Cooked Out

The Challenge: USA
Season 1, Episode 4 “Liberty and Justice For All”
Original Air Date: July 27, 2022

This is the Shanthem. Throw all your hands up.

When Justine & Tyson and Cayla & James conspired to oust Tiffany a few weeks ago, they did it hoping to “unglue” the Big Brother alliance. Now, two episodes later, their ~big move~ appears to have paid off. With Tiffany out of the picture, the tension bubbling between her fellow BB23 castmates finally erupts, culminating in the messiest kind of blindside, one that’s enacted not for strategy, but to get revenge for things that happened on a different reality show. As the Big Brother Houseguests tear into old, but unhealed wounds, will the other origin-show-based alliances follow suit and start targeting their own? Or have the BB players only made it easier for the Survivors and the Islanders (but probably mostly the Survivors) to take control of the game? 

Algorithm Nation:

Thankfully, as the cast dwindles, so does the time The Algorithm needs to “randomize” the partnerships. BB23 castmates Alyssa & Kyland are both happy, but hesitant to be paired up, and Domenick ends his streak of Love Island partners by landing Angela, one of the season’s most capable competitors. Now, it’s David who comments on his continual partnerships with “Love Island girls,” though he doesn’t say it with the vitriol Domenick did last episode. Luckily for David, this time, The Algorithm’s paired him with Justine, who he sees as the strongest Islander woman.  (So do I.)

There’s also Desi & Leo: Desi thinks they have potential if Leo can keep the cat-talk to a minimum (He can’t.) – Shannon & Cinco, the only double Love Island duo, and Kyra & Danny. (He must’ve been excited to work with someone whose name sounds similar to “Kiki,” his wife’s.)

New Pairs, New Problems:

Justine dishes to her Love Island allies back at the cast’s mansion, which is suddenly called “The Compound” several times throughout this episode. She’s worried about working with David, who’s yet to impress on either Big Brother or The Challenge. (Though David did impress me during his second BB stint by playing hyperbolically poorly. In fairness, it was All Stars and he never stood a chance…) Cashay reassures Justine that regardless of David’s abilities, his BB roots will likely shield them from The Arena vote because the Big Brother alliance is never breaking up… 

In the kitchen, Alyssa tells Derek they should break up the Big Brother alliance by targeting the winner of their season/de facto leader of the Cookout alliance (when Tiffany isn’t around), Xavier. Derek’s down, but as a Survivor fan, he’s even more interested in eliminating Xavier’s partner Shan. As the slurping of noodles conceals Alyssa & Derek’s scheming, the gears of the season’s biggest blindside yet begin to grind.  

The only good thing about Alyssa & Derek’s revenge-against-the-Cookout storyline is that it’s (hopefully) over now, since Alyssa is about to successfully blindside Xavier with her partner Kyland’s help, Tiffany’s long-been eliminated, and Azah is as inconsequential here as she was on Big Brother.  

Finally, we check in with the team in trouble, Shan & Xavier, who’re both unaware of the imminent betrayal. We’re reminded for at least the third time that Xavier sees Alyssa as his closest ally – Ha, ha, he thinks the person pretending to be his friend is his friend! As for Shan, it’s impossible to tell where her loyalties lie. She says “Survivor strong,” but also wants to target Sarah & Tyson, and while we know several cast members don’t trust her (Alyssa, Danny, Derek, etc.), we’ve yet to hear anyone name her as their #1. Despite their appearance as an extremely well-connected team, Shan & Xavier are on the outs, the waaay outs.

The Challenge:

As the cast arrives at the base of another ginormous skyscraper, they can tell that T.J. is making a silly/sinister face, but they lack the experience two-time champ Jonna had on The Challenge: All Stars 3 when she correctly identified it as T.J.’s trivia face! The trivia challenge is one of the franchise’s most treasured events, and after its absence from the most recent MTV season, it’s a treat to see it reappear in the CBS spinoff.

“Falling off the Knowledge,” (or “Falling off the No-ledge,” as T.J., embarrassed for the writers, reveals it’s meant to be pronounced), is a multi-round trivia gauntlet that takes place on a trap-door-laden platform 250 feet up. The first round consists of three separate heats, each with three or four teams competing. T.J. asks questions with multiple answers like, “Name people who’ve played Catwoman in a movie,” or, “Name states that start with ‘N.’” The first team to give a wrong answer or repeat an answer loses. The trap door underneath them opens and they drop 150 feet. The other teams who give incorrect/repeated answers are also dropped, but they don’t lose – They just don’t win, either. Last pair left wins their round.

The losers from all three rounds compete again, this time against each other. The first team to drop is the losingest loser. Their prize is a trip to The Arena. The overall trivia challenge champ is determined the same way, by the winners of the first three rounds competing against each other. The winningest team earns 10,000 Challenge Bucks to split.

The purpose of trivia challenges in the flagship MTV show is to take joy in hearing T.J. laugh at a cast’s sudden falls from high heights, and to feel superior to contestants who give impressively bad answers, like naming “Dutch” as the national language of Australia or “Paul Smith” as the man who shot Abraham Lincoln. Though we don’t get the same level of surreal stupidity from the CBS cast, we do get Domenick swearing up and down that a fish isn’t an animal because it’s a fish. After his arrogant display last episode, there’s no better cast member to look the fool. Though Dom may be a fishy flop, he & Angela manage to win the first round, with Kyra & Danny landing in the loser’s bracket. 

In the second round, Tyson’s excited to be Cayla’s partner because she’s got the trivia “look.” Turns out, looks are deceiving – Kyland’s head full of factoids beats Cayla’s face full of wisdom, a face that suggests Dwight D. Eisenhower was one of the first ten U.S. presidents. (She & Tyson end up guessing James Garfield, which is closer, but still wrong.) Alyssa & Kyland advance to the winner’s bracket, while Sarah & Derek fall 150 feet into the loser’s. 

In the third round, Azah’s knowledge of Oscar-winning actresses carries her & Ben to a win, while Justine & David are the first eliminated after David overestimates Sandra Bullock’s talent. But the true winner is the show’s marketing department, who now has a perfect shot of Cashay’s petrified face to put on all their promotional materials:

As the three losing teams compete for last-place, I’m stressed, even more when it seems like Kyra & Danny are about to be Arena-bound. Danny is among my favorite cast members, and after a wishy-washy Ex on the Beach edit, Challenge-Kyra is coming off confident, charming, and upbeat, so I’m not ready to lose her either. Unfortunately, neither of them can name a single Stanley Cup-winning NHL team, and Danny’s a former NFL player! Eventually, he tries to guess “Pittsburgh,” since its other sports franchises are successful, but T.J. requires the full team name. 

Thinking about the characteristics of hockey, Danny amends his guess to “Pittsburgh Penguins” because they’re an “icy animal…” I’m gobsmacked at how calm both Danny & Kyra are after learning that his guess is correct, because I would still be screaming about it if I were them. Moments later, Justine & David become the losingest losing pair after David incorrectly guesses that the Vegas Golden Knights are Stanley Cup winners. (I shed a tear at the lack of Habs recognition…) 

The competition to determine the winner is less exciting. It comes down to a back-and-forth battle between Alyssa & Kyland and Angela & Domenick naming Zodiac signs. Eventually, Angela & Dom repeat Pisces, lose the challenge, and become the last team to endure the big drop. Alyssa & Kyland win! With $5,000 added to each of their Personal Challenge Accounts, Alyssa now has $6,000 and is qualified for T.J.’s Final. With $12,000 and his second challenge win, Kyland becomes the new richest man in the game. 

Breaking (Big Brother) Up Is(n’t) Hard to Do:

At the Compound, Alyssa & Kyland establish Shannon & Cinco, two Love Island cast members, as the easiest team to vote into The Arena, but the power duo is downright giddy as they consider blindsiding Xavier. Both are desperate to do it, but also want to wait for the “smartest, most strategic” moment. Conveniently, that moment turns out to be now… We know Alyssa wants revenge for being lied to while competing on a show about lying, but why does Kyland want to blindside Xavier too? Obviously, X beat him on BB23 and their parting words after Ky’s eviction were tense, but they controlled the Cookout together (when Tiffany wasn’t around). Is Kyland still bitter about losing? Because it’s something most Big Brother Houseguests have to do… In an interview, Xavier tells us that he’s prepared for any Big Brother player to target him at any time… Didn’t he call Alyssa his closet ally earlier this episode?

At the weekly winners and losers conference, Justine & David ask to not compete against the “easy choice” Shannon & Cinco. Not only are they both Islanders like Justine, but taking on Cinco in a physical elimination would likely be a death kiss for most of the men, David included. With all the subtlety of The Challenge itself (so, none), Alyssa & Kyland suggest Shan & Xavier instead. Justine jumps at the idea. Later, when Alyssa & Kyland share their plan with Tyson, he jumps like Justine, thrilled that the Big Brother alliance is “eating itself.” Even some BB players are onboard like Derek and Angela, who advises Alyssa & Kyland to blame the blindside on Shan’s untrustworthy reputation. Will it work? (No.) Will that matter? (No.)

The Arena: 

As the cast arrives at The Arena, two puzzle stations set up in the sand pit panic Derek – Surely, Shan & Xavier are better puzzle solvers than Justine & David… Derek warns Alyssa & Kyland via a few frantic head shakes, but the die is cast. As Shan & Xavier step into the sand pit, stunned, Alyssa tells us that she’s only doing what Xavier did to her on Big Brother – Remember? When Xavier ensured that Alyssa would be the last non-Cookout Houseguest evicted, protecting her through almost 65 days of play until his alliance had no one else to target? Alyssa gleefully voting Xavier into just the fourth elimination is basically the same thing…

The Arena game is called “Smash In, Puzzle Out.” Teams crawl through a steel tunnel to retrieve ten puzzle pieces. At various points, the tunnel is blocked by several glass sheets. Players break the glass to advance, but each sheet is color-coded. Break a sheet intended for your partner, and you’ll receive a five-second penalty. Break all your partner’s sheets, and you’ll receive the maximum penalty, 50 seconds. First team to solve their puzzle wins. 

It’s rare that a single strategic decision so thoroughly determines the outcome of a Challenge elimination, but in “Smash In, Puzzle Out,” Shan & Xavier’s glass-smashing strategy saddles them with an insurmountable time penalty. As Justine & David carefully break their glass according to the color-coding, Xavier breaks everything inside his & Shan’s tunnel. After all their puzzle pieces are collected, Shan tells us that she & Xavier are prepared to “eat” the 50-second penalty because they have enough “heat” to take it and still win. The phrase “famous last words” floats across the screen (in my mind)…

When Justine & David finish retrieving their puzzle pieces, there’re still 30 seconds left on Shan & Xavier’s penalty clock, almost the exact amount of time Justine & David need to solve a ten-piece block puzzle. With their win, each earns another 1,000 Challenge Bucks, bringing Justine’s total to 7,000, and David’s to 2,000. After watching David never get a chance to play during Big Brother 21, then crashing and burning on BB22, it’s nice to see him finally nab a win, even if he had to bomb the trivia challenge first… 

Shan & Xavier’s loss means that, once again, we’ll miss out on the explosive aftermath of a massive blindside, but at least Kyland & Xavier guaranteed themselves a spot on The Challenge: USA’s first Rivals iteration. As for Shan, I’m shocked at her early exit, since just last episode, I thought the editors were setting her up to turn the season topsy-turvy. Instead, she leaves quietly and sort of body-shaming Alyssa…

Will Alyssa & Kyland’s blindside cause the rest of the Big Brother alliance to crumble? Will the underdogs usurp the power players? Will Leo ever stop talking about cats? Only The Algorithm knows…

Leftovers:

-More than plummeting 150 feet, it’s the midair dangling afterward that always seems like the worst part of these heights challenges to me… 

-It’s shocking that Leo is seen as the most awkward cast member when Enzo is right there using the term “doo-doo pies” twice in one (short) interview while discussing people’s fear of heights.

-On Survivor, Sarah’s sense of humor was drier than her tribe’s firewood, but it doesn’t play as well in The Challenge’s interview chair. While discussing her & Derek’s poor performance in the trivia challenge, Sarah places all the blame on Derek in what I think (hope) is supposed to be playful deadpan, but it reads as mean-spirited arrogance. She also says Derek’s “not as smart as everyone says,” but when did anyone say he was smart? (Not that he thinks fish aren’t animals or anything, but on Big Brother, Derek was athletic, charismatic, friendly, and funny. He wasn’t cast to play a trivia nerd.)  

-More cracks appear in the Survivor alliance: Domenick is wary of Tyson, and Tyson is wary of Sarah… As long as no one’s wary of Danny, and Tyson doesn’t have to “Pole Wrestle,” I’ll continue to sleep soundly.

-Shan & Xavier’s puzzle fail was foreshadowed last episode: During the “Hang On, Man” challenge, Derek (Shan’s then-partner) takes note of her terrible puzzle instincts, complaining that she consistently tries pieces that, on sight, are obviously not going to fit… So why was he so worried when the cast got to The Arena and saw the puzzle setup?

-The way David hypes up Justine after their Arena win made me question why so many of the women don’t want to be his partner. It also made me even more annoyed at Domenick for being so anti-Love Island last episode.

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