The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras Episode 3 Recap — Winners & Losers
Welcome back! This will be a quick one, and at the bottom you’ll know why, so before disaster strikes, let’s get right into it!
Loser: Chasing Ghosts
I was gonna write a whole thing here about how it must be strange to do deadlifts surrounded by ghosts but all I can think about is how nobody racks their weights in this house and between that and the dishware situation we uncovered last week I do not blame any single person for any single bit of behavior they exhibit in this house.
Shit’s gross, bro. I’m sure they’re not exactly toweling down the equipment with any regularity either.
Loser: Shameless Self Promotion
And if you want to know more about that elimination when Devin took out Johnny Bananas, as well as all of Devin’s other elimintion rounds, click the link below!
If you think that was a lame thing of me to do it, don’t worry, I totally agree with you.
Loser: Playing A Drinking Game Against A Stacked Deck
78 bottles of beer on the wall, 78 bottles of beer…
You take one down, pass it around, 77 bottles of beer on the wall…
They’re running out of gas…
I never thought it would be possible for us to outlast them, but the editing tricks are getting sloppier and sloppier. Cara and Rachel were having a full on conversation, but as soon as Cara said Laurel’s name, we had to do fifteen different camera cuts and use the time Cara said “Laurel was nice to me today” during a random Fresh Meat II confessional because the AI program proclaimed those two clip to be closest in timbre.
It’s only episode three, Challenge Gods. This is the best you got? You’re already slipping up?
Be better. It’s Season 40. It’s the playoffs. Time to wake up.
77 bottles of beer on the wall, 77 bottles of beer…
You take one down, pass it around, 76 bottles of beer on the wall…
Loser: The Zodiac Killer
I always knew there was something off about Teej. It makes sense now why he hates quitters so much! He put all that time and effort into murdering those people and writing out all those cyptic messages and then the cops just gave up after like three days.
“You’re not quitting, are you?”
— TJ Lavin to the San Fransisco Police Department after they decided they couldn’t figure out he was the Zodiac Killer
Winner: Whatever’s On That Plate
Must be nice to be that food. I’m over here scratching a bug bite on my butt cheek and whatever that post-elimination snack is on Horacio’s plate is about to get shoved into Horacio’s mouth, chewed on by Horacio’s teeth, swallowed into Horacio’s stomach, and then pushed out of Horacio’s butt.
In Las Vegas you have to pay a lot of money for something like that and none of them look anything like Horacio. Even in the dark. Even on drugs.
Winner: Saying The Word ‘Dollars’ In The Coolest Possible Way
Referring to ‘dollars’ as ‘large’ is about the coolest possibly way you can do it. I don’t think I’ve ever done that out loud before. Which ends today, because when I go get coffee in a few hours with my girlfriend and her family, and they tell me the total, I’m going to hand them cash and say “here’s x large”.
I’ll report back next week with the results. Stay tuned!
Winner: The Complicated Nature Of The Past
Here’s a list of the Challenge competitors who have four championships…
— Johnny Bananas
— CT
— Jordan
— Darrell
If you asked anyone who only knows The Challenge because of the free Paramount+ account they got when they switched phone plans over the pandemic, that list has one name on it which does not carry the same weight as the rest do.
Darrell’s four consecutive wins are complicated. The reason why being two-fold.
For one, he did it in an era when, let’s just be real, it was much easier to win these shows. But at the same time, he did it in a way that would have easily translated to the modern game. See, back then, Darrell simply didn’t lose. I knew him as the guy who beat everyone in everything all the time.
But then he punched Brad on The Ruins, and then went home first on Fresh Meat, and then he vanished. Only his legacy was left behind.
Since his return, the Darrell we’ve gotten, despite looking almost identical to his younger self (in the best way), has been pretty underwhelming. Not necessarily his fault, he returned to a game which looked and felt much different than the game he dominated before leaving behind in life’s rear view mirror.
The closest we have ever gotten to that was the original All Stars Final, but he ended up used more as a prop to build up Yes as a legitimate winner.
Can four straight Challenge championships, something not a single soul has accomplished regardless of seasons, be impressive and irrelevant at the same exact time? Is that even possible?
What makes this dynamic even more complicated is that Darrell’s so well-liked and respected that (other than probably Devin) no one would ever say to him “yo, those four championships are whack, bro”. No one besides Darrell himself.
As he clearly states, he doesn’t consider himself on the same level as the peers he shares a robust trophy case with.
Do you?
I have no idea. I do a podcast with mostly people who are new to The Challenge, therefore only know Darrell as a slightly disappointing physical representative of a handful of faded lines etched into the Challenge history books. As I’ve stated before, when it comes to people like Darrell, I have no idea how to comprehend the way normal people see him. He’s been a part of my life for so long now, that who he is has been so calcified that opinions and feelings can only grow stronger, and cannot be diminished by current events.
But as I write these, and as feedback comes in, I realize that I am now the exception to that rule. And that the majority of people watching at home have no memory of The Gauntlet or how even amongst the top players of the game, how at the time, Darrell stood just a little taller than his teammates on The Ruins. Evan, Kenny, Johnny, those guys had full power and control over every decision made in that game, and yet Darrell was able to ask for and receive anything he wanted.
Even the biggest ego-maniacs at the height of their ego-mania acquiesced to Darrell.
Yet, all these years later, through the layers of toxic sludge that season now asks you to wade through in order to watch it, nuances like that are totally lost in the noise.
So if I remember it, and those who watched at the time remember it, but a majority of fans don’t, what does that matter? If a tree falls in a forest full of washed-up thirty somethings with hearing problems and balky knees, does it make a sound?
You know what’s the wildest thing, though? Let’s say Darrell never does win again. In that case, Darrell’s lasting legacy, and biggest contribution to this show as a whole, is choosing Cara Maria over Laurel on Fresh Meat II. A decision Laurel still to this day hasn’t gotten over and also what indirectly set the two of them on this path of mutual destruction they will continue plowing for the remainder of time.
One thing’s for sure, whatever his lasting legacy mighty end up being, it’s definitely not going to be that confessional shirt.
Winner: Aviv
How refreshing.
How absolutely refreshing to hear.
Finally, some honesty.
So many of my friends have been having kids lately. In just a few hours, I’ll be going to see one of them and will be congratulating them on their upcoming child number two.
You know what not a single one of them has said to me yet?
“I’m doing this for my kids.”
Granted, none of them are on The Challenge. And none of them have ever had a producer in their face whose only goal is to get them to say shit that they don’t entirely mean. And none of them have ever had their thoughts and words presented and edited in a way which misrepresents what they said in the first place.
Yet, still, they’ve all managed to continue being themselves and doing things for their own benefit. This season could easily be re-named to The Challenge 40: Battle of the Parents, and I’m all for moms and dads talking about their kids any chance they get. If life has taught me one thing, the fact that I had two loving and supportive parents growing up makes me one of the lucky ones. But it seems as though once a Challenge person becomes a parent, they cease to become anything else.
Part of the blame for this lies on the Challenge Gods themselves. I have to imagine that Cory talked about something, anything other then his children in that confessional room over all those years. Except whatever it that may have been doesn’t matter in reality, because we’ll never see it. That was a conversation between two people the same as any conversation you’ve ever had.
Similar to how championship and MVP winning athletes always thank God and a million other people before they ever bother to thank themselves has always driven me nuts, I’ve always wanted Challenge people to thank themselves a little bit more.
This isn’t easy, and they all work extremely hard to be able to accomplish the feats they accomplish on these shows. Aviv should be thanking herself. No offense to her kids, but they have nothing to do with this. Aviv’s the one who’s gotta eat rat balls and run up mountains and solve tangerine puzzles in shark infested waters.
Or, in other words, what she’s really trying to say, is fuck them kids.
Loser: Closed Captioning
Both Philo and Amazon managed to totally screw this up. Emily actually said “B is for Beluga”.
Which means that the verbal foreplay which led to a steamy bathroom hook-up was on the level of a kindergardener at the zoo.
What was C for?
How about D?
E?
F?
How deep into the alphabet did they manage to get before they fucked?
If I were writing this scene I would have one of them get to F and say ‘F is for fucking’ before giving the other one a wink. Though I’m likely not as stoned as the two of them are, or as hopped up on pre-workout, so I bet it was like “F is for Ferocious, which is how I would describe my sit-up technique” or something cross-fitty like that.
Winner: The Olympic Village
If you ever wondered why athletes are so excited to be able to go compete in The Olympics it’s because they’re really excited to go have sex with other people who look like Emily and Brad in the shower.
Also can we talk about that ten inch high stone wall blocking the door to the bathroom? I know we won’t get it, because that would get in the way of slow motion walking shots where they’re so stiff they look like they’re holding in a shit, not to mention all the confessionals where Kaycee explains to us exactly what is happening on screen in case we were checking Instagram when TJ explained the rules, but I would kill for a blooper reel of various cast members tripping over that thing late at night.
Winner: Emily
Two things which are in abundance on this show.
Also, Beards and Biceps, great band name! Or, sadly, website name, one which starts off as a men’s health website before becoming infested by alt-right memes and ideals within six months.
Winner: Product Placement
Johnny being obnoxious and laying on top of Emily while she’s trying to cuddle with Brad and list off whale species together is soooo him lolololz.
Winner: Voltuneering In The Name Of Jesus
“Alright everyone gather ‘round, gather ‘round. Kids, I want to introduce you to your Adult Leaders here at Camp Redemption House! They’re all super excited to spend the summer here with you all and have a ton of fun activities planned.
I’ll have them introduce themselves one by one, including one fun fact from each so you can get to know them a little better. Let’s start here on the bottom. Tell the campers your name and something fun about yourself.
“Hi, I’m Aneesa. I’m really excited for a fun summer with you all. My fun fact is that I was on The Real World: Chicago.”
Winner: Aneesa
TJ: Nominate someone from your group
Aneesa: I’m going to stand as far away from these people as possible while still making it kind of look like I’m participating.
What a legend. All these other eager beavers are idiots. Aneesa’s from ‘round the way, she’s not gonna just volunteer. That’s for putzes (putzi?) like Jodi.
No matter what the rules are, no matter what twists the Challenge Gods introduce, the surest, most effective way to not be eliminated is to not participate in the elimination round. This seems like a simple thing, but as we see in this scene, that message can still manage to get lost.
Winner: Closed Caption Person
Lmao, (groaning, chuckling). By the end of the season, this AI program is going to be so sick of these people that it’s going to instead say (bitching, moaning).
Loser: Adjectives
Who does The Challenge use as their arbiter of badassery?
What makes these boats badass?
What if I told you I had a cousin Marvin who had a bunch of boats way more badass than this?
Why not just call them boats? Or even dragon boats? I feel as though a word such as badass is so subjective that assigning it to a couple of Vietnamese canoes is somewhat reductive.
For example, Jeffrey Dahmer, you know what he thought was badass? A nice thick cut of human flesh. Idk about you, but I don’t think that eating another human is necessarily badass. Then there’s someone like my girlfriend’s mom’s elderly next door neighbor Marie. She keeps up a free library in a wooden case at the end of her driveway and she thinks that’s badass. Now, I do too, but I bet our friend Jeffrey might not. You might not either.
Kinda weird that you and Jeffrey Dahmer have so much in common, ever thought about that? Do you feel like wearing another human as a shirt? Do you think that would be badass?
The Challenge is a self reflective show, and it always has been.
Winner: The Details, Where The Devil Lives
Garnishing these dishes with bulbs of garlic is some of the most inspired shit I’ve ever seen. You may think that piece of lettuce on your plate is superfluous, but whichever high class individual set up this daily challenge sure doesn’t.
Winner: The Bear Season 4
You can pay for school but you can’t buy class
— Jay Z
This sort of tasting menu would run your about $225 without the wine pairings in River North and here these jackasses are (groaning, chuckling) about it.
Winner: Nehemiah’s New Look
He looks wayyyyyy different than he did just one episode ago. No wonder everyone was so upset that Leroy went home. One day without haircuts, in addition to the lack of real-life Instagram filters, and look what happens to these people.
They’re just like us, even if they are on the tv.
Winner: Smoking Cigarettes
One of the first annoyances when I was introduced to the work force was the unfairness in the idea that people who smoke got to take a ten minute break every hour while I was stuck making chocolate cake shakes and burning my hand on molten cheese while filling up side cups for cheese fries (just know that if you go to Portillos and order either of those things you’re fucking up the day of some minimum wage worker who just wants to buy a new Xbox, though maybe since they sold the process has been streamlined, but I cannot stress enough how awful it is cleaning the milkshake machine after sending out even a single chocolate cake shake) and picking up their slack while they develop pollups on their tongue.
So when I got my next job (shout out to AMC, if I had no ambition in life, I would have never left that place), I lied, bought a pack of cigarettes, and would go for “smoke breaks” and just light the thing and stand there for ten minutes while some other asshole got stuck doing my job for me.
That’s kind of how I feel about the suddenness with which Challenge people became vegans. Sure, sure, I’m vegan. Somebody else better drink this tuna smoothie. Couldn’t be me, because I care for the fish or whatever.
While I respect them pivoting and making tofu taste as terrible as possible, I think what they should have done is taken a dump on a plate and told them to either eat this lump of badass poo or quit lying to us to get out of doing stuff.
Winner: Using The Power Of Veganism Against Them
Last one…
Brian Kitchen Pro Tip #2: Let’s talk about vegans who are actual vegans for a second like Nehemiah pictured above.
You know who has to work really hard to make their food taste good? Vegans, or people with gluten or dairy allergies, or people who desperately want to eat healthy versions of unhealthy foods. Any sort of predilection that forces someone to find workarounds in order to eat food, honestly.
So what you do, is you look up vegan or “healthy” recipes, and then you just make them taste good. Use butter where the recipe calls for rendered deer antlers or whatever. Use oils where the recipe calls for avocado oil spray. There’s this black bean recipe I got out of one of those vegan-wellness-hippy-dippy-I-live-in-a-van-with-Emily type cook books, and after making it once I came to the realization that “wow, this is pretty good, imagine if I made it with all the foods that taste good already?”
Now? These beans are a staple. All my people be fartin’. I got nothing but Jemmye’s, Sylvia’s, and Veronica’s leaving my dinner parties.
Anywho, now that we’re all nice and hungry, let’s get on with the chlorophyll…
Loser: Boring Legalities
It would be nice for fans at home to be able to play along except seasons 1–9 only exist as fading memories in the minds of washed up elder millennials and their Gen X counterparts.
Instead, we’re stuck (groaning, chuckling) at home without being able to watch any of it unless we know a guy who knows a guy who knows how to get things on the internet.
Why not just release them? What could possibly be the hold up? There’s no way that the Challenge Gods don’t have access to them somewhere. Paramount+ just raised their prices another dollar after doing so like six months ago. Why not put them up there? I’m no lawyer, and I haven’t stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in years, so I cannot speak on what those reasons actually are beyond pure speculation. But whatever the reasons are, if we were ever told them, I guarantee we’d all think it was really stupid.
Winner: Horacio
Look at that perfect hair. Bouncing in the wind. Flowing through the breeze.
Must be nice.
Loser: Rowing Based Activities On The Challenge
There is not a more consistent aspect of The Challenge than these people making water transportation look like the most difficult task a human being could ever accomplish.
Lewis and Clark have rolled around in their graves more times in the 40 seasons of this show than in all the years they were dead combined.
Loser: Potentially Losing The Locker Room
Losing Tony later on in this episode probably helps, but how long until Cory and Jordan both snap and say, “you know what, Devin, how bout you shut the hell up and quit telling me what to do”?
While he’s earned the respect of his peers, and his willingness to lead has always been present, there is something to be said for a guy like Devin who, big picture, hasn’t accomplished that much, eventually losing the ability to effectively get his message across.
Winner: Faking It
Right, Jordan, classic quiet role player who takes a backseat and understands his assignment.
Totally.
(groaning, chuckling)
Winner: Rudders
“Oh, did you guys say rudder? Ohhhhh I thought you meant weed butter. Because, yeah, I obviously know how to work that. Brownie, anyone?”
Winner: New Brad
I’ll tell you what, this new Brad who’s actively terrible at everything and drags down anyone and everyone in his orbit fucking rules.
This has been way more fun to watch than the Brad who wins some stuff but loses other stuff before eventually finishing in fourth place again.
Winner: Shortening The Second Shortest Possible Name One Can Have
Why say two letters when you can instead say one letter and accomplish the same thing?
Loser: Being A Voice Of Reason
As if that’s important, Jodi! Stop wasting everyone’s time. CT and Brad are shouting about rudders, and you’re over here (groaning, chuckling) about stupid shit like your badass boat remaining intact.
Winner: Editors And The Ultimate Power The Wield
Hypothetically, this graphic is a total fabrication.
Hypothetically, this graphic is accurate down to the millimeter.
Both are possible, and it’s up to you to choose whichever version you want to believe. But if this is the truth, and Era 1 really was that far behind, then Emily deserves MVP and three gold stars for getting Brad and his rudder all discombobulated.
Loser: Alaska in 1843
Why?
Does Alaska not have roads?
Is that what Doc Brown was talking about at the end of Back To The Future when he told Marty that “where we’re going, we don’t need roads”?
All of the Eskimos reading this right now are probably furious.
Loser: The Real Nehemiah
On this day, at work, Nehemiah got hit in the face with a dragon made from wood. What did you do?
Sent some e-mails?
How badass.
Winner: Full Cup Or No Cup
I’ve never been more attracted to Tori in my entire life.
Winner: Cracks In The Simulation
I love that Tony and Olivia Rodrigo have the same signature facial expression.
Those two people have nothing else in common. I tried so hard, believe me. The last fifteen seconds of my life were entirely dedicated to it.
Loser: The Result Without The Process
So, yeah, uh, what happened to Cara’s face?
Winner: The Challenge
Pictured above is the greatest to ever do it.
In an intense, strenuous, athletic competition, one in which life changing money is at stake, what you’re looking at is the top of the pyramid. The cream of the crop. The bee’s knees.
I love this show so much.
Loser: My Inner Child
Not what you want to see. If the feeling of nostalgia is at all important to you, on this day, the result was the worst result.
Loser: Technology And The Few Options Those In Small Towns Have To Fix Theirs
Alright, welp, hey guys, it’s me, your author, Brian. I’ve been on vacation since the middle of last week, and apparently either my laptop or my laptop charger has ceased to be able to provide power. So I’m finishing this recap with about 4% battery left, meaning that I can’t exactly do this how I normally would.
So here’s some stray observations to finish this thing out, and hopefully by next week, I’ll have a laptop that works again. Otherwise, I’ll be the only weirdo at one of Chicago’s fine public libraries who’s asking if they can adjust the setting so I can screenshot Challenge people getting caught farting. If not, well, at least you still have Allan Aguirre.
— Averey! Who is this girl and where was she hiding the whole time? The difference between Real World Averey and Challenge Averey was always stark, and for those Portland truthers out there, that night was for you!
— Time is a social construct. Apparently, so is Tony Time.
— Darrell getting off the elimination schnied is huge. Even if he was going against a broken clock.
— The fact that Darrell and Averey, for the most part, picking the strongest people as targets rather than taking the easy way out is both shocking and ideally and arbiter of things to come.
VIVA LA MY LAPTOP!!!
Thanks for reading! Sorry for the incomplete assignment, damn dog ate my laptop charger! (For the record, I think this might have been what happened) See you next week, hopefully! And until then, as always, Happy Challenge Watching!!!
