The Challenge Season 39 Premiere Recap: The Battle for a New Champion Is On, but Who Couldn’t Handle the Smoke?
To be the best, these relative newbies will have to beat the best.
Welcome to The Challenge: Battle for a New Champion, where 24 unsuspecting competitors will face off for their chance at earning the highly coveted title of Challenge champ. But little do they know, they’ll have to get through beasts like Cara Maria, CT, Brad, Darrell and more in order to make it to TJ’s final and grab that $500K bag. (Meet the entire cast, including the returning winners here.)
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TJ announces at the first challenge that only one contender is going to win (second and third place finishers will be rewarded — but he doesn’t go into specifics). The prize pot starts at $300,000, but they’ll have multiple opportunities to raise that to a half a mill. The game has three stages: Control, Chaos and Conquest. The season’s first portion will be all about earning money, and later, the group will be forced to protect it — aka, keep it from the clutches of the aforementioned veterans who are scheduled to pop in down the road.
DAILY CHALLENGE | In “Hole Control,” everyone works together to try and bank some extra cash. The players jump down into a large muddy pit, and must get each and every person up and over a high wall. In addition, there are poles that need to be extracted, and those will be used to complete a puzzle. Get everyone out and solve the puzzle in 10 minutes, and $50K will be added to the prize pot.
When TJ sounds the horn, it’s absolute chaos. Plus, the mud makes everyone’s body slippery, which makes the entire effort that much harder. The women are hoisted over the wall first, giving them a head-start on the puzzle, while the biggest men try to pull each other up. It’s a close finish, but when the clock stops, the completed puzzle is wrong and the $50K is squandered.
With that, TJ tells them to head back to the house and start deliberating because when they hit elimination, anyone and everyone is on the table to compete. Which is unfortunate for Berna, who almost immediately struggles to connect. Part of me feels bad for her. It’s got to be difficult competing on an American reality show when English isn’t your native language. Buuut the other part of me is rolling my eyes when her waterworks kick on because I have seen too much reality TV and am mostly heartless.
Big T tells some of the women that she has absolutely no grand plan; she tells us that she’s already aligned with a bajillion people in the house and that she wants to target a guy. In another room, James, Corey and a few others blame the women for the challenge loss, and start throwing Berna’s name around. But Big T is also on the lips of many. She’s a super social player with built-in ties in the house, and her many connections are no secret.
DELIBERATION | No, it’s not Battle of the Sexes 3, but it might as well be! The men and the women immediately go head-to-head, with both sides blaming each other for losing the cash. Berna apologizes to the group for seeming rude. While the Survivor Turkey vet could be the easy way to go, Jessica digs herself the biggest grave Challenge history. Then, she hops right in and lies down. She says she doesn’t care about the money, that she knows she’s probably not going to win, that she’s going to suck in a lot of the competitions. Guess The Bachelor Australia didn’t quite prep her for this viper pit. (Yes, I know she was on The Challenge: Australia, too. Clearly that didn’t help either.)
THE ARENA | Mostly everyone says Jessica’s name in the public vote, except for Horacio, who opts to make a new enemy for absolutely zero reason. He votes for Big T. (Bud, I know this is only your second season, but you don’t get cred for this. Saying “Big T” when Jessica’s ship has already sunk isn’t honorable or brave. It’s just dumb.)
Jessica heads down to the sand, where TJ tells her she has full (season buzzword coming through) CONTROL. She can select any female competitor she wants to go against and she bravely (note sarcasm) selects Big T. (Sidebar: Isn’t it kind of sad that Big T, of all people, is the current challenger with the most seasons under her belt? Season 39, everyone!)
In “Fallout,” the women are locked in a cube and suspended in the air. After clearing the space of colored tiles, they must pull a rope up to retrieve a hammer that can be used to smash the bottom of their prison. The first person to free herself from the cage wins the elimination and stays in the game. After a speedy l’il showdown, Big T comes out on top, knocking Jessica out of the game.
So tell us, Challenge fans: Will this season be one for the record books or are we just biding our time until All Stars 4 drops? Grade the premiere, then let us know your thoughts by dropping a comment.
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