The episode opens with the cast returning to the house. Josh is super pumped to return and immediately starts ingratiating himself with the house. He quickly realizes Amanda has a lot of enemies, which could cause some problems for him. On the other side of the house, Hunter is explaining his political situation to Georgia. He says his best move politically is to law low, and let Wes do the politicking for him. They apparently talked before the season and have a set agreement going in.

Hunter and Georgia talking politics.

We head to the daily mission, entitled Arms-a-geddon Tired. The way the mission works is each pair has another pair they will compete against. The male from the pair will compete against the male; the female against the female. Each player will pull the rope in the tug of war fashion towards their side. After a horn is blown and TJ runs over the ropes with a monster truck, the amount of rope each player has will be added with their ally’s and the top three teams will form the tribunal.

A distance look at the mission.

I legitimately fell off my couch when I heard “tribunal”; because if functionally sounds a lot like the “troika” from Vendettas that was the bane of my existence. I do think the idea had potential, but just that it was implemented wildly unfairly and gave the three people at the top (generally Zach, Tony, and someone else) way too much power and made it almost impossible for them to be unseated. We’ll see how it works here, but hopefully, they improve from the first time around.

An inside look at the vehicle the rope is in.

The matchups for the first mission are decided based on the finish of the alumni from the last episode. The first finishing alumni will get to select their opponent and it runs down the list. The matchups are as follows:

Paulie/Ninja-Kyle/Mattie

Da’Vonne/Bear-Jenna/Gus

Johnny/Morgan-Wes/Dee

Kam/Cain-Smashley/Chase

CT/Julia-Negrotti-JP

Nany/Turbo-Amanda/Josh

Zach/Zahida-Leroy/Shaleen

Hunter/Georgia-Cara Maria/Theo

TJ’s Monster Truck crushing the cars to call the end of the round.

It’s kind of difficult to really recap the mission fully as it’s mostly just a lot of pulling and some fun Wes-Johnny banter; so, I’ll just give the results. The top three end up as:

Cara Maria/Theo

Johnny/Morgan

Amanda/Josh

The tribunal discussing who to put up.

Cara Maria/Theo and Johnny/Morgan aren’t much surprise, but props to Amanda and Josh for getting to the top. We head back to the house where we immediately get into the “tribunal”; which is just the six competitors sitting at a table. Johnny and Cara quickly come to the conclusion that they will pick Hunter/Georgia and Smashley/Chase, and Amanda can pick whomever she wants as the third. Amanda is clearly not happy with this, but eventually relents and selects Zach/Zahida.

Smashley and Chase meeting the tribunal.

The Tribunal starts, and Smashley/Chase is the first team up. Smashley tells the Tribunal that Hunter/Georgia are bigger threats, but Cara retorts back that Smashley has won two of the three seasons she tried. Hunter/Georgia is the next team, and he and Johnny argue for a bit but nothing substantive really emerges. Zach/Zahida are the last teams to go, and Zach says he will let Zahida do the talking. Zahida says she would select Smashley/Chase since she and Georgia are friends and Smashley has a lot of enemies.

Wes, Hunter, Turbo, and JP discussing alliance happenings.

In another part of the house; Wes seems to be holding an alliance meeting between himself, JP, Turbo, and Hunter. Interesting to see Turbo and JP included with the group; as you would figure Nany and Natalie to be more floaters than anything. Hunter tells the group going after Johnny is the primary goal; so, if he has the opportunity to pick someone to go against, he will go at Leroy since he is Johnny’s primary ally.

Johnny channeling his inner Father Lankester Merrin.

Outside, Amanda and Morgan are arguing. Amanda starts interrogating Morgan, saying she is just being a follower of Johnny. Obviously, Amanda is frustrated based on her power not amounting to much; but I’m not sure what she wants Morgan to do. Morgan is completely tied to Johnny and it wouldn’t make much sense for her to make a massive political decision based on a few days of mingling when her partner has years of turmoil and she is going to be affected by it no matter what she does. Seeing this, Johnny puts on Cara’s “Not Today Satan” shirt and makes a cross out of hangers. Amanda does not take kindly to this, and CT and Nany start yelling.

Hunter bug-eying in traditional Brad fashion.

Soon after, Hunter and Johnny start yelling at each other with Hunter asking Johnny how many individual wins he has and explaining to the rest of the house a lot of Johnny’s wins came as a member of a larger team. Big props to Hunter for pointing this out; as one of my pet peeves has always been people pointing to seasons won without looking at why or how those seasons were won. They head back inside, where Hunter and Leroy start arguing. Hunter takes off his shirt for some reason while Leroy is telling Hunter “She took $500,00 from you.” It’s hard to tell exactly what is going on, but it appears Leroy is trying to convince Hunter to go after Smashley instead of Johnny and himself. Producers start having to get involved and drag Hunter away from the fracas.

Cain and Amanda talking down Hunter.

Hunter is outside where Cain, Kam, Gus, Amanda, and Wes are trying to talk him down; before he hears clapping and attempts to dive through a window to figure out why everyone is clapping. I’m a bit curious myself as to why there is all the clapping, but I think opening a door would have been a better strategy to find out why. Hunter and Amanda start arguing about who has whose back before Amanda decides to prove it and goes inside to start defending Hunter. Jenna for some reason starts coming at Amanda. It appears as if Amanda was saying something about Nany and Jenna from what we saw, and Amanda finally decides to reveal the bomb she had been holding since last season. She claims that Zach was on Bumble and showed it to her and Da’Vonne after they got eliminated.

Jenna and Zach discussing the Bumble controversy.

Jenna and Zach go elsewhere to discuss it. Zach says the whole situation was a joke and he only downloaded it again in Africa to see if it worked. Zach doesn’t want to discuss it further and Jenna threatens to just leave. She and Zach argue to the point where Jenna is the one apologizing. I really hate playing morality police here as we obviously are not aware of the full story, but Zach looked awful in this scene and it was honestly difficult to watch.

The house at the Killing Floor.

After this, we head to the Killing Floor, which is where eliminations will take place this season. TJ says each member of the Tribunal will vote individually for which team will go into elimination. The votes end up as:

Amanda-Zach/Zahida

Johnny-Hunter/Georgia

Cara Maria-Smashley/Chase

Theo-Smashley/Chase

Morgan-Hunter/Georgia

Josh-Hunter/Georgia

Josh with the surprising vote to put in Hunter/Georgia, although I assume it was just to avoid a tie Amanda probably will not be pleased. I would have preferred for the house as a whole to vote for the three teams up for elimination and then the Tribunal to pick from them or vice versa just to avoid decisions without much though like what happened on Vendettas; but we’ll see how this plays out.

Hunter and Georgia looking at their options for opponents.

TJ tells Hunter/Georgia that they will get to select a pair to go against in elimination, and can select from anybody that is not in the Tribunal. Hunter calls out Smashley/Chase; seemingly on the principle of spite in multiple directions. Johnny and Cara are all over this decision as it brings in the other pair who they wanted to go. Probably not the best long term move as going after one of Johnny’s allies would benefit him more than picking off someone who has no real standing in the game, but it certainly makes for great TV.

Hunter taking down Chase.

TJ announces they are playing Drone Ball Drop. A drone will fly overhead the elimination and drop a ball. Each competitor will race to grab the ball and then attempt to put it in the basket on their opponent’s side. If they do not get it, they will try to stop their opponent from doing so. Males will go against males, females against females with the first to two winning.

Georgia dunking the ball for the win.

Women’s round is up first; Georgia says her biggest fear is contact sports; which does not bode well. Smashley is able to track the ball perfectly and catches it in midair; then makes Georgia miss and scores a point. Men’s round is next, and Chase gets a lucky bounce and catches it. However, Hunter meets him right away and is able to bring him out of bounds. Hunter gets the next one, and jukes Chase on his way to the basket. The score is tied at 1–1; making the winner of the next round the winners overall. Hunter starts hyping Georgia up by saying Smashley stole from his family and he can’t let that happen again. Georgia receives the ball and is able to spin around Smashley and dunk the ball to get the winning point.

Hunter and Smashley hugging after the elimination.

Hunter explodes in emotion after the point. He gives Smashley a parting hug before it cuts to a confessional of him crying from having just knocked out his archrival. We get a clip of Hunter crying in his confessional as Georgia is hugging him. TJ dismisses Smashley/Chase and is about to explain the “relic” Hunter/Georgia received before the episode ends.

Hunter and Georgia after their win.

While I still have concerns about the tribunal, absolutely outstanding episode that hopefully speaks well for the rest of the season.

Eliminated

Smashley/Chase: Hard fall for Smashley, but after last season and getting saddled with what seemed to be a dud partner her prospects were never all that high.

Power Rankings

15) Negrotti/JP: An alliance with Wes will help, but these two have been literally invisible so far.

14) Da’Vonne/Bear: Outside of a few good Da’Vonne confessionals not much from them either.

13) Amanda/Josh: Having them this low after winning sucks, but their political situation is an unmitigated disaster.

12) Leroy/Shaleen: A+ move from Leroy to convince Hunter to go after Smashley instead; but not good to hear your name this early.

11) Zach/Zahida: Not a great look from Zach at all this episode, and I’m still unsure of this team’s political situation.

10) Kyle/Mattie: Not much from them yet, but Mattie looks like she could be a monster.

9) CT/Julie: I’m not sure people are all that intimidated by CT anymore and Julie still has a lot of question marks.

8) Paulie/Ninja: I have no idea where Paulie stands politically, which can be a good thing or a bad thing.

7) Hunter/Georgia: An absolutely crazy episode from Hunter. If Johnny is persistent in throwing him in it could certainly be a problem, but Hunter has shown he can fight out of it and Georgia doesn’t seem like a scrub either.

6) Jenna/Gus: I’ve always been skeptical of Jenna as a competitor, but their only enemy seems to be Amanda and I don’t see her having the allies to make much of a play against her.

5) Nany/Turbo: Similar to Jenna; I just don’t see Nany having many enemies (yet) and Turbo seems like one of the most likable guys in the house.

4) Wes/Dee: Losing to Johnny and having an ally go somewhat rogue isn’t great, but he appears to already have a crew of allies and Johnny’s focus seems elsewhere.

3) Kam/Cain: On paper, they look like they could be the best team and Kam has never really had many enemies.

2) Johnny/Morgan: If the right people get power their reckoning could come but for right now, they are sitting pretty.

1 Cara Maria/Theo: Don’t see a reason to move them down so at the top they stay.

Extra Notes

· Apparently, there were a lot more rounds to the elimination then were shown. This happens often, but it would have been nice to get the full picture of such an impactful moment.

· US Magazine had an article on Jenna and Zach; where Jenna explains the situation. Read through it for yourself. https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/the-challenges-jenna-on-fight-with-zach-shares-status-update/

Fantasy Scoring