The Challenge Episode 2 Recap — Winners & Losers

Welcome to Winners and Losers for Episode 2! Coming to you live from a hotel in Tampa Bay, Florida with super shoddy wifi on the back-end of night one of a bachelor party, I’m back to recap a wild episode. Apologies for the truncated recap this week, I squeezed in as much as I could. Inside this edition: Jakk brushes his teeth incorrectly, Horacio is hot, Turbo finally plays the game, and much much more….

Winner: Branding

Hi, yeah, I’ll do four of the Olde English font Bananas hats please. One for me and three of my closest friends.

What’s that?

No, yeah, we actually are trying to get beat up at a bar thanks for asking. I figured this was the perfect way to do it.

Loser: Forcing A Theme

Ugh, this is Ride or Dies. The pairs are supposed to know each other. I’m sick and tired of noitcudorp forcing these fake pairs down our throats. It’s getting aggravating. I’m aggravated. Ugh.

Winner: Turbo

I genuinely spit up my coffee this morning when Turbo called him Banana, singular. I don’t know if he did it on purpose and I really don’t care. Love live Banana.

Loser: Numbness

Nany described this Challenge house as “beautiful” with the same level of fervor as a stripper seeing nipples.

I wonder if, at this point in her life, she’s at the “seen one Challenge house, seen ’em all” stage. There’s enough experience under her belt to know that all that beauty is surface level and that in just a few days that same mansion is going to feel more like white-collar prison than a dope Argentinian palace.

Winner: Vulnerability

There is no doubt in my mind that anyone who has watched this show for long enough has suffered real life tragedies and been through life altering moments during that span of time. It’s part of living. I have. You have. We all have.

Nany’s bared her soul to the world for over a decade now. We’ve seen her on almost every point in the spectrum, from the top to allllllllll the way at the bottom. Losing a parent is a deeply personal moment in anyone’s life. Deeply personal. And for her to be vulnerable enough to share that with all of us is so heartwarming. It makes me feel all sorts of emotions. It makes me want to call my mom. It makes me happy that I still can. And it hurts me to think of anyone reading this who was able to relate to Nany in that moment watching at home.

One of the beauty’s of this show, and this game, is that we get to see moments like this. We get to see someone who a lot of us have grown up with be able to come back, weathered and beaten down after losing over and over again, with something to play for. A reason for being on the show. Something to fight for.

How can you not be romantic about The Challenge?

Loser: Misunderstanding the Tools Provided

One of my greatest pet peeves in life is watching another person brush their teeth with an electric toothbrush, and using it like a normal one.

Speaking of my Mom, with her job being a dental hygenist, I’ve been inundated with the best toothbrushes at all times. Up until she retired, she’d always get sent the newest fancy schmancy toothbrushes in the same way Challengers are gifted Under Armor swag. I’m almost positive my toothbrush can connect to an app that gives you metadata on your brushing habits. Which is absolutely insane and who in their right mind would be interested in that, so I obviously never set it up. But the point remains.

I mean I got a WaterPik for my 12th birthday for crying out loud. Imagine being a 12 year old sports obsessed boy and getting a WaterPik for your birthday?

Point being, Jakk with two k’s, if you have an electric toothbrush, there is no need to actually brush your teeth. Let the apparatus do it’s apparating. Just slowly move it from quadrant to quadrant. You don’t have to brush your teeth like a pilgrim. That’s some 21st century shit you got in your hands.

Anywho, back to you in the booth Al…

Winner: Challenge Swag

I have those sweatpants! I wore them just yesterday at the airport! I’m even wearing them right this minute!

Loser: Assuming

Wait….who’s Jordan?

Winner: Lolo Jones: Olympian, Athlete, Challenge Legend

What we don’t see, is that just off screen Lolo is pointing an assault rifle in Nam’s direction.

She got her man. She was always going to get her man.

It’s rare that someone can come on three seasons, say a total of eleven words, and yet provide us all with so much. Nam is a treasure. I cannot wait until next season when Lolo comes up with yet another way to kidnap and steal him away from the game.

Loser: Stockholm Syndrome

Tamara! Swim away! Now’s your chance!

No, no! Don’t climb that….

You blew it.

Winner: Us

I know I got a bit emotional when Nany was talking about her Mom earlier, but this moment really stuck with me.

How can you not be romantic about The Challenge?

Winner: Embracing Other Cultures

Loser: Anyone Like Me Who Tries Writing Jokes

I mean…come on. What am I even supposed to do?

Winner: Memories

She’s not wrong. There is a good chance that when I’m a hundred and eleven years old, on my death-bed, surrounded by all nineteen of my readers, that the only names I’ll remember are Bananas and Nany.

What, you thought I envisioned loved ones and family members on my hypothetical death-bed? Nope. Just you. No pressure or anything. Also, I like sunflowers. Don’t forget.

Winner: Kaycee

Here’s Kaycee, fresh out of her Hilton Garden Inn robe and slippers, showing up to a Challenge that everyone besides grizzled veteran pairs Banana and Nany, Tori and Devin, and of course Horacio and Olivia were able to complete, and she just crushes it. Because of course she does. Because she’s good at everything.

Are we sure Kaycee’s not, like, the best at daily challenges to ever play this game? Is there any game she isn’t good at?

Loser: Matching

I like how Turbo’s man-bun and Nany’s winter hat make the top half of their heads look the same.

Loser: Communication

Look, I cannot even comprehend living in a situation where the main language being spoken is entirely different than my natural language. Communication is one of my greatest strengths as a person, and living in a situation where I’m constantly banging my head against the constraints of said communication would be one of the most frustrating situations imaginable. Even more so if that living situation had a giant check attached to it. And especially if I had already tasted the nectar of victory and cashed that giant check. I’d probably act out too. I truly have no clue how I’d handle it.

That being said…

Turbo contradicting himself with every idea he forwards is not doing himself any favors. Maybe he’s just sick of it. I feel bad for him, but he’s doing nothing to help himself.

Winner: Turbo

At the same time, Turbo looks so cool in that long grey sweatshirt thing-a-majig. So fucking cool. Cooler than I’ve ever looked wearing anything in my entire life.

Loser: Biting the Hand That Feeds You

So basically what you’re saying is everyone there needs to get a real job and the idea of influencers is dumb?

Copy that.

Loser: Fluff Words

Both of those sentences would have made perfect sense without the word literally.

I swear to God, if I literally had access to a time machine I would go back and literally give a swirly to whichever reality TV person first incorrectly used literally to denote emphasis. It’s a societal plague. Okay maybe it’s just a personal plague. And maybe I just need to chill out. But let me ask you one question and one question only, and you have to answer honestly, and I’ll know if you’re lying…

Loser: Normies Like Me and You

Well of course you don’t, dude. Look at you. You’re carved from marble. If I were that hot I’d probably never leave the house. When you’re in the Glitteratti you have no use for effort. It’s like Aaron Rodgers claiming he’s never paid for Packers tickets. Or Bananas saying he’s never bought Under Armor shorts.

I see right through your shit (and I wish I could smell it), Horacio, you beautiful bastard.

Loser: Not Having A Time Machine

Loser: Jay

That sounds fun to deal with.

Loser: Vanity

There was a kid I played football with growing up who would take time to gel his hair before football practice, which I always thought was the silliest thing in the world. I’m currently in Florida for a bachelor party where I’m the best man, and the groom-to-be used to iron his basketball shorts before our rec-league games. Which then became the act that I thought was the silliest thing in the world.

Then I saw Turbo spray cologne before heading into an elimination he was sure he was going to be in.

As you age you learn a lot. Putting gel in your hair before sweating it all out under a football helmet is silly. Ironing wrinkles out of basketball shorts before a game is silly. But there is nothing sillier in the entire world than spraying cologne before an elimination round. I stand corrected.

Winner: Magic Tricks

Wait where did Johnny’s legs go? I can’t see them. And if he has no legs, how is he standing?

Hollywood magic, I tell ya what.

That was stupid.

Loser: No-Win Situations

Michele’s not wrong. Johnny’s bluster is weighing them down. Some would even say he’s an anchor to their game.

But ultimately, Jay made the right call. Voting in Olivia and Horacio was the right move. Voting in rookies will never ever come back to bite you. But voting in your actual real-life friend will. Any reason is a good reason to be sent into elimination, and if they were to have said Johnny, then all anyone would have to say to Jay in the future is “how can I trust you when your actual friend can’t even trust you” and bada-bing bada-boom they’re fucked.

It’s literally a learning lesson, Michele.

Winner: Laurel

Laurel’s so good at The Challenge, so dangerous as a competitor that she can win an elimination she didn’t even participate in. This gives her her 10th elimination win and a sparkling 10–2 overall. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Winner: The Challenge

Turbo participating in an elimination Challenge is something Challenge fans have been wanting to see for awhile. He won his rookie season without ever having to see one, and then got sent home off-screen in his second. How he would perform under the bright lights was an unanswered question we were all looking forward to having answered this season.

Now, a memory game against Laurel isn’t necessarily the head-banger we may have had in our wildest dreams, but that’s just how these things go. Turbo has burnt every bridge he crossed, then pissed on the ashes for good measure. Being alone on an island is how he lived on The Challenge, and now it’s how he died on The Challenge.

For the first time, Turbo actually had to play The Challenge. And he thought he could Turbo his way through it as he had before. He played the game as if time was a flat circle. As it is in real life, and especially in the movie that he’s currently filming in his own head.

He learned a valuable lesson. His assumption was correct, but the setting overwhelmed and swallowed that assumption whole, as it always does here.

Time’s a flat circle everywhere but the Challenge house. Because in the Challenge house, everything accumulates. Every action, every word, every vote, every challenge. Time in the Challenge house isn’t a flat circle, it’s a straight fucking line.

Winner: Bringing the Episode Full Circle

Wait, that’s the guy from the pictures earlier, right? Jordan or whatever?

Yeah, idk, still don’t know him. Do better MTV.

Thanks for reading! See you back here on Monday for a fresh batch of Power Rankings! And until then, as always, Happy Challenge Watching!!!