The Challenge: All Stars 3 Power Rankings — Week 5

Welcome to another edition of Power Rankings! Last week we lost both of the opposite ends of integrity in Yes and Beth, and it’s only going to get harder for our heroes from here on out. Inside this week: We have exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, we re-asses the greatest athletes in Kansas City history, MJ loses out to Matt Damon, and much much more…

25) Tyler (Eliminated)

24) Cynthia (E)

23) Laterrian (E)

22) Melinda (E)

21) Tina (E)

20) Jemmye (E)

19) Syrus (E)

18) Darrell (E)

17) Kendal (E)

16) Bath (Last Week: 16)

On Season 2 of the way-better-then-it-has-any-right-to-be Amazon Prime show The Wilds, we find ourselves spending time with a group of teenage boys trapped on a deserted island. Things are mostly all hunky-dory until the middle of the season when a wild jaguar (don’t ask) begins destroying their camp in the middle of the night, scaring the shit out of an already scared group, and forcing them to sleep/live on the edge of a cliff and off the ground.

They’re forced to finally work together and set aside their differences (At least for a little while. Seriously, this show rules, if you keep your expectations low and just kind of buckle up for the ride, I guarantee you’ll at least glean something from it.) to defeat the jaguar and victoriously return to their beach camp.

Beth was that jaguar. A mid-season addition to the game forced the group to unite around a common cause. Stabbing Beth the Jaguar to death with a spear. Which is exactly what they did. They stabbed Beth the jaguar to death with a spear and ate the meat off her carcass.

Now they can finally move on, and get back to normal, where I’m sure everything will be peaceful and no other problems will arise.

15) Yes (LW: 6)

His freshly shorn dome told me that he saw this one coming from a mile away and wanted to be ready for his big elimination debut.

The final result? Not what you want.

While he did seem to be enjoying himself up there, he lost to a much cooler and battle-hardened Wes in a marathon elimination that Yes probably wasn’t particularly ready for. That was definitely one of those games where, all things equal, experience under the bright lights of an elimination round almost always was ultimately going to win out.

Consider the flame of integrity officially extinguished.

14) Nehemiah (LW: 15)

Honestly, Juicy Fruit rules. It might be the best-tasting gum there is. But the flavor is so fleeting. You get a dozen chews, and that’s with maximum chewing efficiency, tops before you’re just chomping on a rubber band. If there was a way to harness the Juicy Fruit flavor as a perpetual thing, and maybe this is dramatic, I sincerely think all the division in the world stretching the fabric of society to its breaking point would completely end.

Is Willy Wonka based on a real guy? If so, I hope he’s reading this. We need you now more than ever.

13) Kellyanne (LW: 12)

In an All-time first for the Power Rankings, I’ve obtained exclusive, never-before-seen footage from a source deep in production of Kellyanne desperately doing anything she can to stay afloat and not drown in the waters of the social game…

I know, I know. I know what you’re saying to yourself, “Wait a minute, Kellyanne’s not Canadian?”

12) Veronica (LW: 14)

Shout out to Veronica for essentially gathering the entire house around a grudge she’s held since the first Bush administration. Granted, “Be Generally Anti-Beth” is about as easy of a cause as “Pay Teachers More” to get behind, but still, that’s the kind of deep-seated grudge-holding I want more of on this show.

11) Nia (LW: 9)

I’ve had it. Enough is enough with this nuance and nicety bullshit.

Hurricane Nia? More like Hurricane Personal Growth. Amirite?!

10) Derrick (LW: 10)

Definitely not a ton of you, that’s for sure.

Where’s Derrick been this season? He’s been just going through the motions, part of both the Treehouse alliance and the Mark/Brad conglomerate. This leaves his chances of ever being the target of the winners to go straight into elimination is pretty much nil. And his resume would give me pause if he’s one of the choices to call out if I were the one to get voted straight in.

So does that mean he just waits around until he gets the best view in the house of Jordan running ahead of everyone in The Final? He’s always been the most interesting when he has his back to the wall but I just don’t see how he gets there this season.

Great for him, on a personal level. Bad for us, on a watching television level.

9) Roni (LW: 12)

…Roni?

…Roni!

…..Roni?

…..Roni!!!

The cadre of reasons a former reality TV person has to choose from when deciding to return to All-Stars is seemingly endless. You can try and capture your former glory, you can find out if you’re more than just an accountant with two kids at home, you can try and win a silly amount of money.

But Roni? Roni came back to fuck some people up. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, who you got in a Hall Brawl, Fessy or Roni?

8) Spring Break King of the Ring, Panama City Beach, 1999 — Mark Long (LW: 8)

The Godfather has been more Consigliere this season. Channeling his inner Tom Hagen and facilitating decision-making has been a profitable position for Spring Break King of the Ring, Panama City Beach, 1999 Mark Long.

Being the Don got him voted in almost by accident earlier in the season, and he came out of that unscathed. He’s now retreated and leveraged all of his relationships into a much more behind-the-scenes roll on the political side. Like in Godfather II, where Tom Hagen is in, then he’s out, then he’s back in again, always trying to keep the paranoid Michael from floating away from Planet Reality. Spring Break King of the Ring, Panama City Beach, 1999 Mark Long has ushered Brad, Wes, MJ, etc. through their various decisions, keeping himself clean in the background the entire time. And most likely for the duration of the season.

7) Kailah (LW: 5)

What’s that?

6) Sylvia (LW: 7)

My list of Greatest Kansas City Athletes of All-Time is as follows…

5) Sylvia Elsrode

4) Salvador Perez

3) Tony Gonzalez

2) Wes Bergmann

1) Patrick Mahomes

And if Sylvia can secure a victory on All-Stars? That bumps her up to at least number three. Add another All-Stars victory down the line? And Wes officially might have some company in the second spot.

5) Wes (LW: 11)

In some ways, all that Wes was trying to do with Yes is help him understand that he’s not as different as the rest of the people there as he wants to think he is. They had sort of a Joker/Batman relationship. Wes’s Joker just wants Yes’s Batman to admit that they’re both a little fucked up. Integrity is an impossibility in this game and Wes put it upon himself to shine the light in Yes’s eyes.

In Wes’s mind, Yes spent his plane ride home having a come to Jesus moment about what The Challenge really is when the wheels are actually spinning. But in reality Yes was probably just thinking about his family and the overflowing stack of work e-mails waiting for him at home.

But that’s just the point, Yes is heading home, and if Wes can hold on long enough to see Jordan go into the right elimination against the right person on the right night, he almost immediately becomes the favorite to win the whole damn thing.

4) Brad (LW: 4)

It’s always the stuff you don’t see, right?

Last week, during the ring toss on an Excitebike track challenge, an agreement to have Mark Long the Consigliere win after initially taking out MJ and Jordan.

Mark, Derrick, Wes, Nehemiah, and Brad were all co-conspirators in this half-baked idea. Yes was there too, but why do I feel like there were a cornucopia of side-eye glances wordlessly saying “we’ll talk for real once he leaves” between Mark and Wes?

So my question is…why was Brad confused about the whole thing a day later? So confused that he basically pulled Wes and Mark into a room and sounded genuinely hurt explaining how confused he was. So what did we miss? What was missing from the massaged product that the Challenge Gods ultimately showed us? Where are frames 208–211? And who’s that guy on the grassy knoll?

Something happened that we didn’t see there. Some details were buried in the deal that Brad never noticed. Incendiary details. Maybe that’s why, in the weight room conversation, Mark had a thousand-yard stare on his face and Wes rolled over so easily. Maybe they knew they got caught. Maybe I’m just making stuff up. Maybe Brad’s just paranoid. Maybe I’m just paranoid. Maybe I should have ended this section a while ago.

It’s always the stuff you don’t see, right?

3) MJ (LW: 3)

My Personal Top Four American Flag Hats

4) The sweet thrift store American Flag snapback I would wear every 4th of July when I was younger.

(unfortunately no photo evidence available)

3) Jordan’s Free Agents hat

2) MJ’s All-Stars hat

1) Matt Damon’s hat during the porn theater scene in The Departed

2) Jonna (LW: 2)

Regular Challenge Jonna would have done whatever she could (incessant whining, playing the victim card, etc.) to stay out of elimination if she saw the carousel spinning her way.

All-Stars Jonna though? “Fuck that, just put me in directly I ain’t afraid of no ghost. Suck on all three of those stars when we get back to the house.”

It’s on you to decide which of those versions you like the best. I have a feeling I know which version she likes best.

1) Jordan (LW: 1)

“Hey Jordan, why don’t you wear your sweet Under Armor uniform like everybody else?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

Thanks for reading! See you later this week for Episode 6 Winners & Losers! And as always, Happy Challenge Watching!!!