Unfortunately my bar for “decent human being” has fell to “hasn’t tried to tear up the foundation of democracy on the basis of white nationalist terrorism today”. So I’m fairly optimistic about these folks. Women first today.
13. Is her name Liv?
I think so, but she’s gone now. Was she ever even here?
12. Amber
The Challenge is reverse grandpa’ing. When grandpas start having grandchildren, it is easy for them to distinguish between the two or three of them in the beginning, but then when it becomes more complicated when three or four of their kids start having kids and they have nine grandkids from 4 different sets of parents, then they start forgetting names and mixing them up and getting them confused. That’s how I was at the beginning of the season. Thankfully, Amber finally did the bare minimum for MTV to shoehorn her into a very lame storyline. Now that Is Her Name Liv? is gone, I have a better understanding of these rookies.
Not a great performance from Amber. Devin certainly antagonized her a bit, but she reacted exactly how someone that acts like Devin wants the person they’re antagonizing to react. She’s got to know better than that.
11. Other Amber
Is Darrell’s partner. That’s literally the only thing I know about her.
10. Kaycee
Unlike a lot of other people on these shows, Kaycee doesn’t do too much. It’s an asset. She’s capable of not melting down and being a lunatic, and she is generally normal and level-headed. But when she actually has to have conversations about the concept of the challenge and the human relationships that play into that, she really has some of that Josh Big Brother stink on her. I’m at the point where I believe I’ve liked her because I’ve historically gotten her in such small doses.
9. Aneesa
She’s partners with Leroy now which is like drinking a cold, refreshing glass of lemonade on a hot summer’s day, but then having someone take your glass and break it over your head when you’re done.
8. Nany
Nany should probably run for a senate seat when you see the way that she cozy’s up to Josh and enables and defends his ridiculous behavior. (I don’t mean that, obviously Nany is way too good to take such a step down in her career.) But it truly is absurd. “Josh plays the game too much with his heart” is not what’s happening, Nany. “Playing the game too much with his heart” is what Leroy used to do because he trusted everyone too much. Josh doesn’t do that, all he is doing is walking around the house like a baby with a full diaper. Stop being his friend, I would rather you be friends with Adam Royer.
7. Tori
Relationships are simple. If you want to be with someone else, you are not a bad person, you are not at fault, you do not need to be ashamed. Your only job is to immediately tell the person you are currently with and A. work through it (rare) B. or break it off (more common). I’m not certain of the editing, or if anything will come of this thing that they are making with Fessy. But I’ve also watched this show and understand how they foreshadow flings in editing. Come on, Tori. You’re literally engaged to one of the greatest athletes our country has produced, and you’re going to throw that away for the off-brand version of Banana’s creepy cousin?
6. Gabby
It doesn’t take a lot to make me like a person or hate them. It took a 90 second clip of Theresa playing basketball against CT to solidify herself as my favorite female cast member of all time. Gabby had one of those moments tonight, albeit 10x less powerful when she just acknowledged how weak and uninspired Fessy’s attempts to sleep with her were. Maybe there’s something sustainable in this Gabby person, I’m interested in getting more from her.
5. Kam
Back to being likable this week. Continuing my theory that if I ever met Kam in real life I would definitely want to be her friend. But I just can’t stand the brand she tries to create for herself on TV.
4. Lolo
3. Theresa
2. Natalie
Quiet week from the heavy-hitting females. Ready to get more from all of them.
1. Big T
I certainly don’t went to fetishize tragedy, loss and heartbreak. As a culture, we often claim that only terrible, heartbreaking stories are worth telling, and that anyone who has not dealt with that sort of trauma needs to seek out some sort of tragedy within themselves from the source material of their life, leaving people to emotionally scar themselves for the sake of legitimizing their human experience.
But the reason that this show remains this show. The reason so many people are attached to it is the deep understanding that we have of who these people are and the context that surrounds their month-long appearances in foreign countries to play games. CT should never be a fan favorite. He’s beat up like 15 people in front of our eyes. But we’ve watched him through tremendous loss and joy and heartbreak and renewal for almost two decades, and you can’t help but wish all the happiness in the world for him.
The reason I’ve become a little emotionally detached from the show, (which, since I’m still writing 2000 words a week about this shit, should give some insight about how attached I was in the first place.) is because of a constant carousel of rookies who have never been real people on TV, just caricatures of certain human traits and emotions.
To hear Big T be vulnerable about her story and her pain in an episode of a trashy reality show is a weird reminder about why I love it in the first place. There is nothing exciting about watching human mannequins beat up their bodies and livers in a foreign country. But when I watch The Challenge through the lens of seeing people I care about enjoy a wild, silly, hopefully profitable vacation that is going to impact the way they move through the world when they leave, that’s when it hits the spot.
Long live Big T. The bringer of emotion.
Abstract Concepts
4. MORE STUPID ASS COMPETITIONS
In the last 2 seasons you have added a world class sprinter, an All-American football player, the most dominant female athlete in Survivor history, and a German person who looks like God spent 6–8 weeks molding each of his muscles. AND YOU SEND THESE PEOPLE INTO A CAVE TO PLAY WITH REMOTE CONTROLS. Let these people cook. Put them on a beach and let them wrestle each other, have them play 2-on-2 basketball, ANYTHING. I just want to see the athletes be athletes, not struggle through a VR headset like they’re my grandma trying to read a fajitas recipe. Honestly I would rather watch a tournament of foot-races. 50 yard dashes. Anything but drone shit. You NEVER want to have a challenge that only one team completes. Best case scenario is one that everyone completes with various levels of speed and efficiency. This one was trash. I know limited time and resources and everything, but we gotta be a little better. If you want to product place the VR gear, I get it. But just put one in the house and then videotape the cast playing with it on off days acting all silly. Come on.
3. Clarifying TJs
Look at this shit
Thank you, MTV, for clarifying which TJ I was hearing. I was confused about whether I was hearing TJ Lavin, former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver TJ Houshmandzadeh, or a representative of discount clothing distributor TJ Maxx.
2. Bells
Is nothing sacred anymore. Do spies, agents, and handlers not work to preserve the wonderful history and tradition of the organizations they work for? To uproot the proud history and tradition of the bells at the end of the hall-brawl is to spit on the memory of Robb, Derek, Zach, CT, CJ, Jenny, Tori and every other person who has put their body on the line in one of those halls. Fuck off with the buttons.
1. TJ Laughing at People’s Misfortune
Truly capable of keeping me warm on a long winter’s night, it’s TJ’s laugh.
Men
We should dump him in the ocean like they do to the Transformers at the end of the one with Shia Leboeuf: Josh Martinez
Josh is such a fucking loser. He tries to act like he’s a chill dude who’s above confrontation with his friend Jay like he’s a 6th grader trying to impress his older sister’s friends when they’re over for dinner. Josh talks about ‘my game’ all the time. But a game, by definition involves rational decision makers. An incredible part of Josh’s petulance is his inability to understand how games work. Other people also want to win this game, Josh. So when something happens that you don’t like, stop treating it like a travesty of justice thrown upon your poor, innocent soul and play the game, you idiot.
If Josh played football, he would throw a hissy fit between every play because the other team didn’t let him score a touchdown. “DUDE, STOP TACKLING ME, IT’S TOTALLY WRECKING MY GAME. BESIDES, I MET YOUR LINEBACKER AT BAND CAMP LAST YEAR, YEAH, I SEE YOU OVER THERE GREG, I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY FRIEND IN THIS GAME, I…ALSO…I KNOW YOU’RE WONDERING, I AM REALLY GREAT FRIENDS WITH ALL THE CHEERLEADERS AND I DEFINITELY DON’T DREAM AT NIGHT THAT SOMEDAY ONE OF THEM WILL HAVE SEX WITH ME.”
12. Nelson
Any feat of integrity, honestly or friendship that Nelson achieves will always be overshadowed by the reality that every single thing he does seems like an attempt to validate the identity he has claimed for himself. Since he entered this show’s orbit, every interview sounds like it comes from the coach’s half-time speech of a poorly written football movie. I would really like him to focus less on white-knighting the women in the house when it suits him, and focus more on not being the worst.
11. Lio
10. Mechie
All they are doing is taking away screen time from people I actually want to see. So I can’t help but be annoyed by them every time I see them.
9. Fessy
I am happy that Fessy said ‘This is a thing that I will win at’ and asked Tori to let him do it. We need more of that shit on this show.
Every other thing he did was stupid. He literally doesn’t understand how this game works. Everything he did tonight is going to make it harder for himself to win this game. He might still do it, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that it was all dumb.
He also described “attending a gender reveal” as a big part of friendship. I hate every single person whose gender reveal I’ve ever attended. I think I hate everyone who has gender reveal parties in general.
8. Cory
7. Kyle
6. Darrell
These are the people that Lio and Mechie are keeping me from seeing.
5. Jay
Josh saying something mean about you is an automatic leap up the rankings. It feels like all of Jay’s strategic eggs were in the Josh basket, but even the concept of a million dollars isn’t enough to make acquaintance with Josh a bearable concept. I get that.
4. Nam
A story of my heart beginning to burst out of its chest, in two parts.
I would pay $50/day for Nam to call me in the morning and say “Is it okay?” and then listen to me talk about my anxieties for 20 minutes.
3. CT
2. Leroy
How do I get so little of Leroy and CT, two of the most incredible television characters in history, in a 90 minute episode. Unforgivable.
1. Devin
An absolutely incredible episode for Devin again, who continues to be asked to carry this show for large chunks at a time in the absence of Johnny Bananas and with people like CT and Leroy on cruise control.
- Made a healthy acknowledgement of Big T’s experiences both in the conversation and in the talking-head, while also managing to stir shit up for no reason with that Amber person.
- Dealt with Nelson’s mosquito-ass perfectly when he tried to come at him in his bed.
- Won the Challenge
- Did an incredible “we don’t like each other” bit with Tori.
- Made rational, logical deals with Tori
- Took absolutely no heat as the team in power.
- Got Nelson out of the house, who was pissed at him.
Every single word Devin spoke on this episode added to the experience. He’s having an incredible season. I wasn’t a Devin guy before but wow.
