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.

Also, just a note for scoring — since over half the cast has been eliminated, I’m changing the points awarded to stagger by 1.5, meaning that first place gets 32 points, second place gets 30.5, third place gets 29, etc. I don’t think Kayleigh should get 17 points this week just for getting last place, so it’s time to change up the scoring system.

On that note, let’s get to it.

RANKINGS

16–15. Kayleigh and Joss- I have mixed feelings about the purge this week. On one hand, I don’t think it’s fair for Joss to have been eliminated solely because Kayleigh sucked in the mission.

But at the same time, it was so satisfying to see Jellyfish Joss get his comeuppance for actively weakening his team throughout the season. He made a decision to stick with his numbers instead of trying to keep his team strong, and it epically blew up in his face this week.

I think (or hope at least) this will be the last we see Joss on the show, and his career is pretty crazy when you look at it.

He lost to Derrick K in one of the greatest eliminations of all time on Vendettas.

He was extremely close to winning Final Reckoning (and if I’m being honest, if you held a gun to my head and asked me whether or not I thought that final was rigged for Ashley/Hunter, I would say that it was indeed rigged),

This time, he went out this time in a purge purely because of Kayleigh.

Joss has never been eliminated by an active player in three seasons, yet still has just one final and $0 to show for.

I think we’ll probably get at least another season out of Kayleigh. She usually brings a fair amount of drama, especially after making a rivalry with Georgia this season.

Although she’s not even close to as good of a competitor as Joss, I think Kayleigh played a great political game this season. While it didn’t make as much sense for Joss to keep the weak players on his team, Kayleigh was one of the weak players, so for her to go the entire season without seeing an elimination was obviously in her best interest.

Kayleigh’s never going to win a season, but she understands the game more than most players, so I wouldn’t mind seeing her again.

14. Ninja- How bad were the mechanics of the mission this week that Ninja — arguably the worst swimmer on the show — got to sit out?

Not only did she sit out, she somehow became the tribunal speaker on a guy’s elimination day. Then when she was in power, she used it to try to get Jordan to apologize for being rude.

Ninja is like a human eye roll producer, there’s just really been nothing to enjoy about her this season.

13. Nany- Her friends keep going home, but Nany remains in the game. We got a ton of content the last two weeks about her friendship with Josh, so of course he got eliminated this week. Nany, Zach, Jordan and Tori are the last survivors of an alliance that once included Bananas, Laurel, Nicole, Bear, Kyle, Georgia, Theo, Jenny and Josh.

Although she’s made it this far, I really don’t see any way Nany stays out of the next elimination. If Team US loses, she’s obviously going to be thrown in by her team. If Team UK loses, Tori is probably voted in, then the US tribunal will likely send Nany in to try to have less people for the final.

The only possible way is if Rogan decides to actually pull the trigger on Dee, and then the US tribunal would vote in Tori.

Nany has gotten an inordinate amount of screentime lately (even though she was fairly quiet this week), so I think there’s really only two options for this season.

She either goes into the final elimination and wins, then goes on to win her first season. Or she loses right before the final and remains one of the best women to never win the show.

As much as I love Nany, my prediction is the latter.

12. Cara- For someone who is completely dominating the game, Cara just seems to be checked out at this point. She didn’t look great in the swim, and she didn’t want to listen to Paulie giving her shit.

It’s a fair point that it makes no sense that Cara is bad of a swimmer as she is when she’s been on a billion seasons. But it doesn’t matter — Cara is almost certainly going to her fifth consecutive final, which is a straight up astounding achievement for one of the biggest legends in the show’s history.

11–10. Zach and Ashley- These two looked to be one of the fastest swimming pairs this week, which is kind of amazing considering it looked like Ashley was backstroking most of the time.

They were also in the tribunal, with Zach throwing his vote away on Paulie and Ashley sending in Josh.

During the mission, Ashley commented on Zach’s on how positive and encouraging of a partner he was, which is shocking given his track record with female partners.

This is what we call character development, people.

9. Tori- Her and Jordan were solid in the mission, and Tori’s man won another elimination as their underdog stories continue this season.

8. CT- I loved seeing CT using his status to make Rogan partner up with Dee. No matter how much control Rogan has had throughout the season, when it comes down to crunch time CT is going to look out for himself and get what he wants.

7. Josh- I don’t know if anyone improved their stock as much this season as Josh.

He scored a lot of likability points for actively going against Paulie and Cara, and in general he just came across as a genuinely nice guy.

And although he got skunked by Jordan in the elimination, he proved himself as a solid competitor throughout the season, especially in the swimming missions.

I don’t think I’ll ever be a big fan of Josh, but he definitely earned his spot to return.

6. Paulie- It was impressive to see Paulie solve the riddle and help the US win, but I think him pushing for Josh to go in was a mistake.

I just don’t see how it makes sense to lose a strong guy before the final, and with him not being in the tribunal, he could have given Ninja and Ashley the OK to send in Rogan to keep the US strong.

But nobody has played this season thinking about team strength, so it’s not like it’s a surprise for Paulie to want to send in the guy he’s been beefing with all season.

5–4. Kamroy- They narrowly avoided getting purged out, as Leroy’s horrible swimming almost sent him and Kam packing. Since I gave Cara shit for sucking at swimming, I have to do it for Leroy too. It’s dumbfounding how 11 seasons in, he’s still this bad at swimming.

Still, they survived and both look to be in great shape to make the final and pick up their first victory. And they seem closer than ever, as Leroy cried in Kam’s arms after the mission and they were holding hands coming back into the compound.

Love is in the air on The Challenge this season. Jordan and Tori got engaged, Leroy and Kam re-kindled their romance, and somehow Paulie hasn’t cheated on Cara yet.

3. Rogan- Even though it was kind of shitty, seeing Rogan throw Joss under the bus and telling Dee that it was his plan to throw her in was hilarious.

He knows Dee is naive and overly trusting, and he can prey on it easily. Dee would have been justified for sending Rogan in, but he got her back on her side and saved himself once again.

Rogan’s played an excellent political game this season, and getting Dee to do anything for him has probably been his best move.

2. Dee- I love how much heart Dee has. She didn’t want to hear Rogan encouraging her before the mission, because she didn’t need it.

She set out to prove everyone wrong, and she did just that, outswimming (at least) Kam/Leroy and Kayleigh.

It wasn’t the best look for her to jump right back to Rogan’s side, but that’s besides the point.

Dee is a badass, and she doesn’t need validation from anyone to prove it.

1 Jordan- Who else could be number one?

After three weeks in a row with the episode ending in Jordan or Tori winning an elimination, it was business as usual this week.

The UK didn’t even have a deliberation, they just raised their hands and sent Jordan in.

But Jordan took it like the champ he is. He knows there’s no point trying to get upset or try to scramble at this point, and just goes to the Proving Ground and takes care of business. He easily took out Josh this week, and it looks like he secured his spot in the final.

This has turned into the season of Jordan and Tori, and they’re really the only thing saving it from being boring at this point.

Stray Thoughts

If in fact next week is the last elimination, that would mean there will be six guys and six girls making the final. I think 12 is the perfect amount of finalists for this season. I think we’ve had too many seasons of just one or two people winning the season, and I’m ready to have some new champions. Of the 13 remaining players, only five have won a final (CT, Cara, Jordan, Ashley, Zach), so we could have as many as five new champions this season.

I touched on it earlier, but I really hated that this was the purge. First of all it was purely based on swimming, and I’m of the belief that a purge should be more of a mini-final that requires multiple skills. Plus, there was no reason for it to be based on partner times when it could have easily been based on individual times. The show has rarely done a purge that I thought was well-done, and this wasn’t one of them.

Team US has now won 11 out of 13 missions, and one of their losses was when Bananas and Laurel threw it. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if the US had never turned on each other. They could have eliminated the entire UK team at this point.

Episode Grade: B-

Season Standings

32. S̵e̵a̵n̵ (1)

31–30. F̵a̵i̵t̵h̵ ̵a̵n̵d̵ ̵Z̵a̵h̵i̵d̵a̵ (6)

29. B̵i̵g̵ ̵T̵ (32)

28. N̶i̶c̶o̶l̶e̶ (67)

27. W̵e̵s̵ (76)

26. L̶a̶u̶r̶e̶l̶ (97)

25. E̶s̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ (103)

24. B̶a̶n̶a̶n̶a̶s̶ (131)

23. I̶d̶r̶i̶s̶ (138)

22. T̶u̶r̶b̶o̶ (168)

21. K̶a̶y̶l̶e̶i̶g̶h̶ (176)

20. B̶e̶a̶r̶ (181)

19. K̶y̶l̶e̶ (197)

18. J̶o̶s̶s̶ (198)

17. J̶e̶n̶n̶y̶ (189)

16. Ninja (201.5)

15. T̶h̶e̶o̶ (214)

14. Cara (240.5)

13. Nany (242)

12. Josh (254)

11. G̶e̶o̶r̶g̶i̶a̶ (256)

10. Kam (257)

9. Zach (267)

8. Leroy (276.5)

6–7. Paulie and Ashley (283.5)

5. Tori (290)

4. Dee (310.5)

3. CT (316.5)

2. Jordan (320)

1 Rogan (325)