would've been pretty embarrassing for wes if he lost to zach in a puzzle

teams probably need to start voting in paulie/ninja and cara/theo whenever they aren't immune. it's pretty obvious they are way too good, especially since they are working together. gonna be hard to get either of them out, and both of them are built for a final

no, Paulie is 1/4 into his second season and paired up with a very strong partner

Yup

These four are walking to a final and no one can do anything about it barring another pair mix. People shoulda picked up on this sooner.

what the hell does that have to do with Natalie not being the GOAT female after 4 episodes??

Amazing how Cara doesn't realize that all she has to do is sit back, shut up, not ruffle feathers and she'll have a chance to run a final with an Olympian

Also turbos robotic like English with teejs attitude is exactly what the doctor ordered this season

"I do puzzles better in the dark" was an all-time line

Don't sleep on Wes & Dee, Dee is probably the second best girl in the house & Turbo reminds me of Landon; quite unassuming but is a beast of a competitor.

Anyone who saw Bear on celebrity big brother wouldn’t be surprised by his behaviour. I was just waiting for him to drop a C-bomb and see all the Americans be shocked lol

ya, I expect Wes and Dee to make a deep run. but I think Wes needs to target the Paulie and CM teams (as opposed to working with them) because I don’t see him beating either in a final. Wes/Dee haven’t been too competitive in the big challenges, and weren’t that close in this last one, which was a good measure of endurance. it sounds like he is sorta working with those teams (at least based on what Zach said), but I think he needs to be very careful about going far with them

I know this will never happen, but I wish they’d stop with the confessionals during eliminations. It’s always super obvious who is going home based solely on the confessionals they show

Hopefully he’s not dumb enough to think he can work with them to a final. I think he knows he needs to get rid of one but it was too early to do it. Unfortunately now it’s going to be too hard. Going to need an old school challenge move to get them out right before the final.

I'm not sure if too much TURBO is possible, but I'd like to find out.

It probably says something about the strength of the UK alliance that they couldn't bring themselves to break rank with Bear even after he was nonstop ridiculous for like a full day. Would have been super annoying to be playing cards at the table he bellyflopped on but it was hilarious to watch.

I'm sure there will be twists and swerves along the way but the daily challenges are pretty challenging rather than luckbox vests, thus creating more of a meritocracy.

Makes it a lot harder to get the best teams out.

Seems like the show should start to get dicey soon with who picks who to go in. The Bananas/CT/Zach vets are gone, the random brazilian guy is gone. Only real layup type teams left are Leroy and Amanda teams.

Zach just played one of the worst Challenges in history

-made enemies with BANNANS for no reason and put himself in jeopardy
-made enemies with Cara for no reason and put himself in jeopardy
-chose to go against Dee and WEST when he could have picked a much easier team, and got sent home

Not to mention left his GF there with Gus, one of the better looking dudes in Challenge history, no ****.

This is shaping up as a GOAT season. Someone mentioned it previously in this thread, but I think the production crew has changed. There are some straight up genius edits with testimonials overlaying on other peoples expressions/reactions. Tough to explain without showing examples, but I for sure notice and appreciate it.

Love the format as well. Opens with a brief recap, post elimination reactions, and straight into the next Challenge. Speaking of challenges, they have been very well planned and executed. This last one with the stack of tires was awesome. Combination of endurance, puzzle/memory and critical thinking all in one challenge. Same with the elimination in the same episode with the darkroom puzzle light switch deal. Anyways, just random thoughts, but loving this season so far.

Two more random thoughts to end this post: Bear is a revelation, needs to be on every season, and Wes is my personal GOAT Challenger. Hated him when I first saw him back in the day, grown to love that guy. Great at politics, above average athlete, world class needler. Anyway, long live the challenge!

Bear somehow pulled off quitting a challenge and made it hilarious, mystifyingly calling out the entire cast after he quit. Then goes on to piss off 6 people at the tribunal meeting, and cartwheels out. Just when you think he peaked, Kyle ribs him just right and he belly flops with a beer while 8-10 idiots are playing poker.

Strong.

great episode

truly an elite season

zach turning heel, cara now the most annoying girl (half because amanda is completely irrelevant and gets no screen time), WEST still got it, NINJA NATALIE absolutely crushing, intense daily challenges, TURBO just the silent assassin, BEAR all kinds of crazy, really good stuff. this season didnt suffer from so many useless teams spending the first five weeks as elimination fodder, it was real from the start

Okay, I might have been off on this prediction from a few weeks ago.

I thought Wes was going home the way they were talking about him leading up to elimination. Talking about how great he was all.

Mark me down as someone who thinks Paulie is all hat, no cattle. Going back to last season every time he's had an outburst it's come when he knows security will step in or that he has safety in numbers (last season via alliances). Classic case of Napoleon complex. From a strength standpoint he's a strong competitor, I just don't think he gets bonus points over Kyle or anyone else for his rage, because it's conveniently timed.

Also, I hope they continue to throw in things which involve some thinking - like the puzzle in last episode's elimination - so it isn't purely an athletic contest. And when they are athletic I like seeing that endurance is usually a factor so it's not just a matter of who is strongest. They've done a good job.

i got theo/cara as a big favorite here

i cant imagine anyone beating him in anything remotely athletic in a daily competition and cara is still a top tier female

they also have the benefit of the huge UK alliance and who will be stupid enough to call them out into an elimination

same. was planning to complain here about it

hmm. I guess I’ll retract my complaint then. thought it was obvious based on the confessionals Wes and Zach gave. especially with Wes talking up his partner all episode

I think the UK invasion has been good but they probably wanna go easy on having future Olympians on in the future to crush Challenge legends. Kinda lame, this is The Challenge legends sport.

Besides Lolo, she needs to do the show.