S40.E03: A Fatal Era

[AntFTW]

Quote

After the large elimination, the eras must work together in order to keep their team safe from elimination; a gross feast awaits the competitors at their next challenge.

Air date: August 28, 2024

[Lantern7]

Tony is a dumbass.

That’s all I have for now.

[AntFTW]

Averey referring Adam's children as her stepchildren was kind of cringe because I was thinking "they just started dating" but then I realize that Paramount had been sitting on All-Stars 4 for nearly 2 years before they aired it.

Edited September 5 by AntFTW

[xfuse]

Why is Tony the only one being blamed. Avery wouldn't change her mind also. It's both of them that forced them to go in. 

[mojoween]

Love Darrell’s strategy - my strategy is all of you help me because I suck at puzzles.

Jodi and Averey was meh, but it is funny that Tony’s dumb ass was bounced and Averey stayed.

No loser rating of the remaining contestants at the end?

[bunnyface]

50 minutes ago, xfuse said:

Why is Tony the only one being blamed. Avery wouldn't change her mind also. It's both of them that forced them to go in. 

I think it's because the woman is always supposed to cave in to the man on this show.  The one other time this situation happened, with Amanda and Zach, they went in and lost.  And it was still all Amanda's fault somehow.  

[xfuse]

48 minutes ago, bunnyface said:

I think it's because the woman is always supposed to cave in to the man on this show.

I don't agree. I think it's the person who has less friends. Amanda very rarely has anyone on her side. 

Avery has friends but Tony doesn't. 

I don't like Darrell. I don't like his strategy. He will fuck everyone over for himself. It has always been that way. The problem with that is you can burn too many bridges.

[LotusFlower]

2 hours ago, xfuse said:

Why is Tony the only one being blamed. Avery wouldn't change her mind also. It's both of them that forced them to go in. 

I think it’s also because Avery at least had a reason behind her thinking.  Tony’s “reason” was all about his macho ego.  

[atomic]

Tony was being blamed because he was only going against Averey so he could send himself home via elimination. Rumor is he's unable to be away from his job for too long and only showed up to The Challenge to collect his appearance fee. Same situation on All-Stars 4 where he had a "family situation" pop up so he could leave early on. That's why the women like Laurel were so furious that he wasn't "thinking of Avery." 

Anyway, that was a legitimately great episode. And next week's episode is poised to be a good one too with the male targets being so stacked. Loving this season and the format so far.

[AntFTW]

9 hours ago, xfuse said:

Why is Tony the only one being blamed. Avery wouldn't change her mind also. It's both of them that forced them to go in. 

I think it’s Tony because he gave no real incentive for Averey to agree with him.

Averey made the case that Kaycee and Kyland are too good to not throw them into elimination; and if they were to lose their eliminations, it weakens Era 4 and gives their own Era and Era 2 better chances of winning, which keeps themselves safe and Era 2 would return the favor to both of them if they win.

After Averey lays out her case, Tony threatens to stalemate. He opened the door to stalemating in the first place so that’s why I put more of the blame on Tony. You never indicate that you’re so stubborn that you’re willing to go into elimination but Tony did so expecting Averey to back down.

ETA: I think it’s Tony because he gave no real incentive for Averey to agree with him. To me, Tony never properly explains to Averey what was in it for her or what does she get out of saving Kaycee and Kyland. Tony says to Averey that saving Kyland and Kaycee could carry them at least halfway into the game, but Averey never got any assurances from Kyland and Kaycee about that. Tony didn't give Averey much to consider. He gave no reason why she should reconsider. I'm sure it made total sense in his brain, but it wasn't very effective when it came out of his mouth.

Edited August 29 by AntFTW

[bunnyface]

1 hour ago, atomic said:

Tony was being blamed because he was only going against Averey so he could send himself home via elimination. Rumor is he's unable to be away from his job for too long and only showed up to The Challenge to collect his appearance fee. Same situation on All-Stars 4 where he had a "family situation" pop up so he could leave early on. That's why the women like Laurel were so furious that he wasn't "thinking of Avery." 

Anyway, that was a legitimately great episode. And next week's episode is poised to be a good one too with the male targets being so stacked. Loving this season and the format so far.

What does he do in real life?  He's only going to be able to do that so many times before they stop calling him.  I would hope, anyway.

[atomic]

2 hours ago, bunnyface said:

What does he do in real life?  He's only going to be able to do that so many times before they stop calling him.  I would hope, anyway.

Not sure what he does for a living. I do commend him for having a regular job to take care of his family, as opposed to most of the other modern day Challengers. But Averey definitely did have a right to be pissed.

Also according to the insider report, something else we didn't see was TJ giving Tony a lecture about being disappointed in him. If that's true, I do think it's likely that Tony Time is up!

[Jillibean]

Yeah, it definitely seemed to me like Tony was trying to find a way to get home ASAP without looking like he was throwing. However, Tony isn't very bright, so his way of going about it was blundering, at best.

I think he saw the whole moment Zach created on FR and when Averey said she wouldn't throw in her friend, it triggered some sort of lightbulb where he thought he could accomplish the dual purpose of getting himself sent home (can't use family emergency, just did that one) while also making A Moment. People would see him as resolute! (Paraphrasing what he was thinking; there's no way Tony knows that word.) People would see him as taking a stand for his principles! There would be drama! It would make challenge highlight reels! Production would definitely call him back to collect an appearance check and go home early a third time! Unfortunately, it's Tony, so he failed to account for...anything, really, literally just tried to imitate Zach and ended up with ten confessionals from other players about how unintelligent and nonsensical he is. 

My guess is he would have thrown the elimination to Leroy but couldn't because Leroy was throwing.

I respect Averey's loyalty to a real life friend and feel she has earned her appearance fee. However, I didn't love the way said real life friend handled all this and didn't think he came off very well. He seemed to be trying to guilt her about even having a conversation about why he shouldn't be chosen even though that's the format of the show. And barring any information I don't know about his situation outside the game, at some point if you're true friends, you take that burden back off and tell your friend not to fall on their sword. 

Seems like choosing the targets is more of a punishment than a power. One person you chose is guaranteed to be the person with the power in the next elimination. How will they prevent it from just going back and forth between a couple of people?

 

[AntFTW]

11 minutes ago, Jillibean said:

Yeah, it definitely seemed to me like Tony was trying to find a way to get home ASAP without looking like he was throwing. However, Tony isn't very bright, so his way of going about it was blundering, at best.

He should have just lost to Leroy on the previous episode. He still would have gotten his little appearance fee. 🙄

[AntFTW]

13 minutes ago, Jillibean said:

Seems like choosing the targets is more of a punishment than a power. One person you chose is guaranteed to be the person with the power in the next elimination. How will they prevent it from just going back and forth between a couple of people?

I was wondering the same. I was thinking "what if Aneesa goes into elimination and wins, and she tosses it back to Darrell? And then he goes and wins another elimination and gives it back to her?"

Another question I had is... could Averey and Darrell have chosen each other? For Averey's era 1 pick, could she have picked Darrell? and for Darrell's era 3 pick, could he have chosen Averey?

[atomic]

12 minutes ago, AntFTW said:

He should have just lost to Leroy on the previous episode. He still would have gotten his little appearance fee. 🙄

It's possible that Leroy was also throwing to be home with his newborn. Or maybe it lit a fire under Tony when he heard Bananas cheering for Leroy over him.

[AntFTW]

Tony's soundness of reasoning for wanting to save Kyland and Kaycee crashes and burns when TJ annouces the change in how people are picked for elimination and for gaining power. Tony's reasoning was something like Kyland and Kaycee are more likely to be in a position of power to help him further in the game.

Now that we know the change, Kyland and Kaycee can't nominate themselves to be team captains (or "targets") and then try to win the daily challenge. Someone else, the elimination winner, has to be willing to choose them.

[AntFTW]

What would have been badass when TJ asked for Tony and Averey to nominate a pair into elimination, Averey should have just said "TJ, tonight we're going with Kaycee and Kyland" and put all the pressure on Tony to stalemate after he saw that elimination that clearly didn't look like a headbanger.

[LaurelleJ]

If it's true that Tony forced this stalemate to be able to go home, that sucks and I hope that he does not get invited to future challenges. If you show up for the game, PLAY THE GAME! Such a slap in the face to the guys who went home last week who actually wanted to play the game, now I don't even know if Leroy wanted to play the game. The obvious strategic game choice was to throw in Kaycee and Kyland. I miss when people played smart bold games. Isn't that what this epic season was supposed to be about??? I hope Tony time is truly over. 

I am always team Darrell but dang why did he do Aviv like that??? I know I know, it's best for his individual game, but it still stung. 

[aghst]

Tony also went against everyone else on his team, though he had no reason to be loyal to them since they threw him into elimination.

The dragon boats were placed different distances.  Seems like one team had to swim or run through the water much further than other teams.

But it appears like Era 1 couldn’t keep going straight.

Then they thrown in the most gross eating challenge, followed by memorization.  I  wouldn’t remember them even if I’d done most of those seasons.  Smart thing would be to look up online and memorize or I guess they have the logos placed in order in the house.

Even without the eating challenge it would have been a good competition, though maybe the eating might have given the last place team in the dragon boat race a chance to make up ground.

The elimination, they all relied on the people on the sidelines.  Look like it was very exhausting just moving the tiles.

[AntFTW]

18 hours ago, Jillibean said:

I respect Averey's loyalty to a real life friend and feel she has earned her appearance fee. However, I didn't love the way said real life friend handled all this and didn't think he came off very well. He seemed to be trying to guilt her about even having a conversation about why he shouldn't be chosen even though that's the format of the show. And barring any information I don't know about his situation outside the game, at some point if you're true friends, you take that burden back off and tell your friend not to fall on their sword.

Tony did a couple of exit inteviews, and from what I can tell, this is what Tony was banking on. Tony was betting that they were good enough friends that Derek wouldn't let Averey stalemate for him.

ETA: I make this sound like it was implied. Tony actually said he was betting that Derek wouldn't let Averey stalemate and get herself thrown into elimination.

Edited August 30 by AntFTW

[AntFTW]

8 hours ago, LaurelleJ said:

If it's true that Tony forced this stalemate to be able to go home, that sucks and I hope that he does not get invited to future challenges.

[LaurelleJ]

3 hours ago, AntFTW said:

I truly don't know what to believe but my thoughts are basically 1) why would production want to cut the story in the way that they did, and 2) they can only use what you give them. You are safe from elimination. There was zero chance of you going in. Why risk it if you really and truly wanted to be there?? Maybe I'm still just not getting it but people from all 3 eras (maybe less from era 1 though) would have been happy seeing Kaycee and Ryland go down, and that would have been the basis for a lot of deals to be made. Darrell and Jodi are both strong too, so you ensure at least 2 strong players out of the game. No brainer. 

[aghst]

If he really wanted to leave he could have said there was some issue back home.

Why drag Avery into the arena?

[Jillibean]

IMHO, Tony's instagram post is an attempt at his own PR after seeing the way they edited the episode--clearly he doesn't want people (production) to think he threw anything, so he has to make it seem like he really wanted to stay.

However, everything he did suggests otherwise. I would also argue that the way he stalemated Averey (whose name he has spelled incorrectly throughout his post) and refused to even have a dialogue with her about making a different decision was plenty disrespectful, as is the way he's now villainizing her when clearly MANY people there (my guess is including production) felt he did this to go home. 

The very fact that he saw it was a puzzle and still threw himself in pretty much says it all. 

[AntFTW]

3 hours ago, Jillibean said:

The very fact that he saw it was a puzzle and still threw himself in pretty much says it all.

To me, this is what made the threat to stalemate even stupider than it initially was. It was stupid strategy to threaten stalemating in the first place.

Let’s assume he really wanted to stay in the game. After all, he did eat that disgusting food during the daily. I can buy that he threatened to stalemate because he thought Averey would budge. Even after walking in and getting an idea of what the elimination was and seeing these stacks of colored stone tiles, there is still time to change his mind about stalemating.

Edited August 30 by AntFTW

[AntFTW]

14 hours ago, Jillibean said:

IMHO, Tony's instagram post is an attempt at his own PR after seeing the way they edited the episode--clearly he doesn't want people (production) to think he threw anything, so he has to make it seem like he really wanted to stay.

However, everything he did suggests otherwise. I would also argue that the way he stalemated Averey (whose name he has spelled incorrectly throughout his post) and refused to even have a dialogue with her about making a different decision was plenty disrespectful, as is the way he's now villainizing her when clearly MANY people there (my guess is including production) felt he did this to go home. 

In a few of his exit interviews, I interpret Tony as putting a lot of the blame on Derek for letting Averey go into elimination. He always seems to come around to the point that Derek didn't have to let Averey fall on the sword for him, but he did so they stalemated.

I think you also make a valid point that Tony refused to have a dialog about making a different decision. He failed on two fronts in regard to communication. He didn't give her any benefits for her to consider to change her mind, and he didn't have a conversation with her about the possibility of him changing his mind. Tony hasn't learned that you attract more bees with honey than vinegar, and Tony didn't offer any honey.

Edited August 31 by AntFTW

[Blueboxes]

Dear Tony, you disrespected AverEy in your entire post by misspelling her name over and over!!

Kyland and Kaycee both have several people they want to keep safe ahead of Tony. His deal making was a joke. It seemed clear that his era wanted him to go with Averey's pick and try to take out Kaycee & Kyland. So in causing the stalemate, not only did he go against his team's wishes for that matchup but he cost his team a player (and could've cost them two). Which is why all the talking heads called him a moron. 

I wonder if after the "family emergency" last time, production put a clause in that he'd lose the appearance fee if he left outside of an elimination.

Darrell choosing Aviv was a fail. I understand he wants to win the elimination but Darrell usually has a good social game. Burning that ally isn't great and he should have known that Averey wasn't going to pick Derek. 

Big Averey fan, she's a stud. 

[jsm1125]

What I wished Avery had said, or that production could have shown if she had said it, is that Kaycee is connected up the wazoo and would always protect Tori, Aneesa, Devin and Josh before anyone else.

[millennium]

On 8/30/2024 at 3:25 PM, AntFTW said:

In a few of his exit interviews, I interpret Tony as putting a lot of the blame on Derek for letting Averey go into elimination. He always seems to come around to the point that Derek didn't have to let Averey fall on the sword for him, but he did so they stalemated.

Is there a good reason why Derek and Ryan are on this season?  Other than checking off the inclusive box?   Neither brings anything to the show, nor do they ever have a prayer of winning.  They're not even interesting personalities. 

I also call foul on the show for featuring flashbacks of Zach and Jenna but not having them on this season.   I know Zach can be an asshole, but he's funny and good TV.   Jenna is fun, too, and also a great competitor.  

[aghst]

I think Derek is a good athlete if it involves running, whether sprinting or some long distance.

Of course it's never straight running, you have to carry some weight or something.

And he'd be at a disadvantage in some physical elimination.

 

Maybe others from that era declined to do this season.

[AntFTW]

2 hours ago, millennium said:

I also call foul on the show for featuring flashbacks of Zach and Jenna but not having them on this season.   I know Zach can be an asshole, but he's funny and good TV.   Jenna is fun, too, and also a great competitor.

I’ll gladly welcome Jenna back. I’m on the fence about Zach. As long he doesn’t be a giant man baby, I’ll take everything else. I hope he’s gotten over his insecure relationship issues with Jenna. That was never fun to watch for me. I’ll watch Amanda and Zach on the same season. Two people that I don’t like constantly nagging at each other is funny. 😂

21 minutes ago, aghst said:

 

I think Derek is a good athlete if it involves running, whether sprinting or some long distance.

 

I think Derek has good potential. He’s just low drama.