S36.E05: Skyfall

[peachmangosteen]

Quote

After one Agent is unexpectedly deactivated, TJ institutes a shocking security breach, which shakes up partnerships. The Agents compete in "Mission: Agent Down" where they must overcome their fears of heights. A group of strong Rookies align in hopes to take down two Veteran Agents.

Airs January 13th.

[AntFTW]

CT: “LET ME SEE YOUR MEAN FACE!”

BIG T: 😭😭😭

CT: “SHOW TJ YOUR MEAN FACE”

BIG T: 😁

[snarts]

Tori talks a lot of shit for someone who's won a whooping $15k after four Challenges...oops, now five.

Edited January 14, 2021 by snarts

[shantown]

I really enjoyed this episode!
- Excellent music choices
- Aneesa winning and getting a skull
- Big T's absolutely adorable "mean" face
- CT winning and being generally supportive
- New Wes Devin being generally snarky
- The rookie girls organizing and getting their Tori vs Aneesa matchup

[AntFTW]

I loved this episode! I hated the daily challenge but I loved the episode.

1) Theresa is still playing a scared game after all this time.

2) Devin being indifferent about his partner... HILARIOUS!

3) NOBODY WANTS TO GO INTO ELIMINATION AND THAT IRKS THE ABSOLUTE FUCK OUTTA ME! 🤬 They are still operating as if they don't have to go in and get a skull. They are playing to last but not to win.

[Eolivet]

The reign of Big T was delightful. She and CT are a hilarious odd coupling. And that challenge was made for them, too.

Aneesa going back with Fessy proves he needs a woman to do the thinking for him. Now they both have skulls, and aren't exactly "easy" match-ups for the skull-less, they can perhaps coast to the final.

Kaycee trying to keep her coalition, which includes Josh and Fessy, together reminded me of the guy crying behind the smiley mask meme. Sorry, Kaycee, Level 6 is not walking through that door.

[Lantern7]

Painful start for the episode, satisfactory middle, last act full of revelations. Tori Deal has produced some impressive results, but they seem to be diminishing with each passing season. I submit that Tori is the new Jenna.

The start was heartbreaking, with Natalie getting "compromised" and Ashley coming back to take her place. I know that there probably weren't any alternates to take Natalie's place thanks to quarantine, but I would have taken anyone else. Ashley got beat in the first Crater and she gets to come back? Now I'm dreading she might win for a third time, the second coming from her (and Hunter) not playing the full season of Final Reckoning.

Since this is BMP, we don't know what happened with Natalie. Turns out she had tested positive for pregnancy. She went home and wound up with a miscarriage.  I hate when bad things happen to good people. I know some folks hate her from TAR, but she seems awesome to me. She also made Edge of Extinction interesting in Survivor, and I didn't think that possible. I wouldn't wish a miscarriage on anyone I hated.

It doesn't seem fair. We finally had a Natalie that most people like, and she had to leave. Teege said that he was sure he'd see her again, so I'm giving she's got an open invite for future seasons. I'm good with that.

Good news: Tula continues to pad her resume for winning. I think having CT as a partner helps. Sure, he's a strong guy, but he's also been supportive, and the concept of "BTCT" (my creation; do you think it'll catch on?) is adorable. Or maybe "The Queen and the Fuzzy Bunny." And watching Big T hold court at the party was fun to watch.

Yadda Yadda Yadda, Aneesa gets her tenth elimination win. It's a shame she's been doing this show longer than anyone else (not as often, though) and she only has two final mission appearances to show for it. Tori wound up flaming out trying to tip over the crate of balls. Part of me things the crate was rigged, but I'm betting it was all her. In the end, Devin is a rogue agent; with his Golden Skull secured, that means he has next week off. And he continued to annoying this week, as did Josh.

Edited January 15, 2021 by Lantern7

[AntFTW]

6 minutes ago, Lantern7 said:

Painful start for the episode, satisfactory middle, last act full of revelations. Tori Deal has produced some impressive results, but they seem to be diminishing with each passing season. I submit that Tori is the new Jenna.

The start was heartbreaking, with Natalie getting "compromised" and Ashley coming back to take her place. I know that there probably weren't any alternates to take Natalie's place thanks to quarantine, but I would have taken anyone else. Ashley got beat in the first Crater and she gets to come back? Now I'm dreading she might win for a third time, the second coming from her (and Hunter) not playing the full season of Final Reckoning.

Since this is BMP, we don't know what happened with Natalie. Turns out she had tested positive for pregnacncy. She went home and wound up with a miscarriage.  I hate when bad things happen to good people. I know some folks hate her from TAR, but she seems awesome to me. She also made Edge of Extinction interesting in Survivor, and I didn't think that possible. I wouldn't wish a miscarriage on anyone I hated.

It doesn't seem fair. We finally had a Natalie that most people like, and she had to leave. Teege said that he was sure he'd see her again, so I'm giving she's got an open invite for future seasons. I'm good with that.

Good news: Tula continues to pad her resume for winning. I think having CT as a partner helps. Sure, he's a strong guy, but he's also been supportive, and the concept of "BTCT" (my creation; do you think it'll catch on?) is adorable. Or maybe "The Queen and the Fuzzy Bunny." And watching Big T hold court at the party was fun to watch.

Yadda Yadda Yadda, Aneesa gets her tenth elimination win. It's a shame she's been doing this show longer than anyone else (not as often, though) and she only has two final mission appearances to show for it. Tori wound up flaming out trying to tip over the crate of balls. Part of me things the crate was rigged, but I'm betting it was all her. In the end, Devin is a rogue agent; with his Golden Skull secured, that means he has next week off. And he continued to annoying this week, as did Josh.

As always, Josh was insufferable during the little bit of screen time that he got.

[aghst]

So it’s all a nice story, the underdog rookie women pulling off a move to eliminate one of the two vet women who are larger than them.

But so many chances for producers shenanigans such as them saying CT and Big T won or maybe the ballast mechanism on Toris cart being tighter.

Big T hamming it up as the queen.

Tori is right that being bigger is an advantage.  But it’s not necessarily the fault of the smaller women.  It’s poor casting to have so many physical mismatches in this “fifth national sport.”  Or maybe the smaller women don’t accept the invitation to participate knowing they don’t have a realistic chance.

Or they don’t care, they get to be on TV and get a trip for a couple of weeks.

TJ said one of the most beautiful settings on The Challenge but they don’t show a wide shot of the cliff and the waterfall on the other side.

In the crater it seemed like it wasn’t that hard to figure out which squares to target.  The higher squares they had to throw over their heads because they couldn’t throw the balls high enough otherwise.  When Tori finally got her cart to release the balls, she was walking back to get more balls.

Seemed like a preordained elimination.

Fessy not happy to be paired with Aneesa again, jus in time for a challenge with a 5 mile run.

There’s only been a couple of puzzles or memorization challenges, the first one with the circuits and then the drone challenge to decode the numbers?  Nothing other than physical contests in the Crater?

I guess they had no choice but to bring Ashley back because of the quarantining requirements that all the players had to go through.  So being the first to be eliminated worked out and she’s dying to avoid being a target like she was at the start of the season.

[Racj82]

Something told me Natalie was pregnant. It could have been issues with family members at home but she felt a little too resigned for it to be a really bad thing.

I'm genuinely not a Big T fan. I don't thinks she's as funny or cute as others think but her mean face made me choke on water it was so cute and funny.

[luckyroll3]

13 hours ago, AntFTW said:

CT: “LET ME SEE YOUR MEAN FACE!”

BIG T: 😭😭😭

CT: “SHOW TJ YOUR MEAN FACE”

BIG T: 😁

Big T's mean face: 

Aneesa with Fessy:

[ImpinAintEasy]

As one of the few Smashley fans, it will be nice to have her talking heads back. It’s understandable that they would bring her back because of quarantine. Sad to see Natalie go. Even sadder to hear what happened. 
 

Another uninteresting daily challenge. This is the second consecutive season with poor dailies. Maybe it’s time to find a new challenge designer. 
 

Fessy is overrated. That is all. 
 

I like Aneesa. I was rooting for her to beat Tori.  I’d love to see her win. But it’s just not physically possible, unfortunately. 
 

It was nice to see Darrell get some more screen time. I’m rooting for him to win. I’d love to see what he can do in a modern final. 

[Jillibean]

I was so impressed by Jay’s performance on that daily. I also thought the way he gave Theresa the little kiss on the helmet when she was talking about her terror was cute. This daily was basically the same as one they had during The Duel 2 with a couple of changed elements, so while it was visually impressive with a great backdrop, I was meh on it.

Loved Kaycee’s joy at getting Leroy back and Fessy’s disappointment at getting Aeneas back. I might have thought Devin’s frustration with Tori was funnier or more relatable if he hadn’t picked her himself. 

11 hours ago, aghst said:

But so many chances for producers shenanigans such as them saying CT and Big T won or maybe the ballast mechanism on Toris cart being tighter.

In the crater it seemed like it wasn’t that hard to figure out which squares to target.  The higher squares they had to throw over their heads because they couldn’t throw the balls high enough otherwise.  When Tori finally got her cart to release the balls, she was walking back to get more balls.

Seemed like a preordained elimination.

TJ has said multiple times that they set up the competitions and eliminations so they could defend the results in court if they had to. I think rumors of producer shenanigans are greatly exaggerated and come mostly from people on the losing end of things. I agree it was strange to see Tori struggle SO much to get her crate over, but it looked like Aneesa just used the momentum better than she did. Also, I can’t imagine why the producers would ever want Tori out before Aneesa. Tori was causing big drama, gives great narrative, and was about a day away from publicly cheating on her fiancée with Fessy. If they set it up for anyone to win (and I don’t think they did) I would have thought they’d want it the other way around. I similarly doubt they played with the daily times, but the competition itself obviously favored a team like the Ts where one is huge and one is tiny, which makes the fact that Jay and Theresa almost won even more impressive. 

12 minutes ago, ImpinAintEasy said:

As one of the few Smashley fans, it will be nice to have her talking heads back. It’s understandable that they would bring her back because of quarantine. Sad to see Natalie go. Even sadder to hear what happened. 

I don’t LIKE Smashley per se, but man was she ever built for reality TV. I was happy to see her back. I’m devastated for Natalie. A lot of people noted before the season that she wasn’t really talking about it or promoting it and assumed she hadn’t enjoyed it a la Victor. To find out why she is truly struggling to have to deal with watching it and being a part of it is just...completely devastating. I wonder if this will be it for her on the challenge or if she eventually will want to give it another go. 

15 hours ago, snarts said:

Tori talks a lot of shit for someone who's won a whooping $15k after four Challenges...oops, now five.

Tori, prior to this challenge, had done four challenges. She did well in two and not well on the other two. Jordan helped her significantly on Dirty 30 and her only elimination win that season was over Marie, who once couldn’t get out of a basket. On WotW2 she every so barely eked out a win over Georgia and beat an emotionally defeated Jenny in what is really her only truly impressive elimination win. No way she could have repeated that same accomplishment last season with Jenny actually ready to go. Her elimination record coming into this season was, I believe, 3-2 not counting the one she lost as a mercenary on Vendettas. So I truly, truly am bewildered as to why Tori perceives herself as well as she does in this game. I mean, she’s fine, but to me she’s a solidly middle tier player, along with people like Aneesa, Jenna, and Kailah. She just strikes me as super self-important. 

[shantown]

14 minutes ago, Jillibean said:

which makes the fact that Jay and Theresa almost won even more impressive

😂 I love Theresa now

[falltime]

I had notice Theresa's feet there on the platform last night and wondered if time was taken from their total time.

Edited January 14, 2021 by falltime
Spelling

[luckyroll3]

1 hour ago, Jillibean said:

her only elimination win that season was over Marie, who once couldn’t get out of a basket.

This made me realize that I miss Marie's drunken craziness.

[xfuse]

19 hours ago, Eolivet said:

Aneesa going back with Fessy proves he needs a woman to do the thinking for him. Now they both have skulls, and aren't exactly "easy" match-ups for the skull-less, they can perhaps coast to the final.

And if I was in the finals I would love it because I don't think either one of them got much endurance to do a final. Aneesa can't run. There are other people I would worry about more.

[RedbirdNelly]

There are moments I like Big T and then moments where to me she is too much and seems overly smug--like people overlook it because she speaks with a lovely British accent. 

I continue to be puzzled by people with no plan to get a skull (unless they are legit just trying to ride out screen time as much as possible). If you put 2 people you want to go home in a challenge--downside is one of those non-friends now has a skull and you have one less chance to get one. 

I hated to see Natalie go home. I became a fan of hers on Survivor.

I've only seen Tori on this season and the previous one where she lost so I'm unable to get why she thinks she is so good. She also seems to lack a strong social game. 

[aghst]

6 hours ago, Jillibean said:

 

TJ has said multiple times that they set up the competitions and eliminations so they could defend the results in court if they had to. I think rumors of producer shenanigans are greatly exaggerated and come mostly from people on the losing end of things. I agree it was strange to see Tori struggle SO much to get her crate over, but it looked like Aneesa just used the momentum better than she did. Also, I can’t imagine why the producers would ever want Tori out before Aneesa. Tori was causing big drama, gives great narrative, and was about a day away from publicly cheating on her fiancée with Fessy. If they set it up for anyone to win (and I don’t think they did) I would have thought they’d want it the other way around. I similarly doubt they played with the daily times, but the competition itself obviously favored a team like the Ts where one is huge and one is tiny, which makes the fact that Jay and Theresa almost won even more impressive. 

I didn't know he said that.

I'm not saying they did fix it, just that there's little transparency and the rules seem to be made up as they go along.

So they could fix it if it better fits a storyline that they're trying to emphasize, for instance in this episode, it was about Tori offending the rookie women.

Yeah with the quiz show scandals in TV history, they can't afford to be caught.  But when was the last time a TV show got in trouble for fixing a supposed competition?

 

[falltime]

 

[MaggieG]

13 hours ago, RedbirdNelly said:

There are moments I like Big T and then moments where to me she is too much and seems overly smug--like people overlook it because she speaks with a lovely British accent. 

Same. She cracked me up last season with the "Fresh cotton pads??" and I did like her mean face. But she kind of annoyed me holding court and making people pour her drinks. But then I liked her again when she said "a win for Queen and Country." I also liked that CT just let her take the reigns.

I laughed at CT and others just sitting there watching the Fessy/Cory/Josh argument. 

Very sad about Natalie.

[Jess14]

On 1/13/2021 at 10:54 PM, Eolivet said:

Aneesa going back with Fessy proves he needs a woman to do the thinking for him. Now they both have skulls, and aren't exactly "easy" match-ups for the skull-less, they can perhaps coast to the final.

Yes. This actually may have worked out for Fessy. If he is smart, he will shut up, lay low, and stick with Aneesa for the time being. No, they won’t be strong together in a final, but I doubt most of the house is likely challenge one of them for a gold skull. On the men’s side, Devin is the obvious person to challenge, and there are still 4 gold skulls for the women. Why would anyone challenge Aneesa rather than take a chance against one of the smaller women? 

Tori was just dumb. She should’ve spent more time making sure that she had the vet women on her side rather than making enemies out of the rookie women. The fact that Nany, Teresa, and Ashley voted with the rookie women speaks volumes. 

With that said, it does seem dumb to me that the vets don’t seem to be working together at all. 

[Jillibean]

2 hours ago, MaggieG said:

Same. She cracked me up last season with the "Fresh cotton pads??" and I did like her mean face. But she kind of annoyed me holding court and making people pour her drinks. But then I liked her again when she said "a win for Queen and Country." I also liked that CT just let her take the reigns.

I feel the same as well. Ironically, while she complains that she wants to be taken seriously in spite of her small stature, I think the fact that she’s tiny and non threatening is the only reason she gets away with a lot of her schtick. When she’s ordering people to bring her coffee and do this and do that because she won and they laugh and play along, is the joke not that it’s funny because she’s a tiny bit of a thing that no one really worries about? If anyone who is actually strong in the physical part of the gam did the same routine after winning,I don’t think the cast would find it funny or charming.

[RedbirdNelly]

3 hours ago, MaggieG said:

Same. She cracked me up last season with the "Fresh cotton pads??" and I did like her mean face. But she kind of annoyed me holding court and making people pour her drinks. But then I liked her again when she said "a win for Queen and Country." I also liked that CT just let her take the reigns.

.

I enjoy CT and her as a pair and like them figuring things out together. But the court thing, is a no for me. I did love her mean face.

[BarneySays]

18 hours ago, RedbirdNelly said:

There are moments I like Big T and then moments where to me she is too much and seems overly smug--like people overlook it because she speaks with a lovely British accent. 

I think this is ultimately a cultural issue.  T is, as the english say, taking the piss.  She is not being serious at all.  In fact, the royal treatment is self-mockery.  This is why they all smiled and laughed as they tended to her needs.  The whole thing was a put-on.   

[peachmangosteen]

4 hours ago, BarneySays said:

I think this is ultimately a cultural issue.  T is, as the english say, taking the piss.  She is not being serious at all.  In fact, the royal treatment is self-mockery.  This is why they all smiled and laughed as they tended to her needs.  The whole thing was a put-on.   

I think that's what they think is going on and that's why they think it's cute and laugh along but I actually think there's some realness in it and Big T actually is kind of smug. I still find her funny most of the time anyway though.

[xfuse]

3 minutes ago, peachmangosteen said:

I think that's what they think is going on and that's why they think it's cute and laugh along but I actually think there's some realness in it and Big T actually is kind of smug. I still find her funny most of the time anyway though.

Wasn't she part of a winning team another time and it really went to her head. 

Generally I like her and find her funny except times when she wins.

[peachmangosteen]

Just now, xfuse said:

Wasn't she part of a winning team another time and it really went to her head. 

Yes. She acted the exact same way the other time she had some power.

[RedbirdNelly]

18 hours ago, xfuse said:

Wasn't she part of a winning team another time and it really went to her head. 

Generally I like her and find her funny except times when she wins.

I've watched 2 seasons with her and both involved her being smug after winning. Otherwise, I get the love. Not a hater but it seems like she gets a pass on things going to her head due to the accent. 

[Zima]

I like Big T, and it was cool that her plan to put Aneesa and Tori in an elimination against each other worked.

Tori is overrated.

Fessy sucks.

I like Jay and Theresa as a team. They cute.