This week, the episode opens with some diplomacy talk, most notably about how Shane and Davonne are playing both sides of the house. Because I know how reality shows get edited, this means they’re going to be forced to pick a side soon, if not this episode, then in the next 2 for sure.
The challenge this week is a race to try to uncover what is essentially a giant scratch off, which has symbols underneath. These symbols correspond to letters, and those have to be unscrambled to create a word. Whichever non starholding team finishes fastest also gets the star from Devin and Leroy being eliminated, since Adam and Steve already had a star. Sam also mentions that she has a gamer group chat, and I would love to know what game she’s on a discord server for. She and Frank win the first heat.
Faysal talks up how great Amber is in the second heat, and how this is making him regret switching partners in Double Agents. Personally I would’ve regretted after she won with CT. Nany and Turbo win heat 2, congrats to everyone who lost a word challenge to a guy who learned English like 5 years ago. Since they already had a star, Faysal and Amber are the ones from this heat that are in contention for the star.
Adam and Steve win heat 3, but since they already have stars, Shane and Davonne get to be in contention for the star. Frank and Sam get the star, but Adam and Steve are the overall winners. Which means that for the first time this season, they won’t be going in to elimination.
The exciting thing here, is there’s no consensus on who to send in. It seems like people had been counting on it just being Katie and Veronica, since they’re easily the weakest team. Katie is politicking well here, and we get another edition of Challenge 101 with Katie Cooley, a franchise I would love beyond the show.
Finally, we get a late push for Dario and Ashley, both because they have stars and because they’re somehow the ones at fault for Frank and Sam sending in Leroy and Devin. The incredible thing here is they managed to keep this a complete secret from Dario. As probably the weakest starholder team outside of Sam and Frank, this feels like a real opportunity. TJ tries to get to the bottom of who “they” is that’s saying who the house is voting for. Melissa realizes in a confessional “am I they?” which on the one hand, a normal reality realization, on the other out of context what a declaration of gender that would be.
Corey and Big T get sent in by Adam and Steve. The elimination is to balance on a giant top, and balance some stacked metal stars with you. Because these are both Male/Female pairs, it’s a fascinating attempt at balance, because it’s hugely variable weights. Both teams get all but 1 star done, but only Dario and Ashley get the last one, after Big T and Corey lose their balance.
After the elimination, Corey warns Amber that Veronica has been manipulating the game. Since I can’t imagine they’ll ever win an elimination, they feel pretty locked in to go in next week. Ashley and Dario are also getting some closure on their relationship, so that’s a nice result of this season, but I wouldn’t be shocked if this is a closure into restarting. Finally the preview for next week shows some blowback on Frank, we may be finally far enough into the season to get some real drama.