The Challenge: All-Stars 3 Power Rankings — Week 6

Welcome back to another edition of Power Rankings! We’re getting down to the needy greedy, as there are only a dozen All-Stars left in Panama to duke it out. So let’s parse through the remaining roommates. Inside this week: We figure out what those stars really mean, Brad sticks up for his buddy Mark, Jordan’s cowboy bonafides come into question, 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 (E)

15) Yes (E)

14) MJ (Last Week: 3)

Full List of Back-To-Back Season Winners Since Fresh Meat 2

— Tyler: Cutthroat/Rivals

— Johnny: Rivals/Exes

— CT: Double Agents/Spies, Lies & Allies

That’s it. That’s the entire list.

Going back-to-back on The Challenge in the modern era is borderline impossible. Tyler dug through the depths of adversity for his back-to-back. Johnny earned his back-to-back wins, conspiracy theories may be the undercurrent, but it’s truly just water under the bridge. CT earned Double Agents and then won Spies, Lies & Allies because everyone somehow forgot he was there due to the sheer volume of rookies skewing the focus of the rest of the house.

The game got the best of MJ this time around, as he spent the majority of the time playing from his heels and fending off nagging injuries and even naggier roommates.

The point is, and all due respect to MJ, but there’s a reason that those names are the only ones on the list of back-to-back winners.

13) Sylvia (LW: 6)

As the big homie Icarus once did, Sylvia flew a little too close to the sun this season. Outside of Brad nobody has done better in daily challenges this season, and her social foundation was strong as a rock.

Her working hypothesis that the Treehouse would just keep winning challenges and remain in power wasn’t exactly a bad one. Based on five challenge/elimination cycles she had no reason to think otherwise. Sure, life can change fast in The Challenge house. And if anyone knows that, it’s one-half of the only partnership to go wire-to-wire during Final Reckoning. Where the rules were made up, and the points didn’t matter.

But if you want to make The Challenge Gods laugh, tell them your plans. And Sylvia felt their subtle wrath in a whiplash-inducing way.

12) Veronica (LW: 12)

Which happens first…Does Veronica get thrown in front of the oncoming Elimination Mac Truck by Kailah? Or does Veronica push Roni in front of it to save herself?

Which came first? The chicken or the trampoline?

Sometimes the deeper questions are better left unanswered.

11) Nehemiah (LW: 14)

I had a buddy once who borrowed his other buddy’s Delorean, got into a car accident, ended up back in the 1950s, almost hooked up with a teenage version of his mom, and while he was inventing rock and roll this exact thing started happening to him until he was able to figure it out and get back to 1985 thanks to an extremely specific weather event occurring.

Good times.

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

Honestly, Jonna, if you guys all go to Burger King one more time without me I’m gonna be furious. After the shrimp taco debacle earlier, I’m starting to feel disrespected. Everyone here, and everyone at home watching, specifically knows how much I like Burger King.

9) Roni (LW: 9)

I’ll tell ya what. If I had a nickel for every time I was one missing piece away from winning a daily challenge, I’d be able to retire to the Maldives and dance the night away with tall, beefy men while Agent Ed’s Mom and I fill up on Peking Duck and scallion pancakes.

It happens to the best of us, Roni. Get ‘em’ next time.

8) Kellyanne (LW: 13)

One of the most important pieces of furniture one can have through essentially every stage of life is a great nap couch.

A couch that you can just throw on an episode of a TV show you’ve seen a hundred times and just crush a nap for two hours on a Sunday afternoon after a long morning at the farmer’s market.

That couch in the FaceTime room looks unbelievably comfortable. It’s a little too deep to be encompassing for sitting in a social setting. But as an afternoon nap couch, as an everyone else in the world just leave me the fuck alone for a minute nap couch, that thing looks A1. I bet the air conditioning’s real nice in that little room too. And when the lights are off…I’m getting comatose just imagining it.

It’s wide enough for the back/front sleepers out there. Even has enough room to akimbo your legs a little. But it’s especially great for side sleepers (I might be biased as this section applies directly to me) who can sort of lift a leg on top of those plush pillows. Providing an optimal hip stretch crucial to a quality afternoon nap.

This house gets better and better the more I see of it. Who wants to go to Panama with me? Let’s all get together and rent it out for a weekend. It’ll be me, you, and Sloan Kettering. And we’ll be blazing that shit all day.

What were we talking about again?

7) Kailah (LW: 7)

The worst part of Sylvia leaving, outside of all the house stuff we aren’t privy to, is that she’s clearly next.

Who knows, maybe next week is another paddle boarding contest. Maybe it’s something that Roni is specifically good at. It could be anything! (Editor’s Note: The preview for next week clearly says that it’s Trivia week. Keep up, nerd)

The point is unless Kailah secures a win of her own, why wouldn’t she just be next in line for every woman to bring up (except maybe Veronica) in the deliberation room? It would make sense for Roni at this point, as she’s gotta know that she’s the lowest branch in the Tree House. Which leaves Jonna, Kellyanne, and Nia. Now we’re wading knee-deep in hypothetical game bullshit when the point remains simple.

Any reason is the best reason to be voted into elimination. One half of your extremely exposed alliance taking a poison arrow to the neck and perishing from it is a Capital R Reason to be voted in the very next week.

6) Nia (LW: 11)

Over and over again I am fascinated by the pure adrenaline rush that surges through a person when they win an elimination round.

Nia, who has only shown an ounce of emotion this season that time she said might cry when Jordan got chosen to go into elimination. But even then I’m pretty sure Yes was weirdly the only one that shed that a tear.

Nia, who’s never exactly been a bastion of stoicism in her illustrious reality television career, has remained the most stoic member of the cast thus far.

Nia, who even when chosen as a dance partner seemingly on a whim by Sylvia, remained quiet, calm, and confident when many in the past (including her) haven’t remained so in that exact situation.

That Nia flew through the back-of-the-Cocoa Puffs-box maze, hit her sand billiards shot in one try, then let out a primal scream that equated to all those emotions she was managing to suppress for almost six entire episodes now. The emotion poured out of her like she was Kevin Garnett finally reaching the pinnacle of basketball.

It’s the only thing part of the human experience I feel like I’m totally missing out on by not being on The Challenge. The partying and the hooking up and jumping from semi-truck to semi-truck and all that shit…sure yeah looks fun I guess. But those are feelings you can seek out on your own if you really wanted to.

But that feeling, that pure unfiltered methamphetamine rush that one attains by vanquishing somebody who was once on The Real World in front of 10-Time X Games Gold Medalist TJ Lavin remains completely unattainable to us normies in our regular life.

Anything truly is possible I guess.

5) Wes (LW: 5)

Speak for yourself dude. Pretty much all of my friends have played a reality competition show with their exes a decade-plus later. God, classic myopic Wes. Can’t see any further than himself. Cows don’t change their stripes, amirite?!

4) Derrick (LW: 10)

What do we think the stars mean? Knowing The Challenge, each star will represent a one-second head start in the Final or something else completely underwhelming. But let’s just roll through some possibilities…

• Each star represents 15% off at the Official Challenge Merch site on MTV.com
• Whoever has the most stars gets to take free BMX lessons from none other than TJ Lavin himself at the conclusion of the season.
• Nothing. Patty in Wardrobe has just been a real pain lately with her mass e-mails about office microwave etiquette so they’re trying to come up with busy work to keep her occupied.
• They give you the ability to ward off shells, bananas, and other various shenanigans for a small amount of time in Mario Kart.
• Each star you have represents one less alligator you have to wrestle at the beginning of the Final. Maximum five alligators at once. Minimum one.
• There are no stars. They’re a figment of all of our imaginations. The stress of the last few years has given us all a collective carbon monoxide poisoning and when we go to re-watch this season in a few months the stars will have never existed in the first place.

Yeah, no, most likely they’ll represent a twelve-second head start. A boy can dream I guess.

3) Jonna (LW: 2)

Can you imagine how bored she’s going to be? And more specifically how bored her fingers are gonna be?

Without MJ’s Ruth Langmore locks to lounge around and twist up, how the hell is she gonna occupy her time? She could braid her own hair, but that’s played out. Veronica’s got nice hair, but that might be a little too familiar for people on opposite sides of the game.

I know…she should just start braiding Brad’s beard!

It’s official, if Brad’s beard isn’t braided heading into next week’s daily challenge, these Power Rankings will cease to be and will be totally replaced by a running retrospective on Josh’s Greatest Meltdowns and Fessy’s Funniest Moments.

It all rests on your shoulders, Jonna. No pressure.

2) Bionic Brad & His Bionic Beard (LW: 4)

“I just thought it was out of character the way you left a mess in the kitchen after you made those shrimp tacos. It was selfish, Sylvia. Not all of us are able to eat shrimp due to our belief systems. I had to have a thirty-minute conversation with Mark earlier just to keep him from throwing your suitcase in the pool. He almost didn’t come to the party! Next time you make such an insensitive meal, at least clean up after yourself. Or at the very least don’t leave discarded shrimp tails laying around all willy-nilly. In reality, it’s not about shrimp tacos or ice cream or pizza. It’s about people and respecting people in general. For the greater good of everybody. It’s called community. Think about that. Marinate on that. Get back to me.”

“Brad, I didn’t make shrimp tacos. That was Nehemiah.”

1) Jordan (LW: 1)

I mean, how good of a cowboy is Jordan really?

I’ve never seen him with a horse. I’ve never seen him on a ranch. I’ve never seen him on an episode of Yellowstone. I’ve never seen him reading a Larry McMurtry novel. I’ve never seen him around a cow. I’ve never seen him around a boy. I’ve never seen him wearing chaps. I’ve never seen him playing football in Dallas. I’ve never seen him watch Gunsmoke. I’ve never seen him chew on a long piece of wheat. I’ve never seen him with Lil Nas X.

Idk man, seems kinda fishy to me. If you have evidence regarding any of the above scenarios, tweet @fessyfitness, and he and I will review and get back to you next week.

Thanks for reading! See you later on this week for my Episode 7 Winners & Losers! And, as always, Happy Challenge Watching!!!