Un-Ben-lievable

The Challenge: USA
Season 1, Episode 8 “Independence Day”
Original Air Date: August 24, 2022

In the first episode after a major format shakeup, contestants outsmart the rules of a challenge, a new alliance outmaneuvers the rest of the cast, and a player fizzles out during a funeral march of an elimination.

There’s always been a certain amount of grandstanding on The Challenge. It can make a moment, flattering or otherwise, an instant classic. It’s why we remember Jordan flipping all the cards in The Draw or Zach breaking his nose instead of compromising with Amanda. In this Challenge: USA episode, Sarah tries out a grandstand of her own, one that is so idiotic, so insufferable, I think it will bar me from ever rooting for her to win a reality TV competition – Not that I was before, but now I definitely won’t start!

So Long, Farewell, Algorithm, Goodbye:

It’s official: partnerships, The Algorithm, and all things “randomized” are out. Solo gameplay is in. For Desi, it feels like making a Survivor merge all over again. (Hopefully, she lasts longer this time…) Her fellow former castaways Ben & Danny also feel the significance of the format shift, and suggest reestablishing the “Survivor strong” alliance. With it, they’d be the most dominant group. Plus, Ben suddenly wants to beat Tyson in the Final because sometimes, he “likes doing things the hard way.” Contestants who want to face front-runners in reality competition finales so they can “beat the best” confuse me… In the paraphrased words of Heidi N Closet, if Tyson is eliminated before you at any point during filming, then you beat him!  

While her Survivor allies strategize, Sarah spirals about being the only woman too poor to compete in the Final. She hopes for a Hall Brawl (and an easy-to-beat opponent). Elsewhere, Enzo hopes to win the first individual challenge, and once you remember that he originally appeared on Big Brother, it makes sense why… He’s trained to expect the unexpected.

The Challenge:

We’re back on the waterfront for the season’s most disappointing challenge so far. In “Having a Blast,” players leap onto a soaped-up runway from a Zodiac (an inflatable boat that costs anywhere between two and 23 thousand dollars). They dash back and forth, collecting keys at one end of the runway, then inserting them into the top of a safe at the other. After all four keys are placed, the safe opens. Players retrieve a flag from inside, then make one final trip down the runway to jam it into its own holder on the opposite side. Fastest man & woman win 10,00 Challenge Bucks to split and the ability to vote one man into The Arena. Bye-bye, partner eliminations! 

Oh yeah, and to Challenge-up the affair, while two contestants walk the runways, another two are positioned on a nearby boat. Their job is to keep the competing players off balance by spraying “water cannons” at them. Instead, some people spray the runway to wash away soap, while others spray into the ocean… In fairness, that the cast ignored an entire element of the challenge is mostly production’s fault – If they wanted contestants to mess with each other, why put Angela on hose duty while Tyson competes? Or Ben on hose duty for Sarah?   

At the same time, even if it made the segment more boring, part of me welcomed the soap removal, because the last time (I remember) soap featured in a challenge, several female cast members got yeast infections. Fortunately, that was a nonissue in this episode… Unfortunately, “No one got a yeast infection.” is the only compliment I can give to “Having a Blast,” but these days, that might be enough to make it one of T.J.’s all-time favorite challenges…

A few moments feel important: Tyson convinces Domenick to wash soap off Angela’s runway. Trusting Tyson, but not Angela, (She did send him into elimination…) Dom hesitantly sprays the runway while worrying that helping Angela will eventually hurt him. If the scene is replayed in a future “Previously on,” then we’ll know it did… Later, Sarah complains that of all her castmates, Angela’s “had the easiest ride” and “hasn’t proven she’s the competitor people claim she is…” Cut to Angela winning the challenge, her third overall – Did Sarah forget that among those who’re impressed with Angela’s athleticism are the Olympics?

As for the men, Leo shocks his castmates by not immediately falling into the water. At this point, the “Leo sucks” storyline is out of control – He doesn’t like jumping into water from a high height, that doesn’t mean he’s incapable of doing, like, anything. Despite the impressive performance, Leo loses to Ben, who wins his first challenge and finally earns enough money to qualify for T.J.’s Final. It’s a sweet end to an in-episode storyline about Ben, a veteran, wanting to honor his late friend, who passed while they were in the Marine Corps together.  

The biggest loser (no offense) is Enzo. Not only does he cut his leg deep enough to require stitches, but he’s also the slowest competitor, and is sent into The Arena. (Technically, he performs better than Cayla and Desi, who both fail to stick their landings onto the runway, but only the men are eligible for elimination.)

Angela Makes an Alliance:

At the Compound, Enzo tells Angela and Ben that he wants to compete in elimination against someone with enough Challenge Bucks to qualify him for the Final (so anyone but Danny). Later, during the Enzo-less portion of their discussion, Angela proposes an alliance: She & Alyssa (the Big Brother women) alongside Ben, Danny, Domenick & Tyson (the Survivor men). Ben’s receptive because you have to be when someone invites you into an alliance, but why does Angela expect him to willingly work against his closest ally Sarah? Even if he and the rest of the Survivor guys are on board at the end of the scene, I think it’ll take an episode or two to determine if the alliance is going to stick… 

Be Careful What You Wish For…

Recently, I complained that we weren’t seeing enough bar/club scenes after learning from Tyson’s podcast that the Challengers were often out on the town. In this episode, we finally see the group at a bar… and half the segment is dedicated to the franchise’s most infuriating storyline since Jenna & Zach (who wasn’t even a cast member) fought on Total Madness.

After learning about Enzo’s stitches (like, literally immediately after), Sarah starts talking women’s empowerment, and suddenly wants to compete against him in the upcoming elimination to show all the young girls watching that they can… beat an injured man ten-years older than them in a competition… Is this the most ridiculous grandstand in franchise history? Surely, a reality TV pro like Sarah knows that the chances of production letting a woman compete in a men’s elimination are nil. Think of the insurance liability! Think of the double standard! What if next episode’s women’s elimination is a Pole Wrestle, and Danny decides he wants to compete in it against Cashay?

Even if production did allow Sarah to volunteer, Enzo doesn’t have enough Challenge Bucks to qualify her for the Final, so what’s the point of competing against him? Instead of following up about the new secret alliance, spending time with the about-to-be-eliminated contestant, or just watching the cast get drunk, we waste several minutes on Sarah thinking she’s hot shit for wanting to compete against an injured middle-aged man, likely knowing she won’t be allowed to… 

The Arena:

A plexiglass hallway plopped in the middle of the sand pit instantly tells the cast what elimination game is about to be played – It’s “Hall Brawl,” by far, the franchise’s most well-known event. (Personally, I’m getting bored of it.) To play, contestants start at opposite ends of the plexiglass hallway. They run at each other, collide mid-hall, and attempt to make it out the other side to ring a bell. First player to ring their bell twice wins. 

Recent Hall Brawls on the MTV show have been brutal: broken fingers, broken safety equipment (if you can call it that), and long run-ups in front of the hallway to maximize collision impact. In this CBS version, the run-ups are removed, and is the hall itself shorter?

In a season where a former NFL player is still in the game (and in need of Final-qualifying money), instead, we watch the most uninteresting Hall Brawl possible: Enzo vs Leo, who Angela & Ben vote into The Arena. Leo’s height (He’s the shortest guy.) cancels out Enzo’s injury, age, and overall Enzo-ness… In Hall Brawl, size almost always matters most. Enzo wins easily, but the cast is patronizing nice enough to congratulate Leo on “not getting crushed right away” like they all thought. Having competed in three Arenas, Leo joins the legion of other Challengers whose castmates voted them into elimination over and over again just because – Challengers like Brandon Nelson, Jay Starrett & the iconic Sarah Greyson.

After his loss, Leo refuses to return to The Arena and say goodbye to the group. I get feeling slighted by most of them, but at least tell Cayla to kick their asses! At least go out on one more cat quip! Leo’s impressive Arena performances prior to the mismatched Hall Brawl are enough for me to want to watch him compete on another Challenge, but his sour exit makes me wonder if he enjoyed his experience. If the edit is accurate (big if), his castmates seemed confused by his personality, unconvinced of his physical abilities, and burdened by their partnerships with him. Doesn’t sound like fun to me…

Leftovers:

-In an interview, Danny explains that he’s committed to his Survivor allies until he thinks he can beat one of them in an elimination and finally earn enough Challenge Bucks to qualify for T.J.’s Final… Please, let this foreshadow Danny obliterating Domenick in a Pole Wrestle, or even better, Ball’s In. 

-During “Having a Blast,” Enzo tells Ben that most of the cast are “rats” who “don’t want them to win.” …Of course they don’t want you to win… They want to win!

-In an out-of-place interview, David says he always prepares to potentially compete in elimination. That way, he’s never blindsided. It feels like a promise that he’ll be blindsided in The Arena later this season, but other than Enzo, what allies does David have to be blindsided by?

-A couple more Sarah complaints: She brags that, if sent into elimination against Enzo, it would be the first time a woman “called out” a man. And while she would be the first woman to volunteer for a men’s Arena, she wouldn’t be the first to beat a man in an individual elimination. On The Gauntlet, Sarah Greyson beat multiple men on her way to winning the season. Back then (in 2003), the eliminations were less hands-on-physical, and more like Survivor’s Individual Immunity Challenges. Sarah also claims that in her real-life, she’s “taken down” men bigger than any of her castmates. I’d pay to watch Sarah attempt to “take down” Cinco – I’d up my Paramount+ subscription tier!

-I wish a change to the voting system accompanied the switch to solo gameplay. Angela helping choose who competes in elimination while not being eligible herself is… (to quote Turner from the current Big Brother season) “not fire.” I always prefer that the person who places last in the challenge picks their own opponent, though in this episode, I don’t think the result would’ve changed. 

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