The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies Power Rankings — Week 3

Welcome back to another edition of Power Rankings! And what a week it’s been. Inside this edition: Lizzo name drops Tommy, Michele’s new partnership sparks a fun fact, we organically answer the question “Does Romania have baseball?”, and much much more…

36) Lauren (Eliminated)

35) Nam (E)

34) Renan (E)

33) Michaela (E)

32) Tracy (Last Week: 30)

From the litany of arguments, to her near fist fight with Logan over some missing shampoo, all the way down to her poolside threesome with Hughie and Aneesa, Tracy raced across the sky like a comet during her short time in Croatia.

Now that Tracy’s gone, where will the drama come from? Guess we’ll have to wait and see, but I’m concerned about the rest of the season at the moment. All things considered, and forgive me for stating the obvious, but I feel as though she’s on a CT level lock to return any time she wants.

31) Kelz (LW: 12)

I almost never feel bad for Challenge cast members.

There’s more bad luck than good luck in this show, it is nowhere near an equal sum game. Plus, they all should know what they’re signing up for. But Kelz getting Tori stolen from him, being paired with complete loose cannon Tracy, then getting railroaded by the Vets for being the leader of a rookie alliance that in no way at all exists was kind of head turning.

It’s a shame, because he’s absolutely the type of person who only gets better the longer he’s allowed to stay in the game (think of how CT uses that to his advantage, where scarcity is used as an asset rather than a burden).

Oh well, life moves on. World keeps turnin’ and burnin’. Keep your head on a swivel.

30) Josh (LW: 31)

Ugh, such an important attitude to have.

See? Positivity.

29) Bettina (LW: 29)

28) Aneesa (LW: 28)

“I don’t know, I’m more into highly diversified ETF’s and suburban-home based REIT’s lately rather than filling my portfolio with individual stocks. Picking up some treasury bonds along the way as well, building a few bond ladders, just in case shit really hits the fan. The market’s too unstable for my tastes, so I’m playing it safe. 3% growth for a little while is fine by me.”

“See Aneesa, like I always tell you. You’ll never get ahead in life with that attitude.”

“Leave me the fuck alone, Bettina.”

27) Hughie (LW: 26)

He’s in there somewhere.

In many successful partnerships when one person is upset, the other naturally gets positive in an attempt at balancing things out. Maybe having Ashley as a partner isn’t as great for his potential as I initially thought. Maybe her brand of, ya know, whatever you call that, is just too much and his human instincts are kicking in making him more a nurturer.

Or maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s all the same any way.

26) Gabo (LW: 27)

The idea that The Situation, Ronnie, Angelina, etc. inspired a young kid somewhere in freezing cold Europe to internalize the dream to one day be on American TV…well if that doesn’t pull at the heart strings than what does?

25) Tommy (LW: 25)

24) Big T (LW: 24)

I barely know Tommy and Big T’s given me nothing to write about so far this season (except that apparently she’s, like, super horny), so I’ll let the great Lizzo describe them for me better than I ever could…

Spending all your time tryna break Tommy from Survivor down/Realer shit is going on, baby take a look around

&

Never thought I was cool yeah, now me and CT we cool yeah

I swear on everything those are the real lyrics.

23) Tacha (LW:23)

You know it’s funny, I actually wore that exact outfit last weekend.

22) Priscilla (LW: 20)

Shout out to Priscilla for being Kelz’z personal pre-elimination hypewoman. It’s too bad it didn’t work out. It makes me think though, that if anyone’s gonna be the positive teammate to finally get Nelson over the hump (37 in a row now!) it’s gonna be her.

21) Berna (LW: 21)

No matter how hot she might think Nelson is, it will never, ever, be ultimately worth it to stick your head into the Smashley hornets nest. Ever.

Welcome to The Challenge, Berna!

20) Esther (LW: 22)

By far the most endearing trait any rookie can possess, at least to me, is having enthusiasm and clearly showing how much they’re enjoying being on this show and doing all this crazy shit.

I’ve never felt like Fessy or Kaycee love doing The Challenge. They certainly like it, but I don’t think they love it. Esther on the other hand seems to be smitten by it all immediately.

19) Jeremiah (LW: 13)

No tall guy likes not being the Tallest Guy In The Room. While he may have lost a work-out buddy when Kelz left, he also gained standing within the house’s height zeitgeist.

This is a conundrum I know so very well. I’m almost always the tallest guy in any room I’m standing in. (Except the time I was on the court for All Star Weekend, that time I was like 163rd tallest person in the room.) And I can promise you, when a taller guy walks in my immediate reaction (it’s completely primal I can’t control it) is to hate this person with a burning passion. Then I size them up, talk myself into how I’d beat them in basketball, and finally move on with my day.

What’s that? Nobody cares? Got it, moving on. I’ll continue my Tall Guy Thoughts next week.

18) Amanda (LW: 18)

Yeah, I bet. Compared to 24/7 on-call-can’t-ever-truly-relax-again mom life, I’m sure this is quite the fun time, guys.

17) Logan (LW: 15)

You’re letting me down Logan. You were the heir apparent, and yet you clearly don’t want it.

Sometimes I guess one can truly be too Hot.

16) Mature Nany (LW: 17)

Maybe my excitement early on was all a moot point…sigh…

15) Emmanuel (LW: 16)

If every episode doesn’t include an Emanuel dance montage, MTV will have severely screwed this entire thing up.

14) Corey L. (LW: 11)

Sometimes with rookies on The Challenge (especially once they began introducing the international aspect) it is extremely clear that not only have they never seen an episode of this show, that their reality tv agents did a shitty job of explaining what they were signing up for.

But Corey is the complete opposite of that. It is apparent that he was and still is a huge fan of this show. And obviously for a long time.

Like watching someone do a perfect karaoke performance, not only does he know all the lyrics, but he know all the ins, outs, nooks, AND cranny’s of the song as well.

Which leads to the obvious question, why doesn’t everyone do this? Why wouldn’t you at least crush three or four seasons in the time leading up to leaving. Hell the plane rides alone on the way there gives you time for at least a whole season. And I know not everyone’s a loser like me and watches this show in their free time, but it just seems like the sanitary thing to do is all.

13) Michele (LW: 10)

Michele is now partnered with Corey L. which is an interesting fun fact because it marks the first time Corey has been partnered with someone who’s name rhymed with his since all the way back when he was paired with Tori on Episode 2 of Spies, Lies & Allies.

12) Emy (LW: 14)

The question “Does Romania know about baseball?” both crossed my mind for the first time ever and was answered organically all in the same moment. Glory to Romania.

11) Agent Ed (LW: 32)

“I know I did a backflip last week, but did you guys want me to do another one?”

“No Ed, we’re good.”

“Seriously I don’t mind.”

“We’ve got plenty of B-roll.”

“Guys, for real, it’s not big deal. Seriously, I’ll do another backflip.”

“The bars actually pretty cleared out now its literally just us left. The bus with the rest of the cast is already gone. Please stop asking us we all want to go home for the night.”

“Yeah but just hold on. Get one more shot of me doing a backflip.”

“Ed, I told you. We’re good. We don’t need another…you know what, just do it. Let’s get it over with.”

10) Nelson (LW: 19)

My man Nelson loves playing with fire. Nothing is more appealing to him in a woman than one who may or may not burn his house down at any moment. Speaking of…

9) Ashley (LW: 6)

I needed a little normalcy in my life man. It’s been a turbulent 18 months for everybody, but I’ll be honest, I’ve been feeling it lately. I’ll make it all the back around but, but fuck, shit sucks these days right?

Seeing Ashley morph into Smashley at such a rapid pace, eyes essentially closed, mispronouncing names with the verve that only she can display, really sucked me back down to planet earth in all the best ways.

8) Kyle (LW: 7)

What the hell is going on? We’ve gotten more of Lauren this season than we’ve gotten of Kyle. Kids ruined Tony (eventually), kids ruined Cory, and now are kids ruining Kyle?

Kids 2: The Death of All Hot Guys…coming soon to a streaming service near you.

7) Devin (LW: 9)

Not your best my man.

6) Tori (LW: 8)

So as long as the rookies keep getting pitted against each other, which is pretty much already written out at this point, are the winners just going to steal Devin and Tori every week?

I mean it makes sense, Tori and Devin are both probably fun as hell to have as partners. But, I mean what are we really doing here?

5) Fessy (LW: 5)

“I did get the victory this time around, but that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to you all. What’s that? Well sure yeah Esther was throwing them to me kinda accurately I guess, but it was definitely mostly my victory. I mean, if I wasn’t there to catch them, Esther would have been just throwing those bags at the ground. And how well would she have done then?! Okay I have time for one question. Yes, you in the green blazer…”

4) Cory W. (LW: 4)

Cory got a lot of shit in this space last season for his haircut. And I was dead wrong.

I was flabbergasted the first time I saw it, and I remained flabbergasted throughout Double Agents. Consider my flabber fully gasted by the time it was all over.

But what I thought was merely a twig on the forest floor has now bloomed into a beautiful oak tree. Sturdy, majestic, and so much cooler than I could ever hope to be.

3) Kaycee (LW: 3)

The thing with writing about Kaycee is that she just gives you SO MUCH to work with, ya know?

Netflix gives you seemingly unlimited viewing options and yet we all spend more time scrolling through those options than actually viewing them.

How do I write about Kaycee in a concise way when I have such a plethora of avenues with with to pursue? I guess tune in next week.

2) Amber (LW: 2)

500,000 dollars has the power to heal many wounds, but apparently not all.

It’s fascinating to me how much of a chip Amber clearly has on her shoulder this season. But it’s not the chip you’d think. One would assume that Amber would have the attitude of “I’m a champion, but I still have something to prove”.

But that doesn’t seem to be her attitude at all. Despite her victory and despite the money, the things that Fessy, Kaycee, and Josh said about her and her lack of understanding of where she sat on the Big Brother totem poll seem to be genuinely bothering her.

But why is that? You’d think that with a championship belt around her waist, getting out of that super dope car, Amber would feel as confident and comfortable as anyone could feel. But the “fire under her ass” seems a bit contrived, almost as if she knows she’s supposed to feel one way, but cannot help but feeling another.

1) CT (LW: 1)

The vets are stupid. (Any group letting Josh and Fessy lead the charge more than likely isn’t riddled with Mensa members) They should have made an alliance where instead of the top priority being take rookies out first, it should have been take CT out first and worry about the kids later. They were never, ever, ever going to get organized enough to start causing any waves.

They better figure it the fuck out.

Thanks for reading!!! Be sure to check back Thursday for my Episode 3 Winners & Losers Recap. And until then, as always, Happy Challenge Watching!!!