The Challenge: Australia Episode 3 Recap — Winners & Losers

9 min readNov 22, 2022

Welcome back down unda for a fresh edition of Australian Winners & Losers for Episode 3! Inside this week: Don’t mess with an Australian’s feta cheese, Brihony does her best Stone Cold Steve Austin impression, NAM MAKES AN APPEARANCE, and much much more…

Loser: Piling On

Yeah you and apparently every one else buddy.

If you all only knew how hard Aneesa worked on that thing, you wouldn’t be acting so crass. Imagine if Aneesa showed up at your job and bitched and moaned about how much they hated what you did. Wouldn’t feel so great about clowning on Aneesa’s Algorithm now would you?

Winner: Priorities

It sure is?

What kind of feta cheese are you buying, Conor?

Winner: Being Topical

Hell yeah. Inflation.

Winner: The Australian Bachelorette (For The Third Time Already)

So that’s Brooke. She was The Bachelorette. Now, I could get stuck in the mud all night at the idea that one of the American Bachelorette’s doing something like The Challenge. That would never ever in a billion years under any circumstances ever happen.

But then there’s this shaggy lookin ne’er-do-well named Konrad, who finished in the top four of Brooke’s season of The Bachelorette, which is in a way even wilder than a former Bachelorette doing The Challenge.

And they’re partners for this week!

Aneesa! Your algorithm is back!

This show rules.

Winner: Australian Rules

Yet again, we have a repeat challenge from an American version. This time from Ride or Dies.

Remember all the way back when Nelson still had a daily challenge losing streak, and couldn’t remember how old he was, and Chauncey couldn’t remember how many letters were in Amber, and Darrell and Veronica merely existed as cast photos?

Well the Aussies were treated to the same game, but with minor upgrades. Rather than random questions like how many letters are in your name and what’s your birthday, they are faced with three basic arithmetic equations, then when they find the matching balls, they have to toss them and hook them onto their podiums whereas the American’s just had to place them on themselves.

Two minor upgrades, yet I think it’s a slightly better version of the game.

Loser: Unfortunate Nicknames

Your nickname’s Dirt?

I guess it could be worse. It could be Butt. Or Dickhead. Or Bananas. Dirt’s pretty bad though. Can’t lie and say that I’d be psyched about that being my nickname. Although, if I know Australians like I think that I do after the last seven days of knowing them, I’d say there’s a good chance he probably likes it.

Loser: School

Just today though. In life, you’ll be fine.

See kids? School, as the saying goes, is for fools. If you drop out at 16, you too can one day hope to have your entire neck covered in tattoos and appear on the Australian Bachelorette.

Social studies? Math? Who needs em!

Everyone, hurry, grab the nearest nerd you can find and give them a swirly! Shove the dorkiest kid in your school into a locker, pull the fire alarm, and let’s go smoke cigarettes!!!

Loser: American Lingo

The Bachie girls!

Why say Bachelorette when you can say Bachie in a swaggy Australian accent and sound way cooler?

Australians rock.

Loser: The Word ‘Myself’

Meself. Not myself. Glad whoever did the subtitles on this one ensured we all got the correct pronunciation.

Winner: Nam

God dammit do I miss Nam.

And Seal Paul, too, I guess. But mostly Nam.

Winner: Phrasing

Winner: The Servers At Restaurants I Dine In

I tip well at bars and restaurants mostly due to my years spent in the service industry. But another reason is because me trying to figure out what twenty percent of the bill is looks a lot like gentleman above attempting arithmetic.

Winner: Lack of Lozenges

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone choke on this show more egregiously than Brooke J. and Ryan did during this daily.

As I mentioned before, this was the exact same as the opening daily of Ride or Dies, except at the end you had to toss your bolas onto your poles. Brooke J. and Ryan located their balls and solved their equations so much faster than the rest of the group. Not only that, once arriving at the end, they were able to land two of their three bola tosses right away. This was before anyone else had even attempted one!

What place did they come in, you ask? Probably first right?

Third. They came in third place. A bronze medal. They started the race 66% of the way done, and still managed to lose to two other teams. Unbelievable. Bad job by you two. You’re lucky I already forgot your names and am too lazy to scroll up.

Winner: Working A Real Job

Last week, Brihony claimed they used to be a brickie, or as I was told roughly translates to for us American scum, a construction worker.

This week? This week they inform us that they also used to be a…wait for it…FIREFIGHTER!!!

That’s right! Brihony has somehow managed to live the fantasies of every five year old American boy, but in Australia. Only job they’re missing is professional baseball player.

Winner: An Actual Firetruck

Yep. That’s an actual firetruck. With sirens going off. Rolling up onto the set of The Challenge.

This Australian shit is off the rails I’m telling you.

But wait, there’s more!

Winner: The Wolf

That’s right! They’re gonna spray down this muddy group of Australian influencers with a fire hose.

No seriously. They’re about the get sprayed off with a fire hose.

Brihony? Take it away!

Winner: Stone Cold Brihony Austin

Winner: Different Strokes

And in this edition of “This would never happen on the American version of this show” the entire cast, having now been sprayed in the directly in the face by a sinister, smiling Brihony, have decided to take matters into their own hands, and pick Brihony up and throw them into the mud.

Imagine Fessy and Jay lifting up TJ and tossing him into a mud pit?

Like, it’s not as if TJ’s gonna actually do anything. He’s not gonna beat them up or whatever. But, just imagining it is just so strange. My mind almost cannot wrap around the idea of TJ getting muddy.

Fuckin’ Aussies are lit.

Winner: David (not my Dad)

For the second time in as many weeks, David finds himself in an elimination round. Now despite clearly being God awful at the daily challenge portion of this game, David has quickly picked up the lingo and already speaks fluent Challenge.

Last week, in an attempt to save his own behind, he sparked up a rumor that one of the contestants was being a fake friend to the Jessica, who was making the decision. This didn’t quite work, as he still managed to be their vote, but the fact that he even considered doing it showed more interesting ingenuity than we ever saw on Challenge: USA (drink).

Now this week, seen in the photo above, he’s letting Brooke the Bachelorette know that in deliberation he may or may not have let it slipped that at one point she cried to him and mentioned that she didn’t want to be there anymore.

This, as we then find out from Brooke the Bachelorette, was said in confidence, and not something she wanted to be public information. But that’s the thing about The Challenge, a thing David is already attuned to, nothing is in confidence. The Challenge house can be a lot like a high school cafeteria. And did anything you whispered in your high school cafeteria remain a secret?

I didn’t think so.

Attempting to slither the shifty corners of the gossip labyrinth is a dangerous game. A game David is gleefully playing along with. Oblivious to the long game, because the long game doesn’t exist for him yet.

One of the greatest strength, I’d say THE greatest strength of The Challenge is that the stories play out over seasons and years, sometimes even decades. Nothing happens in a vacuum. It’s why I always say time is a flat circle everywhere but the Challenge house.

Right now, in David’s world, in David’s game, in David’s mind, time is still a flat circle. He can be as slipshod as he wants with his maneuvers. It’ll all begin anew tomorrow. Time is a flat circle.

All the way until it isn’t. But he’ll learn that lesson one day. For now, I’m just enjoying watching the show play out.