Yahoo Movies The Challenge: Ride or Dies recap: The longest final continues with another gross eating checkpoint
We're only one-third into the longest final in Challenge history on The Challenge: Ride or Dies, and while Devin and Tori have kept a healthy lead throughout it all so far, another team overtakes them in part two thanks to yet another disgusting eating checkpoint. Let's recap — and try not to puke!
Last week's episode saw rookie of the year Olivia and Horacio get cut from the final early after a freak accident, and Aneesa's holding Jordan back with her twisted ankle, so at this point it's really a race between Bananas/Nany and Tori/Devin. Tori and Devin don't even see any teams behind them, and Devin starts having conversations with the cows they're passing as TJ rides next to them and compliments their work so far. No matter who you're rooting for, you can't deny they're dominating this final. Meanwhile Aneesa and Jordan hit their slingshot targets immediately, closing the gap between them and Bananas and Nany.
Eventually Tori and Devin get to the fourth checkpoint and they're horrified to see they have to get into a potentially toxic looking swamp and swim to get puzzle pieces. When Bananas and Nany finally arrive, he once again finds a loophole to give him an edge by walking on the sides of the swamp as long as possible to go faster rather than wading through at deeper parts. Once Devin and Tori get all their puzzle pieces, Devin runs to check out the key a far distance away. This is going to be a long memory checkpoint, and tensions run high almost immediately between them as they start shouting at each other. Devin apologizes but stresses how they can't let Bananas and Nany catch them. Meanwhile Bananas starts yelling at Nany too. After 29 hours, these "ride or dies" are looking more like frenemies.
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As for Aneesa and Jordan, they finally make it to the swamp and Aneesa tries to get sympathy from Jordan over her injury but he's just rolling his eyes at what he says is "just a regular rolled ankle." As they get started on collecting their pieces, the other two teams make a lot of progress on the puzzle. But then Tori recognizes the entire thing follows a mirror pattern, and they breeze through to finish it immediately and move on. That's going to be huge for their momentum.
As Jordan and Aneesa start to catch up to Bananas and Nany, Nany drops a bomb: somehow her knee is starting to hurt whenever she bends it. Not another injury! The two teams start trading info about Olivia's injury/DQ and how Devin and Tori are "Rain Manning" this whole final, and it's looking like they're going to run away with this first stage. But finally Nany figures out the pattern of the puzzle, so she and Bananas move on.
Devin and Tori make it back to camp where they have one more puzzle to solve before they can go to sleep — it's the figure eight pattern that stumped Amber/Chauncey and Veronica/Darrell for hours earlier this season. But once again, they speed right through it. TJ can't stop saying "wow" over and over again at how they're making this final look easy 30 hours in. But hey, there's still 70 hours to go! Anything could happen.
Back at the swamp, Aneesa figures out the puzzle pattern right away but Jordan doesn't want to wait to listen to her. He'd rather just muscle through the running than work smarter, not harder, and this time, Jordan is definitely in the wrong. But he's just so over Aneesa's performance that he's not even taking a second to give her the benefit of the doubt. Eventually he sees the pattern too, and she'd already laid out all the pieces in the right order while waiting for him to catch up to her thinking. Is it just poor editing or does he not even apologize to her for ignoring her? Yikes to this whole team.
At the campsite, Bananas and Nany struggle with the final puzzle so much that Jordan and Aneesa catch up to them again. They all agree to help each other figure it out since at this point, they're just competing to go to sleep — Devin and Tori already got whatever advantage winning the first leg brings. Tori watches on from her tent, highly entertained by it all, as Jordan and Aneesa complete the puzzle first. They help Bananas and Nany to earn themselves a favor, and since they know the other two teams would rather sabotage each other than them.
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By the time Bananas and Nany finish, it's hour 42, and the mood at camp is ... well, awkward, to say the least. Aneesa gets her ankle checked by a medic with tears streaming down her face while Jordan just throws out cutting comments like, "No wonder it's been 13 years" since her last final. They get into a screaming match in front of everyone, and she says she's not getting any of what she needs from his as a partner ... but hey, neither is he! Afterwards, Tori accurately points out that while Jordan may not have compassion for Aneesa's struggles, it's also what makes him a great competitor. Aneesa keeps saying that makes it hard to want to win for someone like that, but girl, shouldn't you want to win for yourself at this point?! Her priorities are so messed up, I truly don't know what she goes on The Challenge for at this point other than an appearance fee. She worked so hard to make to a final and now is saying she doesn't want to win for Jordan and he should just go on alone ... what was the point of this whole season then?
The next morning, Jordan wakes up with a new goal: just keep Aneesa motivated. And TJ arrives to announce they've hit hour 50 — so a good chunk of this 100-hour final is spent sleeping or resting. Of course. We should have known! 100 hours is still the longest any final has been though just by measuring it in days alone, so major kudos to the three teams still alive and kicking halfway through.
TJ gleefully reveals that today is going to be another series of grueling checkpoints, and the first one involves three cars ... that he "forgot" to put motors in, so they'll have to push them. Devin and Tori get a head start — but it doesn't look like more than a minute or so, with Jordan and Aneesa starting second, and Bananas and Nany in third. Classic Challenge final BS right there! It doesn't take long for Bananas and Nany to pass Jordan and Aneesa since Aneesa won't run.
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When Devin and Tori make it to the cars, they're able to take their pick of the three. They see that the one on the road is stuck in deep mud, so they take the one they think will be easiest to push and get moving. Bananas and Nany make it to the cars as Devin and Tori struggle with keeping their car on a straight path, but Nany immediately touches the car stuck in the mud so they have to deal with that no matter what. And then Jordan and Aneesa arrive at the cars and immediately catch up to Bananas and Nany, who can't get their car to move out of the mud quick enough.
Devin and Tori finish pushing their car, with Bananas and Nany in second, and Jordan and Aneesa in third. The next station is a big carbo-loading eating challenge where they have to finish massive plates of bread rolls and pasta. When Bananas and Nany and Jordan and Aneesa finally arrive and see what Devin and Tori are choking down, they all dread what's next. Nany starts dipping the bread in water and shoving it down her throat at an impressive speed, while Devin and Tori make themselves throw up to make room for more. Bananas and Nany finish their "appetizer" first and start using their hands to shove pasta in their mouths at a horrific rate. I never thought I'd see Nany beast an eating challenge but this is quite the showing. She's not even breaking a sweat!
Devin and Tori and Jordan and Aneesa finally finish their appetizers and move on to the pasta, but they can't stop puking while Nany and Bananas just keep laughing and joking around. With 39 hours remaining, Tori starts to see her lead disappear for the first time and panics. When Bananas and Nany are almost done, Bananas finally starts puking, and we get another beautiful slow-motion montage of everyone yakking with classical music playing behind the dulcet tones of gagging. And for Bananas and Nany's victory lap, she pukes right on him. Some of it gets in his pocket and he proceeds to pull out strands of spaghetti that she projectiled right into his shorts. I'm a classy gal over here, but there's something about puking moments during a Challenge final that really make me lose my s---, and I had literal tears streaming down my face while watching this entire scene play out.
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Nany and Bananas' triumph is short-lived, however, because TJ brings out two massive bowls of ice cream to place on their table. They immediately start to argue with TJ and producers over how much pain they're in, and how messed up it is that this was just sprung on them when they thought they finished. But they get started on the bowls and eventually finish with chocolate ice cream all over their faces, ending the day in first place.
Jordan and Aneesa finally finish their pasta and move on to the ice cream, with Devin and Tori right behind them. But Devin and Tori take the lead again by mixing their ice cream with water and chugging it all in one go, and they end the day in second place. Aneesa and Jordan finally finish in third place, and the teams head back to the campsite. With only 37 hours left, the players get five hours of sleep before a helicopter arrives to take them to the final stage of the final ... which we'll see play out next week.
With only one episode left, there's no telling what else is coming in this final, and while Bananas and Nany are in first place currently, that could change in one checkpoint. Just look at what happened during the eating challenge! I'll tell you what, though ... I don't think I'm going to want to eat Italian food for a long time after this episode.
The Challenge: Ride or Dies airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.
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