The crew returns from the elimination, with Paulie carrying Ninja in after victory. Johnny is explaining to Theo and Jenny the complexity of the relationship between him and Cara. He motions for them to be quiet as Cara walks past, prompting her to ask him if he is plotting to throw the mission again. In another room, Josh is talking with Johnny, Tori, and Zach about who should be the next speaker if they win. Josh offers to be speaker, but Paulie comes in the room and does not agree. Paulie says he should be speaker, and after some discussion, Johnny and Josh agree to this proposition. I don’t know why Johnny agreed to this as if he had just let the players vote I think it would have been close between the two sides. My opinion is they should just let Turbo be the speaker as he would seem to be the most just in all scenarios, but I am not on The Challenge, unfortunately.

Ninja, Leroy, Paulie, and Tori talking to Paulie.

After this, we head to the mission for the episode, entitled Hooked. This mission has the teams each send up one player at a time, and that player attempts to jump to hook onto a zip line. After traversing down the zip line, the player must disembark and swim around a buoy. The team that has the fastest overall time wins.

Smashley jumping for the hook.

I always prefer the missions where the whole team goes at once, as breaking it into turns takes significantly longer. The times are posted below:

Jordan 3:15

Paulie 3:17

Johnny 3:29

Josh 3:36

Joss 3:44

Zach 3:48

Jenny 3:48

Kyle 4:13

Georgia 4:20

Rogan 4:22

Tori Deal 4:33

Nicole Bass 4:33

CT 4:36

Smashley 4:37

Theo 4:49

Turbo 4:54

Cara Maria 5:07

Kayleigh 5:28

Nany 5:31

Dee 5:50

Idris 6:14

Kam 6:42

Ninja 8:06

Esther 8:31

Jenny swimming.

Bear and Leroy’s times were not posted, but Bear finished 2:11 ahead of Leroy. Notable in the mission was how well Jenny and Nicole did even with Nicole waiting to jump for two minutes and how poor Ninja, Turbo, Kam, and Esther did. Esther was an absolute disaster and was barely able to keep herself moving while Ninja was accused of throwing the mission. Zach gets in her face a little bit after she returns, and she is not happy. Turbo also tanks this mission, although not much is made of it upon returning. Jordan also grills Cara a little bit for her performance although she did not perform too bad after looking at the results in totality.

Nicole hesitating on the jump.

After the mission, TJ announces Jordan and Jenny as the fastest of each gender. He also announces Team US as the winner, much to the chagrin of UK. The US declares Paulie as the speaker, who takes Jordan and Cara Maria into the Tribunal with him.

Theo monologuing to the rest of the team.

We return to the house where after a brief conversation between Johnny and Leroy, we head to the nomination ceremony. Theo clearly seems to realize he is in danger and opens the nominations with a long monologue. The monologue does not seem successful, as he just gets into barking matches with Rogan and Dee and after a vote is thrown in. Pretty crazy that Team US was pushing to put Theo in as he was considered UK’s best guy and now his own team is putting him in. Theo talks with the Tribunal briefly, but Jordan is the only one really talking as Cara and Paulie sit quietly stewing. Theo requests Rogan or CT be sent in against him and Jordan sends him on his way.

Zach and Ninja talking at the bar.

After returning to the house, the cast moves out to the bar. Zach and Ninja talk and Zach apologizes for being harsh with her. Ninja talks about how everyone is supportive in the Ninja Warrior community and she isn’t used to being yelled at. Ninja has gotten some negative reactions from fans which I don’t usually understand, but she came off pretty hypocritical considering her blowup with Turbo last season. Elsewhere Johnny tells Kyle and CT if he is thrown in and wins, he plans to flip over to Team UK. Kyle is excited because he thinks CT, Johnny, and he would be able to control the game. I’m not so certain as Joss’ alliance seems to have pretty solid ground at the moment and that trio might not be enough, and Johnny would also still be a pretty big target for Team US.

Paulie talking with Jordan and Tori.

Josh and Cara have a conversation about how much Johnny has mistreated Cara in the past. She also points out to Josh that he came at Wes for one transgression against him, Cara is coming for Johnny for multiple transgressions. In this situation, saying simply “Johnny tried to throw a mission” should be enough but Cara’s reasoning makes a lot of sense here. After the bar, Paulie talks with Jordan and Tori about what Cara is going to do. Paulie says Cara is for sure targeting Johnny but he is not sure what to do yet. I always thought Paulie and Cara would be more lockstep with Tori and Jordan, and maybe this conversation is an indication of that moving forward.

Cara signaling what team she feels Johnny actually belongs to.

We move towards the elimination, which has a weird setup consisting of cages and holes strewn about. TJ asks Jordan for his vote first, and he selects Rogan. Cara is up next, and she votes for Johnny, followed by Paulie who votes for Johnny as well. TJ lips Cara a little bit about voting is perhaps the most decorated cast member ever, but Cara points out that after throwing a mission the only team Johnny is the best player for is Team UK. TJ introduces the elimination as Die For Me and has Theo and Johnny both fit into small cage-like boxes. The competitors must push against the side of the cage to move towards seven different landmines, each marked with a different Roman Numeral. Once the competitor puts the balls in each landmine, they move towards the finish. First one there with all landmines filled wins.

The boys moving their cages.

The elimination starts and Theo and Johnny are pretty even. Johnny seems made for this elimination, as the stranger the elimination the more his Challenge IQ will help him. Theo has a slight edge on Johnny, but Johnny works hard to even it up. Theo’s lanky frame seems to cause him to struggle to move the cage efficiently, while Johnny is generally pretty successful. They seem pretty equal until Johnny moves ahead by a tad. However, TJ points out Johnny mixed up two of the balls. Johnny has to move to rectify the error, allowing Theo to get ahead and win the elimination, sending home the Banana Man.

Johnny after being eliminated.

TJ goes to dismiss Johnny, who does not hesitate to give a parting speech. He pulls off his shirt like Dwyane Wade in his farewell season and hands it to Theo, and then leaves the Proving Ground; ending the episode.

Eliminated

Johnny: I’m not sure why Johnny agreed to vote Paulie as the speaker, it seemed if he had just let it go to an overall vote it would have been pretty close. Johnny over the past two seasons has barely made an impact and he really needs to regroup if he wants to improve in the future.

Power Rankings

25) Nicole Bass: She actually put in a decent mission performance but hesitating so much was not a good look.

24) Idris: Another bad performance in the mission although he is doing ok politically.

23) Esther: She hasn’t done much besides a few confessionals and bad swimming.

22) Jenny: Strong performance in the mission but the rookie excuse means she should be going in shortly.

21) Leroy: There’s room on Team US to flip if he chooses to but Leroy hasn’t made a politically active decision since siding with Wes on Exes 2.

20) Nany: I think she is better than given credit for, but she is the worst girl in the US despite her strong performance last season.

19) Bear: It seems like Joss and Rogan might just flip flop throwing in Bear and Theo for the foreseeable future.

18) Theo: Team UK being so ready to throw him in was inanity to me but he’s on the wrong side of the politics and needs to make up some ground.

17) Kyle: He’s trying to take the floater role on Team UK, but he doesn’t have any clear allies at the moment.

16) Josh: It’s possible I actually have him too low, but he so clearly sticks out as the worst member of Team US that he could get thrown in at any point.

15) Rogan: His name gets discussed every week seemingly, but he should be in good shape for the near future.

14) Georgia: Considering what happened to Theo this week, she could be on her own team’s hit list unless they wise up and start putting in some weaker players.

13) Kayleigh: It would seem that eventually something will happen, and Kayleigh will get pushed to the bottom but for now she’s in solid political position.

12) Tori Deal: It seems difficult to imagine how she could fit into the majority alliance considering there are so many girls there already, but her social game has always been very proficient.

11) Jordan: He’s a good enough competitor that he should be able to hang around for a while, but he really should pledge loyalty to Paulie at this point.

10) Dee: She holds a ton of power right now and seems to be able to direct most of the votes how she wants.

9) Joss: He really seems to be in pole position for Team UK and seems well set up for the future.

8) Zach: The middle seems to be the place to be at the moment, although I could see him being a target for UK given the opportunity.

7) CT: He caught a little bit of flak today, but he still is sitting pretty well on top of Team UK.

6) Turbo: Paulie mentioned in the after show that Turbo plays the beginning of the season slow and picks it up as he goes along. We’ll see if that occurs again, but he seemed to lose favor from some of Team US.

5) Ninja: Outstanding athlete but we have found her Achilles heel.

4) Kam: Not great in the mission, but still solid in her alliance.

3) Smashley: Smashley is complete Teflon right now and unless UK decides to put her in she looks as clean as day.

2) Paulie: Backstabbing so brazenly in a team game is never a great look but it was undoubtedly the correct decision.

1) Cara Maria: Cara seems to be queen bee at the moment and looks well set for a clean run to the final.

Extra Notes

· Make sure to vote in our Top Male Competitors poll. Voting functions the same way as the Top Female Competitors poll.

Fantasy Scoring