S39.E13: El Saboteur

[shantown]

Quote

Chaos continues as a new alliance threatens to shift the power dynamics in the house.

Airs Jan 10 at 8pm on MTV

[DEL901]

Horacio is so naive and trusting, thinking he deserves to go into elimination because of poor performance and it doesn’t seem to have crossed his mind that his team threw the challenge.   

[mojoween]

I don’t understrand the title.  I waited all show for a saboteur, but there wasn’t one?  Is it James for not keeping his damn mouth shut?

Happy (belated) birthday Kyland!  Keep mowing them down.

If these shows are going to have that much Jay in them, they can go back to an hour k thx.

Jay and Michelle are incredibly fucking unpleasant.

[AntFTW]

Fuck this whole season. All that build up for nothing.

So Olivia talks with everyone else about her problems with Horacio, except Horacio. Then they finally talk. Yay.

Before they got to the house vote, one thing I thought they should have done was target Asaf instead of Jay. I feel like that would have been much more epic. Nurys doesn’t seem like one to hide her thoughts. I believe that she would have expressed some discomfort to Kyland with voting for Jay so do the next best thing, which is vote for Asaf. Float Jay’s name around. Make people think it’s him. Then at the house vote, vote for Asaf. I’m personally tired of seeing Asaf’s smug face on my screen.

[angelamh66]

33 minutes ago, AntFTW said:

Fuck this whole season. All that build up for nothing.

So Olivia talks with everyone else about her problems with Horacio, except Horacio. Then they finally talk. Yay.

Before they got to the house vote, one thing I thought they should have done was target Asaf instead of Jay. I feel like that would have been much more epic. Nurys doesn’t seem like one to hide her thoughts. I believe that she would have expressed some discomfort to Kyland with voting for Jay so do the next best thing, which is vote for Asaf. Float Jay’s name around. Make people think it’s him. Then at the house vote, vote for Asaf. I’m personally tired of seeing Asaf’s smug face on my screen.

I think Kyland knew Colleen would never agree to Asaf and he needed that vote. I too wish to see Asaf’s smug face gone… but Jay first please. I can only hope CT pulls chaos and takes Jay out. 

[AntFTW]

22 minutes ago, angelamh66 said:

I think Kyland knew Colleen would never agree to Asaf and he needed that vote. I too wish to see Asaf’s smug face gone… but Jay first please. I can only hope CT pulls chaos and takes Jay out. 

Then they’re fucked all around. Nurys won’t agree to Jay. Colleen won’t agree to Asaf.

They have no numbers to do anything.

Edited January 11 by AntFTW

[ImpinAintEasy]

This season is going to necessitate the return of the skulls. So sick of seeing the same people go into elimination. If they’re not going to make it mandatory to win an elimination to make the final, they need to go back to last place in the daily automatically going in. They also need to go back to anonymous voting.
 

Having them go against champions has dragged this shitty season on way too long. If I didn’t know any better I’d say the producers favored the younger Champs(Devin/Tori/Kaycee) and gave them advantageous eliminations compared to the older ones. 
 

Honestly, would probably prefer an Ed or Kyland win over Horacio at this point if it’s a male winner. That dude just doesn’t bring any personality to the show. Great competitor. But I don’t think I can remember a contestant who is clearly a contender to win that just won’t give the producers anything to work with.  
 

 

[AntFTW]

12 minutes ago, ImpinAintEasy said:

This season is going to necessitate the return of the skulls. So sick of seeing the same people go into elimination.

That’s one concept I liked. I also liked the hopper from USA season 2.

[Lantern7]

This season is a dud. Occasionally, you get some hope that things spill out differently, but it's the same mess as it's always been.

I think Brad is the penultimate Champion that's been brought in. It's weird to see him because he doesn't know any of the cast and he's not hooked into the social circle that's all agog over Moriah rubbing on James while away from Johnny. Also, he's gotten . .  . odd. It's not as distressing as hearing about how his ex-housemate Robin has fallen, but it's still concerning. And, natch, he got stuck with an elimination that required endurance, so Kyland was able to beat him.

3 hours ago, mojoween said:

Jay and Michelle are incredibly fucking unpleasant.

Yeah, Michele-with-one-L is going to crow about her win over Cara Maria for years. I want to give Jay a chance. I thought he was a relatively good guy, and that maybe he could've gone far in his rookie season if Rogan hadn't concussed the crap out of him. But even among a group of non-winners, his resume is still sorely lacking, his power-tripping is annoying, and his win over CT was no doubt a fluke.

Seriously, is there anyone else besides maybe Kyland and Ed that you'd want to win? As someone who's bitterly single, I'd like Berna to win even as she shuts down hooking up. With the money, she could get into DJing. Maybe she puts out an album of cock-blocking beats.

8 minutes ago, ImpinAintEasy said:

This season is going to necessitate the return of the skulls. So sick of seeing the same people go into elimination. If they’re not going to make it mandatory to win an elimination to make the final, they need to go back to last place in the daily automatically going in. They also need to go back to anonymous voting.

I'd like going to elimination to be incentivized, as opposed to being mandatory. Make people WANT to risk their necks. Maybe they'd get more money should they win, or maybe they'd have an advantage in the finale. The Skull system fell flat, and I'm good with that staying gone. I am with you about anonymous voting, though. And bring in the Hopper.

4 hours ago, DEL901 said:

Horacio is so naive and trusting, thinking he deserves to go into elimination because of poor performance and it doesn’t seem to have crossed his mind that his team threw the challenge.   

Jay whispering venom in Olivia's ear doesn't help matters for him. As much as I like the guy . . . . how hysterical would it have been for him to win five eliminations last season, only to lose against Brad? The smartest thing Sarah Greyson ever did was to never do The Challenge after going 5-0 in the Gauntlet. Sure, the money and car she won would be small potatoes to the "handsome rewards" doled out in future seasons, but she had enough "fun" with BMP.

[aghst]

Several of them know they’re on the bottom of Jay and Michelle’s list but they’re just trying to hang on until the next stage?

Do they know when that’s coming because they certainly don’t reveal it on TV until the last minute.  Maybe they’re told the whole script for the season and just are playing dumb?

in any event it seems that most of the Dailies have been team events instead of individual ones.  Producers knowingly design them and “randomly” pick teams To try to encourage sabotage?

We should keep seeing it?

Most of the episode was this politicking drama.  It’s sad that viewers apparently like that aspect the most.

In the elimination it seemed like kyland was taking up only one ball at a time while Brad was doing two.  That should be better strategy but Kyland was more fit so able to go up and down faster.

Still, did he make twice as many trips as Brad but still was faster?  They showed Brad with a couple of balls in one of the middle floors but at the top floor he was only dropping one ball at a time.

[mojoween]

I thought TJ said they had to do the balls one at a time, so the whole time I thought Brad was going to get dinged for not following the rules.

[tessa]

I use to like Jay - but not this year. I wish he would have been voted down so he had to prove himself. Glad Kyland won - I wasn't a fan of his on Big Brother but like him on the Challenge. Michelle - ugh - I don't even remember her from Survivor but don't like her attitude. I hope she's next to go.

[bunnyface]

The most satisfying conclusion to this whole mess would be for CT to come in and break Jay in half. If Jay wins against CT again, he will be so (much more) insufferable I will need to set my TV on fire.

[Neveragain]

I’m embarrassed to say how old I am or how long I’ve been watching this show.  But it’s a long, long time.  And I mean it when I say this is one of the worst seasons ever.  What is the point of having a daily challenge, with the winner choosing who goes in, and then later a house vote?  And then have a champion come in and either lose to one of the two, or choose chaos and pick a contestant from the sidelines.  In both these cases it’s very easy for the current cast to never get eliminated.  Week after week the players all remain.  There is no payoff for the viewers after watching for 90 minutes at a time. Sixteen people this far into the season? And so many of them I barely know nor care about. The main thing that made the challenge fun all these years was the recurring cast,  I get what the producers are going for but it’s not working for me.  As a show devotee I’m sorry to admit it but I am bored bored bored.  

[aghst]

Well they may want a certain number of episodes, which are 90 minutes long so I guess they have a lot of advertisers.

But there may be some double eliminations coming soon.

[AntFTW]

35 minutes ago, aghst said:

Well they may want a certain number of episodes, which are 90 minutes long so I guess they have a lot of advertisers.

But there may be some double eliminations coming soon.

I assume there will be. We’re 13 episodes in and still have 16(????) players left. 

[jsm1125]

I’m reading that this season will be 19 regular episodes plus 2 more for the reunion. I can’t stand the 5 month seasons.

I don’t think this season is any more boring politically than the seasons where Bananas and his cronies, or the Vacation Alliance, were running things. 

[luckyroll3]

18 hours ago, mojoween said:

If these shows are going to have that much Jay in them, they can go back to an hour k thx.

Jay and Michelle are incredibly fucking unpleasant.

17 hours ago, AntFTW said:

Before they got to the house vote, one thing I thought they should have done was target Asaf instead of Jay. I feel like that would have been much more epic. Nurys doesn’t seem like one to hide her thoughts. I believe that she would have expressed some discomfort to Kyland with voting for Jay so do the next best thing, which is vote for Asaf. Float Jay’s name around. Make people think it’s him. Then at the house vote, vote for Asaf. I’m personally tired of seeing Asaf’s smug face on my screen.

 

16 hours ago, angelamh66 said:

I think Kyland knew Colleen would never agree to Asaf and he needed that vote. I too wish to see Asaf’s smug face gone… 

This and most of the house still doesn't realize that Asaf is part of the core Michelle/Jay alliance. Remember when Colleen had her diagram last episode? She rightly assumed that there were 4 people in that group making all the decisions. But she thought the 4th person was, I think, Nurys. And the people she was discussing it with agreed with her. 

But yeah, Asaf has been so insufferable this season, so I guess he's in with the right group.

15 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

The Skull system fell flat, and I'm good with that staying gone. I am with you about anonymous voting, though. And bring in the Hopper.

On the surface, the Skull system was a great idea. But it ended up being much like what we're seeing now - the dominant group pushing for themselves to go in and earn their skulls and everyone else acquiescing. But bring on the Hopper! The anonymous voting and the random selection humbles everyone!

2 hours ago, Neveragain said:

I’m embarrassed to say how old I am or how long I’ve been watching this show.  But it’s a long, long time.  And I mean it when I say this is one of the worst seasons ever.  What is the point of having a daily challenge, with the winner choosing who goes in, and then later a house vote?  And then have a champion come in and either lose to one of the two, or choose chaos and pick a contestant from the sidelines.  In both these cases it’s very easy for the current cast to never get eliminated.  Week after week the players all remain.  There is no payoff for the viewers after watching for 90 minutes at a time. Sixteen people this far into the season? And so many of them I barely know nor care about. The main thing that made the challenge fun all these years was the recurring cast,  I get what the producers are going for but it’s not working for me.  As a show devotee I’m sorry to admit it but I am bored bored bored.  

Same! I've been watching since it was RR special event and have only missed seeing a handful of seasons live. This season has been one of the most frustrating and definitely the most boring. I don't even remember that's it's on and usually it's only because I get notification that someone has posted here that I'm like, "oh yeah, that shit. I guess I'll watch while I'm doing something else....."

Horacio is way too nice for this show. The TikToks tell me that he and Nurys are still dating and she recently surprised him on some reality show he's currently doing in the Dominican Republic. 

[AntFTW]

7 hours ago, luckyroll3 said:

This and most of the house still doesn't realize that Asaf is part of the core Michelle/Jay alliance. Remember when Colleen had her diagram last episode? She rightly assumed that there were 4 people in that group making all the decisions. But she thought the 4th person was, I think, Nurys. And the people she was discussing it with agreed with her.

She was right that it was Nurys, but she thought it included Olivia as the core 4.

She thought the core 4 was Michele, Jay, Nurys and Olivia. She’s mostly right. She needs to swap out Olivia for Asaf.

Just under the core 4, I’d put Olivia and Moriah.

The thing is that people recognize that they are not the priority, but they’re okay with that as long as there are enough people that are at a lower priority that allows them to skate by. For example, Emanuel is not a high priority in the alliance as long as Corey, Kyland and Horacio remain there, he’s good. Maybe Ed and James are in the same boat. Colleen, on the other hand, is at the bottom for the women. Within the alliance, there is seemingly no woman that is lower than her. She'll be the sacrificial lamb when they have no one else.

7 hours ago, luckyroll3 said:

But yeah, Asaf has been so insufferable this season, so I guess he's in with the right group.

He’s smug and has no personality. If you’re be an asshole, the very least you could do is be fun to watch.

7 hours ago, luckyroll3 said:

On the surface, the Skull system was a great idea. But it ended up being much like what we're seeing now - the dominant group pushing for themselves to go in and earn their skulls and everyone else acquiescing. But bring on the Hopper! The anonymous voting and the random selection humbles everyone!

I just thought they needed to tweak it. There’s only 8 people going to the final, so cap the number of skulls at 8, four for girls and four for guys. Additionally, give the people that win the elimination the power to steal a skull from someone that has one, anyone they chose. On the season 36, they limited it to 10 skulls. That was still too much.

The scenario that we never saw play out is what happens when two people with no skulls go into elimination, and all skulls are taken. We’ve only seen that a person with a skull be called down into elimination, and that skull is passed to the winner. How does the elimination winner get their skull if all the skulls are already taken? My answer to that is to give the winner the power to steal a skull from anyone who has one, even if they’re safe. If they want to get their skull back, they have to come into elimination and win, then they get the chance to steal a skull from anyone that has one. This way, your skull is at risk even if you don’t go into elimination. You don’t get to use your alliance to keep your skull safe by dodging elimination.

7 hours ago, luckyroll3 said:

I don't even remember that's it's on and usually it's only because I get notification that someone has posted here that I'm like, "oh yeah, that shit. I guess I'll watch while I'm doing something else....."

😂🤣😂🤣😂

7 hours ago, luckyroll3 said:

The TikToks tell me that he and Nurys are still dating and she recently surprised him on some reality show he's currently doing in the Dominican Republic. 

Why was the first thing I thought of was ‘Ex on the Beach’?🤣😂

Edited January 12 by AntFTW

[aghst]

Have they ever repeated a show format with the exact same rules?

If they have it must have been a long time ago.

 

I don't think viewers would object if they re-used a previous format.

It may be preferable than this feeling that they're making things up as they go along.

Also you rarely see Dailies used more than once.  They have trivia every year but they tweak it every year.

They obviously repeat Hall Brawl and Pole Wrestle but they also do some minor tweaks to those.

[Duke Silver]

I have zero fucks to give about who wins this crappy season...well, except that as long as it's *not* Jay or Michelle, I'm cool with it.  They used to be non-entities to me, which is what I prefer to actually disliking them now after more exposure to them.  I preferred when I didn't think about them at all.

[luckyroll3]

14 hours ago, AntFTW said:

She was right that it was Nurys, but she thought it included Olivia as the core 4.

 

I knew it was one of the them, but couldn't remember. I thought Nurys was the one on the outs because Olivia and other 3 are always talking about her behind her back. 

 

[joanne3482]

15 hours ago, aghst said:

I don't think viewers would object if they re-used a previous format.

With 39 seasons and 26 years have passed, some of the new viewers and probably challengers have never even seen those early seasons. Bring back a nice Gauntlet or Inferno over this mess. 

[AntFTW]

4 hours ago, luckyroll3 said:

I knew it was one of the them, but couldn't remember. I thought Nurys was the one on the outs because Olivia and other 3 are always talking about her behind her back.

I don't think she's on the outs just yet. I feel like she's working her way there though because she's sticking up for Horacio and kinda/sorta working with Kyland, or playing footsie with the idea of working with Kyland. She might be knocking herself down in the pecking order but it started with her.

[RedbirdNelly]

I liked Jay when he was in the underdog/lay up role but running things makes him annoying.

If Horacio wants to sign up for reality tv, he needs to be more of a player. He plays like this is season 1 of a show where he mistakenly thinks its just a physical competition. You don't have to be mean or super caty but try to play the game. 

I also dislike how it seems like most of the challenges against the champions are not physical or do not involve going up against the champ directly. I like a mixture (but not where I fear for the life of the loser).

[AntFTW]

On 1/10/2024 at 11:36 PM, angelamh66 said:

I think Kyland knew Colleen would never agree to Asaf and he needed that vote. I too wish to see Asaf’s smug face gone… but Jay first please. I can only hope CT pulls chaos and takes Jay out. 

On 1/11/2024 at 4:34 PM, luckyroll3 said:

his and most of the house still doesn't realize that Asaf is part of the core Michelle/Jay alliance. Remember when Colleen had her diagram last episode? She rightly assumed that there were 4 people in that group making all the decisions. But she thought the 4th person was, I think, Nurys. And the people she was discussing it with agreed with her. 

But yeah, Asaf has been so insufferable this season, so I guess he's in with the right group.

Kyland is on The Challenge Podcast for this episode's recap. I wanted to hear more about the backroom politics that we didn't see. Kyland says that he knew they didn't have the numbers when they went into the house vote. He says that the thing that made Colleen waver on her vote was James, which Kyland knew before the vote. James choses to stick with Moriah because, obvious to us, Moriah has been keeping him safe. Knowing they didn't have the numbers with James sticking with Moriah, Nurys burn votes on Emanuel and Colleen votes with the dominant alliance for Kyland. The priority switched from targeting Jay to preserving their positions in the game, because the numbers will be needed later to even have a chance at cracking that dominant alliance.

Edited January 13 by AntFTW

[LaurelleJ]

I just don't understand the tension between Horacio and Olivia. What are they not showing? Olivia hasn't been in danger, so why is she so adamant that Horacio fight for her?

I just cannot take the Horacio-Nurys love story seriously. I am just not a big fan of her, ok competitor but she seems to be thirsty in making the challenge her career.

Ed said there were 16 of them left. This season is so long! Then it was said that they started with 24. There has to be a purge soon because what is this??? I wonder if producers anticipated that the vets would come in and send home more people than they actually did.

I'm not a big fan of throwing or sabotaging challenges. Michele's smug look when talking about throwing the challenge was terrible, I cannot stand her. 

I'm disappointed that the underdogs couldn't come together and vote Jay. Then the pole with Kyland's name would have been Jay's name, and he would have had to do the elimination. I think Jay still would have won against Brad, but he deserved to sweat. I hope that CT causes havoc next week. If there is a challenge miracle, CT will pull chaos and choose Jay, but I can't have nice things so probably not. 

[jsm1125]

I actually kind of understand Corey’s and Colleen’s lack of move here, for a couple of reasons:

1) Without James’ vote, they don’t have the numbers to flip on Jay

2) The Chaos format is atrocious, with there being at least a 2/3 chance that Jay/an ally of his doesn’t even compete in elimination.

3) if I’m Corey, I’d much rather risk going against a fellow contender in the Conquest stage than someone like a Jordan or a CT in the Chaos stage. 
 

Damn, someone on production really doesn’t like Jay. He came off so poorly this episode, particularly with the Nurys debate.

[Duke Silver]

Jay comes across as, I dunno, manic maybe? especially during this last episode.  Like, used car salesman on steroids, with the overly toothy, effusive smile....almost like a revivalist after a hit of...something.  Never actually "liked" the guy, but now I dislike and would rather avoid watching him on my screen.

Michelle I actually used to be o.k. with....but more exposure has me not vibing with her at all.  This couple just shouldn't be allowed to front this franchise in any way shape or form.  IMO, production made a miscalculation presenting them as the king and queen bees.  I hope they course correct after this season.

[peachmangosteen]

On 1/11/2024 at 3:42 PM, jsm1125 said:

I don’t think this season is any more boring politically than the seasons where Bananas and his cronies, or the Vacation Alliance, were running things. 

I agree. It's just the same thing that killed the Challenge for me but with a different group of people. The only way to fix things imo is to find a way to prevent 1 person/duo/small group from being safe the entire game and controlling every single elimination.

On 1/12/2024 at 1:22 PM, RedbirdNelly said:

I liked Jay when he was in the underdog/lay up role but running things makes him annoying.

For me, I think that's true no matter who it is lol. Like, I am pretty much always going to root for someone with no power to overtake the power group. The show is just much more fun to watch that way.

[aghst]

Producers must want alliances with some players never going into elimination because it drives a lot of drama and the politicking which now constitute most of the episode.

Seriously, you look at each 90 minute episode, after the commercials and everything else, you only get maybe 15-20 minutes of the Dailies and the Elimination segments?

[peachmangosteen]

Personally, I barely care about the challenges lol. I fast forward through the eliminations pretty much every time and sometimes the dailies if they're ones that just don't translate to interesting/exciting TV (which is a lot of them). I'm watching for the drama but there really isn't any when 1 group runs the game and the other people let them.

[Jillibean]

I'm having a lot of trouble getting into this season. I agree that it's not interesting to watch an alliance run the entire game, regardless of who is in that alliance. I can't blame Jay and Michelle, because the power alliance format has worked against them so many times that it only makes sense that they take their chance to be on the winning end of it. But it's frustrating to watch, especially when it protects duds like Moriah and James. 

My favorite elimination format is one where the person going in can call out anyone other than the day's winner. I think it's one of the most fair ways to keep alliances in check, because if you can't prove it in the sand, it doesn't matter what your numbers are. 

Brad did not look great. I assume this was Johnny's week that he backed out of and that production had to find a last-minute replacement, but...this was not exactly an advertisement for beating the best. 

I hate that they're making me root for Kyland. I don't like Kyland. Also, as much as this season would like me to forget this, I don't like Nurys. I remember what she was like on EotB, and the act she has going on right now where everyone is just making things hard for poor Nurys when all she did was fall in love seems pretty familiar to me. She did the exact same thing last season, just with a different guy. Twice, in fact.