We are seeing a Tori who is openly talking about her wants and desires on the show. When I blogged about Final Reckoning, my biggest problem with Final Reckoning was that Tori was a template for a character, but not an actual human being. This season, Tori is showing personality. She is honest and vulnerable, and more than anything, she wants to win the Challenge, and be a top dog. She understands that to become the alpha, she needs to be able to either match Cara or beat her.

However, I do not think Tori is playing scared for not wanting to go into elimination with Cara. Tori is not afraid to mix it up when pushed into an argument, but she knows that if she agrees to the deal, she’ll likely regret it in the future. Tori is rational, anyone can lose an elimination, and you don’t want to go against the face of the franchise when production cares about all Paulie/Cara storylines.

6 Jordan vs. Cara and his team

I think Jordan respects Laurel, Tori, Bananas, Emily Schromm, Sarah Rice, and maybe Darrell as competitors. And then literally nobody else. Jordan has won two highly challenging finals, holds a 5–1 elimination record, and has succeeded despite his disability. In Jordan’s mind, if you’re not to his standard, or if you don’t improve a remarkable amount over time, you’re a disappointment.

We as fans see Cara, Wes, and CT as All-Time competitors who make the show what it is. Jordan sees them and knows he has won as many times as they have in 9, 8, and 12 fewer attempts. In Jordan’s mind, he thinks, “why haven’t you won 7 seasons if this is your life.” In my mind, it is a bit unfair as Cara is a beast who has improved exponentially since debuting on the show. I think she has plateaued a bit in recent seasons as we have not seen a dramatic improvement from her since Bloodlines. She does have the most Finals appearance in Challenge history and is a badass.

Jordan picks at Cara mostly because he hates everything she represents. Cara loves to paint herself as the underdog, while also wanting to be put on the pedestal as an all-time great. To Jordan, that is ridiculous. Jordan has a disability, he doesn’t come on every season and has his own business, he has personal situations setting him back, but he views himself at the top dog and acts that way. Jordan is a dickhead who picks on people, but he sees a hypocrite and is going to point it out. Cara sucks, Jordan sucks, this show sucks, and it’s also great.

5 Paulie vs. Josh

Paulie and Josh are like a couple going through a bad break-up where they pretend never to have had feelings for each other. These two once had a relationship built upon the fact they both played Big Brother and nothing else. Paulie and Josh co-existed and were able to stay friendly with each other because the relationship was mutually beneficial. Josh got to align with a top player, while Paulie had a friend who he could vent to and keep under him on the totem pole.

Once Josh made a play for his own game, they had to cut ties. This weakly structured relationship then blew up because now they could finally let out all their grievances about one another in a public forum. Josh talked shit to Leroy about playing Paulie’s game, while Paulie called Josh a bitch, and so on. Josh did have a great line of the night where he told Paulie that his bank account does not match his (Josh won 500k on Big Brother).

4 Paulie vs. Theo