Following last week’s “dramatic cliffhanger”, the show opens where we left off, the elimination nominations. TJ tells the winners to vote, starting with CT. He chooses Dario because he has slept through the entire season. Kailah and Camila follow his decision, and a bitter Hunter throws his vote at Jordan. Dario is going in and has some self-awareness about it. When TJ asks if he thinks he is skating by, Dario replies: “I’d being lying if I said this hasn’t been easy so far.”

For the girls vote, Kailah goes on this weird rant of how Veronica needs to prove herself after all these years to show that she’s still a great competitor. Someone needs to make Kailah aware that Veronica has the most wins out of any female Challenger ever. Camila also votes Veronica, Hunter burns his vote on Jemmye to show no ill will towards Veronica, and CT votes Veronica saying she is the girl he would pick last.

Presidio

Everyone is available for the double cross (excluding the winners) — six girls and five guys. Britni pulls the first switch and gets a single cross. Tori goes next and pulls the double cross. She gets her revenge and tosses in Aneesa, who threw her in earlier this season. Veronica and Aneesa are facing each other in elimination, which is a crazy statement in 2017.

Bananas and Tony pull their switches first revealing only single crosses. When Jordan goes up to pull his switch, he pulls his third double cross of the season, throwing in Tony. An easy choice for Jordan as Tony is at the bottom of the veteran alliance. Tony finally realizes that maybe playing as Johnny Bananas pet isn’t the best idea for his long-term game. Then again, Tony has NEVER made it this far in the game before. Tony versus Dario is the lamest possible elimination in a Double Cross that was stacked with great competitors. LeRoy puts it well when he says that Dario thinks Tony sucks, and Tony thinks Dario sucks, so we get to see who sucks more.

Elimination

The game is simple, you dive in a hole that has 25 feet of floors that consist of plastic, webs, and rope that you must traverse down till you hit the ground floor and pick up a flag. You then take the flag and climb back up the floors to the top where you will hang your flag on a post. First person to do so wins. It is clear that being smaller gives you an advantage when going down as you can slide down easier, being bigger makes it easier going back up as you can make much larger strides and leaps.

Dario vs Tony

This is a close match. Dario gets down slightly faster than Tony, but Tony gets up the floors way quicker. He beats Dario by about a whole floor (four or five feet). Funny thing about this all is that you can tell that Dario is completely over the Challenge as whole. Even before the elimination he talked about how he would come and go for the big dogs if he gets a chance, yet there was no enthusiasm or vigor in his voice, he was reading a script, not saying what he wants. What’s sad about Dario on this season is that he simply does want to be there, he’s even said it on his Instagram live that he didn’t really desire to go on Dirty 30. Then you realize the appearance check is too good for a 24 year old to pass up. Tony is smiling and enthusiastic, this is his first real elimination win in front of crowd. Big moment for Tony as a character and competitor.

Veronica vs Aneesa

Once this started, Veronica got the jump on Aneesa and never looked back. She got down to the ground floor when Aneesa was still ten feet above her. Aneesa was a bit faster on the way up and began covering some ground. Veronica gets the win and impresses the crowd with her performance. She proves that even though she’s not in the shape she used to be, she is still a three time Challenge Champion.

Post Elimination

TJ congratulates the winners and tells Dario and Aneesa that they are heading to the third Redemption house. Everyone looks very upset, including the fans watching at home.

At the house, Tony and Hunter are eating dinner, seemingly alone. Tony looks over to Hunter and tells him that he thinks they’re the two outsiders, and from here on that he wouldn’t say his name if he got any power. An actual good social move by Tony, making an alliance with someone who is loyal. Forget the Young Bucks, we now have the Young Schmucks.

Camila is in Jailah’s room telling them that they need to show her more loyalty and respect because her and Cara Maria have showed them that type of “respect”. It’s Camila being completely entitled and having a power trip. Once she leaves the room, Kailah discloses that her and Jenna will need to cut off that alliance before it cuts them.

Daily Challenge

We arrive at the mission with seven guys and eight girls left. TJ tells them they will be breaking up into three teams of five. The winners of the challenge not only decide who is going automatically into elimination, but they get the one time power of voting one guy and one girl straight into the Redemption house. The challenge itself is a puzzle that is preceded by an obstacle. Competitors are put in a dark room where they must chip hard paint off a stained glass window with their nails. Once the paint is chipped off, it will reveal numbers on the other side. These numbers will give the players a four number combination to open a lock to a sledgehammer where they can then smash through the glass and run out to begin their puzzle.

The puzzle is a basic geometric cube using random 3-d blocks to create a cube/rectangular prism. Eerily similar to the puzzle on the Rivals 2 final. If you remember, Bananas, Jordan, Camila, and Jemmye all were not able to solve it, while CT and Cara Maria were able to solve theirs.

Teams end up splitting into:

Green Team: Kailah, Veronica, Britni, Jordan, Tony

Blue Team: Jemmye, Cara Maria, Jenna, Bananas, Hunter

Pink Team: Camila, Tori, CT, Derrick, LeRoy

The Green Team has one dead-weight puzzle person (Tony), and one giant asset in Veronica. The Blue Team has three dead-weights in Jemmye, Jenna, and Hunter, while the Pink Team has two in Derrick and LeRoy. Normally most of these people aren’t dead-weight, they just are in puzzles.

It’s horrifying watching and listening to the first part of this challenge, people are literally scratching a window resulting in nail on chalkboard like noises. The Blue Team gets out of their room first, the Green Team second, and the results are Hunter and Jordan both having bloodied hands from breaking the glass. Pink gets out last and they stay like that the entire way. CT is stressed due to how high pressure the situation is, and more than anything, he cannot deal whatsoever with Camila being her normal yelling self who won’t get out of the way and isn’t self-aware.

On the Blue Team, their best puzzle person is Cara Maria — a main reason in why they lose. The Green Team pulls it away because Veronica took Geometry at some point in her life and learned something. They take the win, and hold ALL the power. Their plan is to make a big move, which means they will likely eliminate either CT or Bananas, and Cara Maria or Camila. Jordan creates the idea that they need to go after someone you can’t imaginably eliminate twice, so they can’t play around with the choice.

Great episode with a cliffhanger that didn’t spoil what happens the following week completely.