Every week, I’m going to rank the players based on their impact in the episode. These rankings are going to be completely subjective (so please don’t spend too much time critiquing them) based on my feelings of how entertaining the characters were, how they did competitively/politically, and how the episode impacted their overall game.

I’m going to keep running totals to determine who has the best season on War of the Worlds 2. The winner of this prestigious championship will be awarded the grand prize of nothing.

Let’s get to it.

RANKINGS

28. Nicole

27. Esther

26. Jenny- These three UK women have essentially been wallpaper so far this season. It’s understandable with so many big personalities on their team, but I hope at least one of them breaks out because this rookie class is looking ROUGH right now.

25. Nany- I’m a bit worried Nany is getting the Natalie Negrotti War of the Worlds treatment. After a big return last season, Nany has barely been shown so far this season. Hopefully that’ll change next episode, as it was shown in the previews that she will get into a fight with Paulie.

24–23. Para- Maybe the most shocking thing about this season has been how quiet Paulie and Cara have been. But that looks to be changing after this week.

Paulie was clearly pissed that Josh — a fellow Big Brother alum and ally of Paulie — decided to throw in one of Para’s biggest allies in Wes. Plus, we see in the preview for next week Paulie pushing Nany — a true shocker given Paulie’s history of sterling treatment of women.

22. Joss- It’s been pretty surprising seeing Joss completely upstaged by his best mate Rogan on the show. It’s not shocking given Joss was a complete bore on his first two seasons, but if he continues to not do anything Jogan will just be Rogan next season.

21–20. Kam and Kayleigh- After being the stars of last episode, they faded into the background on episode three.

19–18. Jori- This was the quietest both Jordan and Tori have been so far this season. Jordan was the best player for the US unlocking the last couple of locks, but that’s about all we saw from them this episode.

17. Ninja- She was involved in one of my favorite jokes of the episode, when Zach told Ninja that saying Josh overreacts was “distasteful.”

16. Turbo- Gave a pretty incoherent confessional about the suffering of hamsters, and another one about how he would crush bones in the elimination. We still haven’t seen much from Turbo this season.

15. Leroy- He says he’s going to start playing the game this season and stray away from his Bananas bubble. I’ll believe it when I see it.

14. Idris- He did a nice job of being voted on as the team speaker if the UK won the mission over Bear, and he stayed out elimination when Bear called him out. But the dude needs to stop whispering in confessionals.

13. Georgia- After Georgia said she was turned on by Bear’s performance against Wes, I am praying every night before bed for a Georgia/Bear/Laurel love triangle.

12. Ashley- It’s been pretty jarring to see Ashley be one of the voices of reason for Team US. Seriously, if Ashley is the level-headed one on the team, you know you have problems.

Also, after praising Ashley’s killer look last week, she dropped this look this week. Ashley is the representing the United States phenomenally this season.

11. Wes- As excited as I was to see the Bear vs. Wes matchup, I was sad that it guaranteed one of the show’s biggest stars would be going home. I called this matchup last week (I swear to the Challenge gods I’m not spoiled) because I saw the writing on the wall for both Wes and Bear.

Some people might say Wes played a bad game this season, but in reality he did the same thing he does every season. He tried to round up a bunch of new people with low IQs on his side, and while he might have gained some allies on the UK side, the US side was way too experienced and saw right through his shit.

He did get sloppy and said that Josh was expendable with Laurel still in the room, but still, Wes was not long for this game no matter what he did. He had a huge target on his back after last season, and it’s not like the US team really needs him to win challenges. He was at the very best the fourth-best guy on his team (behind Turbo, Jordan and Zach), and I’d probably put him behind Paulie and Bananas when it comes to daily challenges.

While losing to Bear is definitely embarrassing for Wes, it’s not the worst loss ever given the circumstances. Bear is at least his size if not bigger, Wes was blindsided by getting voted into elimination, and he was still recovering from an illness from last episode.

It sucks to see Wes go home this early, but the show will be fine without him. This is the same spot Bananas went home last season, and I expect the rest of the cast to keep this season entertaining without him.

10. Laurel- I don’t know what to do with Laurel this week. If I was ranking her strictly based on gameplay, she’d be dead last. Voting in Wes was the worst political move she’s ever made, and it’s not even close.

Laurel broke the rule of the US only voting in UK players, and now the game is broken wide open. She’s now made herself vulnerable to being sent in by the US.

At the same time, who did this move really piss off…Cara and Paulie? Guess what, they were never going to work with Laurel anyway.

The move also endeared herself to Bananas, Leroy and Jordan, who wanted Wes out. And if she had voted in Theo like most of her team wanted, Theo would have almost certainly come back pissed off at her, and it would have left her without her number one ally on the UK team in Bear (who she made out with this week, further solidifying herself as the challenger with the most questionable taste in romantic partners).

Plus these rankings are as much about entertainment as they are about good gameplay, and pitting Wes vs. Bear is any wrestling fan’s wet dream.

So for Laurel’s game, putting in Wes probably wasn’t the best move. But for the sake of entertainment, it was an awesome move.

9. Kyle- I think Kyle is playing a great game so far. He hasn’t drawn a line in the sand and is just going along with the numbers, watching as the war between Joss/Rogan and Theo/Bear plays out.

Plus, him walking into the house hand in hand with Laurel saying, “Me and Laurel are now in a relationship, I am untouchable” was hilarious.

8. Zach- You truly never know what you’re going to get with Zach. Sometimes he can be a giant dickhead, and other times he can be so quiet you forget that he’s on this show.

This episode is my favorite version of Zach — dropping hilarious one-liners and staying mostly in the background. The guy is the king of poop jokes — I think his line during the mission about him feeling like a turd floating at the top of a toilet broke the all-time record for most jokes about shit in Challenge history.

Also, how does Zach always find himself on the wrong side of extremely controversial votes? On Vendettas, he voted for Nelson while Tony and Kailah sent in Bananas. And this time, he said Theo’s name while Josh and Laurel voted for Wes. Both times it looked like he was genuinely shocked of the outcome.

7. Dee- She is not taking any shit this season. After being called out by Bear for protecting Rogan because she’s hooking up with him, Dee clapped right back. She also stood up for herself when Theo verbally attacked her. I have to be honest, I thought Dee was a bore last season, so it’s nice to see her earning her spot on the show.

6. Theo- After being almost silent in the first two episodes, Theo exploded on Rogan. I understand Theo’s frustration — he’s the best player on a shitty team, and somehow Rogan is running Team UK despite having accomplished absolutely nothing on the show in his short career.

At least Theo didn’t have to face Bear in elimination and take out his only true ally in the game.

5. CT- I absolutely love CT’s speeches to his team after the tribunal. Every week it’s like he’s the coach trying to console his fourth-grade girls basketball team who once again got its ass kicked.

It was also hilarious seeing CT try to manage Bear this week, as he compared letting Bear be the speaker of the tribunal to putting the Joker on city council.

He’s positioned himself so smartly, it’s almost like he’s not even an option to be voted in. It’s like Zach said last season, CT is just a figurehead. Hopefully his team continues to fight each other and forget that CT can be targeted.

4. Bananas- There definitely weren’t tears shed by Bananas seeing Wes go home. He said in this episode that beating Wes is more important to him than winning a final, so based on his own standards Johnny is already a winner this season.

Bananas also displayed one of the skills that’s most underrated about him in this episode — his ability to figure out a challenge. He was the one who came up with the strategy to have the US all try to find one person’s combination rather than the jumbled mess that was taking place in the first five minutes of the mission.

He also told it like it is in the US team meeting, that they should just accept that they are a fucked mess and stop trying to implement arbitrary rules.

I don’t know if he’ll be getting his seventh win this season, but he pushed his season record against Wes to 6–3 (the only time Wes has finished better than Bananas is The Duel, Rivals II and War of the Worlds), and for now has the bragging rights over his ginger nemesis.

3. Josh- Listen, I don’t like Josh at all. But I can’t deny the guy is having a great season.

He’s already fought with CT and flirted with Georgia, and he was one of the stars of this episode. Voting in Wes is going to piss of Paulie and might have been a bad political move, but honestly who cares?

Let’s be real, Josh isn’t winning this season. He was already the lowest on the totem pole on the US team, so why not make a big, memorable move? It’s in the best interest of Josh’s chances of returning to the show to make his presence felt, and it would have done nothing for him to just boringly vote in Theo and then eventually get eliminated in episode 7 or whatever.

Josh may not be succeeding in the game, but he’s succeeding in his chances of getting asked to be on another season.

2. Rogan- Is it fair to say Rogan been the star of this season? He’s hooking up with Dee, he’s somehow running the show on the UK team, and he got in a huge fight with Theo this episode.

I think Rogan is going to have to prove himself in elimination sooner or later. With Idris and Bear already going in, Rogan is the logical next male to see an elimination on team UK. But he might have the numbers to stay out for awhile.

Bear- He might be a shitty person, but Stephen Bear is television gold.

This was clearly Bear’s episode. He threw a hissy fit after not getting picked to be the team speaker if the UK won the mission. He made out with Laurel. He got in a fight with Dee in the deliberation. He faced his biggest vendetta on the show and took him out in dominating fashion.

That would be a great season for one cast member. This was one EPISODE, and there’s sure to be more to come as long as he’s on the show.

It’s amazing how in 34 seasons, there has never been a character even close to Bear. The guy is just one of a kind, and I’m so glad we have him.

He is no longer Stephen Bear. He is Grizzly Bear.

Stray Thoughts

What the hell was the US team thinking letting Josh be the speaker of the tribunal? Why would you give power to the guy who’s consistently shown himself to be an emotional wreck and a loose cannon?

I thought both the mission and elimination this week were solid. Watching people get consistently slammed on a hamster wheel is always fun to watch, and I always love seeing a headbanger elimination.

Overall I thought this was clearly the best episode of the season so far. Bear was absolute gold, we had a big fight with Rogan and Theo, and a huge blindside with Wes getting voted in.

Episode Grade: A-

Season Standings

32. S̵e̵a̵n̵ (1)

31–30. F̵a̵i̵t̵h̵ ̵a̵n̵d̵ ̵Z̵a̵h̵i̵d̵a̵ (6)

29. Nicole (21)

28. Esther (28)

27. Kayleigh (31)

26–24. Nany, Kam and B̵i̵g̵ ̵T̵ (32)

23. Ninja (35)

22–21. Joss and Jenny (36)

20. Cara Maria (39)

19. Paulie (40)

18. Theo (43)

17–16. Leroy and Zach (46)

15. Idris (48)

14. Tori (51)

13. Turbo (54)

12. Ashley (62)

11. Kyle (65)

10. Laurel (65)

9. Josh (67)

8–7. Jordan and Georgia (71)

6. Dee (75)

5. W̵e̵s̵ (76)

4. Bananas (78)

3. Rogan (81)

2. Bear (82)

1. CT (84)