This episode of The Challenge Double Agents really emphasizes what makes The Challenge so great: the soap opera. Long-term friends Wes and Devin are put head-to-head in an intense endurance battle, where a betrayed Wes simply does not have the strength to carry on. This allows Devin to overpower him and earn a Golden Skull—after the medical evacuation of his partner, Nicole.
Wes is sent into the elimination by perpetual The Challenge follower Leroy, Johnny Banana’s second banana, who is finally looking for his paycheck after 12 seasons without a win. However, that is not the only betrayal of Wes this episode, as Fessy and Kyle reveal that the Double Agents can view the “secret vote” and that long-term Wes allies Cory and Nelson all voted against Wes in the previous episode. Betrayed, unmotivated, and forced into a tug-of-war contest against his best friend give Devin the upper hand, who capitalizes on it to eliminate Wes from Double Agents.
This episode’s challenge is Road Kill, a 1-on-1 wrestling competition on the top of a moving truck. The team that is able to eliminate both of their opposition the fastest becomes the Double Agents. The first match-up is Devin and Nicole versus the newly formed pair of Kam and Kyle. Both Devin/Kyle and Nicole/Kam play it to a stalemate, as Nicole dislocates her shoulder during the challenge, and neither Devin nor Kyle can gain an advantage over the other. Josh/Nany are able to put up a fight against physical beasts Wes/Natalie, but Wes and Natalie manage to barely win both matches.
In a montage scored by Billy Idol, we see boxer Darrell stalemate against wrestler Lio, physical specimens Lolo and Nam defeat Theresa and Survivor’s Jay after a bit of a struggle, Meechie beating Cory but Tori injuring Liv, and Kaycee/Leroy making quick work of Nelson/Amber M. The final match-up sees Aneesa make quick work of Big T, leaving a bout between Old School Challenge heavyweight CT against the new heavyweight Fessy, which goes to time. TJ then reveals that out of Kaycee/Leroy, Wes/Natalie, and Lolo/Nam, Kaycee and Leroy won in the fastest time, making them Double Agents.
Leroy and Kaycee winning cements the majority alliance’s control over this game. It’s also revealed that Nicole has been medically evacuated, and Liv returns to the game. Big T cements her rookie girl alliance with herself, Amber B, Gabby, and Liv. Kaycee and CT have a small argument over frozen pizza, which is quickly resolved, only to have Josh simultaneously inject himself and escalate the argument into needing to be held back by security, which Devin then follows up by saying, “Big Brother sucks”. This then requires more security to come in to restrain him further, as Devin continues to take potshots against him as Whitney Houston’s “So Emotional” plays.
Wes, Kyle, Nam, and Devin then scheme to get the votes of their partners, the rookies and CT/Big T, to be able to make a move to send Cory/Tori into the elimination. At the same time, the majority alliance wants to send Devin in, as him not having a female partner would likely guarantee that it would be a male elimination that week. Devin then fights with Josh, Tori, and Cory in deliberation. The majority alliance, alongside the rookies, decides to vote Devin into the elimination, with only Wes, Devin, Liv, Nam, Kyle and Natalie voting for Tori and Cory.
An interesting wrinkle in the deliberation is that Kaycee and Leroy reveal that they distrust each other, indicating that a potential crack exists in this coalition between the Big Brother and Leroy and Kam alliances. Leroy then discusses two options in terms of who he could send in for elimination. He could ensure the elimination of one of his alliance’s enemies by sending Wes in against Devin, or he could take a risk and try to get a Golden Skull by sending himself in against the relatively-weak Devin in a physical elimination. However, Kam tells Leroy to look at the bigger picture as he decides not to take a risk, which works out as Wes loses the elimination to Devin.
The episode ends with Devin selecting to partner up with his Are You The One? Second Chances rival Tori, to her dismay, leaving Cory with Survivor champion Natalie. Wes leaves, telling everybody to gang up on Leroy, as the remaining players on the outs (Kyle, Devin, and Natalie) have all successfully infiltrated teams within the big alliance, meaning that strategy and alliances are more fluid than ever.
If there were a theme to this episode, it would be about wanting to win. When being removed, Nicole said in a confessional that “there’s no way anybody at home can know how much I want this.” Devin mentions wanting to help his mother through this difficult time. Leroy talks about being sick and tired of losing for the last 11 seasons and needing to think of ‘the bigger picture.’ Even former Challenge champion CT wants to win in an attempt to pull his life back together during a difficult separation. This episode showed that everybody is hungry and looking for a win this season, which has been why this season has been so strong so far.
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