'The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons' Recap: "Going Insane"

Previously, on The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons: Team Fresh Meat and Team Real World: Brooklyn went into the arena, pitting “star-crossed lovers” Devyn and Eric against each other. Eric freaked out on his teammate Camila, and gave up on the elimination challenge, taking Team Fresh Meat completely out of the game. Team Real World: San Diego won “power team” in a trivia challenge, and sent Team Real World: Brooklyn to the arena vs. Team Real World: New Orleans. Brooklyn’s Sarah and Chet beat New Orleans’ Preston and McKenzie, taking Team Real World: New Orleans down to just two players: Knight and Jemmye.

The episode opens with Alton, Frank, Ashley, and Zach in the “gym” at the “villa.” Frank tells Alton that strength comes in numbers, not personalities. Frank then tries to start shit with Alton and Alton bumps into him trying to get to the weight rack. Frank tries to turn it into something, but Alton refuses to bite. Frank camera talks that Alton is overdramatic.

Later on, everyone wants to go to a beach party, but Alton says he doesn’t want to because he doesn’t want to get into a fight with all the youngins. Apparently there’s some kind of rule in place that if everybody doesn’t go, nobody goes, however. So that means no one can go to the beach because of Alton. Frank is upset about it and starts to take his anger out on Dustin who is trying to defend Alton. Frank gets all up in Dustin’s face and dares him to hit him, but once again, the sane person in the argument refuses to take Frank’s bait.

The challengerds get a “clue” from “TJ:” “If you think your opponents in the house are crazy, just wait till you see tomorrow’s challenge.

The next day, the challengers meet up with TJ Lavin for the “Insane Games.” There will be a series of events to determine the winner of “power team.” The two teams to lose the first two events will go into a loser’s bracket to determine who the worst team is.

The first event is a chariot race in which one team member must pull the rest of the team members in a chariot while wearing a creepy horse mask. Team Real World: Cancun wins the race and Brooklyn gets last place. Alton goes too hard and has to put on an oxygen mask, but he still takes part in the next event. The next event is called “Egg Drop.” One person must throw eggs over a 10-foot wall, and the other person must catch the eggs on the other side using one of those plastic cones that dogs wear when they get neutered. The last team to catch six eggs goes into the loser’s bracket. Real World: Cancun wins first place and Real World: Saint Thomas gets last place.

The next event is called “Ear Pull.” Two opponents are sitting on logs facing each other with strings around their ears. The opponents must try to get the string off the other’s ear. It’s really weird and makes no sense. There really is no strategy involved in it at all. Team Real World: Las Vegas and Team Real World: New Orleans each win their heats, so they then have a playoff involving the guys jousting against each other in the chariots drawn by the girls and then vice versa. I can see why these are called the “Insane Games” because this is seriously weird. The guys’ heat is a draw, but Gemmye knocks Trishelle off in her heat, making Team Real World: New Orleans the “power team.”

The losers’ bracket is called “fish head.” The two opponents must stand on top of a platform and try to knock each other off using a 15-pound fish. Chet and Trey go against each other first, and Trey knocks Chet off his platform. Sarah and Laura go against each other and Laura loses her fish and gets knocked over. Since it’s a tie, it goes to sudden death with Sarah and Laura against each other again. Laura gets knocked over again, so Team Real World: Saint Thomas goes directly to the arena. Marie is pissed about it, but Trey and Laura are like, whatever, it is what it is, we’re going to the arena so Marie can chill.

Back at the Villa, Alton makes a point of telling Zach to ask Knight to put Team Real World: Las Vegas into the arena. Alton sees the arena as his ticket out of the Challenge and into a cush hotel room away from “the kids.” He tells the rest of Team Real World: Las Vegas, and they’re justifiably pissed about that. Nany in particular is mad because she’s put up with so much of everyone else’s crap to stay in the game.

TJ Lavin shows up, and “power team” Team Real World: New Orleans makes their announcement that they are sending Team Real World: Las Vegas into the arena vs. Team Real World: Saint Thomas in a strategy game. Nany and Trishelle ask Dustin if he will go into the arena instead of Alton because they don’t trust him.

Once into the arena, Laura and Trey volunteer for Team Real World: Saint Thomas and Dustin and Nany volunteer for Team Real World: Las Vegas. For the elimination challenge they will be playing “Knot So Fast.” There are two giant domes in the arena. In the first round, the partners will be attached to a 100-foot rope with the other end attached to their dome. When TJ says go, they have ten minutes to wrap their rope around the bars in the dome, making it as complicated as possible. When ten minutes are up, round two begins and they will have to unwrap their opponents’ rope. The first team to completely unwrap their opponents’ rope from the dome gets to stay in the challenge.

As the opponents are getting ready to compete, CJ asks why Alton didn’t compete after talking up so much game. Then, somehow Zach gets into the mix, and Zach knocks off Alton’s hat. Even TJ looks concerned. But Alton tries to be a “grown man” about it, and walks away from “the kids.”

It’s a pretty close race, but Dustin and Nany win the elimination challenge, and Laura and Trey get sent home. Afterwards, TJ Lavin says he senses some tension in the house (really, TJ? What gave you that idea?), but he thinks that the dynamics will be changing now that there are two teams in the house with only two members.

Still to come, on The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons: Sam and Frank get into a fight. Frank and Dustin get into a fight. The teams go skydiving out of a plane. The final challenge looks like they’re in the middle of the Sahara.