The Challenge: Double Agents Power Rankings — Week 4
Happy holidays and welcome back! It’s been a long bye week, and roughly 124 cookies later, I think we’re all ready for a steady diet of The Challenge to bring us out of the holiday blues. This week on the Power Rankings Lio’s stuck in the plot of Groundhog Day, Devin forces me to get creative, we dig into Leroy and Fessy’s psyche, and much more…
30) Ashley (Eliminated)
29) Joseph (E)
28) Nicole (Last Week: 9)
It’s really too bad we’ll never find out what happened to Helga. Last I heard she was in Icelandic’s top mental facility counting triangles, but it’s all just hearsay at this point.
27) Wes (LW: 5)
I had a long week.
I drove through nine states over six days, thirty hours in the car overall. Wiped out, I got home, plopped into bed and threw The Duel on Netflix. I just wanted to shut down my brain and relax. And just as I was drifting off, a short scene caught my attention.
Wes and Evan were sitting on their beds, chatting game talk. Mostly about votes and how thin the margins are getting. Evan brings up how paranoid he is about everything, and Wes responds, “don’t be paranoid, dude, cause that’s gonna get you screwed”.
It’s fitting that all these years later, on Double Agents, Wes played the most paranoid game of his life. Sometimes even when you have all the answers you stand no chance.
We lost two heavy hitters last week, play em out Titans…
26) Josh (LW: 28)
When you title a season Dirty 30, it carries connotations towards playing a more aggressive game. It plants the seed for the contestants to do “dirty” things. So knowing that, it’s possible they knew the winner of the opening purge would take a big swing. Which, fast forward to Cory and Jenna winning, manifested itself as they both made semi aggressive (much more in Cory’s case) swings. And CT would have been the biggest swing of them all. So do I think that production “ made up” CT getting stuck at customs? No but…oh right Josh. Yeah I mean he got his attention last week so, ya know, good for him.
25) Amber M. (LW: 27)
Savvy move on Amber’s part making herself very available for camera time in the background of last episode’s brouhaha. That was Nany’s go-to move for years, so it’s great to see some sage wisdom being passed down the generations.
24) Gabby (LW: 25)
On the first episode when she cried for no reason while wearing an Alabama sweatshirt despite being from the UK, I thought okay we’re off to a good start with her. Since then…………
23) Amber B. (LW: 26)
When she said she played Rugby growing up you think she meant her high school did Rugby for two weeks a year in gym class?
Same.
22) Liv (LW: 24)
Saying someone is not as tough as you thought they’d be after they broke your arm is a FLEX and a half.
21) Jay (LW: 17)
The Challenge Gods love nothing more than using Jay’s fragile little body for entertainment purposes. Between making the elimination Balls In (ON FIRE!!!) when he was going up against the much larger Rogan. To making him wrestle on top of a moving semi-truck with “whole ass man” Nam. He’s getting to the point where he’s just The Challenge version of Spike Dudley.
20) Mechie (LW: 23)
Mechie joins a lengthy and distinguished list of people who have beaten Cory at something on The Challenge. This scroll includes luminaries such as Nate, leftover pasta, and this super pretty gentleman from Wildin’ Out.
19) Lio (LW: 22)
“Okay, I’m going to try and move on from wrestling. I’ve accomplished a lot of my goals, and now it’s time for me to dip my toes into new waters. I have the opportunity for this Challenge thing. Sounds like a lot of fun, and I get to push myself in totally new ways.”
— Lio, roughly nine months ago
“Alright guys, wrestle on this death truck”
— TJ Lavin, last week
18) Mature Nany (LW: 18)
I know I harp on this a lot, but the idea of Nany sitting quietly on the sidelines while the house goes up in flames bums me out.
17) Aneesa (LW: 21)
In this week’s edition of “Veteran Who Did Nothing So I Need To Pull From The Past For Content”, we have one of my favorite Aneesa moments ever. Including a dark horse contender for best Challenge one liner ever, “I don’t need a Gauntlet bitch, I will cut you with words!”
16) Scuba Nelly (LW: 20)
MTV’s resident comic relief. Like Jay, he’s been pigeonholed into a role this season. A much more comfortable role than Jay to be sure, but I’d still like to see the Challenge God’s wipe off his clown make-up and let him spread his wings and fly a bit more.
15) Theresa (LW: 15)
In my pre-season rankings, I noted that Theresa is going to find herself shocked at the level of competition on the women’s side. Instead of wrestling with Jonna, she got thrown off the side of a semi-truck by an Olympian.
Welcome back!
14) Nam (LW: 16)
To move on to the next contestant on the list, you must answer this question correctly…
What was Nam looking at?
A) A second head growing out of Kaycee’s shoulder
B) Lolo trying to flirt with him
C) An adult attempting arithmetic
12T) The Ori’s (RIP) (LW: 13)
Rest in peace to the Ori’s, whose sudden break up will now force me to write something original in this space.
11) Devin (LW: 19)
Devin has elimination wins against Bananas, Wes, and Zach. Let that sink in.
This show’s weird.
10) Hawk (LW: 12)
If NBC just gave Johnny Banana’s show 1st Look to Big T and CT, what happens?
As much as I love my guy JB, that’s low key just a better show.
9) Fessy (LW: 7)
8) Leroy (LW: 11)
Ultimately, I can see where they’re coming from. Both Fessy and Leroy are working from the position that they are going to beat anyone in an elimination. Ultimate confidence in their abilities, earned or not.
Leroy’s not going to do anything risky with this being his last season. He’s working off the K.I.S.S. strategy. Keep it simple, stupid. Great advice, hurts my feelings every time.
Fessy’s currency at this point is camera time and episodic longevity.
Add up those factors and I understand why they both sat out their opportunities to get skulls. But at the end of the day (shout out Nany), I still don’t understand the move. If you’re going to start all personal game theory with “no one can beat me” than that forwards two ideas:
- I will beat Joseph/Devin, and win my skull.
- No other man here could beat me to hypothetically steal my skull later on down the road, therefore the timing when which I get my skull does not matter.
Reality clashes with ideology. In other words…
7) Kaycee (LW: 10)
And the award for freshest confessional fit so far goes to…
Somebody get a mop, there’s Swag-u oozing out of my laptop.
6) Darrell (LW: 8)
He’s giving us exactly nothing. Which is exactly what he wants. In fact, to spice it up, let’s watch him knock Brad the fuck out.
5) Kyle (LW: 6)
He’s as comfortable within the ecosystem of this game as anyone ever has been. He gets it. He enjoys it. Unless he becomes his own worst enemy, he should cruise to TJ’s Final.
P.S. The emphasis on it being TJ’s Final, as opposed to just a normal final challenge is my favorite development over the last handful of seasons. I want TJ to start taking ownership over everything. They’re now doing TJ’s confessionals. They’re doing TJ’s eliminations. They’re drinking TJ’s vodka in TJ’s Klub K0ViD in TJ’s country of Iceland.
4) Natalie (LW: 4)
3) Lolo (LW: 3)
These two will be the most directly effected by Wes’s departure. Natalie goes from the partner with arguably the most baggage in the house to the partner with (shockingly) arguably the least. Lolo on the other hand was most assuredly taking her direction from Wes, which therefore trickled down to Nam.
Natalie will be calling the shots on her team now (if Cory’s smart), so let’s see what these two rookie women are made of now that Momma Bird pushed them off the ledge.
2) Fuzzy Bunny (LW: 2)
2009: “CT, you can be Fuzzy Bunny”
2020: “CT, you can be Fuzzy Bunny”
The lesson, as always, life comes at you fast.
1) Kam (LW: 1)
Do you think Kam ever lets Leroy choose where they go for dinner?
Thanks for reading! Be sure to check back on Tuesday for next week’s What To Look For. Happy Holiday’s everyone and cheers to a gainful and fruitful 2021 to all of my readers!
