The Challenge: An Elimination Examination Vol. 4 — Katie

Eliminations are a funny thing. No aspect of The Challenge is more random. One day you can show up with a game tailor made to your strengths, and the next you can arrive to a contest to see who can eat the most bowls of mayonnaise.

Either way, they’re an unavoidable hurdle, whether you participate directly or pull the puppet strings like a hot reality TV Geppetto. So to celebrate that fact, let’s take a deep dive into some of the most interesting competitors this game has seen, and go round by round, game by game, and really break down how they got there, why they got there, and what happened afterwards.

So for Elimination Examination number four, let’s deep dive into who I consider to be the greatest middle finger thrower in reality television history, Katie.

#1 — The Gauntlet, Episode 2 — Ride ’Em Cowboy

While Katie’s life in this world was only just out of utero, The Challenge Gods dropped the needle on a record which would go on to spin in perpetuity.

Throughout this article, something you’ll notice along the way is that while the song playing over the speakers remains the same, Katie’s reaction, on the other hand, evolves in a fascinating way over time.

But before we get to her, I would be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to discuss a conversation between Elka and Montana, who is Katie’s opponent in this upcoming elimination round.

This conversation revolves around how the two of them are too old for this. About how they “can’t keep up with these kids”, as Montana puts it.

Montana is 29 at this time. Which, to be fair to her, is pretty old for a Challenge person at that time. She mentions how she has a life and a job, making caring about these things difficult.

Kaycee was 32 when Total Madness aired.

Life comes at you fast.

Anywho, thanks to none other than Handjob Steve himself (though, back then, he was probably just Road Rules Steve, or just simply Steve, but we’re from the future so we’re gonna stick with Handjob Steve) Katie’s Road Rules team comes away from that daily challenge victorious.

Which seems great, but the way the rules worked during this season, winning was merely a way to earn more money for your team’s bank account. Someone still had to be voted in from each team.

This wasn’t gendered either. Each team could vote in a man or woman, regardless of which direction the other team goes. So who does Road Rules choose?

Katie!

Why do they choose to do so?

Well, according to them, they think she has a good chance to go in and win.

Now that we’ve all seen 30+ seasons of this show since that moment originally aired, we all know that they’re all totally full of shit.

To reach that same conclusion, Katie only needed 36 hours.

Even with only a sliver of time playing this game, Katie was both self aware and Challenge aware enough to call them all out. She says so herself, she sucks at this stuff.

Katie goes into full on Katie mode, mothereffin this, mothereffin that. Being lied to, according to her, is what she hates the most. What we’re seeing is possibly the first recorded case of gaslighting on reality television.

She reaches the personal conclusion that she would rather pack her bags and leave (this is also a pre-TJ world, to be fair to her) rather than give her teammates the satisfaction of getting what they wanted at her expense.

But like most Challengers do, she caved, decided to stay, and after a heavy Challenge jargon conversation wither former RV-mate Adam Larson, re-dedicated herself to winning for the sake of her team.

While wearing capri pants, stoned hall monitor Johnny Moseley handed her the dice which would determine their game, and since Road Rules won, Katie was responsible for rolling it. She landed on what amounts to a contest to see who can ride a mechanical bull the longest.

No, they’re not at a Bachelorette party in Nashville, despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary.

Everyone seems confident in Montana’s chances for a variety of reasons. None of which seem to be the fact that her name is Montana. So the ladies get outfitted in cowboy hats and take their places on their mechanical bulls. It’s noteworthy to mention that all of this is taking place adjacent to a hotel pool, which means that some lucky thirteen year old boy who’s stuck on a trip with his parents he didn’t want to go on, just might look out of his window and have his entire life changed.

It’s not long before Montana and her old bones are unable to withstand the mechanical bull’s mild thrashing and grabs hold of the rope with her other hand, disqualifying her from the game, giving Katie and her Road Rules team the win.

• 1–0

#2 — The Gauntlet, Episode — Hangman

Rumors swirled throughout the women on the Road Rules team that Katie was acting as a double agent and relaying team secrets and strategies to the Real World side. When confronted about this, a confused Katie asks for elaboration.

Cara (nope, not that Cara, a much different, in fact likely the most different two people named Cara could possibly be) is able to muster up a low budget example of Katie telling the other team what their voting system was. Which seems trivial, but when you understand how tangled and complex a web their voting system weaved, this equivalence to selling state secrets is more digestible.

I’ll try and be brief, but efficiency will be difficult with this summary. The Road Rules team would all vote three names, throw them into one of Theo Von’s hats, then calculate the top three vote getters. Then the process would begin all over again, but this time each player could only vote on one of those three.

Got all that?

Super complicated right?

Imagine if the Real World team got a hold of that information? How many Razor scooters and Pottery Barn gift cards will they win because of this?

What I think was really going on is that they’re extremely bored and Katie happens to be their least liked friend. Which, we’ll come to find out, won’t be the last time she’s forced to deal with this social phenomenon.

She was also accused of being friends with members of the Real World team. A flawed line of thinking which would go on to almost completely ruin The Challenge USA Season 2 many years later. But for now, this was simply an empty accusation used to fill in the gaping hole Katie thrashed open in their story.

Because the results of the daily challenge don’t determine Katie’s safety, I’m not going to linger here for long. Another reason being because this was by far the most disgusting daily challenge…well, ever. Truly, ever.

With their hands tied behind their backs, each team took turns eating a giant (not giant in the way TJ Lavin describes a slightly large object before daily challenges, like, truly enormous) ice cream sundae. First team to lick their bowl clean wins.

What happens next is abhorrent, and turns into a bowl of melted ice cream combined with the snot, boogers, puke, spit, and saliva of the rest of the group. I’m now lactose intolerant having just taken a screenshot of the video file. I’m not really one to sit here and clutch my rosary beads when it comes to the situations the Challenge Gods put these people in (not to victim blame or anything, but they signed up, ya know). But this time, these people were genuinely not safe. How no one got sick is a miracle.

One important thing to note here, outside of a few of the smart ones (including Katie’s future opponent Rachel (nope, not that Rachel), who was the most vocal opponent of this nonsense) the rest of the group took this disgusting challenge as seriously as they could. Relative to the Big Brother Bullshit way of playing now, don’t win because then you have to actually do something, it’s astonishing how focused and relentless the cast acted during this when the stakes were the lowest they could possibly be.

The true secret ingredient to this show’s success. When the stakes were at their lowest is when the cast cared the most.

After a same shit, different toilet style of deliberation, including Rachel (this time, yes, that Rachel) vocally campaigning against Katie (that same vocal campaign would soon come to be just another track on the broken record of Katie’s Challenge life) and even though Real World knows their voting system, Road Rules manages to vote the same exact way, leaving Katie as their choice.

This time around, her name being called wasn’t met with anger, more of a begrudging acceptance. She did add one final request, though, of “please give me a break after this one”. Knowing how the rest of this season played out for her teammate Sarah Greyson, it’s safe to say this request would not have been granted and Katie would have stayed in this spin cycle until the rest of time.

Upon arrival to the hotel pool where they had their elimination rounds, Katie, who’s not wearing capri pants this time, and her opponent Rachel (not that Rachel, the Rachel from earlier who didn’t want to eat the ice cream (normally a sin, but considering the circumstances, I’ll give her a pass)) are called up to compete and Katie again is tasked with rolling the dice to determine their game.

This time she rolls a game called Hangman. Which, as you can see above, is a game where they have to hang from a bar for as long as they can. Not much else to it.

(Btw, this is just a fun little parlor trick for you, if you ever find yourself in a situation where you’re playing Hangman, when it comes to your turn, don’t say a single thing, act like you’re just putting down any other word, and then write out _ _ _ _ , which is just a four letter word, right? How hard could it be? Wrong, it’s very hard. Because the word you chose is JAZZ. And no one ever guesses J or Z. Don’t say it’s a tricky word though, because then the first letter they’ll guess is Z, ruining the whole thing. Eventually, they get the A. But that actually makes things worse, as your opponent is sent into a frenzy of wrong letters. The T’s and the S’s and the E’s will all go by the wayside, which will frustrate them, but then they’ll think they got it all figured out, and they guess Q, which we know is wrong. Then sometimes they’ll go with X, and after that’s wrong too, they usually give up or just guess letter after letter until the Z finally comes up. This plays out in the same way nine out of ten times, the only time it’s ever ruined is a stray Z guess, but I promise for whatever reason Q and X are always guessed before Z. Usually though, by then, you’re drawing fingers and toes on the hanging man just to keep the game going, which means they already lost many many turns ago. But in reality, they lost by ever agreeing to playing Hangman with you in the first place.)

Before the game starts, there’s a lot of talk about height being a factor when it comes to strategy. As you can see, Katie’s about five foot two and her opponent, Rachel, is a solid six foot five. Height, schmeight, though, as the game is over fairly quickly. Maybe the height discussion was just to distract Katie from the fact that she apparently has the grip strength of the butler from Scary Movie 2.

There’s not much that happens here, they hang for a little while, Katie struggles, Rachel doesn’t move at all, before eventually Katie loses her grip and goes splash. The only real noteworthy detail here is that Mike The Miz spent the entirety of their match-up screaming his head off for Rachel to hold on. If there were any questions whether this man would become a wrestling superstar, one only needs to watch this elimination round to see his future.

He did that the entire time.

Whether it was a lack of grip strength, or simply wanting The Miz to shut the fuck up, regardless, Katie let go first. Which is music to the ears of Rachel (not her opponent, she seemed nice, that Rachel) who is excited that the mole is finally off her team.

Katie returns to the house to pack (this is how they sent people home back then, no slow motion jogging away montages to be seen, they probably couldn’t even afford slow motion) and shares a good-bye beer with Trishelle, who either got into a bike accident (the truth) or went against The Undertaker in a Hell in the Cell match (Could you imagine Trishelle getting choke slammed by The Undertaker? I wish you could force yourself to have certain dreams.)

Katie warns Trishelle of how shady her teammates are, a message Trishelle probably couldn’t hear or comprehend because she’s currently leaking spinal fluid. She then walks out of the house, her first Challenge experience over and capped off with hugs and well-wishes from the rest of the group.

Never again will Katie be ganged up on and ostracized by her own team.

That chapter of her Challenge life is behind her.

Lol, yeah right…

• 1–1

#3 — The Inferno, Episode 12 — Scratchathon

Before we talk about Katie’s third elimination, let’s fast forward many many years in the future…

Before she went up against Nia, Cara Maria was not anywhere close to the Cara Maria we all know now. She was still seen as a whiny, annoying player who isn’t any sort of real threat in these games (in this case, perception had not caught up to reality, as Cara had already “proved herself” before this elimination, but on this show, most times, perception is more important than reality is). Yet after her elimination round against Nia, one that lasted hours and sent Nia to the hospital, Cara showed a determination and lack of quit which would define her time here, receiving a co-sign from TJ Lavin in the process.

That was Cara’s star turn.

She was a made woman in the fans eyes after that. Love her, hate her, like her, dislike her, it doesn’t matter. After that moment, one way or another, we cared about Cara Maria.

What makes this show special, though, is that #StarTurns like the one Cara took on Free Agents are all built differently. Some come from digging-in and pulling a novel strength from deep within you. Others, as we’ll see, come from middle fingers and cavalier f-bombs directed, essentially, straight towards Jesus Christ himself.

A second important detail before we go any further, the elimination rounds on The Inferno were, um, well they were fucking insane. I’d try and think of a flowery way to put it, but it’s the work of an insane person who watched Fear Factor during an ayahuasca trip. Here’s a description from Wikipedia of the elimination round between Kendal and Leah from later in the season…

Brick by Brick: The players must transfer their bricks one at a time from one pile to the next, while walking across a plank. Players are disqualified if they drop a brick, break one, or fall off the plank. Whoever has transferred the most bricks at the end of three and a half hours wins.

THREE AND A HALF HOURS!

Not only were they marathon length for reasons that remain unclear, the cast drank vodka lemonades out of red solo cups the entire time. Meaning that by the end of these games, the entire group was LOADED. So loaded that binging more than three episodes of The Inferno at a time will cause you to fail a breathalyzer test.

That being said, as this episode kicks off, Katie is beginning to hear the sound of that broken record playing yet again.

We begin with her future opponent, Julie, repenting for her sins from last week. Those sins being getting aggressive towards Coral and threatening to fight her, or, wrestle her. Leading to Coral’s iconic “I don’t wrestle, I beat bitches up” moment.

Keeping with the theme, when pondering whether or not God is real, one could argue that Coral saying “I don’t wrestle, I beat bitches up” is all the proof of God’s existence that we’ll ever need.

Which brings us to Katie, who has once again found herself in the position of the group’s least liked friend. Especially when compared to her ultimate nemesis, Veronica, who was presented as a mix between Queen Cersei and Vito Corleone for the majority of The Inferno.

This power was leveraged into the ability to hatch a “throw the mission to get rid of Katie” plan with what seemed to be a 100% approval rating. What came next was a total mockery of competition. Unfolding with complete transparency, Katie was wise the game before things even began. Noting that everyone was ignoring her, which to this day is a classic Challenge sign that something is amiss.

Normally unflappable, it wasn’t until Abram’s turn, where he went over-the-top even for Abram standards with his anti-competitive histrionics, that Katie finally cracked.

It’s hard to say whether tears and embarrassment were Veronica’s ultimate goals here, but she achieved them either way. Complete with a montage of the group laughing at how this whole thing is shaking down.

Despite David’s best efforts (more on him in a bit), Real World pulled out a victory, and Don Veronica managed to get exactly what she wanted.

Back at the house, while preparing for her Inferno later, Katie spots Abram wearing a red bandana (As well as one of The Miz’s branded shirts, two black sweatbands on his wrists like 1997 Patrick Ewing, all while holding a football as if he were about to hit the hole on 3rd and 1. None of these details seem to be as important to Katie as they are to me). Rightfully so, considering how her afternoon went, Katie calls him out for wearing Real World colors, which is merely him doubling down on his hurtful antics from earlier. Of course he denies these allegations, but the message has been clear from the beginning.

Katie is, officially, their least liked remaining friend.

Pictured above is Katie’s opponent Julie having a full on Jesus attack. Her connection to a higher power has been tested quite a few times this season, most notably when she legitimately tried to murder Veronica. Between that and her unsuccessful provocation of Coral, Julie had had enough of the Devil, which culminates in her pleading for Jesus’s help tonight in the Inferno.

I understand that if God were to exist they would be an all encompassing God and care the same for a squirrel in Canada as they would for a former Real World roommate somewhere in Mexico or whatever. That being said, just based on the behavior of every single person in this house up to this point, God most certainly was not paying any attention to them at all.

Host Dave Mirra explains the rules. The two competitors will be covered in itching powder, wearing a full track suit, and must walk on a treadmill for THREE HOURS (!). If they’re still going after THREE HOURS (!), they then will jump rope until one of them messes up.

In other words, we used to be a real country.

Similar to the Nany vs. Georgia elimination in War of the Worlds, members of the opposing team are tasked with applying the itching powder. Veronica gives Julie the once over, quarter-assing her way through it. CT, on the other hand, liberally pours it onto Katie as if he were salting pasta water.

Right away, both teams make it known that they’re actively cheering for the opposite player. Road Rules wants Julie to win, Real World wants Katie to win. Which is the sort of thing that still happens to this day in some form or another, yet we don’t hear about it so directly because these days the cast isn’t getting sloshed on cocktails for THREE HOURS(!).

Eventually, Julie, the ultimate troll, in an attempt to stir the pot, asks if they can turn the treadmills up. Here’s a transcript of the exchange directly following this…

Katie: Fuckin’ jog dude. Turn it on aerobic. Put it on performance. You wanna fucking run so bad then fucking jog.

Julie: We’ll both jog and have a great time.

Katie: Well you fucking jog, I don’t wanna fucking jog. Idiot.

Julie: Well you’re just delaying the inevitable, dude.

Katie: What’s the fucking inevitable? Bitch, wait ’til I fucking get off this. You fucking think Coral’s a bitch wait ’til you fuck with me. No, now I’m fired up. I’m ready to go. So let’s do this shit.

Coral, your thoughts?

They talk a little more shit, “I’m not tired” “Well I’m not tired either”, before the three hours is mercifully up. Both step off and stretch out for the jump rope portion. Julie claims she can jump rope for hours on end for fun. Katie asks for some practice jumps and it’s clear that she hasn’t wielded a jump rope since high school gym class.

Not only that, but Julie has Jesus Christ on her side.

Katie’s up against a lot.

And then it just sort of ends. Julie very quickly hits her ankle with the jump rope and to the shock and awe of those around her, Katie walks off victorious, dropping just a few more f-bombs on her way out.

This is hilarious to both Coral and Veronica. Why is it so funny? The liquor, probably.

• 2–1

#4 — The Inferno, Episode 16 — Smell Ya Later

The episode prior ends with both Veronica and Coral winning the Life Shield. Which affords them the power to swap themselves out of the Inferno and choose their replacement.

Coral approaches her teammate David Burns to inform him he would be going into the Inferno in her place. David was a unique soul who would have been a YouTube star like Jake Paul or some shit had he been born twenty years later. I’m pretty sure I read somewhere, and we all know the internet is a facts-only situation, his mom and CT’s mom were friends and so he and CT were friends growing up. He also, and this is slightly more documented than his mother’s friend circle, started dating the Real World casting director while filming his season of The Real World.

Can’t make this stuff up (at least not the second part, the first one still might be fictional). None of that is relevant to anything really at all. Just wanted to take this opportunity to yet again mention that we used to be a real country.

Anywho, Katie did not get the same courtesy conversation from Veronica. Yet she knew she’d be the choice either way. Her greatest sins at the time were “being Katie” and “taking attention away from Veronica”. Combine those two atrocities, seen as two of the worst possible things a person could do early in this show’s timeline, and add in “being a woman” (by far the biggest taboo in this society) and Katie was really up shit’s creek without a paddle.

Red solo cup in hand, Katie walks into this night’s Inferno pissed off. This time, not at her team, and not because she was provoked. Instead, Katie’s ire was directed at one person and one person only.

This pot of water would soon boil over, spill out, and flood a messy bedroom with merely an already-being-utilized-washcloth to clean it all up, but more on that soon.

Now that David and Katie are officially tonight’s competitors, host Dave Mirra explains the rules. Another long ass game, these two will have to lay in a glass coffin while various foul smelling objects are poured onto them for FOUR HOURS(!).

FOUR. HOURS.

When’s the last time you were anywhere for four hours? Other than work. Try and think of the last time you did any one single thing for four hours straight.

The list of what we saw poured on top of them were…

— Fish heads

— Spoiled rotten eggs

— Spoiled milk

— Cow tongues

— Cow intestines

Could you imagine Fessy and Josh doing something like this?

It’s as if the Challenge Gods busted out Brad’s unicorn emoji stash and stayed up watching a Fear Factor marathon before they came up with this one. None of it even made sense. They just had to lay in rotten food waste for four hours. Not difficult at all, just annoying.

As you can imagine, both of them lasted the entire time. Now this is where it gets actually hilarious, because the tiebreaker they came up with, clearly an idea born out of them forgetting to come up with an idea, was to hold their head under the rotten egg/milk/cow-innards water until one of them came up for air first.

Katie tells her team before they begin to make sure and tap on the glass when this is over because she’ll “die down here”. David, on the other hand, can’t believe he’s actually doing this, and goes into this with not quite the same killer instinct.

Soon enough, David pops his head up, leaving Katie victorious and covered in rotten dairy product.

• 3–1

It would be irresponsible of me to not tie a bow (and what a bow it is) on this Katie/Veronica storyline. For the most part, moving forward, circumstances dictate that Veronica will cease to be her foil. Yet the ideas put on wax by Queen V in this time period form the track list written onto the back-side of the broken record playing throughout Katie’s Challenge life.

There are certain people who would take this treatment with an eye roll, or cower in fear of the social pecking order, acquiescing to those seen as more powerful than themselves.

But this is Katie we’re talking about.

Back at the house, at some undetermined time after this elimination round, Katie confronts Veronica in what is one of the most verbally violent encounters in this show’s history. She calls Veronica a “slut” and every single derivative of that word you can possibly think of. She also uses short as an adjective before a few of the “skanks” and “whores” which is wonderful considering they both would lose a contest to see who was 5'2". If the “whores”, “sluts”, and “skanks” weren’t enough to get her point across, Katie accentuates it via suggestion that Veronica simply, “sleep with some more of the cast.”

That is pure, unadulterated rage.

All the while, Veronica isn’t wearing a shirt. Instead, she’s covering her nipples with a washcloth.

Eventually, future WWE Heavyweight Champion The Miz flies in off the top rope to break things up. He pulls Katie out of the room and convinces her to calm down. He does this by offering to go out to a local bar just the two of them (this is a thing that used to happen).

One day, I hope to ask him which of the two, becoming the WWE Heavyweight Champion, or breaking up the Veronica/Katie fight on The Inferno, was the more difficult feat to accomplish.

#5 — Fresh Meat, Episode 10 — Beach Course

“Destiny is something that we’ve invented because we can’t stand the fact that everything that happens is accidental.”

— Meg Ryan, Sleepless in Seattle

Both iterations of Fresh Meat, whether this was accidental or a natural by-product of the format itself, wound up forming some of the most fascinating and complicated inter-personal dynamics between seemingly unconnected people outside of a Real World season MTV has ever produced.

Eve through a wholesale absence of romance, there is no denying the glaring kismet in the partnership between Katie and Big Easy.

But we won’t truly understand that for another three seasons.

With the tenth choice (second to last male option behind Ryan (yes, that Ryan)) in the first ever Fresh Meat draft, Katie chooses Eric. Two sides of the same coin. They shared the same “not very good at Challenge related stuff” affliction. As well as the possession of a high-level ability at being exactly who they are. They also share the distinction of being the Cool Kid’s Least Liked Friend (at least on TV).

Where the difference lies is if Katie is the most self-aware Challenge person to ever live, Eric, back then at least, was equally as delusional.

Speaking of unlikable, there are two things about Fresh Meat I feel the need to point out before we continue.

1 — Just like on Fresh Meat II, the elimination rounds were slightly different than usual in that they were called Exiles. In the most concise way possible, I’ll just describe these Exiles as mini-finals. A long race with puzzles and strategy involved. The wrinkle this season, though, was that the weight each team had to carry was determined by the collective weight of their luggage.

Why this has never been brought back is sort of wild because that’s the greatest idea they’ve ever had (could you imagine how light Moriah’s bag would have been for Season 39?), but that’s a different podcast for a different day.

2 — This is where the unlikable part comes in. If you look again at Wes’s haircut in the photo above, you might get an idea of why, but from the minute he showed up on the scene, Wes rubbed basically each and every one of his peers the wrong way. To be fair to him, he was put in the unfair position of “veteran” while he was also a rookie. On top of that, he was just coming off of his Real World season, which transcended standard Real World popularity (We as a society cared more about Danny and Melinda back then than we do about anything right now besides the NFL and politics), and he was genuinely, at the time, one of the most famous living Americans.

Whatever it was, there was something in the air. Leading to Wes and his partner Casey (who seemed to be extremely popular, further elaborating how unlikable Wes was amongst his peers) getting voted in by the group over and over and over again.

Part of why, and I’d argue the most important part, they repeatedly got voted in was also because they kept winning.

And part of why they were winning was because Wes and Casey were both efficient packers. Their bags weighed less than everyone else’s by a minimum of twenty pounds (over one hundred in others). Isn’t this show amazing? All of these years later, these wins count the same as any of Wes’s other wins. Yet had he decided to pack a couple extra pairs of jeans, and had a stranger he never met in his life named Casey Cooper decided to throw some just-in-case boots and heels into her bag, his whole reputation twenty years later might be different.

All of this leads us back to the conversation seen above. This deep in the game, Katie and Eric finally find themselves on the precipice of an Exile. Seeing an opportunity to increase his chances of winning, Wes pulls Katie aside and unloads all of the information he’s gathered about the Exile.

Whether Katie was listening and/or absorbing this information is beyond me.

Despite being voted in, the following daily challenge Katie and Eric still had a chance to earn a Life Shield and save themselves. They didn’t, and there’s really no use in spending time discussing it. Except for one crucial detail which would make me a bad Challenge blogger for ignoring.

The prize for winning that daily challenge, aside from the Life Shield?

A year’s subscription to Netflix.

I wonder what sort of movies Katie would have ordered if she won? This is all reckless speculation, but for whatever reason, Katie doesn’t really seem like a movie person to me. I’m sure she watches them just through societal osmosis, but I get the sense that she gleans nothing from the human condition while watching. If you asked her about themes or anything like that, the response would probably be “what the fuck’s a theme?”

Alas, no Netflix for her. She’d have to use her friend’s roommate’s account like all of the rest of us. What she did get was a one-way ticket to the Exile against Kenny and Tina.

And they got smoked.

Arguing most of the time, Katie and Eric hardly got through puzzle number one before Kenny and Tina crossed the finish line. Despite the intensity-level rising during this elimination round, the most notable facet of Katie’s time on this season was just how low of a frequency she was vibrating at. Just the absence of Veronica and most of the Cool Kids (the old Cool Kids, though she inadvertently found herself at the center of the petri dish which would grow the next wave of Cool Kid fungi, but she didn’t know that quite yet), she was no longer the house’s Least Liked Friend.

She just got to be Katie.

For the first time, the broken record was muted, and Katie was able to finally listen to another song. And it seemed like she really dug that genre of music. All trends though, even those inside of the Challenge house, are unfortunately cyclical.

• 3–2

#6 — Gauntlet III, Episode 8 — Sliders

The Gauntlet III was a tough season within a tough era as far as any sort of women-and-men-were-created-equal pretense is concerned. Which puts our hero Katie, who has never suffered fools and/or trifled with bullshit, in a sticky spot. For years she has found herself in an awkward position where her lack of on-field prowess bumps directly against her hyper-competitive, hyper-masculine, hyper-ego-fueled cast mates.

“Trim the Fat” is an idiom born from the foundation laid by the Cool Kids of Challenge past.

The episode opens with Katie, a member of the Veteran team, enjoying a cigarette while being approached by the leader of the Rookie team, Frank, (I have a theory that Bunim Murray took this Frank, shoved him into their people creator machine, turned all the dials up to eleven, and transformed him into Frank Sweeney. I mean, have you ever seen them in the same room together?), who would go on to spend the remainder of his time there staring off into the abyss with his mouth agape like a rookie quarterback who just threw their third interception of the half. Their discussion revolves around letting Katie know they want to give her her best chance to win an elimination round.

His point?

The same point teams have been making to Katie since the minute she showed up here. You suck, therefore, you’re an asset to the other team. How can we help you help us?

Frank all but lets her know that if (and when) she does pull the game ‘Sliders’ that he will be there to walk her through every step of the way. Katie’s response to all of this is to mostly take aggressive drags of her cigarette.

Does anyone else want to take up smoking, or is it just me?

After a freezing cold daily challenge that her team threw for the specific purposes of “trimming the fat” aka “getting rid of Katie”, she announced her feelings regarding what she knows deep down will be her immediate future.

Considering the same lie has been playing over and over again in her ear since she started, I’d probably hate being lied to just as much.

The Rookies votes in Paula, under the impression that Katie could potentially beat her, while the Veteran team does exactly what Katie assumed they would. Only Big Easy and Robin refused to say Katie’s name. Which is fine, because, well, Katie, your thoughts?

This bravado was an inspiration. After some light Googling (you cannot underestimate how little time I put into this fact finding mission) it seem as though a gauntlet, as the Challenge Gods are using it, refers to “a form of corporal punishment in which the party judged guilty is forced to run between two rows of soldiers, who strike out and attack them with sticks or other weapons.”

A perfectly encapsulating metaphor for Katie’s time on The Challenge if I’ve ever seen one.

While Katie and Paula may have been the actual elimination round competitors, because Katie landed on the Sliders game, what this became was Frank vs. Paula’s concubine, Adam, each telling the other exactly where to move the pieces at any given time.

While directing her, Frank sounded like a father who’s life hangs in the balance except his daughter, Katie, is the only one small enough to crawl into the space needed to save them. Condescending yet sweet, Katie was walked through, step-by-step, the entire puzzle.

Adam must have been smarter or luckier, though, because Paula eventually finished her puzzle before Katie/Frank was able to. History would suggest that this is about the time where Katie snaps at her team, says mean things about them, before walking off underneath a voice-over confessional featuring her doing more of the same.

Except this time, her ire is more pointed. Pointed straight at Adam. Incredulous at the idea of him being so vocally helpful towards her opponent, Katie gives everyone a hug except him on the way out, and rather than mother-effing her teammates, mother-effs Adam directly instead.

Given what we now allegedly know about his alleged actions towards various women cast members, this particular ire may have actually been about something much bigger than a slide puzzle on the beach.

• 3–3

Three seasons after Fresh Meat, Katie was eliminated from The Gauntlet III, yet her former partner would remain. What happened to Big Easy that day would be the catalyst which would inform decision-making on The Challenge for the foreseeable future. Carrying faint entrails which still exist to this day.

Big Easy paid the ultimate price while inadvertently proving all the Cool Kids who schemed and plotted like Game of Thrones characters to be totally right in their scheming and plotting. Totally right about everything Katie’s been hearing perpetually playing on her personal Challenge soundtrack. The unfortunate truth is that within this world, before and after Big Easy’s breakdown, the assholes were the ones telling the truth.

Katie began her Challenge life as the hypothetical example of what her Fresh Meat partner Big Easy would go on to manifest physically. In the worst way and at the worst time.

#7 — Duel II, Episode 4 — Push Over

For the first time in this whole run, Katie is participating in an elimination round that has nothing to do with her at all.

But before we get to Jenn’s fake shoulder injury and Nehemiah’s penchant for being passive aggressive, let’s start at the screen shot above. Normally, hearing this from Katie is a precursor for a bedroom shouting match. This season though, her frequency is once again turned down and this invitation to wrestle stems from a healthy, happy place.

First she challenges Dunbar, who is uninterested and probably too busy explaining protein macros to somebody.

Next up is MJ, future All Stars 2 champion and a somewhat disappointing and underwhelming Challenger who I’ve always considered to be a poor reflection of the merits of SEC football.

He is equally as uninterested.

She then goes after Derek (nope, not that Derek, and not the other one either), a combination of a helmet-less Buzz Lightyear and 2016 World Series Champion first baseman Anthony Rizzo, who plays along for at least a little while.

Finally, though, a willing opponent steps into the octagon.

Ruthie is tired of these wussy men being unwilling to beat up an older woman. “We used to be a real country!”, she shouted out for all to hear. So she takes matters into her own hands. What happens next would have been the most violent physical encounter in this show’s history had CT not attempted cannibalism a mere three episodes prior.

Remember when Fessy got kicked off of Spies, Lies, and Allies for kind of being mean to Josh?

Later on, during the daily challenge, Katie would be partnered with (who else?) Big Easy in a goofy challenge recently recalled on All Stars 4. This challenge requires wearing a bobblehead of yourself while running up a hill and go-karting down it.

Here are two Big Easy quotes regarding his feelings towards today’s challenge.

“I sweat making a cocktail.”

“I’m Big Easy, I don’t sprint up hills.”

Katie and Eric came in last.

In fact, by the time Katie waltzed up to the puzzle, every team had already completed theirs. Considering that last place wasn’t necessarily punished within the framework of the game itself, let’s just say fuck it and make a baseless accusation that they actually threw the daily because, as Big Easy said, he sweats makin’ a cocktail while sprinting up hill.

Even if TJ Lavin asks him to.

Back at the house, Katie’s future opponent Jenn is complaining about a shoulder injury. This would normally be a major Challenge no-no, except in this case, no one believes her. Jenn’s complaints are met with a “sure, sure, sure” by the rest of her roommates.

She even went so far as to get taken to the hospital. Upon return, Jenn says that the doctor said it can’t get any worse. Or, in real life speak, he said everything’s fine. After getting pelted with dozens of blasé you-gotta-do-what-you-gotta-do’s, Jenn almost gave up in her quest for somebody to say “No! Jenn! Please! Stay! It’s vital to my well being that you’re here!”.

Enter Nehemiah.

Despite seeming like a super normal guy who likes to smoke weed, light incense, and read books, Nehemiah at this moment is feeling ostracized from the group. They think he’s a weirdo. His quirks (normal hobbies for anyone) and disinterest in being exactly the same type of person as the Cool Kids (not a fratty white guy) is seen as a negative within this environment. Not to be accusatory here, but the optics of the only black guy being seen as the weird one is not lost on me with a full sky-cam view of the situation.

See what I mean? This one isn’t about Katie at all.

After being left for last in the pecking order, Jenn and her fake shoulder injury chose Katie as her opponent. They chose Push Over, which, as you can see, is just Hall Brawl without the hall where the goal is to knock your opponent off the platform. The first of three rounds goes to Jenn. Not because she pushed Katie off, rather Katie’s momentum led her a little too far. Round two was more of the same, some gentle shoving before Jenn misses and Katie is quick enough (lucky enough?) to pivot and push her in the back.

For the rubber match, Jenn decides to actually try and pretty quickly disposes of Katie, sending her flying off the platform as if Jenn were the starting fullback for the University of Wisconsin in a former life.

After being dismissed by TJ, a dejected Katie walks off without saying goodbye to anyone. In a moment which I feel exemplifies the Katie on The Challenge experience, the entire cast comes running up behind her to say the goodbye she refused to give them.

Within the walls of Challenge High School, Katie’s popularity has never been in question. Unfortunately for her, she happens to attend a school where gym class is the entire curriculum.

• 3–4

#8 — The Ruins, Episode 4 — Oh Ring

Between the return of Veronica and the New Cool Kids creating a hyper-aggro, hyper-fratty, hyper-masculine environment, what Katie lived on her short time during The Ruins was her Challenge nightmare. The broken record was back, and now it was playing at a volume most death-metal bands would deem problematic.

This journey begins with Katie finding a plunger in her bed. One, this is gross. Two, kind of hilarious? And three, this has apparently been an ongoing issue during her time there thus far. Part of the genius(?) of The Ruins was the Challenge Gods forcing the entire Champions team to sleep in the same bedroom. I can only imagine how terrible it smelled in there, but it also pushed a bunch of people who don’t really like each other that much into a single confined space.

Now add a plunger sitting on your bed into the mix.

Katie’s reaction was to call out Evan and Kenny for their bullying at what was the apex of their bully days. And by “call out”, what I mean is, swing the plunger around in the air, stick in in their faces, and slam it over and over again on what I’m pretty sure turned out to be Ibis’s bed.

Once this outburst was beginning to wind down, Kenny and Evan plead their case as to why them placing a plunger onto her bed wasn’t that big of a deal.

Katie, your thoughts?

In the meantime, on a much more serious note, what we otherwise saw this episode was a dark vision of addiction and severe mental health fragility placed into a world where those two things are amplified by a thousand. This episode isn’t available on Paramount+, and it’s for a good reason. Even watching it for the purposes of writing this article wasn’t exactly enjoyable.

Tonya should have never been on this season of the show. There’s a fine line between “great TV” and “unwell as a person”. It’s a line the producers are in the position of toeing for the sake of their jobs. And along the way, especially back then when that line was intentionally blurry. Looking back, it’s so obvious how messed up she was at the time. Yet I have to wonder if I’m saying that because now that I’ve had adult experiences and have seen those sort of issues first hand so I’m able to empathize, or whether or not it was obvious then but we were trained to ignore it for the good of televised product.

So while we can have fun about this plunger situation now, and more is to come in a minute, it’s important to understand that within the greater context of consequences, it’s little things like repeatedly placing a plunger in someone’s bed that, left unchecked, allows a certain type of person that will continue to push to feel the freedom to push the boundaries further and further to see what they can get away with.

It’s safe to say that on The Ruins, the New Cool Kids were left totally unchecked.

This is Sarah. Soon enough, this person is going to let this show swallow her whole to the point of no return. But for now, she’s a newbie. And now only is she a newbie, but she is a newbie desperate for the approval of the New Cool Kids. Though, to her, they were simply the Cool Kids.

Katie thinks this idea is moronic. It’s the idea she’s been fighting against since her second ever episode on the show. If the soundtrack of Katie’s Challenge life put on a live performance, Sarah would have been the first one in line for tickets.

What Sarah is smiling about in the photo above is that Katie has found yet another plunger in her bed, setting her off on the Cool Kids yet again. But this time, what really boils her ramen is that Sarah, the physical manifestation of her own Challenge tinnitus, is smiling and laughing at Katie (whether it was at Katie or at the situation doesn’t matter, all that matters is Katie’s perception) from across the room.

Katie digs deep into her bag of tricks, calling Sarah every insult under the sun. Unlike with Veronica, Katie doesn’t lean as much into the promiscuity. Rather this time, she emphasizes Sarah’s looks. Or, in her opinion, her lack of any good ones. Katie even criticizes Sarah’s tattoos, an arrow in her quiver unavailable in verbal spars of the past.

In the same way that Michael Jordan looks perfect while shooting a jump shot, nobody in the world throws a middle finger harder than Katie does.

Look at that stance! The pivot, the hip swivel towards her enemy, the full shoulder turn denoting distaste and disgust, the grimace, the subtle bicep flex. If anything else, you couldn’t create a more perfect 90 degree angle than Katie is with her elbow if you had the greatest protractor known to man.

After walking away victorious yet again in the daily challenge, a game where Katie was stuck with the job which required the least amount of Challenge related skill, the Champions team went into deliberations with a deliberate plan. A plan as well as full control of the votes. Meaning Katie was a sitting duck.

Though I have a feeling she knew that. Whether the idea was that she would beat the Cool Kid approval out of Sarah and go home later on down the line, or simply go home now, I think Katie was already making dinner reservations back at home. The living conditions sucked. Her roommates were even worse. If we can feel the toxicity in that house from our laptop screens fifteen years later, imagine what it was like to live there?

While suspended in the air, both players must both hold on to that bamboo ring as well as shake their opponent off. Best two of three. Katie wins round one, showing that some old dogs can learn new tricks. Sarah wins round two proving that new dogs can also, apparently, learn new tricks.

Has anyone ever accused a new dog of being unable to learn new tricks? That’s the best part, it’s 2024, it doesn’t matter. While modernity is stretching the fabric of society apart faster than it’s seams can keep it together, one of the greatest unintended consequences is that we’re so beyond the validity of the truth that I can just say shit like “new dogs can learn new tricks”, and while it may still be stupid no matter the year, I can pretend it’s a phrase people have been using for centuries and my only punishment will be something flippant like a seat on the House of Representatives.

Between rounds, both women volleyed middle fingers back and forth (again, look at that form, even whilst hanging in mid-air, she manages to flip Sarah off with the grace of Simone Biles performing a floor routine) until round three, the rubber match, when a rookie Sarah pulls off the upset (watching these people, especially Dunbar, twist themselves into a pretzel in the confessional room pretending to be shocked over this outcome is genuinely impressive) victory, securing absolutely zero genuine approval from the New Cool Kids along the way.

TJ sends Katie off with some kind words. Possibly the only kind words spoken by any member of the cast for the entirety of The Ruins. Katie then runs off the set, and heads home.

This doesn’t seem to bother her very much at all.

• 3–5

#9 — Cutthroat, Episode 4 — Swat

Fun fact, the week prior, Katie was already in an elimination round. The only reason it’s not included here is because her opponent Shauvon quit just before TJ was about to explain the rules.

Not only did she quit, she quit in the second most bizarre way someone has ever quit something on this show (Evelyn quitting mid-domination of Kellyanne during an elimination on The Ruins will forever be the most fascinating moment in this show’s history to me and if you think this article is long, wait until I finally decide to dive into the complicated mess of that one) by saying she’s not going to humiliate herself and have everyone call her a quitter so instead she’s just going to quit.

I’m serious, I’ve watched this clip six times now and I’m only 35% confident that I understand what the hell Shauvon was talking about.

Back to our hero, not only was Katie voted in last week, but her Challenge soulmate Eric was voted in as well. Though unlike her, Eric was forced to compete, pulling out a victory over noted dirt-bag Vinnie (also the second overall pick in this season’s opening draft but I’m almost positive they were drunk and sleep deprived because there is zero explanation otherwise, especially when you consider Dunbar (yes, that Dunbar) was picked first overall) in a dice/balance game which Katie most certainly would have lost. Possibly even to Shauvon.

Understanding the context of Katie, Eric, and the ending of The Gauntlet III has never been more important than this episode.

So, when Katie arrives back to the house, and she’s pissed off, I’m now starting to realize what she’s actually mad at. Take a step back from Veronica, the Cool Kids, the New Cool Kids, plungers, Sarah, Big Easy, what’s the only consistent through line from when this broken record started playing until now?

What she’s really mad at, it’s now become clear, is The Challenge itself.

In a game of good ole fashioned Challenge fun where they had to get from one place to another while banging into each other and getting into each others way in the process. Katie’s team, the Blue Team, had a fool-proof plan to have Derrick and Ty hold members of the opposing teams back while Katie and the rest of them ran off to the finish line unimpeded.

Want to make the Challenge Gods laugh? Come up with a plan.

The Blue Team lost. Again. A consistent approach they would go on to take throughout most of the season. That sound you’re now beginning to hear, you guessed it, is that damn volume knob turning up ever so slightly.

Katie’s problems are two-fold. One, she is forever mystically connected to Eric. And two, her team is full of high-level (or at least hypothetically high-level) competitors. Here’s the list of the remaining members of the Blue Team…

• Johnny Bananas (Goes without saying.)
• Derrick (Ditto.)
• Jenn (Not exactly the last two names, but by this point she was so Challenge Pilled that while her performative ceiling might not have been very high, the distance between that ceiling and her floor was almost nonexistent.)
• Ty (This is where that hypothetical comes in. Nobody in this world (besides Emily, probably) knew how disappointing he would end up being competitively. His scarf game wouldn’t come into question for a few more seasons as well.)
• Emily (Even Hellen Keller would only need one look at her to understand what was happening there.)

And then, of course, Big Easy. There is a beautiful irony in the fact that not a single one of the members of the Blue Team was effected directly by the Gauntlet III ending (The closest being NostraJohnny, who, after getting voted in over Eric earlier that season, warned all of his fellow Cool Kids of their future to such an accurate degree it’s almost eerie. This includes Eric literally (yeah, I went there) saying the words “I don’t go down” as a response. Don’t ever tell me this isn’t the greatest show in the world.) but their friends were definitely effected. The Cool Kids. Not only that, but they also watched the episode at home like the rest of us.

Being afraid of what we don’t know is human nature. The fear of being on the business end of something like the Gauntlet III Final washed any and all emotion off the faces of normally-somewhat-kind humans making up the rest of the Blue Team while approaching the discussion of who to vote in.

Likely because she correctly knew how her friend Eric was going to react, Katie volunteers herself as more of a conflict resolution technique than anything else. Her friend, though, did not have as much experience navigating a life where the same song plays in your head over and over and over again. Leading to Eric being visibly frustrated in what he sees as the group picking on him.

This whole conversation, this awkward dance around saying “Eric, we all saw the Gauntlet III Final, and that’s not going to happen to us” is still to this day echoing around the fringes of this show. Less Katie’s and Eric’s are getting cast now, but to pretend this idea is ancient history is to pretend we don’t live in the real world.

The hemming and hawing, as Katie pointed out on the second episode of this show she was ever on, was all for nothing. Katie and Eric were the Blue Team’s selections. And would have been every single week for all eternity had they continued winning eliminations. Performance had nothing to do with it. Once a record gets placed onto that perpetual turntable, stopping it from spinning is impossible.

Once the match-ups are set, Katie vs. Ayiiia (who has always existed as proof that Will Shortz doesn’t watch MTV because her name might be the most useful crossword puzzle answer of all time) and Eric vs. Luke, the group gets a surprise visit from TJ. This causes a stir because not only is it rare, it’s definitely not good news.

Because this show is the best, instead of anything scary and sinister, he hands each of the boys shaving cream and a fresh razor. Katie and Ayiiia did not receive any gifts, sad to say. To be fair to TJ though, the Barbie movie wouldn’t be out for another decade plus.

Now that the cast has something to do, just another layer of proof as to how bored one can be in a Challenge house, they excitedly gather to watch Eric and Luke shave.

I’m not sure if three beautiful, bruised, and battered women wearing bikinis watching me shave is a fantasy or a nightmare, but I’m sure I’ll have a better idea by tomorrow morning.

While faces are being shaven upstairs, speculation as to it’s purpose runs amok throughout the rest of the house.

That’s true, Derrick, they might have to put goggles on their beards.

No bad ideas in a brainstorm.

Brandon, The Assassin himself, has a suggestion which is easily my favorite of them all…

Brad, on the other hand, remains convinced something somewhere is going to be set on fire…

How can you not be romantic about The Challenge?

When they arrive to the scene above, generic metal music is playing in the background in order to make things seem scary and dangerous. The same brand of “metal” that plays during scenes in the troubled teenagers bedroom on episodes of Law & Order.

Turns out, this torture chamber is actually just a game where they smack each other with fly swatters of varying sizes until one of them gives up. If that doesn’t happen, they have to do the same while holding a bucket in the air.

In what has to be the first and only elimination round where the opponents spent the majority of the time laughing at how silly the other one looks, both Katie and Ayiiia managed to sustain whacks of a fly swatter without giving up. Leading to the bucket round.

While there may be no i in team, there are three i’s in Ayiiia. Sadly, though, none of them were able to help overcome a complete lack of arm strength. Much to the dismay of her Blue teammates, Katie walks out of the elimination round victorious for the first time since the night Dave Mirra poured rotten eggs and spoiled milk on her face.

What follows her victory is a confessional from Katie stating how she’s not stupid and knows that despite her victory she’s going to be voted in again by her team.

I say time is a flat circle everywhere but the Challenge house a lot around here. And I still stand by that. But like anything in life, there will always be an exception. For Katie, in any given Challenge house, time truly is a flat circle. The same confessionals, the same bullshit. What’s true on The Gauntlet is true on The Inferno is true on Cutthroat.

On a long enough timeline, everyone on this show is given an opportunity to evolve and grow.

Everyone except for Katie.

• 4–5

#10 — Cutthroat, Episode 5 — Pole Me Over

Upon arrival to the very next daily challenge, cheeks still red from her battle against Ayiiia, Katie and the Blue Team see that once again they will be doing something involving heights over water.

If you hadn’t noticed, in all of the screenshots from the last elimination round, Katie’s got a black eye, which came from taking one of the gnarliest falls you could imagine on a previous heights over water challenge.

Most of her team, but especially Derrick and Emily, make this jump-on-a-surfboard-then-swim-a-whole-lot-in-a-lake challenge look like something they’ve been practicing for their whole lives. A shaking Katie, on the other hand, isn’t as psyched. But she does it, she takes the leap, and doesn’t even fall off. Her swim time isn’t great, but I highly doubt she cared about that. Her face survived, which is all that matters now. Keep this in mind for later.

The Blue Team, despite Katie overcoming her fear, loses again. And again, Katie is voted in by her team. She even votes for herself this time, defeated, saying that she’s “exhausted by the politics of this game”.

And by, “this game”, what I think she means, is her entire fucking life.

She finds herself up against a rookie Camila in a game where each of them are tethered to a pole and tasked with pushing their opponent backwards into those yellow toxic sludge barrels. A rookie Camila with everything to prove against a weathered Katie who understands that the idea of “proving” anything in this game is, in the words of our hero, fucking stupid.

You don’t need to be a Challenge podcaster who has close friendships with several cast members to be able to predict how this one turned out. Katie barely put up a fight. Not in a TJ-would-be-disappointed way. More in a “congrats, you guys finally broke my spirit” sort of way.

The soundtrack to Katie’s challenge life started out angry and mean, then became a little more subtle, until Eric toppled everything over and the veil of bullshit was finally gone.

After some kind words from TJ, Katie’s sent off with cheers and hugs. She’s sent home by a team who did everything beyond calling her totally useless to her face and yet they’re all sad to see her go.

Which season is that paragraph about?

Time = O

• 4–6

#11 — All Stars, Episode 6 — Pull Me Over

When All Stars was announced and the cast list hit the wires like a nostalgia injection, one the main topics of conversation among fans was the merits of what makes someone an All Star. Understandably so.

While the All Stars franchise itself is still evolving, that conversation has evolved as well. Going from “What makes an All Star” to “What makes someone eligible for All Stars”. Again, an understandable confusion from a fan base who, for a long time, has been treated like mushrooms where we’re fed shit and kept in the dark. Yet simultaneously eating better as a fanbase than we ever have by a factor of a thousand.

Life is full of contradictions.

But Katie’s presence on the manifest of the All Stars maiden voyage was different. It made sense. We understood the logic in a way that’s nearly primal. Which, on paper, while tossing nuance away, makes absolutely zero sense at all considering she’s bad (self admitted and self evident) at basically every skill required in order to excel in this game.

Except for the skill of being Katie.

A skill only she possesses. Outside of on paper results, the most important skill a Challenge person can have is being themselves. And Challenge fans love Katie. We always have. Again, this is someone who from the second episode she was ever on was told she sucked. And then she told us at home that, yeah, they’re right, I do suck.

Yet here we are.

Katie spent a lot of time in a world she did not belong in while being bad at everything within that world. Yet she excelled at the only part that matters. The impact on the other side of the TV. Without the Katie’s, this is just sports. Poorly played, low budget sports. We would have never gotten to Season 4, let alone Season 40.

Plenty of athletic women and men have entered this world and made no impact on anything at all. Yet here we are, in 2024 and we’re going to turn on MTV for Season 40 and see Katie on our screens like nothing in the world has changed at all since Cutthroat. Which, if you think about it for even two seconds, is a blessing we should all be thankful for.

What she’s talking about here is the game twist TJ announced the episode prior. Essentially, those who are voted into elimination will then choose a partner of the opposite sex to compete with them. For Katie, this is music to her ears. As in, for once, the music which has been playing in my ears since I hopped onto this dance floor is being drowned out by a much more pleasant sound.

Finally, her utter inability to perform is an advantage to her game.

Before each daily challenge on All Stars, the players would be separated into teams. Each team would then choose a male and female captain, who would be in jeopardy should the team lose, yet safe from being called out should they win.

As more of a group sacrifice than any sort of courageous effort, Katie volunteers to be “captain” of her team. The goal here is to complete a puzzle before the floor drops out from under you while suspended high above water. Rather than giving any honest effort towards finishing this puzzle, Katie instead goes into self preservation mode.

Can you blame her?

Look at her face the last time she donned a Challenge jersey…

Not only does a trip down memory lane serve as warning for her, just this very season, she suffered a bloody nose from a fall during a similar heights over water challenge.

The Challenge itself, like gravity, remains undefeated.

Despite her fears, Katie’s team actually did not lose this daily challenge. The losing captains were Mark, the host of the party, and Kendal, who seems lovely on this side of the TV but evidently is quite the tough hang in real life.

The power conglomerate approach Kendal to ask who she wants to go against. This was the unofficial system they put into place somewhere along the line, man in the sand calls their own ticket. Except Kendal, and maybe things like this lead to the tough hang moniker, gives two names, Katie or Jisela, but then ultimately tells the group it’s up to them.

When it’s your birthday, you get to choose the restaurant. If you leave it up to others, they’ll then spend the entire time worrying whether or not you’re having a good time, spoiling the entire evening for themselves.

Yaknowhatimean?

At the deliberations, Katie steps up to nominate herself. The men get suddenly quiet hoping maybe after this moment Katie will forget who they are. Jemmye, concerned Challenge citizen, calls Katie out and says this is not what the old Katie would do. This is despite, as we’ve learned, Katie doing exactly that multiple times.

All the men scramble to not be the one chosen to be Katie’s partner. Can you blame them? Some pretend to have an injury, others make light of the situation hoping to keep Katie happy. This all happens at the makeshift Covid bar they rented out. And it’s all played for laughs now that they’re older and more mature. But I have a feeling that all it would have taken was the presence of someone like Veronica for this to become something totally different.

That is until Laterrian, the valiant knight, steps up to, as he says, help out a friend. Leading to a match-up straight out of a Road Rules super fan’s fever dream. Mark & Kendal vs. Katie & Laterrian

While the details may all be different, her path here on All Stars was similar to many paths traveled before. She arrived into this elimination arena based on merit. Or lack of merit in this case. But the point is that luck is not involved. And it never has been.

Chance, whether we like it or not, in many ways is the driving force behind so many slices of the pie that is our lives. Almost every rom-com ever made is based on this principle. Why wouldn’t it apply to The Challenge as well?

Just like time being a straight line in a Challenge house for everyone except Katie, who may be the only long time Challenger for who time truly is a flat circle, silly little nuisances such as chance or luck simply do not apply to her.

On reality television, the key is to watch with your eyes. Your ears are always lying to you. But even the slickest edits cannot conjure images out of thin air. Again, except for Katie. What you see, what you hear, what you feel, is all the truth.

She said it herself, she fucking hates liars. So why would she, even the highly edited version, ever lie to you?

The game was a tug-of-war on a stump game akin to Jordan vs. Josh on War of the Worlds 2. Katie and Laterrian took round one (best out of three, you can always count on Katie to take at least one round, or, in other words, time = o) then in the second round, in order to save her energy after her partner Laterrian fell, conceded the point to Kendal.

All that’s missing in order to make this elimination round basically exactly the same as all that came before, are some perfectly thrown middle fingers. Maybe even an f-bomb or two.

Except we got none of that. Whether that was due to the Happy-To-Be-Here atmosphere of that show, or Katie has no more mothereffs to give as an adult is not for me to say. Rather, the only similarity remained was that Katie would eventually fall, taking Laterrian chances down along with her.

The lesson here, kids? Don’t ever do anything nice for anybody, ever. It’s just simply not worth it.

I’m only kind of kidding. Pick your battles, is all I’m saying.

• 4–7

#12 — All Stars 2, Episode 4 — Weight, There’s More

Before we get to Katie, let’s talk about the only person on her Road Rules cast who might be even sassier than her.

Remember that? When Adam Larson dropped 2024 hottest diss track and bar for bar dismantled Handjob Steve?

Well before any of that happened, Handjob Steve was simply Steve. Or, to most Challenge fans, “Who?”. Steve, Adam, and Katie were all RV-mates on Road Rules: The Quest. Now, as you know with former Real World roommates, that bond can be not only complicated but also the only unquestioned voting loyalty within this ecosystem. The only excuse anyone can use to not vote for someone that isn’t met with pushback is the fact that they were on a Real World season together. It’s the ultimate, unbreakable bond.

Road Rules is not like that. For whatever reason, since All Stars began, no one has enjoyed taking shots at each other more than former RV-mates.

Okay, maybe this is just a Steve thing.

But Katie didn’t know that yet. At the beginning of All Stars 2, she saw Steve and saw an ally. Someone she could count on when push came to shove in the game.

What do you know, another heights challenge! This time, instead of over water, where there might be sharks, this one’s over concrete, where you will most definitely go splat.

Also, it’s trivia.

Not sure which is scarier. Katie, your thoughts?

That’s right. Our girl finally took a stand. She’s taken gnarly falls in these exact situations over water in three different decades. Now you’re gonna put her over concrete?

Give me a fucking break.

This leaves her as an automatic participant in the following elimination round. Which would usually be seen as a negative. Katie, once again, your thoughts?

Casey and Steve wind up victorious, giving them the power to choose Katie’s opponent. For obvious reasons (then, not now) Katie was in the mindset that now that push has finally come to shove, she could count on Steve to be allies and give her who she wants.

There are two conflicting ideas at play during this deliberation. Steve wants to keep his word to Katie, and Casey doesn’t really give a fuck about Katie or Steve’s word. It’s not long before Steve also realizes he doesn’t give a fuck about those things either.

Once the votes are tallied and the life shields are utilized, Katie’s left with Ayanna as an opponent, who just scared the ever living shit out of everyone from cast to crew the last time she was in there. So, like, ya know, basically worst case scenario.

While not quite sit and spin, this look she gives Steve says it all.

This night’s elimination round is a physical/endurance game with a puzzle at the end. And if there’s anything we’ve learned about our hero along this journey, it’s that, competitively, those are her three strongest areas.

You already know the result, I’ll give you two guesses but you’ll only need one. The results, if it hasn’t been obvious enough, haven’t been the point of this article since about paragraph seven.

• 4–8

As we approach Season 40, the more I look at the cast list, what sticks out to me most is who isn’t there. As it applies to this article, what you won’t find are The Cool Kids or The New Cool Kids. The reasons why vary from “probably just needed a break” to “not welcome back”.

Rachel’s there, and on her team. Johnny’s there too. But they both have bigger fish to fry and problems to deal with.

We’ve seen the two Katie experiences. And while the soundtrack to both remained exactly the same, the contrast at which her two frequencies vibrate could not be any more stark. Team games tend to bring out Dark Katie, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Just don’t put a plunger in her bed. Or do a heights over anything daily challenge. Or a puzzle. Or anything physical at all.

If by some miracle there’s an elimination round where the goal is to “be Katie”, well, simply put, there’s no one better.

Thanks for reading! In case you missed them the first time around, here are links to Volumes 1–3

Vol. 1 — Kyle

Vol. 2 — Jenna

Vol. 3 — Devin

See you back here soon! Don’t forget to send in your questions for the 200th Article Celebration coming soon to fessyfitness200@gmail.com. I’ll be doing a couple more of these as we head into Season 40. Next up? Here’s a hint…

Until then, as always, Happy Challenge Watching!!!