Earn Your Stripes

Tuesday night, the third episode of The Challenge: Invasion of The Champions premiered and surprisingly it was entertaining. I say surprisingly because they’re few veterans right now in the first few episodes, so they’re are mostly people who haven’t been on the show. However, these new kids are making a name for themselves.

The episode starts off with Smashley, Ashley M.  flirting with newbie AYTO star, Hunter. Which is a bit interesting because Hunter is a real down to earth guy who seems to like good girls. Well Ashley M. may be a good girl this season, but my mind goes back to when she had sex last season, on the first night with the whole house watching. Regardless of her character, this new couple pair up during this week’s challenge and seem to be the dynamic duo.

The  challenge this week, involved everyone except for the people who have a key to The Oasis, to participate. Each pair had to get into a human size shell where one person stood up and paddled while the other person were on their knees paddling. They had to go through four check points to collect a sack of coconuts and then make it back to the beach to shoot them in a basket. Ashley M. and Hunter won this challenge and Hunter was a sore winner and started randomly taking shots at Cory.

Cory is confused on Hunter is talking shit about him because Hunter has never won a challenge besides that day, it’s his first time being on this show, and he hasn’t earned his stripe. Hunter immediately states that he wants Cory to go in the elimination round and Cory takes it like the GOAT he is. However, he confides in his past challenge partner, Ashley M. to let him be the house vote and for her to pick either Shane or Theo to go against. Ashley M. doesn’t make any promises, but ultimately she decided to vote in Theo and let Cory be the house vote.

Theo is ecstatic about going up against Cory. He gets cocky and says how he is a better competitor and can beat him at anything. Theo instantly rubbed me the wrong way when he said this because he hasn’t proved himself yet. Cory has been on three challenges and placed in the top three at least two times. Newbie Anika rubs me the wrong way when she says she wants to take on the BarbieBeast herself, and she implies that Jenna isn’t smart enough to beat her if the elimination round is a puzzle. Which is crazy because Jenna has been on four challenges and placed in the top three each time. Also, Jenna is an elimination queen she’s 8-0. However, I respect Anika because she says she believes to be the best you have to beat the best.

The elimination round starts off with them hiking up two mountains. TJ then states that they will be jumping off the mountain grabbing the most balls as possible. Whoever, has the fastest time, holding the most balls win. Cory and Anika jumps off fast and with ease. BarbieBeast happily jumps off two seconds faster that Anika, sending her home. Ironically, Theo quits immediately and TJ calls him out, telling him that he’s a quitter. I think it’s funny how much shit Theo talked and he couldn’t back it up. He is a pure example of why I firmly believe that rookies need to earn their stripes by going into elimination rounds to prove themselves. Too many rookies talk a lot of smack and never back it up.

Meanwhile on the Champ Cam, we see the veterans leaving their house to meet up with each other at what appears to be a hotel. TJ sends them their jerseys and the vets are off to Thailand. I love that they’re going to be the season twist. They will definitely shake up the house and break up some of the alliances. I’m mostly excited to see vets Laurel and CT because they’re both monsters in this game and haven’t been on the show for a few years. So, hopefully MTV has the vets come wreck things in next week’s episode.

A House Divided

A few days ago, MTV blessed viewers with a TWO-HOUR premiere of The Challenge: Invasion of The Champions. The first two episodes came out with a bang and ended with me itching for more.

The rules of the game are different this season. Instead of living in a luxurious house, the challengers have to earn their stay into the “oasis”. The only way to earn their key to the oasis is to either win a challenge or win an elimination. No one can enter the oasis until all the keys are given, and the number of keys are LIMITED. Until then, the challengers most live in a shelter on the beach. They sleep on a thin mat, bathe in the ocean, and have ZERO privacy.

The first challenge involved the rookies  challengers to find a way to get over a big wall using clay, then find a way to get underneath the second wall, and the finish a physical puzzle. Within just a few moments of the challenge starting alliances were formed. Barbie Beast Jenna, Tony, Kailah, and Cory were against the rest of the rookies. The Challenge ended with Marie and Bruno losing, Nicole and Dario earning a key to the Oasis, and the house completely divided.

Sparks started to fly between to newbie Kailah and Cory which isn’t suprising since Cory is player. Although, they didn’t hook up they discussed about a previous time off the show when they originally wanted to have sex. Marie and AYTO cast member, Anthony connected. They were a complete yawn. Nicole broke down and confided to Bruno that her girlfriend ended their relationship because she wanted to come on the show. Sadly, her girlfriend didn’t realize that Nicole wanted to win the money to put a ring on it.

Snippets of the champions showed throughout the episodes, and the veterans have been putting in work. CT revealed he has a son, Bananas and Cara Maria basically lives in the gym, Ashley believes she’s now a better competitor because she does cross fit, Zach isn’t impressed with the rookie but excited to see his ex, Jenna , and Laurel has been living her life in Montana.

Host TJ Lavin revealed that men vote women into eliminations individually and vice versa for the women. Kailah the most hated girl in the house was voted in by all the men except for Tony. Tony was voted by all the women in house except for his RW cast mate Nicole. What was wrong about this was Tony could’ve had a chance to avoid the elimination, but the deciding vote was left to his fake” friend”/ former RW cast mate Slyvia. Slyvia was weak and decided with her alliance because she was afraid to get voted in the next challenge. She betrayed her friend for girls she just met. All the other girls excluding Jenna, hates on Kailah because she’s a strong competitor who doesn’t take shit from NO ONE.

The elimination round is similar to football except for they’re trying to get four of the opponents 50-pounded bags to their side. Kailah annihilated Marie and Tony killed Bruno as they earned their place in the Oasis. I was happy to see them come back, but most of the cast members won’t. However, they still are unaware that the veterans are coming. Which will be great for Jenna, who has a target on her back for being friends with Kailah. For the other alliance, they’ll have to fight hard because these veterans have a reputation of destroying rookies.

The trailer showed a sneak peek of the champions creating some chaos. The bully, and toughest competitor Laurel is seen getting in a fight with loud mouth rookie Amanda. Zach and Jenna are shown getting cozy, so hopefully they’ll get back together. Newbie Nicole is shown trying to be a player hooking up with both veterans and best friends Laurel and Cara Maria. MTV has gotten me hungry for the next episode and my eyes will definitely be glued to my TV every Tuesday night at 9.

Invasion Coming Soon

This blog will pertain to all things about The Challenge, including after-shows, pre-shows, reunions etc. My opinions, comments, and predictions will cover the entire show which will air on February 7th, at 9 PM on MTV.

With eleven more days until the premiere of The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions, MTV finally blessed everyone with a trailer, short teaser videos, and interesting cast bios. The theme of this challenge is the invasion. The cast is split up into two. One team is the Challengers, those who’ve never one a challenge. While the other team is the Champions, which is made up of beastly competitors like Laurel and CT. The Challenge will start of with only the challengers for ten days, and then the champions will be the plot twist this season. It makes sense to have the rookies compete against ultimate veterans-who’ve won one or more challenges.

This season definitely will be interesting based off the cast members. The Champions consist of : CT, Laurel, Cara Maria, Camila, Bananas, Darrell, Zach and Ashley. Ashley and Zach are hardly champions since they’ve only won one challenge and it was a team challenge. However, MTV probably wanted Zach to be surrounded by both of his insanely beautiful exes Ashley and Jenna. It’s always a good season when Laurel and CT together since they’ve both been on a hiatus from the show for over two years. Unfortunately, Bananas, the champion everyone loves to hate is back. It’ll be an interesting season for him in regards to his politics since he screwed his partner, Sarah over in the previous season. Camila is always great until she turns into the Camil-ANTOR which always affects her game. Cara Maria is back since winning Bloodlines, but with Laurel here this season she’ll definitely have to step it up. I’ve never watch Darrell, but according to social media, he is a challenge legend.

 

The Challengers team look very interesting. There are some rookies from Are You The One like Hunter, Anthony, Dario, Nelson, and Amanda. I don’t have much faith in any of the AYTO cast because most of the house are from Real World, and tend to send AYTO cast mates home within the first couple of weeks. The rest of the cast are Anika,Ashley M., Jenna, LaToya,Kailah,  Marie, Nicole, Sylvia, Tony, Cory, Shane, and Bruno. Out of the challengers, Jenna and Cory are the only two people to ever place. Jenna’s been on the show three times and place second and third. Cory has been on the show twice and place second during the Bloodlines season. I have no doubt that Jenna, Nicole, and Cory will make it far if they don’t place.

The trailer previewed the Camil-ANTOR possibly getting into a brawl, a steamy hook up between Kailah and someone, Cara Maria and Nicole kicking ass in a physical battle, and the champion invading the house. Based off the trailer, I predict that Kailah will be hooking up with Cory, CT will destroy Zach in a physical challenge, Camila will possibly be fighting either with Bananas or Kailah, and Jenna will be distracted by her two-timing ex, Zach.

MTV also released a short video of the champions talking smack. The video was entertaining, goofy, and showed each competitors personality well. It’s going to be a good season, mostly because of the champions. I’m excited to see how some of the challengers compete since some of the rookies tend to only cause drama instead of compete at a chance of winning some money.