The Challenge USA 2: Episode 1 Review

0:01 Foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] Tech channel here on YouTube where we've got the TNT takes for you on the Challenge USA season 2 episode one that's right I'm your host Chris and with me again is my ride or die Kahuna we got through all the computer problems and things like that we're live how you doing buddy I'm so sorry I'm so embarrassed Chris I was I was sitting here ready to go okay six

1:22 Minutes two I'm gonna go into the search stream now see what's going on and none of my audio is connected I don't know what's going on reboot it actually started rebooting by itself automatically I apologize to all the Chatters out there but good morning good evening to the states I'm really happy to discussing USA season two and I'm excited man I yeah I watched the episode and I was like it just you get that feeling again like I don't know it's because we had a little bit more of a break but anytime a new season the challenge starts I get like hyped I get all excited and it's just new stuff like regardless of who's in it or what the hype up is before the season if people are disappointed with formats and worrying about all stars 4 being held back and blah once it's on my TV I'm smiling you know what I mean yeah absence truly makes the heart grow fonder to be honest and you know at one point last year I was I was getting beaten down by the amount of challenge content we were getting like because they were just shoving it down our throats and I feel like we'd never really got a break from it and you know I wanted the break but then when the break came I really started missing the challenge and I'm very happy that we've got this season back I'm very happy that you and I get to consistently weekly now have a show that we can talk about because even for you and me we've been doing different things you've been doing your own thing here on

2:42 The channel we haven't always been able to collab and I always love our church Kahuna but let's say hello to everybody here in the live all of the TNT fam I asked a question at the beginning of this and we'll continue to have a look at this throughout the live I ask how would you rate the first episode and I had three categories it was loved it was average or it wasn't great and 54 50 now it's just changed since I've read it fifty percent of people are saying that they're loving it average 43 so right down the middle and then only seven percent is very low on what we saw so far here in the first episode what's your thoughts about that I don't know what to hate on it like the people that I think there are people out there for the challenge where they continuously hate watching no matter what they'll watch it every season and just poo-poo it and be negative I'm the I'm kind of the opposite I watch things like almost like my children watch the same YouTube like video 10 000 times yeah I'll watch it with the same enthusiasm as if I watched it for the first time so I don't know I don't I don't I didn't see anything in this episode so far anyway we haven't seen eliminations or anything I didn't see anything to hate necessarily so I can see people saying it's average because it

4:02 Is different there's a new format the way they've got the hopper and all that sort of thing very different Innovative things that they're putting on which kind of adds to the excitement for me so I can see why people say they're loving it I can even see why people saying they're mid but to say you hate it I can't see anything in there as to why you would say it's a bad season off of one episode 900 it's a little bit early to say that the whole season as a whole is bad but I did ask the question of episode one how do people feel about episode one specifically if there is one negative everybody here in the live knows that I hate the fact that we got to the end of an episode and there was no elimination but that was always going to be tough with so many people coming into the show so many people that needs to be reintroduced to the CBS audience and also then the so-called MTV Legends you know they're coming into a completely different Channel and they have to be introduced also to a new audience because there will be a lot of people that will watch this show that they aren't necessarily the biggest MTV Challenge fans and they're new to the show but because it's on CBS because they watch The Challenge USA won they're now along for the ride I even know a few Survivor fans that never watched The Challenge until last season they ended up going on and my co-host for survivors of Africa Richard is one of those people he went on to go and watch season 38 to watch all of the chat challenge Seasons

5:22 That have come out since USA one so clearly I know people are very resistant to the idea that it has made this crossover to Paramount plus to CBS but it is working in gaining new viewers Kahuna yeah absolutely like everything evolves right games evolve TV shows evolve things evolve over time and we're talking about a product now that is over like 20 years old like 25 years old or something like that it's a very mature TV product most TV shows don't last that long so it has to go through different areas and different iterations and I think the people that are still worried about the influx of other TV show competitors the change the cbsness of it and the corporatization of what used to be our little MTV like side show where people could do and get away with things that you can't on mainstream TV that time is gone MTV and the way like entertainment works is all under one corporate giant umbrella you know like to want the days of when you would the channel the daily challenge was to like wipe soap off of a thing with your butt like that's not the game anymore and the people that want that game there's Wipeout and stuff like that you know what I mean like the game has changed and moved on it's the

6:42 The farm doesn't even exist anymore there's no real world or road rules to even get these competitors from so they've been forced to make adaptations and I think putting it on U.S putting USA on CBS and Paramount I think that this is potentially saving a show that we love and listen I do want to read some of the comments very soon because I've seen this quite a few comments already being dropped but you know when you think about this cast There's Something About This cast this one episode and it can still go horribly wrong where I'm looking at the cast and I'm thinking to myself this is a better cast than usa1 and I'm a big fan of Tyson I obviously have always been a fan of Sarah Lucina I know some people don't like her that much Ben always I've never been a hater of his either so you know I don't mind some of the Survivor players that came over last time but this seems to be a bit of a younger cast Kahuna which means that there's going to be some messiness there's already a lot of focus about messiness even early you know fairies messiness early in the season in this episode it's coming into the season but we're also bringing other younger casting choices into the show which I think is going to be needed because we're trying to rebuild or enhance this brand to be something that's not just going to last 25 years we want it to last for 50 years we wanted to be there for another 20

8:03 Years so you know you need to bring in your tilers you need to bring in the alissas you need to bring in those people that are a bit younger that are going to be around for a bit that could actually you know be there for many seasons to come because that's how the challenge work for those that are new to this they have recurring cast members coming back that's how you've got someone like bananas who have won the title more times than anybody else because he the first time he was on there he was a very young guy he was a very different guy he's also evolved with the show and that's why people get so attached to these characters because they evolve in our screens we get to grow with them as they go through this experience but before we get too far down the rabbit hole let me say hello to a few people here kiwis good welcome to the live stream I don't think I've seen you in the life before let me know if you've been in the life before kiwi skirt says hey loving the new season so far hope everyone's having a great day looking forward to this I'm having an awesome day I mean we're talking about the challenge with all of you TNT fam here how can I not have a good day will you say hey guys so watch The Challenge USA season two like two times and I like the twist that was genius now people don't have to play scared we'll definitely talk about the hopper and everything that brings to the game Dolores are saying hey all hope that the non-vegs truly get together so any guesses who's going to into elimination I only feel they constantly due to the Amazing Race oh they do that Amazing

9:23 Race 30 I agree with that and I do think that the newbies that are coming in there's going to be a big focus on targeting vets very early on like would you agree kuna that if we see the likes of the bananas or a West make it to a final this season it would be a monumentous achievement by one of those two because it doesn't look like they're like all that light I mean bananas and we'll get into this later on he was pick six in the draft like he was picked very low when they had to pick people when we go into the pit draft like because I was should we talk about the draft now and some of his picks at least the bananas actually like let's hold back on that I will read a few more comments because I do I do want to do a Justice when we when we actually get into it so maybe we'll come back to that a little bit later on kiwis good saying luck of the ball now could be anyone heard that you can tell okay so that's basically just responding on who will potentially go in there Christian gal is back in the lives as well saying hey TNT gorgeous Michelle and Cassidy are back yes we're very happy to see both of them I was particularly be happy with Cassidy so far she impressed me early on in this episode we'll talk about that in a little bit Rodrigo said Amanda is always a fresh breath of air yeah the devil we the we love the devil we know right

10:43 Like garbage air like it's smelly stinky air but it's a it's different it's definitely come back but it's not fresh yeah Lauren's saying as someone who doesn't watch the CBS shows and doesn't know those challenges I'm curious who everyone thinks will win I'm sure there's going to be a lot of speculation around that Danica is back in the Life Danica welcome always great to have you here says Hey guys live from Florida so glad the notice popped up just getting ready to make some food now and I'll sh I'll snack yeah get some food and you can sit down and enjoy now I'm gonna try and bring up as many comments as I can but I do know that sometimes this can go really quick so please don't feel offended if I don't bring your comment up immediately Pete welcome back to the live says as someone who has watched this show from the very start and someone who hates the fact that someday there will be no more MTV ogs on the challenge I am rooting for the Vets to show why they Dom why they dominate I would assuming and I personally going too far down that conversation I think that if the Vets can get to a final this season I'll be extremely impressed because the mood I'm getting from the rookies coming into the season is that we're not going to let the Vets run all over us even though hats off to Corey and Tori for the first episode because they did play it really well but I don't think that they can steamroll through the season like they would do

12:03 In a normal season with rookies coming in because these are experienced people there's no love Islanders out there kuna so these are people that have played Big Brother which is social strategic game these are people who've played Survivor which is a social strategic game they understand they get the numbers game so I don't think that the Vets are just going to be able to easily run to the end here this season but let's get into a little bit of what happened here in this episode great opening scene with everybody coming in on this boat in Croatia out on a river I believe it was or maybe in the ocean and they get to see who's going to be on the cast and a big plot line this season we knew that the boy who became a man and Paulie you know he was going to be back this season he tells us that last time you saw us on CBS I was a boy now I'm a man you know and I've gone to the finals so many times I've you know got us so close to winning and that you know this is the Super Bowl this is this is the Super Bowl I'm coming back to win this thing but he's got some enemies on the show because immediately he sees their Josh is out there and him and Josh you can tell it's awkward tension very early on between them it was so good like I'm not a poorly fan I was when he was on his Seasons I was like really one of the negative detractors against him I know that you kind of keep him in a bit more neutral space and I just

13:23 Didn't like I just appreciate I like let me just rephrase that before people come at me I appreciate what Paulie he's his favorite show yeah he's not by the karamari is my favorite Paulie like I'd consolidate him because I love the fact that he brings chaos to the show and I think that there has to be like for there to be a good guy there has to be a bad guy or there has to be someone that is willing to be controversial that's just my opinion some people like the reality TV clean and not messy I like it messy that's why I like Paulie even though he was trying to keep it clean this episode yeah and I actually appreciated seeing him back on my screens I and I think I'm really curious or at least more intrigued to see poorly without Cara Maria and vice versa I want to see the All-Star season with curry without Paulie just to see because I think they're that couple that are just weird together that make things all like when they're so involved with each other they forget that there's other people in the in the house or the rest of the world really and they can get in each other's way of how you can go forward in the game when in game about not just physical but politics and relationship their relationship maybe stuffs things up sometimes and I'm happy to see Paulie back I was interested like even just

14:43 For his Flair like his fashion choices is one of the biggest things on this season I was like what the hell are you wearing as a grown man in public with cameras on you but he owns it and he wears it and he just like with his whole chest he's like yeah I've got a weird furry shawl thing and shorts who cares like but it was very good to see Paulie and I'm I was excited to see his conversation with Josh and he's like I might be nice I might not be like I might not be I haven't decided yet like that's interesting I think I think this comment by kiwi is very appropriate saying that you know he's morphing into a female Cairo with his fashion choices and yeah for those that have watched him on Big Brother they would know there was a guy with the name Paul That season that had a very specific haircut coming into the season and Paulie and Paul became very close very tight in the game and poorly ended up cutting his hair exactly like Paul so he's one of those people when he gets close to someone he does actually end up emulating them and copying a lot of what they do so I think this is a very true comment and I had a chat with Chris offline who's not in the live right now but we had a bit of a chat about the episode because we're teaming up together in the bakery this season when it comes to doing our draft picks and you know Mia had a chat and what was it that she

16:03 Said she said that if you've watched Barbie you would understand Paulie's dress the dress code was wardrobe choice because apparently Ken had a similar type of you know thing going on in Barbie I have not watched it at some point I probably will give it a crack but you know that's interesting to see him coming into the show he doesn't know how not to stand out that is poorly like if he's going to come into a season you're going to talk about him you're going to have him on the confessionals for sure and that's what we got here very early on Sebastian came in with something that he calls an Australian grunch mullet did that make sense to you like obviously when he said it I knew exactly what he's talking about like because I see it every day in Australia but I didn't realize the terminology had been so well defined I just knew it as the mullet or like the shame you know the crappy haircut that people get these days Sebastian's yeah rocking it and also by the way he's talking about his bad haircut mentions in that in these confessional how hot Tory is and he's got the same thing as Jordan and Emmanuel going on like there's a there's a definite type there that's mentioning Tori so I don't know if that was a hint in the first episode that there's going to be

17:23 Hookups later but he's definitely got Emmanuel Jordan Vibes going on at the moment yeah 100 Peter Pete here sorry not Peter Pete asks I gotta know do you have a running tally of the score of your fantasy league with Angel and reality can we know what the score is after episode one so I don't have that with me on hand right now but I can say I will feature on reality realnesses podcast this week for their power ranking with angel cake so angel cake myself and Chantel will come together on relative realness with three s's to talk about the power rankings and we will reveal the points after week one on there and then we also will have a crossover with angel cake and also with angel cake and also with Chantal throughout the season so we can bring up the points more often than not and I'm a little bit worried because obviously bananas was my first pick and I'm feeling lower on bananas at this stage from what I've seen in episode one it's early days still but having him as my number one male pick when he's being picked so low on the draft here in this episode has got me a little bit worried and especially because I think that the Vets are going to be under Fire but coming back here to this one thing that I'm glad we had an opportunity to see here in the early stages Kahuna is that Dusty gets to tell everybody he's a Super Fan he's

18:44 Watched the show not only the Challenge USA like some people who are coming into this he's watched it since day one so him coming into the show he kind of knows what's up I'm really hoping you know the Amazing Race only has Lewis and also Dusty coming in here but I really hope the fact that he is a fan does not hinder him because you know he could easily be influenced by some of these vets people like bananas who he's seen his whole life play the game and now he actually to hang out with them you could easily get influence and especially if Lewis does go home after this first week he's going to want to find a new home so he could become that key person for the Vets to pull in if he is that fan and he's more so a fan than some of the other people and he doesn't really have the same allegiances with the likes of Amazing Race or the likes of sorry the likes of big brother and Survivor yeah I'm excited to see Dusty the fact that he said he's a Super Fan so he knows about the game when clearly like you mentioned some of the Big Brother people it seemed pretty obvious that maybe they weren't a fan or hadn't seen too much of it but the fact that he is should give him a little bit of insight into how to approach the game it's interesting how you said like as a super fan you worry that he may get sort of StarStruck or under the influence of the vets and it's always fascinating to me that actually happens because as

20:04 Fans of the game as well like we go we're fans of the game we look at the gameplay we look at what they do and we see a track record we would go you have to take out the Vets like you have to take it with you can't bring the bananas to a final like he's he wins finals if Jordan's not in against black bananas in a final out of this list is almost guaranteed to win it and we would we would go down that path like you can't do but I feel like once you're on the show and you're in their presence and in their orbit if you are a fan if you've been watching them for many years maybe there's a thing of like you can't help but kind of get swept up in the in the celebrity of it or the challenges of what you're watching because we know the meta the right strategy should be take them out immediately but we see it season after season they never do and even though we haven't seen this season play out yet episode one like not getting any of the vets in there shows how Savvy they are from the get-go as well so we're seeing this consistently not only on the challenge but we see this on Survivor in half and half Seasons which is why I don't like it we're seeing it right now in Big Brother with one of the best to ever do it in Survivor a winner of traitors and Siri going in to play Big Brother

21:24 And people are flocking to her they're fangirling or fanboying and wanting to work with Siri because they just want to know a Survivor Legend they want to be able after this game to hang out with Siri you know this is the same thing that's going to happen in the challenge people want to hang out with the likes of a bananas and always outside of the game and they want to be called back and if you're in with bananas and West you probably have a good shot at actually getting in with production and being back on the show so they have an uneven power Dynamic so I'm not surprised that when the challenges out there the new challenges when they see the Vets coming in on you know what was it that they were on the jet skis yeah when they when they came out on the jet skis you see that they are sort of deflated a little bit and they know that it's going to be that much harder for them to actually get to the end of the game now because these people are legitimate threats they've got experience in playing this game but before we get into the team format I did want to also talk about Cassidy's observation because I did say she impressed me a little bit coming into the season she said you know I lost survivor because I did not take the risk which is going to be the theme of the Season taking risks I didn't play an active enough game and I think that is the correct assessment of why she lost and I'm very I'm optimistic about Cassidy coming in understanding Where She Went Wrong understanding

22:45 That she needs to fix things because I really had a really big problem with the victim narrative that was out there about her not winning the season and that she should have won and that you know it was just because she didn't do the fire which you know was definitely unfair again like I will always say it's unfair that people expected her to do that but she lost the game way before that by not being a more active player in the game and take taking her own route so I'm glad she's coming into the season with the mindset that she's not going to sit back and obviously we know that there's this Hopper with the balls in it and names in it and three people are gonna get selected to pick their teams with Cassidy being one of them she immediately is out in the front line as someone that needs to make moves needs to decide how she wants to play this game and who she wants to play this game with and then Josh and Jesse as the other two that get selected did you like this format and did you feel like this was as Fair as it can be because we all had a lot of issues with the algorithm last season we now get the hopper to decide here early on who's going to pick the teams yeah like I think this is just Productions attempt once again to wrestle back a little bit of control as to from not necessarily control as the out control the outcome but control from the challenges like we talked the last season with Troy about how

24:06 How burn votes how order of votes where they sit all these sort of things the challenges started gamifying a little bit and realizing and we've seen like with the non-anonymous voting and voting in front of everyone people kind of fall into line and we see once the first vote goes it's so powerful because everyone stacks on and all that sort of thing so by introducing I'm not sure how I feel about it to be honest with you Chris because I do like that element that the production is trying something because we've seen the vacation Alliance and the Vets dominate for so long through their political power through their numbers through their manipulation and then when you throw Randomness into it Pure Luck of the draw it mixes it up a bit so we're gonna get a really good mix-up season because there's elements that are out of control of the master manipulators like a Wesson and bananas right they can't control the game as much because there's so much luck involved so that's good but is it good that we like coming from people that are fans of Survivor and having Survivor alumni in it we're now taking away we're making it more like the modern version of Survivor where there's a lot more luck involved and a lot more control wrestled away from the competitors to just go along with

25:26 The ride so it's kind of a I don't know like where like you do that I'm doing the thing listeners I'm doing that thing where you do your hands like one scale which one's better is it better to have the vacation Alliance completely dominate or is it better to have completely luck of the draw so and I think at the moment until we see new challenges come in that aren't star stuff like you said that aren't going to fall into the web of the Vets then this is a good way to kind of balance that out a bit where it's not going to be complete domination yeah listen all good points I do like the fact that there is still it's not completely luck like the algorithm to me was completely luck and also I didn't trust production not yeah it wasn't like at all who was being set up yeah like they would I feel like production 100 was controlling the algorithm and deciding who was with who each round because it wasn't clear what I like about this is that even at the end of it I know we're skipping ahead a little bit when they do end up voting in secret each vote counts for one ball that gets put into the hopper which means there is still some strategy involved you can still minimize the odds of you going in or maximize the odds if you're going in you like the fact that all of the balls are going to get put in hopefully in front of them the hopper is going to go around and then TJ is going to pull one out there and it seems more transparent it seems more clear if I

26:46 Would you know question it and obviously I can ask Dusty at some point how it was when he was out there but you know I would question a little bit more if the challenges walked in and all of the balls are already in the hopper they should put them all in front of the contestants to make it clear like we don't need to see it but at least I hope that the contestants are seeing them placing these balls into the hopper but I don't want to jump too far towards the end I want to come back a little bit here and talk about some of the comments that are coming in Kalina saying agree completely with you can I'm hopeful because of these changes Lena also says I feel that Cassidy was a little bit passive in the vote she allowed Corey and Tori to take over definitely Corey and Tori as Danica is saying coronatory were very smart how they slipped that by having the new people suggest targeting one team and immediately agreeing to then put that throwing and non-vet names out there which was smooth also that team had the most vets in them I believe Cassidy's team because she did end up with Corey Tory fessie who's actually a vet undercover as well which already gives them three people in their team that are kind of it so that sort of helps a little bit with getting the vote the way that they want it to play out and obviously Josh being fessey's you know one of his closest allies being in that red team obviously fessie was always going to try and look out for justice team as much as he can in this early stages of

28:06 The game but I like the fact that we get these three players who I think are very random like you know Cassidy and DC you know Desi is obviously playing her second season she's out there to prove that she can win this game she didn't like the how she went out she's coming in with that fire we like seeing people like that needs to prove something Josh again I'm not low on Josh coming into the season he has not annoyed me yet I'm happy to see him back I'm happy for him to get another opportunity and I think that the whole Josh and Paulie thing is going to pay off in the long run there will be some fireworks but you know he's worked hard in the office and he's coming in a bit more fit like we've said he's looking leaner than ever and he gets a bit of power and I was very impressed by doesn't matter I was very I was just going to say I'm very impressed by Josh's sort of picks in regards to keeping his enemies close getting poorly on the team he ended up going out on the limb and picked Paulie as his second pick here for the episode I thought strategically getting some of these people on her side probably isn't a bad move but when you look at that team there you know Josh has got janaeus first he's never played with Janae before he's got Paulie who him and Paulie have had beef potentially Paulie could go up against them he's got Michelle I don't know if Michelle and Josh is close like that he then has Dusty Chanel bananas and Tiffany I think bananas and Josh is in a good space together but I don't know if Josh was dead well insulated within

29:27 That team how do you feel about the team when you look at it as a whole because that is also the most volatile team that we've seen out there yeah and they played up on that too right which is a bit of 100 chekhov's gun like that thing in movies if you see something in the First Act it's probably going to play a part in the third act and they've already dropped multiple times about the chaos like the team may burn to the ground poorly said because of the chaos between him I nearly lost half of the team in the challenge yeah so interesting team for sure look I find it really fascinating because I don't know about you but when I first saw the team photos and the way it was divided up I was like okay bananas on the red team Wes on the Green Team clearly they're like the designated yeah captains or designated leaders like even if they're not officially like you put someone on that team because they're gonna rally the team and be the main spokesperson and get a lot of the confessionals and be the narrator and I was like looking at a go okay so that means the blue team is probably Tory Corey or fessie as seen as the main guy and I was like interesting of course MTV would do it that way they set the teams up they pick they don't want Western bananas together they're going to divide these teams up evenly and the fact that it was actually School pick like schoolyard pick randomly selected by the hopper

30:47 And it ended up with that kind of distribution of players as well I found really fascinating when you talked about Cassidy having good first episode picking Corey as your number one overall pick as a male I'm is Criminal like you know how I feel about course but again yeah like listen that was interesting because Cassidy when she made her picks right she had Korea's first and his Curry's made a lot of finals but I think this has shown that Cassidy had pretty well again listen I don't want to be too harsh on Cassidy maybe she has seen some Seasons Corey as someone in your team and she came with it from that mindset of in Survivor in the early stages the team-based challenges require a lot of physical strength Corey does definitely as an athlete bring a lot of value to a team when he's not going to be the person they need to rely on for puzzles Cassidy is good at puzzles herself so I don't think she's going to worry too much about that part of it so I understand why she's like I just need some experience people that have seen a lot that can give me some insights and also someone that can hold their weight on the team so I'm not too low on it I think that when you look at Josh Cassidy and Desi's teams Janae Corey and Wes you could go make sense they went for some experience then you know in the second round Tory gets picked by Cassidy as well which is a

32:07 Solid pick no matter how you personally feel about Tori she is proven yeah but the one that really stood out for me was bananas being six like I mean here this is not gonna bother him well at first I was like a shocked I was appalled I was aghast I was all sorts of things looking in my thesaurus but then I rewatched it and thought about it and what Prince M says here and I don't know if we've seen Prince M before but that was this is exactly what I was saying once I figured this out I was like holy crap is Josh Smart did Josh actually do something quite strategic here because TJ made the specification that you must have one male and one female legend or they call them greats which I by the way I think that's a much better night for our people than it's still debatable it's still debatable yeah it's not it's not even accurate either but it's a little a step down from Legends but yeah once you had Corey and Wes Gone Bananas automatically had to go to Josh so he wait he didn't pick him he knew he was gonna I hope he knew because if he genuinely just picked him as a six pick not because he gained the system or figured out I was going to get him regardless then that's smart then you go okay I'm gonna get bananas no matter what and arguably the better of the

33:27 Three depending Wes bananas some people have one over the other but like results say that bananas is probably the best out of the three of them so far but so once he's guaranteed that then you then pick the players that you want that may get picked before you and he went with Dusty poorly Paul like the poorly pick I like what he said about how regardless of how I feel about Paulie he's a winner and he wants to win and he pushes hard all the time so I appreciate that and then again I don't know if I'm giving Josh too much credit because we all know he's a goof but in my head I went like you heard him there's a little bit of thought process there he went I think I think people I think I just want to put it out there CT obviously calls him the Goof but I think he's the Goof because of how he performs and challenges I do think Josh is a very good player when it comes to strategy and social gameplay I mean the fact that he survives as long as he does every season he's never made a final but he always does better than what is physical capabilities have been at this stage shows that he's really good at maneuvering the social dynamics and the strategy part of the game which you know in his credit he did reasonably well at that even in Big Brother there was messiness in this play because you can't take the

34:47 Mess in this completely out of Josh's game but he is not a bad player so now that you bring that up and that Prince has brought that up I did not realize that and it you know it was kind of made clear towards the end of the draft picks you have to have X amount of you know greats in your team so that's something that I did not pick up on it wasn't a thing that I focus massively on but it makes sense that in that case Joss may have wanted to choose poorly because he wanted to keep him close and then Dusty as that next guy because that's the he seems like a beast that was the same thing he said he does triathlons so I picked him which is you know it's not a nothing argument like that's actually pretty smart to have someone with a lot of endurance and stuff on your team and I also wonder at least this is where my head went Prince again me and Prince him like as far as strategy goes I think Josh wanted to make sure he had allies on other teams as well which is greater because if the other teams win they nominate someone from your team to go in if you've got mates on that team then they're not picking you hopefully and then the other thing that I thought again I don't know if I'm giving Josh too much credit but in my head it kind of works out I was like having poorly on your team having Dusty and your team that you don't necessarily have a

36:08 Strong Allegiance with if like every single season of The Challenge plays out where if another if your team loses and you're potentially up for an elimination the most likely thing to happen is that you will go against one of your own teammates right and we're seeing that with Luis up for potential elimination with a mirror we're going to cover that I know but potentially the person with the most votes is another green person and bananas but what I'm saying is like if you're going to go against one of your own team then maybe you want to put people in your team that poorly I know he can work hard and he can help us as a team but if we're going to go against each other then that's someone I'm okay with going against it as opposed to going against fessi or going against one of your mates and then having Dusty almost a complete stranger you want to pick people that can contribute to your team but if forced to go against I've got the experience over him I've got sides over poorly like who knows maybe that was in and when you look at it like that I'm like it's not too bad like even though the chaos team you've got outs you've got options as opposed to just stacking it all for the team yeah super competitive team like Paulie hates losing you know Dusty hates

37:29 Losing I can remember in His Amazing Race season that he was an absolute beast but on us proven winner so I mean like he is there's a lot of Chaos in there I actually feel the worst for Tiffany being stuck in that team to be honest because she seems to be like the only reasonable person almost in there and the rest of them are going to be all over the shop because even Michelle's a bit chaos you know like Tiffany is like gonna stand out like a sore thumb in their team I do want to bring up this comment here from Lena saying the official podcast said Josh knew he was getting bananas so that kind of confirms your theory there kuna as well Gregory made it welcome back good to see you as well lovable Nikki back as well welcome back love to see you back here in the live with us as well as we're breaking down episode one the other one before we get on to the next bit if you're going to I just want a quick point that Josh getting the flip coin being a team captain and saying how atrocious it is that Josh at sorry that bananas got picked last or in the last round for the males I think the bigger the bigger atrocity here the bigger crime against humanity is that Josh got the toast Josh the toast and bananas yeah I was like what is going on not that bananas didn't get it's bananas thing like later he got a little

38:49 Bit of champagne throwing but he didn't you think bananas do you think bananas learned from World Championship where it went down like a lead balloon and he thought these people don't know me they don't give a crap about my opinions so maybe I want less heat on me this season you know Josh he's from the CBS world people on CBS know him he's been in those circles let's give it to him because he's the bridge between the vets and the CBS guys that are out there because a comment was made earlier by I don't remember which one of the commenters said it I think it was an anonymous person actually said that if Josh and fessie wasn't there the Vets would be in a lot more prob trouble because Justin fissy in my opinion they're the bridge and they're truly more I think challenge strong like their challenge like everybody always say oh they're big brother players to me they're more challenge players because both of them well they did play they did one season yeah exactly yeah so they've got way stronger relationships with events coming in but I did want to touch on one more thing on the draft pick just before we move on one of the ones that stood out for me which I also thought was interesting was Cassidy picking Sebastian before Chris Underwood I mean Cassandra was a winner of Survivor Sebastian didn't do anything that really stood out from her season and Survivor for me but I

40:09 Do like the fact that the edit focused on Chris a lot in this opening episode my radar went off like he had a big like I mean when you look at this you understood Paulie was going to get a lot of content you understood fessie was going to get content Paul he was going to get content you know a lot of the Vets coming in you get that but Chris getting a little bit of attention here early on as the underdog coming into this season someone that also still like this he has a chip on his shoulder and feels like he's still being underestimated even as someone who played a risky game who gave up his immunity who played Flawless towards the end game to win his season he is still not getting a lot of respect on his name coming into this because if you look at Tiffany Chris and Lewis as the last picks I think Chris is the steal out of those three I mean I had him as my second guy even in the draft picks yeah me too I think he's gonna go I thought Survivor strong would be a real burn for someone like Chris Cassidy being a Survivor player picking still doesn't put any respect on his name cassid like interesting that you said like you mentioned before Corey is a good pick if you want someone who's physical with a bit of experience and maybe without the ego and complications of a western bananas but I think fessie even though he's a dick actually fits that better than Corey he

41:29 Can contribute more to you is the better pick for that purpose over Corey and Chris is a better pick over Sebastian for that same sort of like the Survivor aspect to fill in the numbers as well I think Chris is going to go far I like what you said earlier about how Cassidy maybe didn't win her season because she didn't take the risk where they really did play up that Chris did take his ears and when Chanel had her confessional she was saying I'm known as a risk taker so there's a real thing in what they're dropping a lot of crumbs so the fact that Chris is getting that big at it and they played up his big risk taking I think is a good sign for Chris as well to be honest with you yeah Gregory here says that Michelle and Desi had the most confessionals here for the first episode obviously you know fessy or facial like you said you knew me as fessy on big brother he's now facial which is his actual name which we should probably start using I don't know if it's like disrespectful to keep calling him Bessie but he's expecting him I so barely want to give him a chance to like prove us wrong but you know then he comes into this episode and he talks about all of his like escapades with like Michelle and Tori and Amanda and the messiness that's going to bring into the game so obviously

42:49 That's going to play out by the way when he said that he goes he mentioned all three of them and he goes but I'm just staying out of it like he's not the thing that is actually not the problem stay out of it you're in it you're the center of it Michelle did bring up an interesting comment early on here saying that she is going to be Survivor strong coming into it which again proves Michelle's allegiances because she's never really found a home on the challenge with the Vets like they've never embraced her into anything so I feel like she's going to be one of those people that could potentially work against them and it's interesting I don't know we're jumping a little bit ahead here but that comes to play later on when Janae let's drop that West warned her against Michelle before coming out on the season and that sort of makes Janae go and place a vote on you know doing friendly fire on Michelle and again we're seeing Michelle is sharp like she's not had a good run on the challenge as of yet but she's sharp she's doing the math she's seeing the numbers and she knows that somebody took a friendly shot yeah do we are we pretty sure it's Janae it has to be right like when you look at this it was today yeah Janae did it I'm pretty sure we saw it on screen she when she did that okay I didn't think I was going to do this but I'm going to

44:09 Vote against Michelle about Chris going far Chris had a look in his eyes Michelle is hungry to make a big hit has Michelle only done two seasons I saw she'd been on more yeah she may have only done two seasons actually now that I think about it she leaves a big impression she does I think personally I think Michelle is going to be like people like I hope most people like Michelle I do I think again I think Michelle brings an interesting Dynamic to the show but I do think that Michelle is going to be there for the long run I think production likes Michelle I think they like what she brings to the show so I think she'll be in future seasons for the main show as well I Heard a theory out there and I don't know if anybody else here on the live have heard this Theory as well or even you can have heard this but there are people saying that the MTV show might not go on after season 40 and they may make a full move over to CBS and Paramount which is why they're starting to put some of these vets onto the CBS Paramount show so that people can start getting to know some of the people from the main show that there may be a new home for the show on Paramount plus moving forward and that the MTV side of it might not continue to do it have you heard that I've seen it theorized I don't think it's come from any sources

45:29 Or anything like that I think people are just sort of seeing the writing on the wall that MTV Production shows is sort of unless you're Ridiculousness and Rob Dyrdek MTV doesn't really put too much into your show and this is one of the last few shows that MTV actually has a production thing like to make a TV show there's still Teen Mom and Ridiculousness and then the challenge I think that's all they kind of had at the moment so yeah it seems like it might be a thing as far as not necessarily a product of the show itself but more just the way corporate world moves MTV itself is kind of a thing of the past where it was built on Music Television and then adding to that youth Market but the youth Market that they used to actually Target doesn't watch TV anymore especially cable TV like unless they have a show on YouTube or Tick Tock then it's not really that same Market that they once were and MTV itself as a streaming service for people to go and watch these shows a lot of people watch it on streaming services I just want to say to Pyramid plus if they're listening to this they're off chance that one of them stumbled across this why the hell did you remove the episode after it did because I tried to fight on a Paramount plus and I couldn't find it when I jumped on Paramount plus last night I wanted to watch it prior to this so I ended up having to get

46:49 It in a different way and I wanted to support the show yeah and I wanted to support the show so I don't know why it was removed if anybody else had problems with that as well I do want to bring up a few comments here Julia's saying that Chris is six foot five I'd like to see him beat the fessie in a whole bra I didn't realize that he was that tall but I do know that Chris is a beast like you know in his season as well he did really good at challenges so I don't I don't know I mean fessie is a beast himself he won't blame him yeah don't sleep on Chris that's all I'm gonna say the football player and he's six foot five Lena's saying I like all of the Survivor women I do as well I think it's a very strong assembly of women that came over also I wanted to bring up here a little bit about the house because a big talking point for season one of USA was the house a lot of people who did USA season one they were upset about the fact that they had to sleep in a warehouse and that it apparently wasn't comfortable this house seemed to look a lot more luxurious a lot more like what we're used to so well done on you know I don't need a comment on Hakuna but well done for them to up the ante because if you want to bring CBS people onto the show and keep them there give them something decent like put some effort into the show I understand that there's Seasons where they live in a

48:09 Bunker this but it seems like those are the seasons that people really don't like even bananas and them have complained a lot about total Madness you know so at least give them something comfortable to sleep on you know well Chanel was saying that she's used to sleeping on the dirt so it's a big step up and survive big step up for her yeah but it's funny because some of I think some of the people that were complaining about it were the likes of like your Tysons in them who should be used to that as well coming from Survivor I mean he's a vet he's played four times you know he's a literal millionaire you know he lives a certain life certain lifestyle you know isn't that what he expects yeah so Lauren's saying that in the U.S the last episode is still on Paramount Plus for her okay I don't know what yeah I think Australia didn't get it right it's also blocked in Canada well they need to sort that out you know how can you do a world championship have to challenge Australia and not expect people from around the world to want to watch your show so a little bit disappointed with them when it comes to that now I do want to move on to you mentioned Josh doing the cheers for everyone which was quite interesting straight after that we get a little bit of Tyler you know content coming to our screens Tyler is a big get for the challenge and I think he's someone that could be a long-term he just fits the challenge in my opinion he's a very you know he's a good looking

49:29 Guy long blonde hair the right age bracket he's good at challenges good at strategy clearly loves getting into show mances coming into this show saying that his ex is Angela you know obviously who was a beast on the first season and that he's not going to give in to Temptation now we've all seen the trailers we know that him and Alyssa Snyder at some point are going to hook up they show it again even here so what's your first take on Tyler because you've never seen him before you're like he's coming never seen as a new person yeah he's known by reputation for me as Angela's boyfriend because she was on Angela's ex sorry because she wasn't and case and Casey's ride or die from That season Casey and him had a two-person like tight Alliance like what was funny with that season just bringing it up right now instead he got to the end and he got to the end with Angela and Casey so Angela was the girl who started today but Casey was his number one so the question was always like if he had power in the final three who would he have taken like would he have chosen Casey or would he have taken Angela we never got to see it happen because I believe Casey won the final household and made the decision to make it a little bit easier on him but anyways I digress what's your thoughts on Tyler early on like I'm just meh he didn't really do much in the episode to stand out

50:50 And to justify the reputation coming in I think that'll grow I think you're right like knowing who's coming from big brother and his reputation I think MTV or I think production will want to use him a lot going forward and I think he'll play a bigger part but in the first episode so far he didn't really do much to stand out to me Beyond his highlights and introduction yeah Danica I agree with you I still think Tyler should have won that season as well definitely one of the best players to play Big Brother based on that specific performance and like I said you know he came back All-Stars played at half ass and almost got his way to the end again Dolores says even if we didn't see the trailer with Tyler making out the fact that he said it was strictly business and he wasn't going to do that right there it's a kiss of death because at the end of the day that could be I mean it wasn't the reason he lost the first the first time he went on Big Brother but it was the reason he lost the second time because he was Love Struck and thinking about Angela Beck at home instead of focusing on the game lovable Nicki says yes I was messed up that for a lot her challenge one was in a warehouse but the other spin-offs were in nice houses yeah exactly so it was kind of like they weren't you know what I like that house from the USA one there's

52:10 No insulation right but I love like my dream thing is like a converted Warehouse property like apartment the way they get those big like when I was eight years old movie that came out was big and in that movie he an eight-year-old or a 10 year old boy or something grows up to be a real man and gets an apartment that is a converted Loft Warehouse apartment and feels that with like games and arcade machines and trampolines and that was always my thing when I was a kid so when I see these big converted warehouses I'm always like that's so cool it's like big but yeah you're right yeah do you think Wes should have gotten a warehouse instead of a mansion to put all his trophies in do you think the warehouse would have worked I mean if it's for storage storing trophy specifically a warehouse makes much more sense than a new mansion so obviously we go into this specific challenge the daily challenge and it stormed the castle so as they walk out onto this challenge if they didn't have a big enough Target on their backs already we get these stone statues of each one of these players that are coming over from the MTV show West does point out that he only has six ABS on that specific statue and that in real life it's eight but it was it was a lot of fun it was a lot of fun seeing these

53:30 Book statues out there that they had to move from one end to the other this was Big Race I think it was a rude awakening for people like Cassidy who have never done anything like it you know she was saying like how am I going to make it halfway through this thing I'm gonna die some people nearly did die in the chat college with bananas nearly getting taken out for the red team as they were going down the hill and it looked quite dangerous because going down that hill with these heavy stone statues going down there those things don't have breaks on them like you know if that thing loses control with the momentum I would have just tried to like jump in the bushes or something get out of the way because it would it would run you over and could cause some serious injury I don't know if they really tested this thing out before they went out there it looked dangerous it didn't even have like room for two side by side like if one was going down that Hill it was hitting whatever was in front of them and taking them like they barely could get past each other I really liked the statues I liked that at the start bananas was like Hey that one looks like Wes and then they did each other where they're like ah they look like a lot of us he thought it was a coincidence that there was this random statue in the middle of a field that looked exactly like Wes I thought that was so brilliant it's funny that bananas noticed that first it shows you he's got Wiss on his mind and then someone saw the

54:50 Amanda one no I like I liked the ons on the challenge we always talk about that they can go very big and epic challenges and they usually involve big machinery and stuff but sometimes when you just have a wagon and carry these really heavy things it can be a really compelling challenge because it was It was obviously very physical it looked incredibly hard it did considering for the first chat daily of the season it's pushing almost like a final communication it kind of sorry to interrupt you it kind of reminded me it kind of reminded me of when they did that in War of the War of the Worlds 2 when Paulie gassed out and had to move these heavy things running around yeah with everyone so it kind of gave me a little bit of finals Vibes like a mini final section that they were getting sort of acclimatized to and getting a taste for what potentially could come in the future but it's like you said sometimes the kiss principles keep it simple stupid yeah work really well especially in team challenges yeah there's no like explosions on Mac trucks or anything in this episode but it still works for me because it had all the elements of what makes the challenge good as I said physical teamwork communication there was chaos from if you don't communicate properly and try to do it right it's gonna we saw with the red team it

56:10 It almost send it in disaster then it's got the mental and the puzzle and everything and it kind of ties everything together and then you've got that like the symbology of what Paulie was saying is like you're gonna make me carry Johnny Bananas I'm literally on my backs like yeah to have that sort of imagery while being a physical impediment that was incredibly hard as well I enjoyed it I enjoyed it I did like that and you got to see different teams employing different strategies like with the green team they the girls at the front were not carry not carrying the big bass they were told they were specifically looking out for the runes and I mean it was like an Amanda we're looking at the rooms and they get they're like I don't know listen if you're gonna come to come back to play the game and you're seen as a MTV great you're someone that has done this thing more than once people are gonna look at you as someone that needs to step up you need to prove why you're coming back to play the game again so if Amanda says to you and a team and you're a rookie coming into the season I'll handle the business when it comes to memorizing the runes you're going to leave it to it and yes maybe they should have had a backup plan I don't think people are going to make that mistake again with Amanda and this could put her in hot water very early on I don't feel overly optimistic

57:31 For Amanda coming into the season like she said she doesn't have a lot of friends amongst the people that are coming back into the game and I don't think she's got a lot of friends with the people that are currently in the game either on the other side so this is not going to be good for I do want to bring up a couple of comments here Lauren throwing some shade and we love it she's saying really hoping they don't blow 50 of the production budget on explosions again Bandit Survivor welcome to the live stream fellow content creator Bandit Survivor and I had a podcast alive yesterday talking about Survivor UK it was a lot of fun talking to Bandit and if you're into Survivor you know we I think we dropped a couple of bits of knowledge and a couple of things that we've learned in the time since Survivor UK has been announced and obviously Bandit lives in the UK so he had a very unique perspective of what we could expect from people in the UK playing Survivor so go check that out I did watch it after the fact that I caught the tail end on live and then I watched it again after so it was good man it was really I'm excited for the UK Survivor now you're just you're not just saying that to butter me up you're not like get your gaslighting me no it was a good episode I like Bandit as well I'm a fan I'm a new fan yeah I mean bended as like a seasonal vet like he told me that you know he hasn't done many podcasts but I thought he did extremely well on the podcast so band of welcome here in the live Danica

58:51 Is saying it reminded me of War of the waltz competition in the water where Jordan and turbo had to fight yeah Willie Lloyd says it sucks that the green team didn't win when Amanda didn't know the puzzle and she was supposed to be the puzzle queen or is that good yeah level League says white not too much on Amanda what was Amira doing what was the mirror doing I don't know what she was doing like remind me she was there I remember there but I didn't really focus on it too much but I mean that's probably one of the reasons she got a little bit of shade throw in her way as well I don't remember her doing anything Lauren says I can see people not voting in Amanda since she won't be perceived as a threat in the final yeah I mean to be honest with you to be honest with you Lauren that is how people should play the game but that's not how people play the game they get their friends to the end and then they're like if you win I'm happy for you know so I don't know the other thing is with this format with this format you can vote for anyone including your own team so if they keep losing and Amanda's one of the reasons for that then there's a big chance that she may get the vote in from her own team and get put in yeah to strength like in Survivor you vote out the weak players in order to strengthen your team when

1:00:11 It's in the in the team part before the individual side so this is a mirror she was running ahead but not doing much right so she wasn't really helping like push or anything she was like I don't know like the eyes the scalp to see which direction they needed to run in Danica does ask Ben to Survivor here I was watching the life with you and Chris before I still haven't figured out how to watch Survivor UK though well we spoke a little bit about what we like the UK Survivor has not come out yet unless you're talking about the first two seasons from about 10 20 years ago when it does come out there will be ways for you to definitely get your hands on it similar to how you get your hands on Survivor Australia and all these other International shows there's always sites that provide you with that but we'll definitely try and see if we can help people and point them in the right direction when the show comes out if the Survivor UK franchise doesn't make it easier for people to watch it which to me there's such a golden opportunity for these franchises to make extra money by giving all of us super fans you can't hear me no it's good my water is off screen trying to show me something oh right no it's all good I just saw your mouth moving and I was like I couldn't hear you so I thought I was disconnected but apparently she's showing you something very important right now and I can't look at it and talk to

1:01:31 Her sorry guys that's fair enough I get it so yeah so hopefully they do make it easier they do make it easier for people to watch Survivor UK when they do come out all right so obviously at the end of this we do have which there was the one was the blue team right the blue and red team they get on the end they're very close to each other running up to place the statues but the blue team do win safety and we now find out what the format is going to be both the second and third team are at risk any of them can go down into an elimination the whole blue team is safe but they have to come to an agreement on who they're going to send out and to the elimination it's going to be one man and one woman and this is where it comes down to a lot of the strategy side of things and what happened with Corey and Tori putting on a master class after having a conversation with Josh obviously Josh doing the work saying hey let's protect each other I'll look out for you look out for me let's make sure that we don't put our teams in here so it does at this stage look like green team is going to get ganged up on for the rest of the season here Kuna yeah that was an interesting conversation from Josh because he came a bit hard as well didn't he was like yeah that's what just does I swear and Corey was like Corey said look man you're not at the top of my

1:02:51 List and Tori was like why would we nominate you when you're so bad at the game she's LED it to his face and they all cracked up about it but Tori and Josh are close they got that relationship yeah so I feel like I know she said it's so great and absolutely true Josh is not like except for his ongoing Fierce rivalry with Wes he doesn't have a lot of people who want to put him into then you know nomination so the fact that he came so hard with it instead like I don't know if this is going to be a good season for Josh I think he's like expecting I've lost this weight and I'm feeling good I've come back after a couple Seasons off I want to make a big thing I've been chosen as Captain I got the toast I'm being all ju this is everything's coming up Josh and he's like trying too hard and I wonder if maybe that's gonna backfire on him like everything does it could but I do think Josh is also one of the best connected people in the house right now he's got the big brother site that will want to work with him because he's from CBS and he's got the vets that is going to want to work with him so to me it just makes natural sense that he is he is a king maker right now you can decide now like you said Josh having all this much power a lot of the times in the game we see if somebody's got all this power and they're not experienced that how to handle the power it can blow up in their face and I do think that could be the case for

1:04:12 Josh moving forward to Ricky is saying oh and Chris and Survivor didn't deserve to win by any stretch but he's looking like he bulked up yeah he's looking good then again saying Chris I need the info for Traders in New Zealand couldn't find it on the same location where I watched Survivor Au The Amazing Race and Au Danica hit me up afterwards he'll be in the DMS and we'll see if we can help you I haven't actually caught up on Traders New Zealand yet hot fact because there's been so much going on this week so I do need to go and watch that but we will be covering Traders Australia as well so that should be exciting Willie Lloyd is saying it's very predictable seeing Joseph be allies with Facey Tori and Corey because Josh's friends were facilitatory in real life exactly that's that Alliance that's been dominating for a long time so to come into this season thinking that Alliance will not try and take control of this game is ignorant Lena is saying rivalry in his head I'm not sure who's that's referring to then it's definitely his rivalry with West could care less yeah I said Josh's ongoing rivalry West the fierce long years-long rivalry years long yeah and it's all made up in his head but yeah overall I felt like this was a very masterful gameplay by the Vets taking control here early on to get both Louis and or Lewis and the mirror voted in without any of the Vets being in danger but

1:05:32 Alyssa Lopez really didn't like this Alyssa Snyder seemed upset but I don't fear Alyssa Snyder as a game player Alyssa Lopez on the other hand we saw in the first season that she is someone that can be very conniving and backstabby and go against people that she's worked in the past I'm interested to see what Alyssa Lopez does this season because she doesn't have Angela there which was a big part of her game last season Tyson was a big part of her game last season obviously she's going to try and work with big brother here but Alyssa Lopez is saying we're not going to let the witch just steamroll us which is the kind of energy that I like to see I don't hate the Vets but I hate it when the Vets run over people in the game so I'm very happy that she's not a sheep and she's aware now the big question kuna is can Alyssa Lopez do anything she did win some dailies in the first season but this is a very different season where you need your whole team you need to win dailies with your team to have power and then you need to have the votes you need to have the social capital within their team to be able to get the targets that you want into an elimination so they're outnumbered currently in their team it doesn't look like their team fully Hazard over the vets yeah like I do like Alyssa and if she's one of those people that will be a thorn in the side of the Vets than good but I don't think

1:06:52 She has the capability or the connections this season or in her team especially to be able to do anything like what we saw was Corey Tory and fessi being the challenge vets taking control and Cassidy Sebastian and Chris are all survivor and they seem to fall in line as well so once you had that overwhelming majority both Alyssa's were done and that's going to be the same going forward if they don't lose any and they'll also probably be the first people to be gone from that team as well potentially like if it's up to that team like the challenge vets will stick together the Survivor players will stick together and what we've seen out of episode one is that they're falling in line with the challenge vets so far so it just puts them as the on the outside of that group and without really any moves to make unfortunately yeah lovable Nikki here says and thank you for that lovable Nikki I don't promote this enough throughout the life sometimes but you know please consider liking the video because if you do put a like on this we've got about 50 people if everybody can put a like on it would be much appreciated it does help with the YouTube algorithm and putting it out there for more new people to find the channel and the more people we get the to follow the channel the more content we can give people in the future we're trying to create a bit of a reality competitive reality TV network here we're

1:08:12 Now covering a lot more shows than the challenge itself so it really does help with the growth of the channel and you know the challenge fans I've said this so many times the challenge fans are really the fandom that have you know started this whole Channel like when I first started with angel cake and reality realness or Chantal and that you know and I left the previous channel I was with for a short period of time that was really the fandom that pushed us past the 100 Subs that pushed us to 500 subs and we're now getting pretty close to 2 000 Subs you know when we started this life we're about 70 or so Subs away from 2000 which we'll have to do some sort of a big event when we get there because it's a massive achievement to get there and I just want to say thank you to everybody in the TNT fam that have been supporting and that have been in the life that are taking part of this conversation without you guys being here being a part of the conversation you know myself and kuna are just two guys with a mic so we really appreciate you coming here Tariq has got a question for us here and he says curious who are your favorite all-time challenge players for each of you West Is Mine by a long shot and I think West is a lot of people's by a long shot and he would definitely be in my list if I had to choose five challenge players off the top of the dome right now be Wes CT Cara Maria I actually when I first started watching

1:09:32 The show I started on Final Reckoning and really didn't like bananas but then when I went back to go watch the earlier Seasons throughout I now do give bananas as flowers and I do believe that he should be amongst the greats yes he gets annoying sometimes I get it but I'll give him his flowers I actually don't mind bananas in there as well and I'm trying to think could be the fifth person for me whom I'm missing that would be like an obvious and obvious choice you go ahead give your five I've got four the I always find it difficult to differentiate between a favorite and best and we had that discussion on our survivor thing like yeah this is just favorites Mucky Pig's favorites he doesn't pick we're not talking best we're just talking favorites and sometimes I conflate the two like for the longest time I think bananas is the best to ever do it but for a long time there because he was the best and it was when I was watching it years ago when I felt like he'd solidified himself as the best and Jordan was the upcomer who hadn't like really challenged as hard as he is now and arguably maybe even better but banana still has the numbers so bananas was always my favorite because he was the best but I think personality wise and stuff CT holds a special place in the like old man CT dad

1:10:52 CT I love CT loves you yeah I love CT much better than angry Young's drunk CT but Dad CeCe that won the majority of things as he was the older smarter grizzled vet that's my favorite player in the challenge yeah so somebody asked me here earlier on Ryan says I thought you were a caramel Maria stand I mentioned Cara Maria so Cara Maria CT Wes bananas those are the four that they just for me stand above everyone else that I really enjoy watching outside of that like I feel like there's a bit of a gap and there's a lot of players that are almost like equal for me when it comes to I'll like give or take I can have them actually I'm like no I will no I'll add I'll add another one I want to add another woman into that as well because I've got three men only Cara Maria killer Ken I love killer cam so yeah give me a killer cam any day of the week she'll be my fifth choice for someone and I will say because I'm seeing some older names coming through here like coral and that because I didn't watch the older Seasons I didn't grow up on the older seasons and I started quite late a lot of the people that I do like are those ones that have had longevity and that are still in the show now or that are sort of in the newer age of the challenge basically and we also had terekia give us a compliment a little bit earlier on which

1:12:13 I really appreciate that direct because you know we love doing this for everybody Trix is by the way you guys are doing a great job overall I've enjoyed your videos now for multiple TV shows keep it up I really appreciate that and that's why we love doing the lives because we get we get this direct interaction with everybody I love Darrell as well Darrell is awesome and a few people have mentioned Darrell Jordan I actually do like Jordan as well and again if you're talking about the best Jordan definitely deserves a spot somewhere in the top five as well there's so many great characters that's why the challenges lasted for as long as it has lasted because it's got compelling characters that you want to see play this game but I do want to get back into the last part of this episode here after Lewis and or yeah Lewis and America gets nominated they have to go back and they have to do a vote they can vote for anyone Kahuna they can vote for someone in their own team the vote is unanimous or sorry Anonymous and because of that Tyler feels like he's in this wheelhouse because big brother is very similar we haven't seen him work as magic but I think him putting that comment in there and then showing it means that at some point Tyler is going to stretch that strategic muscle that people who have watched big brother knows he has so I think there's going to be some crafty gameplay coming into the future but you know did you like this did you like the fact that the vote is hidden yeah I mean we've had it in the past before like a couple times but generally I don't know to

1:13:33 Be honest with you I want to see how it plays out because one thing that I've always liked about the challenge is the fact that you have to vote because people's face and they've wanted to milk that for the drama that it brings okay like obviously there'll be fights or Screaming that sort of thing but the way it's played out in more recent seasons is that because you have to do it to people's face and people wanting to avoid that conflict it ends up being a much more predictable outcome generally unless there's like we saw in the world championship like the ties the stalemates that ended up ruining the game and I think this is kind of a response to that is that when it is anonymous people can feel it like they can do they can stray away from their allegiances they can stray away from what the team is telling them to do and be that little Chaos Agent because the way the balls are going to work is that regardless of someone stacked like someone might have because how many are there's like 16 votes or something like that I think if two teams because the captain as well yeah so that's why Michelle noticed that it was nine seven instead of eight so yeah so 16 votes you could have 15 votes go on one person have one other ball go out but because there is that random thing of luck

1:14:53 That 15 to one that one ball could get someone in the elimination so I find that fascinating it's very different to what we've had in the challenge as far as especially putting into that sort of thing but I'm interested I like that they're changing things especially because they've seen the last couple Seasons that the voting kind of got into a bit of a shambles as far as being a good TV product it was two predictable vets dominating manipulating getting everyone to vote the way they wanted this Anonymous anonymity gives a little bit of a shield where you can have that little bit of Chaos in there which I'm really interested to see play out Prince Amy has a secret vote plus Hopper equals huge win and then to wreck direct your response to that by saying I completely agree with you Prince him really makes it much harder to just politic your way to the end and use social pressure to get there I'm a big fan of the secret vote as well I do have a big question though Michelle being this crafty obviously she's played Survivor twice which the numbers and Survivor the votes is everything to try and get to the end and she is one of the best at getting to the end game so I'm not surprised that she picked up on the fact that someone had some Friendly Fire Within the team do you think that Michelle is Crafty enough that she's going to figure out that unite is that person and what does this mean for Janae

1:16:13 Moving forward in the game because Janae was also angel cakes first pick in the draft he's very high on her he always believes in Janae all day I feel like Janae may be in a little bit of trouble here if the Vets don't protect her I know she's got Wes in her corner but did Janae overplay her hand this early in the game yeah I didn't really see a reason for it either at this point like I know if the only thing that she had to dictate or to guide that vote was that Josh Wes said don't trust her pre-season like that doesn't mean voter out immediately or try to you know like play the game don't play what Wes told you like where is the team voting what is the best strategy do you want to keep Michelle around for whatever particular reason like you gotta at least think of three so I didn't necessarily get it I didn't necessarily like it because I think you could use your vote in a more powerful way than although as I said earlier I'm kind of contradicting myself now but in a game like this we've never seen the hopper before even that one random balls she ended up with three for Michelle but yeah like one random vote out there could get you the way you want it if you're you know if the gamble comes your way so maybe we might see a lot more of it rather than and we saw a very split

1:17:33 Vote rather than I mean it doesn't make sense yeah it doesn't make sense I don't understand why there wasn't more of a pile up but one other thing that also for me was interesting was that they each got one vote so they could only vote for a female or for a male right they didn't get two votes so that means that there's only two people that potentially could go into the elimination and it's Michelle or Desi for the woman they're the only two women that are potentially going to go up against the mirror yeah I mean for the men it's quite split you've got Wes with two Dusty with two Monty with four bananas with four Michelle's got three and this he's only got one so the highest likelihood is that Michelle will end up being the woman selected to go in so should they have gotten one novel and one nail vote no I think I think I'm not 100 sure but I thought I heard it say that whoever gets the pick out of the balls will then go against whichever gender that's why they pick two that's why there's one male one female so if Michelle or Desi get picked then Amira is definitely going in but if bananas Monty that's your West get picked then a mirror gets a slide right I did not I missed that lovable Nicky also says there will only be one pair in the elimination that makes a hell of a lot more sense now so you can also

1:18:53 But that's why red was saying do we all agree that we should make it a man like yeah we're like let's just all put it on a man and that's when Michelle said who's to say that we all put it on this we can just put it wherever we want anyway the format-wise it's still confusing format wise for me it's still confusing because what if they just kept piling it on the men yeah at some point at some point they're gonna have to be like no now it needs to be a woman this week we you can only vote a woman then because at the end of the season they said that there would be one man and one woman that would win the game so we know that at some point the teams will be and will be split up or there will be an individual game that's going to come into play because that's what the format will require for one man and one woman to win at the end of the game which means that in the final you're probably going to need at least four men and four women to be able to run it so it's a little bit confusing in that way I feel like there's a few things they could have done to clear it up a little bit more but I guess production could at some point say well you've now had three Min eliminations in a row the next one has to be a woman elimination so they've done a new format in order to combat the way that some challenges were basically running and controlling the outcome and the votes and that sort of thing you can never control the outcome of elimination but they were very much controlling who went in a lot of

1:20:13 The times anyway and they've taken that away now but potentially coming up with the new bigger disaster that you've just identified Chris that if they always go one gender yeah what PT is saying so maybe Pete's got the inside scoop he's saying after this it will be the opposite agenda every other week after that so that would make sense the first week might be a little bit loosey-goosey and they're like we'll leave it up for you guys to decide that's the first time you Fantasy Draft you pick mail first and the next one's female regardless yeah okay that makes sense the law is saying how many episodes are there in the season I think it will be the normal Paramount plus sort of run off about 10 to 12 episodes it'll be in that region probably 12 episodes because I know that the first couple of weeks and this is a good time to bring this up there's going to be two episodes per week so the next one dropping Sunday over in the us and we will cover the next episode as well as the following episodes so episodes two and three we'll cover together at the same time slot next week we'll be doing two episodes per week I know we've gone on for an hour and 20 minutes today on that but we'll be a lot more tight when we do two episodes and we'll probably try and touch a lot more on the highlights but it's been so much fun just to be back and to talk about the challenge and obviously there was a lot of introduction stuff that we sort of touched upon but we'll try and do it we've done it before

1:21:34 You know we're experienced in doing Survivor Australia where we have to do three episodes in one life and we normally get it done within an hour in an hour and a half so you know it won't be too long I promise we won't double the time it won't be a three hour podcast if we if we do end up with two episodes we'll try our best in any case hey kuna that's right I mean if you're talking to me about keeping things short it's yeah he's talking to the wrong guy yeah no that's why I'm here I'm here to keep you on track but on that note by the end of this episode we don't get an elimination which is a little bit of a but luckily the next episode is gonna be you know right around the corner and we're going to see who's going to go into this elimination as well and I'm looking forward to it I'm looking forward to the season I think it's set up because who knows Chris is experiencing million dollar Island diving with kuna doing the two-hour podcasts at the Dolores say the time flew by I didn't think it was too long thank you guys yeah it was a lot of fun having everybody here we always love talking to you and I think on that note we are sort of heading towards the end here of this live stream now if you did enjoy this if you're still sticking around you're a true one for being with us throughout this hour in 22 minutes please consider subscribing to the channel as I mentioned earlier it does help with the growth of the channel as we're bringing more and more shows here to the podcast

1:22:54 To the nullify take please consider liking putting the notification Bell on so you can be informed the next time that we do drop something in this coming week we will also have traitors Australia and also Traders New Zealand content and then obviously by the end of next week we will then again go into the challenge with Survivor content to come very soon The Amazing Race content to come very soon we're going to continue to add more and more things here to the channel but for now thank you so much for stopping by and we'll catch you guys next time bye