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

27–26. Esther and Nicole- Both had terrible performances in the mission and have done absolutely nothing this season.

25. Jenny- She’s a beast, but like Esther and Nicole she hasn’t had any role on this season.

24. Kayleigh- Kayleigh called Laurel a snake in this episode. Pot, meet kettle.

23. Turbo- I had to watch this episode a second time to even notice Turbo. He voted for Ashley for some reason in the deliberation (I guess because she quit the challenge?), but other than that he wasn’t involved at all.

22. Theo- After finally popping up last episode with a fight with Rogan, Theo remained a background character this week and didn’t even get a confessional.

21–20. Jogan- We didn’t really see any of them other than seeing them doing bicep curls in UK flag swimsuits. After being arguably the star of the first three episodes, Rogan didn’t even get a confessional this week.

19. Josh- After a huge episode last week, Josh took a bunch of Ls in episode four. He got roasted by Paulie and he found out that Georgia made out with Bear. Also, he bizarrely voted for Ashley, saying she broke his trust. I have no idea what he was referring to there. Josh seems to be in a state of confusion right now.

18. Leroy- Another non-noteworthy episode for Leroy. But I will say, I really like his position on the US team. Him and Zach are kind of able to fade into the background while Bananas, Paulie and Jordan all paint big targets on their backs. I could maybe see Leroy getting sent in against Bananas to break up that duo, but other than that I don’t see much of a reason for Leroy to go into an elimination any time soon.

17–16 Jordi- They had another quiet week, which was probably good gameplay as they let other people draw attention to themselves.

15. Idris- It was nice for him to be in the tribunal, and he was ultimately the deciding vote to send Laurel in. But Idris further solidified himself as the Subtitle King, extending his streak to four straight episodes of him not speaking loud enough for the audience to hear him.

BOW DOWN TO OUR SUBTITLE KING. LONG MAY HE REIGN.

14. Ninja- Yes it’s nice that she beat one of the greatest females in Challenge history (on more or less of a technicality), but I could not stand Ninja in this episode.

She threw a hissy fit when she was voted in, and annoyingly celebrated when she saw that the elimination had to do with climbing. It’s honestly a bit embarrassing for her that Laurel was super close to beating her given Natalie’s American Ninja Warrior background.

This is kind of the first time Ninja has seen how cutthroat the political game can be, and it seems like she thinks that just because she’s a good competitor she shouldn’t be voted in (which doesn’t even make sense because she dropped her relic during the mission). But this game is much more about the mental game than the physical game, as she is finding out.

As Bananas said, welcome to The Challenge, Ninja.

13. Zach- He broke down Laurel and her notebook beautifully, calling it the most intimidating duo on the show. Like Leroy, Zach is in a good position to sit back and watch his team eviscerate itself while he skates by.

12. Nany- She got in a little tiff with Paulie, when she took offense to Paulie telling her to shut the fuck up. This was directly after Nany told Paulie to shut the fuck up. I love you Nany, but logic isn’t your strong suit.

Also, despite her good friend Laurel going home, it was a win for her to not be sent into elimination when she is obviously the weakest girl on the US team. Her political game is her best shot at getting to the end of this game and picking up her first win.

11. CT- As much as he tries to play a neutral game, CT was forced to pick a side this week. After trying to burn his vote for who would be the speaker for the UK, he voted for Dee to protect Cara. It’ll be interesting to see as the game progresses if CT will finally have to make true alliances, as he’s been playing a lone wolf game for years now.

10. Dee- It says a lot about her standing on the team that she was voted the speaker of the tribunal. Dee also spearheaded Laurel going into elimination, getting Idris on her side and got to see her best friend take out the US team’s best woman.

9. Kam- I liked how she handled Laurel this episode. She calmly told Laurel that she never had any deal with Wes, and stood maturely while Laurel made of an ass of herself when she gave her an invisible shovel and told her to dig a hole.

Kam is one of the few people who won’t fall to Laurel’s intimidation tactics, and she earned a lot of respect from me this week.

8. Cara- She was really the voice of reason this episode. Cara was 100 percent justified calling Laurel and Bananas out for unnecessarily creating a divide in the US team. She also narrowly avoided elimination, as she had a vote cast against her by Georgia and she would have almost certainly been voted in if Kyle was the speaker.

Cara might have her back against the wall, but there aren’t many players in Challenge history that have more experience of fighting an uphill battle.

7. Paulie- He ranks this high for me almost solely based on his Josh impression, which was the greatest moment of his career so far.

6. Ashley- Anytime Ashley quits anything it opens her up to criticism, since she has threatened to quit the show approximately eight million times over her career (and actually went through with it on Dirty 30).

But I think Ashley was justified in quitting this mission. Bananas clearly sabotaged her, and the US wasn’t going to win even if she went back and completed the mission.

It was also pretty hilarious that Bananas of all people told Ashley that she would never win the show again, given how Johnny’s career has gone since Rivals 3.

It looked like Ashley might be a candidate to be voted in after the mission, but Laurel gave her a lifeline and told her to vote for Ninja.

Ashley’s playing a “anybody but me” Sandra Diaz-Twine Survivor game, and she might be in the best position of anyone to play both sides of the US team.

5. Bear- Even in a relatively quiet week (by his standards), Bear lands in my top five. He introduced me to a new bit of British slang when he called himself a slag, which apparently means someone who wants to fuck everyone (including 15 year olds).

Somehow, he got Georgia to make out with him in the pool, despite making her look like a fool all last season. As bad of a decision as it would be for Georgia, for selfish entertainment reasons I really hope her relationship continues. Through two seasons it might be my favorite romance in Challenge history.

4. Bananas- The old man Bananas schtick continued this week.

He successfully threw the mission, dropping his relic and barreling over Ashley.

I don’t know if anyone has tried throwing more missions in his career than Johnny. He intentionally dropped the flower on the Wall Walker challenge on The Ruins, on Exes 2 he jumped off during the Wrecking Ball mission so that Leroy/Nia would go into the elimination, and on Bloodlines he and Anthony attempted to throw Too Clingy (the mission where CT and Diem’s sister came in to honor Diem). His acting is almost always completely obvious, and he didn’t fool Ashley at all this week.

I really don’t get the rationale for him to throw the challenge. Like, was it really that important for him to try to get Ninja out? I just don’t see the reward was worth putting such a big target on his back, and it completely backfired on him when Dee became the speaker instead of Kyle. Kyle would have assuredly targeted Cara, who Bananas clearly wants out.

Johnny did do a nice job of getting in Georgia’s ear and having her vote for Cara, and I continue to enjoy how blunt he has been with his team. Everyone knows there’s a divide, and there’s no reason to act like there isn’t one (even though he is clearly one of the biggest reasons for the divide).

Laurel going home was not good for Johnny’s game, and he is clearly the biggest target for the Cara side now that she’s gone.

3. Georgia- She has arguably been the star of this season, and she’s leading the season in confessionals.

This week saw her re-ignite her former flame Bear while still keeping Josh hopelessly wanting her. She also made the tribunal and attempted to throw Cara in.

Plus she continues to rock pigtails like it’s nobody’s business.

2. Kyle- This was a low-key big episode for Kyle. Almost everything that happened this episode was because he got in Laurel’s ear and told her that Cara, Paulie, Ashley, Ninja and Kam were working with Wes, even though he had absolutely no proof of it.

He got six votes to be the speaker of the tribunal, which shows he has a pretty high standing on team UK.

And this shot was the funniest moment of the episode:

Laurel- Where do you even start with this episode for Laurel?

For my money the greatest female player in Challenge history coming into this season, Laurel had one of the worst political showings I’ve ever seen. She’s always been aggressive, but following up her terrible decision to throw in Wes last week, she doubled down by spearheading throwing the mission.

I just don’t really get the move from Laurel’s perspective, and I’m not just saying this because it backfired on her. She completely fell for Kyle’s lie that Para, Ninja, Ashley and Kam were all on Wes’ side, and it informed her decision-making for the rest of episode. I genuinely don’t think that anyone (except maybe Para) were really in some coalition with Wes.

Laurel tried to justify her actions by saying she was only going after Wes’ numbers, but let’s be clear here — Laurel was the one who drew the line in the sand. She broke the precedent of the tribunal always sending in a UK player, then she helped throw a mission.

And her overall attitude in this episode was embarrassing to watch. She talked to Cara, Paulie, Kam, Zach, etc. like they were objects, not people.

I always enjoy seeing how people on the show change after a long layoff, but it seems like Laurel hasn’t changed at all. She acts like she’s above people, and she continues to turn into a giggling school girl whenever anyone shows her romantic attention (which is what happened in the past with CT, Jordan and Nicole, and is what happened with Bear this season).

I’m not going to say she’s a bad person — you can’t make judgments of who these people truly are based on an edited TV show, and it’s clear that people like Bananas, Kyle, Georgia, Nany and Bear all genuinely like her.

But The Challenge is as much of a social game as it is a physical game, and Laurel is going to have to work a lot on that aspect if she’s going to win another season.

Losing to Ninja in a climbing elimination is obviously nothing to be embarrassed about, and she is still likely going to remain my pick for greatest female player in Challenge history. But this episode showed that Laurel is a flawed player, even if it was entertaining as hell to watch.

Stray Thoughts

I think Ninja won the elimination fair and square. TJ shouldn’t have blown the horn when the elimination wasn’t complete, but Ninja had her 21 branches in before Laurel, so I think it’s a legit victory for her. I can see the argument that they should have reset, and as much as I’d rather have seen Laurel stay over Ninja, I don’t have a problem with the decision.

Both the mission and eliminations were great this episode, not just in the drama but happened during them, but in their overall design. It was fun seeing people getting blasted by water, balls and rolling orbs in the Relic Runner mission, and Branched Out might have been my favorite climbing-based elimination ever (Wrecking Wall on Free Agents is its biggest competition for me).

I don’t think I’ve ever seen as much fighting during one daily challenge as there was this episode. We had Bananas vs. Ashley, Paulie vs. Nany, Cara vs. CT and the UK all fighting within themselves over who the speaker of the tribunal would be. TJ telling everyone to shut the fuck up was priceless.

A lot was made of the politics on the US team this week, but we also got to see a glimpse of what the UK alliances are. Bear, Theo, Georgia, Nicole and Jenny all voted for Kyle to be the speaker of the tribunal, while Rogan, Joss, Kayleigh, CT, Esther and Idris voted for Dee. There aren’t too many surprises in there, but it’s interesting to see where some of the underedited rookies like Idris, Jenny and Esther stand.

The music department is killing this season. In four episodes, we have heard classic songs like Fortunate Son, Stand by Me, Carry on My Wayward Son and Rambling Man. Also, there was a song by former castmember Davis Mallory in this episode, who’s best known in the Challenge world for getting cold-cocked by CT on Inferno 3.

I thought there was a decent chance Ninja would switch teams, but it really didn’t make sense for her. If she switched, the US would have thrown her in every time when they won on a girls day. It’s just hard to see anyone switching sides at this point, other than maybe CT or Kyle.

Season Standings

32. S̵e̵a̵n̵ (1)

31–30. F̵a̵i̵t̵h̵ ̵a̵n̵d̵ ̵Z̵a̵h̵i̵d̵a̵ (6)

29. Nicole (27)

28. B̵i̵g̵ ̵T̵ (32)

27. Esther (35)

26. Kayleigh (40)

25. Jenny (44)

24. Joss (49)

23. Nany (53)

22–21. Ninja and Theo (54)

20. Kam (56)

19. Leroy (61)

18–17. Cara and Turbo (64)

16–14. Paulie, Idris and Zach (66)

13. Tori (68)

12. W̵e̵s̵ (76)

11. Josh (81)

10. Jordan (87)

9. Ashley (89)

8. Rogan (93)

7. Kyle (96)

6. L̶a̶u̶r̶e̶l̶ (97)

5. Dee (98)

4. Georgia (101)

3. CT (106)

2. Bananas (107)