S34.E08: Saving Private Esther

[OnceSane]

Quote

TJ shocks the players with news of a double elimination. Best friends Dee and Ninja find themselves at odds when Ninja fails to have Dee’s back. Team UK worries about Esther’s abilities.

Airs October 16, 2019.

[Lantern7]

“Esther, that was one hell of an effort. Despite your loss, you exceeded expectations when your back was against the wall. And now we say farewell forever to you, mostly because you probably wouldn’t slice a bitch’s tendons like most of the people here. Kyle, you want to punch at least four people in the face. Expect your plane ticket in the mail for the next season.”

Team UK continues to implode, as the promise of the US killing each other is put off for another week. Worse, Georgia and Cyclops Theo elect not to defect. Once again, there should be incentive to switch sides, because no one has done it yet.

More drama, more bitterness, and more people wanting to drop Natalie into an active volcano. I also question why she’s there, but mostly because her “old” show (American Ninja Warrior) wasn’t based on competitors slagging one another.

Midseason trailer! More drama! And it looks like Turbo gets so angry, half of the House has to hold him back. I knew he was too good to be true. He probably asked Jordan if he could kick the relics after this episode’s mission.

[angelamh66]

I kind of loved Georgia’s rant at the end. She’s absolutely correct. The U.K. team needs to worry about winning challenges first and foremost.  They made the right moves for that to maybe happen. So Cara and her little posse can suck it. I think I find it easier to root for the U.K. because I have less experience with them and thus do not yet fully understand the potential depths of their awfulness. Whereas I’ve spent years watching the idiots on the US squad show their ass. 

[scrb]

Grueling challenge and very grueling elimination.  Though why did they let them compete with the US team having one more player.  What rationale for that decision?

100 pounds is serious.  How many 100 pound pieces were there?  Midget Paulie talking shit.

The voting drama was dumb.  How is Dee alone going to get the whole U.K. team to vote for some other female into the elimination when Esther volunteered?  Cara and Paulie trying to overtake Bananas in being assholes in the Challenge.

Ashley talking shit from the sidelines.  Bitch you’d give up not even half way through.

[MVFrostsMyPie]

I kind of want a relic to fall on Cara's face.

[Hoi Polloi]

Oh man I used to love me some Cara Maria. Interesting how her descent into Bananas style levels of entitlement and hypocrisy coincided with her introduction to wee Paulie. She may never regret that relationship but she should.

Edited October 17, 2019 by Hoi Polloi

[carrin817]

Some one needs to defect to the other team or the whole segment of the show is pointless & would have been edited out, right?

[esco1822]

Kyle's outrage about Rogan voting him in was laughable. He's been campaigning for at least he last 2 weeks to put Rogan in and has failed. Rogan owes him less than zero loyalty. He also appeared to be doing basically nothing in this challenge. His hair looked much better this season but otherwise, I'm not sure what Kyle brought to the table. I was happy to see him go but conversely mad that it made Cara and Paulie so happy. They are so freaking smug. You guys are not running the show obviously but you're in the tribunal this weak and pressuring your alliance to do your bidding so yeah, Georgia totally nailed that assessment. I'm not a fan of hers either but she was totally right about it. Anyone else think it was awkward that Esther was present for all these conversations with Dee about needing to save her because she's the weakest player? I'm glad she had a good show in the Proving Ground. I wish everyone didn't suck so much, it's hard to find someone to root for because I'd bet money that in the end, it becomes an individual winner anyway. 

[Steph619]

It didn’t make sense to me why Dee was getting questioned for not trying to save Esther especially since Esther volunteered herself into elimination. I get Cara and Ashley trying to keep the weakest players on the UK team, but they were going overboard.

Now that Esther and Kyle, who I find to be average at these challenges, are gone, I think the UK team is going to improve. Kyle was way too dramatic over getting thrown into elimination. Would much rather see Rogan stay than him. 

[Jobiska]

Every week I come to this board and the first thing I want to say is, "Ugh, these people."

Whatever camera person is assigned to getting Cara's reaction/expression shots is doing a good job this season.  I liked when she was looking all bored and blase at the deliberations and when someone nominated Kyle, her head whipped up.  Glad she didn't strain her neck doing that!

Both the challenge and the uh, duel or whatever it is called were annoying in that we just saw increasing tallies and not really any idea of progress (or strategy in the challenge one) other than that.  I'd rather have more of an idea what was happening in addition to seeing the totals increasing.  There was no sign of them checking the board as to whether their relics were in order, etc.  Blah, boring.  

[Jrae9233]

As someone who has never cared for Cara Maria, I am loving seeing people turn on her. She has always been this obnoxious and attention seeking and people are finally calling it out. I felt the same way with Jordan last week. I think Turbo is an asshole underneath his broken English charm. But I hate Jordan so much, I was cheering on Turbo to knock him out. 

Poor CT, it might be time to hang it up. This game is not even worth it, everyone sucks.

[lasu]

I've always really enjoyed The Challenge and, if I'm not mistaken, I have watched it every season since the first one.  And while I still do enjoy it, I miss the older format.  I wish it wasn't SO athletic at this point.  I would love to see some old vets come back, and I know they are never going to convince people to make fools of themselves against these young, super fit athletes.  I do, however, think you could convince them to make fools of themselves against each other in an old school format.  Not that you would have to eliminate all athleticism from the challenges, but I would love to see even a single season that brought the hilarity of something like Amaya saying she couldn't bob for pigs' feet because she's Jewish, after she ate a sausage biscuit that same morning.  I would just love to see some of the super old school vets come back and I would be thrilled to see a different format that would allow for it.  I think you could awaken the dormant reality whore in a lot of people, if they knew they weren't going to be embarrassed for being out of shape 30 and 40 somethings.  

I also wish the older seasons were around to watch.  I would love to go back and rewatch them, especially if I could binge all the way from the very start.

[mojoween]

I really appreciate the show spoiling who lost the mission with the title.  Thanks MTV!

[MaggieG]

I go back and forth on Cara but she really bothered me this episode. How is it Dee's responsibility to keep Esther around if Esther wants to volunteer? I hated that they made Ninja (who I can't stand) be their little errand girl. And then they openly talk about needing to keep Esther around in front of Esther! I'm glad Esther did a great job in the proving ground and managed to keep up with Georgia. The moral of this story, never assume anyone is a layup. 

[Lantern7]

On 10/19/2019 at 6:27 PM, mojoween said:

I really appreciate the show spoiling who lost the mission with the title.  Thanks MTV!

1. I think Bunim-Murray titles the episodes, not MTV. 2. I honestly didn't think her name wedged into that title spoiled anything.

[mojoween]

But the title told me that the Brits lost because otherwise why would she need to be saved?  That’s what bugged me.  Didn’t even need to watch the mission (I mean, that’s basically been true all season but still).