brother or Survivor, two games which can (almost) never be won without the ability to bond? Or is the repeated claim that the Islanders are the season’s “social threats” included so each origin show can be boiled down to a one-sentence, one-adjective soundbite? It’s like choosing character traits at the beginning of an RPG – Pick the “Survivor” trait for physical strength, the “Houseguest” trait for strategic. The “Islander” trait buffs your social skills, and (according to James) the “Racer” trait makes you good at “using your surroundings.”

Throughout the episode, there’s an Odd Couple dynamic that develops between the Islanders and the rest of the cast – While they dance at the bar, everyone else sits at tables. While they’re mostly in their mid-to-late 20s, half their castmates are in their mid 30s to early 40s. Contestants like Love Island winner Justine & Survivor runner-up Domenick (who’re partners in this episode) feel so far away from each other, it’s kind of confusing to watch them compete on the same show.

The Islanders are presented as a collective of underdogs, thanks in part to the age gap. There’s also the lack of physical competitions on their origin series, their partying, that time T.J. said they stood a “fat chance of winning,” and Love Island USA‘s measly legacy in comparison to genre juggernauts like Big Brother, Survivor & The Amazing Race. But if “Down to Do the Math” is an indication of the Islanders’ abilities, then the underdog status is undeserved. Most impress T.J. during the challenge and more importantly, all perform well enough to avoid last place.    

If the Love Island eight are mostly early outs, the season will suffer for it. The slow (and actively ongoing) demise of the MTV Challenge came about (partly) in response to the show’s ever-increasing seriousness. Contestants spend entire off-seasons training. People care less about booze and hookup buddies. Segments devoted to cast silliness have mostly disappeared. As the players have less fun, the show becomes less fun. The Love Island crew (especially the five women, who’re more heavily featured) have the carefree, just-happy-to-be-here vibe the MTV casts have been missing for years. Despite their influencer-esque beauty, in this premiere, the Islanders come off as unfiltered, energetic, and positive. Their likeability makes it even more disappointing that months prior to when The Challenge: USA was filmed, NBC/Peacock exclusively acquired Love Island. Will its move to another network prevent it from being represented on another potential Challenge: USA season?

The Arena:

Desi tells us that The Challenge is the only game that lets you “win your way back in by doing something physical and proving yourself.” (Clearly, she’s never seen Yvie Oddly Lip Sync for Her Life…) After Desi’s interview, a full 30 seconds pass of nothing but slow motion walking and generic B-roll (the night sky, a bridge, a highway), all set to one of The Challenge’s “intense” (& indistinguishable) instrumentals.

As we arrive in The Arena (which is absolutely massive, by the way), we see two ropes next to two pyramidal jungle gyms in the center of a sand pit, but before T.J. explains, he asks Angela & Tyson to name the team that will compete against Azah & Kyland. Often, this is when Challengers wax poetic about why they’ve made the decision they’re about to reveal they’ve made. But Angela doesn’t do that. Instead, she offers up a hot serving of her signature coldness and simply states that her vote is for Cely & Javonny. Tyson follows suit, both in delivery and in vote. The season’s first Arena blindside – Ask, and you will receive!

Flashbacks reveal the extent to which James talked his (& Shannon’s) way to safety. He convinces some castmates that Shannon is a better competitor than Azah, and tells others that Cely & Javonny aren’t a cohesive team. The point of both arguments is clear: Azah & Kyland will beat Cely & Javonny, but they’ll lose to Shannon & James. While talking to Tyson, James alters his approach to a good-ol’-fashioned ego stroke: He says that Angela “listens” to Tyson. Tyson responds, “I think she does, too,” and just like that, a deal for safety is struck.

The Arena game is called “Knot So Fast,” and though it’s occasionally known by other names (like “It Takes Two to Tangle”), it’s a Challenge classic, and a great choice for introducing new viewers to the horrors of elimination. Pairs use 250 feet of rope to weave knots in, out, and around their pyramids. An added twist in this CBS iteration, each team’s rope is connected to their backs. After 20 minutes have passed, teams switch pyramids and attempt to untie their opponents’ rope. First duo to fully disentangle the rope from the pyramid wins the elimination and splits all the money in the losing team’s Personal Challenge Accounts.

But what shines most throughout the segment isn’t the competition, it’s the personalities of the competitors. First, Azah & Kyland agree that maintaining “peace” is paramount to success. Meanwhile, Cely & Javonny holler, taunting them (playfully) from off-camera. “We’ll let the victory be loud for us,” Kyland says quietly. Later, at the end of the 20-minute section, Azah’s lashes have migrated South for the winter, to her cheekbones. “I didn’t come into this Challenge to look pretty,” she tells us amid an interview about wearing false eyelashes to a competition that takes place in a sand pit…

“Knot So Fast” is a physically demanding elimination, and after Kyland mentions his “training” several times throughout the episode, (He watched the last ten MTV Challenges and exercised.) he finally gets to show off. To his credit, he does look experienced in rope-pulling (more so than anyone else, at least). Still, after 20 minutes, Cely & Javonny seem energized and unified. They feel like the frontrunners. Azah & Kyland are hurt by poor communication born out of preexisting tension. (They disliked each other on Big Brother.) But when the rope unraveling begins, Azah & Kyland are suddenly in the lead, and stay there until they’ve won the elimination, all while Cely & Javonny barely make any untangling headway. It’s unclear what factors affect the outcome – Did Azah & Kyland better utilize the first 20 minutes? Were Cely & Javonny more tired than they appeared? Regardless, on their way out, Cely & Javonny cede the $1,000 in their Personal Challenge Accounts to Azah & Kyland. Now, they both have $2,000, second-most of anyone!

I’m not sure who I would’ve liked to be eliminated, but I do know that losing Cely & Javonny is a bummer. Cely & Justine’s bff-ship is the sort of female camaraderie that isn’t featured enough on The Challenge (or anywhere, really), and Javonny stood out both for his easygoing, goofy persona & his decision to wear a drawstring bucket hat in his official cast photo. In their final interviews, Javonny keeps being goofy (love that for him) and Cely says she “surprised herself,” a phrase that’s destined to join the pantheon of overused iconic reality TV expressions. As Cely & Javonny exit The Arena, the six remaining Islanders channel their fabled loyalty and vow vengeance against Angela & Tyson.  

A freezer full of frozen, personally-sized pizzas and racks of freshly chalked pool cues await the cast at home, but first, T.J.’s got to fuck up their night and their entire season… “The Algorithm” is a monolithic “computer” hidden (until now) behind a trick wall inside The Arena. After each elimination, The Algorithm rearranges the teams, keeping track to guarantee that no one has the same partner twice, at least until that’s no longer possible. Then, The Algorithm will ensure no one has the same partner twice in a row. Double Agents and Spies, Lies & Allies, the two most recent seasons of the MTV Challenge, both toyed with similar, but simpler partner-switching mechanics. Generally, I thought they over-complicated the format, caused little drama, prevented the contestants from building significant bonds with their partners, and robbed the audience of the slow-burning, layered storylines that’re produced when teammates’ relationship dynamics develop over an entire season. Among this cast, I was excited to unpack the tumultuous histories between Azah & Kyland and Shan & Danny, to bask in Kyra & Cashel’s awkwardness, to witness Angela & Tyson rule the season with an iron (and sarcastic) fist. Instead, we’re getting free-for-all chaos, which is still good, just not as good. 

However, spectacle can never be overestimated, and the sight of The Algorithm looming over the cast like HAL 9000’s oafish cousin, HAL 3000, is the kind of campy, surreal fun reality TV was made for.   

Leftovers:

-Lots of questions about how The Algorithm works, but none will be answered until after the first partner swap, and until two people who get into an argument are “coincidentally” Algorithm’d into a team at the next available opportunity.

-Can’t remember T.J. ever being so impressed by an entire cast before. Maybe his gushing was an attempt to Jedi Mind Trick the audience into liking the premiere, or maybe somehow, all the duds from the four origin shows got scooped up by MTV, and the “leftovers” are actually the engaging, competitive ones. 

 -James’ use of the skyscraper’s dirty windows during “Down to Do the Math” was clever. Writing equations in dust to alleviate the stress of high-stakes mental math is the kind of loophole a seasoned Challenger would shamelessly exploit.

-Bold of Enzo to call Leo “a little weird” for talking about his cats too much when Enzo’s self-induced nickname is “The Meow Meow.”

-Stealing the Tyson-coined “Challenge Bucks” to refer to the money in everyone’s Personal Accounts from here on out.

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Thanks for reading! Come back next Tuesday for another Challenge: USA recap/review!