re: The Challenge Season 36: Double Agents (Premieres 12/9)

Fessy believing in his own hype

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Fessy isn’t solving puzzles or math problems.

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Do we know if he is good or bad at these tho? I thought he was surprisingly decent at both.

It was obvious from the interviews and the editing, no matter how much they tried to hide it, that CT and Amber were lapping the field.

When they showed the wide open shots of them on the mountain or in the kayak, there literally wasn't a soul within 5 miles of them it seemed.

And then, like Clockwork, the producers change the rules on the fly and make shot up, by only giving them a fricking 5 minute head start. That's damn near as bad as the old Kenny/Wes screwing on Rivals, but thankfully it didn't matter. They still smoked everybody.

There's a tell-tale sign that frickery has occurred in the challenge, but especially the final. Any time you ever hear TJ's voice overdubbed and don't see him saying it live on camera, there has been a Deja Vu in the Matrix.

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That CT/Amber B interview with EW is pretty fascinating. She'd apparent a marathon runner (never mentioned on the show, obviously) and Darrell apparently knew he had a killer girl for the final, that's why he didn't switch partners.

On his way out, Darrell apparently told her to ride or die with CT, and he told CT that she had unrivaled endurance.

Pretty sly shite from the OGs. Amber, who I guess was marketed I guess as a "person of color" is basically a Tennessee hillbilly. She talked about how much she learned from CT and Darrell.

I'll say this, people are going to be fighting over her next year to be in a final together. She was basically slowing down and running ahead and then back with CT. Shame that the show never mentioned any of this.

EW excerpt

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AMBER BORZOTRA: I think people wanted me paired with him because they're like, he's got the rookie, they won't do well together.

TAMBURELLO: Well, hey, look, all season none of the girls wanted me. And then we came in and crushed it! At one point we were finishing checkpoints before anyone else showed up. I think it was the best run I've ever had in the final.

How much of a lead did you have? How long did it take for the two other teams to reach the finish line after you?

TAMBURELLO: I think at one point we had a lead of close to an hour. But then we got lost in the woods. The last time we saw somebody was actually after the kayak, as we were finishing, Cory and Kam started. And after that it was just us. And then I just remember Amber running uphill, not even tired at all, and getting to TJ at the top of the mountain, and I was like, okay, what are we doing now? Where are we going? We just had such a good lead.

BORZOTRA: I actually kept yelling at CT like, "Where are you? Come on!"

TAMBURELLO: She hasn't admitted this yet, but there were times when she would run up and look for the arrows for which direction to go, and then run back. I honestly feel like she would slow down and pretend to be looking for where to go to kind of give me time to catch up, because she didn't want to discourage me, or to give me a little break.

BORZOTRA: I grew up in the mountains of Tennessee and this is what I'd do, run barefoot. This was just like being back home, playing in the woods, enjoying myself. I was having fun. It's crazy because sometimes it looks like we're yelling at each other or getting mad at each other, but we were just pushing each other in a good way.

TAMBURELLO: And I knew that experience would help me out because I was talking to Darrell and he would always say that she's got a lot of heart and gas for days. He also told me she had run a marathon before. Every person has strengths and weaknesses, and we knew what each of our weaknesses are, so to me, if I'm the slowest runner out of us, we're in really good shape. And we didn't look back.

BORZOTRA: And no one was ever in front of us!

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Is anyone else surprised that they didn’t play up the CT/Reykjavik angle? I believe the last time he was there was when he and Diem finished second on Exes 1.

I think it’s more likely, based on what we did see, that the lie is that they were only given a 5 minute head start on day 2.

I think they got the real time differential. Otherwise they should have been able to show them in-frame with everybody else at some point on day 2, right?

Leroy was never picking Kam. As it stood, they essentially had a 2-in-4 chance of winning. Pairing together would have reduced their odds.

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I think it’s more likely, based on what we did see, that the lie is that they were only given a 5 minute head start on day 2.

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I don't think it's a lie. Amber ran better than all the guys, and Kam/Nany were slow as shite.

I think he’s saying that Amber B was the best female for a challenge from a running standpoint, but no one was going to pick her over Kam and Kaycee from what they saw on the season.

And CT’s unique skill set (not great cardio, best eater in the history of the show, very strong at math and puzzles) measures up favorably to Leroy.

Leroy’s best outcome would be to get Kam who can offset his bad puzzle and math skill, but she hates eating crap and has only average cardio.

And if he picks Amber B, they would have the worst and third worst math/puzzle people in the final, which isn’t worth the cardio advantage.

Heather Cooke and Sarah Rice would have been so dominant in this era.

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There's a tell-tale sign that frickery has occurred in the challenge, but especially the final. Any time you ever hear TJ's voice overdubbed and don't see him saying it live on camera, there has been a Deja Vu in the Matrix.

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This is a very VERY common reality TV trick.

Survivor uses it all the time.

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When they showed the wide open shots of them on the mountain or in the kayak, there literally wasn't a soul within 5 miles of them it seemed.

And then, like Clockwork, the producers change the rules on the fly and make shot up, by only giving them a fricking 5 minute head start. That's damn near as bad as the old Kenny/Wes screwing on Rivals, but thankfully it didn't matter. They still smoked everybody.

There's a tell-tale sign that frickery has occurred in the challenge, but especially the final. Any time you ever hear TJ's voice overdubbed and don't see him saying it live on camera, there has been a Deja Vu in the Matrix.

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Yep one of my biggest issues with the challenge. They are constantly making shite up on the fly to fit whatever narrative they want. The rules are always changing.

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That CT/Amber B interview with EW is pretty fascinating. She'd apparent a marathon runner (never mentioned on the show, obviously) and Darrell apparently knew he had a killer girl for the final, that's why he didn't switch partners.

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I initially blasted Darrell for staying with her after he won his elimination but knowing how good a runner she is makes his decision to stay with her a lot better. It's interesting that at NO point did they mention she was basically an elite runner