The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras Recap: Oh Karma, Where Art Thou?

Carrying Era IV on her back once again, Jenny, the Gronk of The Challenge, is displeased. Writhing around on her bed like she’s suffering from scarlet fever, she whines that none of her female comrades stepping up to be targets makes her feel disposable. And she totally is! That’s what happens when you never talk game and only make small talk on riveting topics like croissants and your pet guinea pigs. Instead of being a bodybuilder, she should be one of those trad wife bloggers that writes a 2,000-word synopsis of her family trip to Ann Arbor before finally giving you her goddamn lemon cake recipe.

Meanwhile, the Vacation Alliance (Josh, Kaycee, Tori, and Devin), which, in the last episode, Josh complained was a fake Reddit conspiracy that doesn’t exist, now has an official gang sign. Josh and Tori contemplate who they can trust to have their backs until the end, and they agree on Rachel and Jordan, with a question mark next to Bananas; a friend to all is a friend to none.

This week’s Daily Challenge is called Cloud Catcher and involves maneuvering massive white balloons across an obstacle course where dangerous spikes abound, threatening to pop your precious cargo with any wrong turn. The Eras need to attach as many of their balloons to their team station as possible and then solve a riddle to open their (empty) treasure chest — the team that collects the most balloons and opens the chest in the least amount of time wins, emphasis on balloons over time.

In the pre-game interview, Laurel makes a dumb speech about how despite her blowout with Cara, she believes the team can work together to get the job done, while Cara despondently observes the pebbles on the ground, her only friends in this cruel, dark world. I thought Cara was in her quiet quitting era, but she has to pipe up with the unnecessary commentary that while she had planned to throw the Challenge, as Laurel did last week to sabotage Emily, that’s not in her character, so she’s going to try her best. (This has been an MTV After-School Special).

The Challenge commences, and as usual, Team Life Alert has fallen and they can’t get up, quickly extinguishing their chance of immunity. While running across the mud pit, Derrick injures his leg, but instead of getting medical, he soldiers through the rest of the game, hopping on one foot. I was half-expecting Jeff Probst to crawl out of T.J.’s spine like Margaret Qualley in The Substance and shout, “That’s how you do it on Survivor!!!!”

I could absolutely never in a million years even attempt the athletic feats on a Challenge, but I wish I could be, like, the kicker of a Challenge team and only come on the field when there’s riddles. The riddle in question will take you, dear reader, all of three seconds to solve but necessitates a 30-minute brainstorm from our beloved dodos. The riddle reads: “I am always hungry, I must always be fed. The finger I touch will soon turn red. What am I?”

Jordan guesses time. Jonna guesses baby. Bananas guesses pasta. This delightful idiocy is what we missed from this season’s trivia challenge. Finally, Eras II and III figure out that the answer is FIRE and finish the race, but it doesn’t matter — Era IV, taking a slower but more precise approach, successfully collects the most balloons and earns the W, putting Josh and Jenny in power.

This causes a massive dilemma for our emotional man Josh, who has ties with both male targets, Cory and Bananas. Riding on the high from the win, he makes a big show of asking his Era IV homies for their valued input in the decision-making process, and they unanimously agree that they want to send in Era II’s Laurel and Bananas. First off, they’re two huge threats that no one wants to face in a final. Second, Era IV has been developing a beautiful friendship with Era III, so voting in Cory and Jonna would draw a line in the sand against their strongest allies.

Cue the Gob Bluth “I’ve made a huge mistake” montage. Josh’s team makes excellent points that prove that what he actually wants to do — save Bananas — is a self-serving choice, not a strategic team move. In the Chamber, Bananas knows exactly how to play Josh like a fuck boy popping back into your DMs with an “I miss you” the minute you thought you’d moved on. He holds Josh flipping on his word and voting against Bananas in The Challenge USA 2 over his head and positions this week’s decision as a “clear opportunity” to right this egregious past wrong.

Josh is in psychological shambles. His consistent working relationship with Cory far outlives his newfound friendship with Bananas, but he’s clearly more afraid of Bananas, who he views as some sort of mentor, desperate for his approval. Jenny is also closer with Bananas, so she’s on board, and the duo gives Cory and Jonna a heads up that they’ll be seeing the arena. Cory is rightfully pissed and tells Josh he’s viewing this as a shot.

At club night, Bananas could have viewed his successful manipulation of Josh as enough of a win and taken the rest of the week off, but no. Like Rishi at a blackjack table after an 8-ball, he has to double down, this time turning his attention towards Michele. While the actual clip of the interaction is irritatingly never shown, Michele tells Devin that Bananas told her that as her friend, he’s worried that Devin isn’t genuinely interested in her and is just using their showmance to advance his game.

Devin, to his credit, waits until the morning to confront Bananas, instead of giving in to his drunk, glassy-eyed desire to “beat him up.” He asks the defendant, Bananas, if what was “allegedly” said about him is true. Bananas, who can lie better than most people can tell the truth, asserts that he had simply told Michele that he hoped Devin’s inevitable choice to come after him wouldn’t drive a wedge between their friendship. But wait! A key witness storms the courtroom! In a confessional, Olivia reveals she was present at the scene of the crime, and Michele’s reenactment of the events is indeed accurate. Case closed.

Plus, we already overheard Bananas speak on this exact sentiment when gossiping with Jenny earlier in the episode. We know from social media that Devin and Michele are still together, and this is so transparently a tactic to plant doubt in Michele’s head and disrupt the potential influence of a power couple in the game. Bananas doesn’t actually care about Michele’s well-being in this scenario; he just wants to ensure that she’s another number working in his favor, constantly expecting blind loyalty from his “friends” while simultaneously having too many of them to feasibly protect himself.

Devin lets it go because he’s smart, but Michele is justifiably annoyed that Bananas is essentially calling her a liar. She tries to clarify things with him in the weight room, but as manipulators often do when they know they’re in the wrong, he gaslights her and then shuts down, refusing to engage as he powers through his super macho bench presses. I feel so bad for all his ex-girlfriends.

The challengers head to the elimination, titled To The Point. In the center of a course sit around 60 balls, with spiked walls on either side (one wall of spikes for each player). The goal of the game is to land as many balls on your spikes as possible before all the balls run out — if a ball lands out of bounds, it’s no longer in play. However, there’s a twist! The players can alternate between playing offense and defense, giving them license to interfere with their opponents’ throws, as opposed to playing a side-by-side game.

Brad and Cory hit the floor first, and Brad struggles to get a feel for the rhythm. Cory identifies that he’s able to have the most success with a good old-fashioned chest throw, and takes the lead. Once he’s confident that he can maintain his advantage, he shifts to defense, blocking Brad’s shots and throwing the balls out of bounds, giving him fewer and fewer opportunities to score. Despite his bleeding love for the beautiful game, Brad can’t get it done.

This means the pressure is on for Rachel, whose team is dwindling faster than the battery of your deliberately malfunctioning iPhone 15. Luckily, she “plays sports with [her] kids pretty much every day,” which basically makes her Diana Taurasi. And as it turns out, all that practice dunking on her five-year-old paid off. Jonna quickly gets frazzled and has no strategy (helped immensely by Jordan screaming at her) and Rachel dominates, keeping her Era still alive, but barely breathing.

Tina is the default target for the Era I women, Cory picks Aviv, protecting Cara, and Nia and Michele volunteer. For the guys, Darrell, Jordan, and Kyland volunteer, and Rachel selects Nehemiah since she “wants her gays to stay” and Bananas is off the table.

With only four mighty ducks left on Era I, I’m curious if the structure of the game will shift in the coming weeks. Will they dissolve the Eras and play as individuals? Maybe not, until we eventually get a challenge where a dilapidated Derrick is the lone representative of Team AARP, jumping off a semi-truck in a cast and a sling.