The Challenge 40 Episode 17: Why Cara was done dirty and

0:00 Hello everyone I'm back from holiday and South Africa and I thought I would jump on to just quickly do a quick video this is going to be a bit more of an unfiltered thoughts kind of video about The Challenge season 40 episode 17 since kuna and myself weren't able to talk about the actual episode while I was on leave I just watched it so I'm still an episode behind I believe from where the actual show is and I'm recording this video just prior to my first day going back to work so it's all back to normal on my side but I just thought I wanted to jump on here do a short video going into the new year with my schedule being as tight as it is I will be doing a lot more short form videos where I can't do podcast so that we can still get content out there so this is also a little bit of a trial to see if people actually like this kind of content it's a lot easier for me to schedule because it's only it involves myself so I can work around my own schedule when I jump on and do the content but yeah let's talk about some of the things that happened in episode 17 and I'd be interested to know your thoughts as the audience that watched the season couple of things I wanted to address firstly the location change I think was refreshing to see them go somewhere else at the end of the season I know that used to be a main stay of the challenge they used to do it all the time but

1:21 It's not something that happens very often anymore so seeing them go to the Philippines which is still a pretty green location like when TJ said that it's going to be a lot less green I think everybody similar to myself thought we were going to see a desert location we were potentially going to see somewhere where it's like really cold like snowy or something like that but the Philippines are still pretty green so that didn't make too much sense to me it started off with everybody obviously going into this daily challenge which was called Fortress bricks Cara Maria obviously had the 3 minute penalty coming into this daily challenge as well so I was extremely worried for car Maria coming into this my previous podcast that I did with Kahuna if you remember I actually said I think she's probably going to get last place and if she gets last place she's going to go straight into the elimination and then potentially fail at it I was right with some of my observations but obviously completely wrong with others she did not get last place karia normally does pretty well at Fortress challenges but let's talk about Jenny for a little bit she won the female daily but she was huffing and puffing and out of breath throughout that thing Asma I don't remember that being such a big thing in some of the previous seasons and if that is something that she's actually developed at a later stage in her challenge career but seeing

2:41 Her do this daily beasted out do extremely well at the puzzle shows you that she still has what it takes she's a champion when it comes to the challenge she still has what it takes when it comes to the shorter formed daily challenges but how is that going to play out over a finale where she has to perform two consec days most likely I don't think it's going to go too well for her I don't think Jenny's winning this season but I mean I've doubted her before and she's done extremely well this season so anything is still possible from Jenny it was great to see the challenge the daily challenge I really enjoyed it I love anything where it's physical them having to carry these bricks up and down two bricks at a time when they get to four bricks they got a plank and then could put a puzzle together probably the person that shocked me the most in this daily was kyin struggling to put the puzzle pieces together we've called him or they've called him the human calculator for so long he's someone that's really good at math he's good at puzzles and all these kind of things he's clearly a beast even when it comes to the endurance from memory in the mini final he beat Jordan which is not easy to do and then in this one which again required some real endurance he actually ended up beating Jordan again which I didn't see coming so obviously Jordan over takes him at the end with the puzzle but I

4:02 I wouldn't read too much into that going into the final puzzles can be very different from one to the other and maybe this was just something that his mind didn't work well with the patterns that he had to put together so I wouldn't necessarily say kin's completely out of it I still think he is a threat heading into the finale probably the person that was surprising throughout the actual endurance part of the challenge was bananas being dead last he found a way to come back and then obviously get second place in the daily but Jordan ends up winning this one for the men just like Jenny did for the wom which means that Jordan's the one that's going to have to cast the sole vote when it comes to the actual deliberation part of the game so obviously that wasn't an easy choice for him to make but we'll talk about that in a bit so what else was there on the daily challenge that stood out for me Michelle managing to sneak ahead of Tori at the very end her doubting herself the whole time as well was interesting because it's just Michelle right isn't it's Michelle just doubting her own ability and thinking that she's not capable of hanging with this level of competitors that she's going up against but she does end up beating Tori putting Tori in dead last place Tori kind of taking it easy at one point in this challenge was kind of surprising

5:22 Cuz she's been a physical Beast this whole season she has been the most dominant female competitor this season myself and Kahuna obviously gave her flowers based on that in the previous podcast that we did but seeing her struggle was quite interesting but then when it comes to the end part of this her pacing herself I thought it was a smart strategy maybe going into the final she ends up really just lagging behind when it came to the end of this specific daily challenge and then karia gets voted in by Jordan so obviously Jordan and carar have got a bit of a history they've squashed their beef this season which has been good to see I love seeing people like Jordan karia they're both really good competitors and they're there for the competitive spirit so seeing them put around put aside all the be and focus on the game and finding a way to become friends even herself and Tori this season has been quite good to see obviously Cara Maria didn't play the game socially as good this season as someone like Rachel did for instance Rachel had that communication with Jordan early on in the season at a game level so even though you do see the likes of K Maria and Jordan getting closer was never going to go past game and Jordan

6:42 Being a man of his word having given the handshake to Rachel stays true to that in the in the deliberation and obviously Rachel ends up being saved not having to go against Tori and with jny the other Target having won the daily that meant that karia had to go down there and what we thought would be the sand to actually take Tor on and this could have been the elimination of the Season we've been wanting to see Tori and Cara go at it for a very long time the fans have said Tori will never become the face until she beats Cara a lot of fans probably maybe I'm speaking for myself have said that and Cara hasn't been just having it she hasn't been at her best she hasn't had it all go her way this season so even if it was in the sand there was no guarantee Cara was going to win this but one thing we do know about her is she does well when her back is up against the wall but what they did to ask the fans in this episode by throwing them into this I don't know water obstacle where they had to tread water I think is an absolute travesty they had the best opportunity obviously these things get planned way in advance so they didn't know that Tori and K Maria were going to be the last two Targets of the season but seeing this play out was very anti-climatic for someone like myself who would have love to have seen both Tori and Cara go at it in the sand

8:02 In an arena obviously the change of location meant that maybe logistically that would have been difficult but surely they could have found some space they could have put them on like a balancing beam with two you know like battering ram type of thing so they could hit each other off like a Podium or something so it's physical seeing karia go out in this way at something that you know you could say yes she should be better at swimming and all this kind of stuff but I don't feel like for me personally as a fan this is not quench the first to see Tori and Cara go at it I think Tori and Cara now have said that they've put everything to the side they're in a good space when it comes to the challenge but I would love to see them go actually added at a real elimination this to me almost does not count as an elimination I know it will be on their record but for me this was not it was not it seeing them tread water them having to lift their arms above the water so that it can go quicker it was always going to come down to technique karia exerting way too much energy in the water not being very efficient and then obviously the likes of Tori she had a way better strategy when it came to trading water look at me talking like I'm some sort of specialist when it comes to what you should be doing in the water but you could just see it there was more efficient movement from Tori compared to karia so I don't know it felt empty to me seeing karia

9:23 Go out in this way she's had a good season in the sense of becoming friends with a lot of people and I think mending some bridges so I do think that if she comes back in Future Seasons she's got more Runway now to work with people since a lot of the people she did work with in the earlier Seasons aren't necessarily on the call back list anymore they're not getting the call back every season so I do know that this is not going to be the last time we see K Maria I suspect she's going to come back and I do think if she does come back that she's going to be a threat any season she plays in and now that her and Tori are kind of on the same wavelength that could be very good for her as well I don't know if we see Jordan coming back soon but you know obviously Jordan being a strong competitor is another person that is really good to have on your side obviously Kar Maria finds out about the karma votes and it was very interesting to hear her say that she hasn't spoken to poy for 2 months so that made me wonder if that had something to do with her mental state within the game where she thought something was wrong why she not hearing from Paulie and maybe that had an influence on her game this season cuz something felt off like we know that her and Laurel had their fight and that mentally things weren't going that well for her with that fight but I think there was more going on with this whole I haven't spoken to PA for two months as well that would have been strange to her so

10:43 Interesting to see obviously she gives bananas a one gives Rachel a five I want to see how the karma votes actually plays out in the final like are they going to get advantages are they going to get penalties I don't know at this stage yet because I haven't watched the episode but I will catch up on those episodes very shortly when I get back from work or early tomorrow morning my day and night cycle is completely stuffed coming back from South Africa it's the opposite time zones to Australia so it just depends on how tired I am after today's work but I am going to catch up on all of that action so yes that's going to be interesting I think bananas is going to get screwed over by quite a few people I just also wanted to say bananas has been really good this season he has been the most entertaining I think like and some people might not find his Antics entertaining but you have to talk about something in the season and you have to watch the season and enjoy seeing some sort of drama play out and he has definitely not been shy when it comes to the drama department so him continuing to put some pressure on Tori and Michelle here this episode even though I think it's pretty Petty for him to do that and I think he's done way worse to people in the past like they mentioned him taking the money from Sarah and so forth and him being that kind of backstabby player he's trying to take the moral High Ground so it was good to see K Maria and Jordan call him out on his BS because they've been around long enough to know what bananas is about if you

12:03 Take all of that out of the equation one thing he is doing extremely well as he's continuing to work on that future narrative for him to come back and have some sort of a rivalry with Michelle and Tori who definitely will be coming back in the future Seasons as well for the challenge so but any case that is my quick thoughts on this episode of The Challenge I know that there's probably a lot more that happened but let me know your thoughts in the comment section below please keep it spoiler-free if you can I am going to be watching the next episode 18 like I said as soon as I get an opportunity but I'm thinking of doing more little short form content like this in the future just getting my thoughts out there a bit more of like a raw unfiltered thoughts video on episode 17 for the challenge 40 if you like this kind of content you're a big fan of the challenge and this is the first time you come across it please hit the Subscribe button below put a like on this video we've got plenty of content coming up in the future weeks we've got Traders content coming up which M will host with some former Traders New Zealand players and I believe even a Traders Australian player is going to be on that podcast as well as potentially some Deal or No Deal Island content it won't be weekly Recaps but we'll put some raw thoughts out there on the show as well and then obviously the Australian Survivor season the new ones coming up very soon brains versus Brawn season 2 as well as the challenge

13:23 All Stars Rivals which I've just found out what the them's going to be for that season I know it must be shocking cuz that news apparently has been out there for a long time but I really stay off any spoilers any kind of like online stuff when it comes to the challenge so I'll do another raw thoughts short video on that as well to give my thoughts on what is to come with the challenge Rivals season but for now catch you guys next time bye