MTV’s “The Challenge: Bloodlines” Premiere Recap

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The real action of The Challenge: Bloodlines began before the show even came on. Rather than show the TCB preview that probably cost them, oh, I don’t know, tens-of-thousands of dollars to produce, they decided to show Big Daddy.

I was also ambushed by this being a 94-minute premiere. I mean, come on. 94 minutes? Daddy wants at least three hours of this for night one. But with that being said, MTV manages to pack in a lotta antics into 94-minutes so let’s just get right into it.

But before you go too far, make sure to check out the preview.

The First Night

Per usual, every contestant gathered in the then-unnamed battleground that would be the setting for the duels that would presumably send teams home, one-by-one, through the season. And let me just say, as TJ explained the rules, he was looking fresh. Really trying to portray himself as a consummate professional, he did away with the hat and just went with a dope new haircut.

He went on to explain to everyone that the top teams will split a pot of $350,000, but he refuses to break down how it will be allocated to each team. Considering there are six people that will get payouts (presumably), $350,000 doesn’t really seem like that much to me when you take into account that these people are taking off work (do they even have real jobs, though?) for up to two months in order to make what they’d probably make in a year at a normal job.

TJ then described “THE PIT” which will serve as what has previously been called “The Gauntlet” and “The Gulag” in previous seasons.

The takeaways from the introductory scene to the game itself were as follows: Candice (Leroy’s cousin) has braces, Nicole (Nany’s cousin) has the eyebrows of Satan, and all of the male contestants are clearly still doing steroids, just like in the old days.

TJ then sends everyone to what he describes as a “sick villa,” because TJ loves the word “sick.” But, upon further review, the villa is indeed sick. Sure, even though the villa probably costs $5 million, they still all have to sleep in shotty bunk beds where all the sheets will have to be set ablaze in a pyre after, but who am I to criticize MTV for the treatment of their employees? Everyone still seems pretty psyched about it nonetheless.

Clearly, everyone starts getting after it the second they get to the house. It appears as though MTV has only provided them with red wine and some sort of blue drink, which was later discovered to be vodka.

While watching, I popped a Gatorade G2 Glacier Freeze in an attempt to feel like I could hang.

Johnny Bananas, also drinking blue, then made a remarkably terrible toast because it wouldn’t be a premiere with out it. As everyone interacted for the first time since the last Challenge, we learned that Brianna (Jenna’s cousin) has boned three of Jenna’s ex-boyfriends, so that should pan out well. We also learned that none of the girls know how to pour wine, which I touched on with Nany already.

Day 2

No one has gone to bed yet, and they’re all just pounding drinks on the patio in broad daylight. There’s still a huge amount of red wine being towed around. Christina, who turned out to be a huge character this episode, started trying to jump the bones of Thomas who has a girlfriend back home. Even though we already know Thomas fucks around with Cara later in the season, he sticks to his guns and passes her off to his brother, who then passes her off Tony.

Cohutta describes Christina as “bird dogging” Tony because she’s just drunkenly following his scent around the house. Tony, who also has a girlfriend at home, tells her “I’m gonna wanna fucking bang you,” before going into a closet with her. While no one could see what actually happened, it’s evident that something happened because his belt buckle comes undone and his pants drop. Tony goes on to lie and say that nothing happened, but he has a history of consistently lying about his female interactions.

Keep in mind that it’s like 9 o’clock in the morning when this happens. No one has gone to bed yet. They’re all still drunk. And they’re probably binging on adderall because it’s been well-documented that the cast members do that.

Night 2

The following night starts out with some drama. TL;DR version: Tony talked shit to Larissa (Camila’s cousin), Larissa gets pissed, Camila cries, and then Nicole (Nany’s cousin) gets into it with Tony over everything. Nicole starts barking in Tony’s face as he denies any wrongdoing (his second lie that day) and tells Tony to “get out of her face,” which is a trademark Coach Taylor move to tell someone to get out of your face while you’re in their face.

This all leads to a fight between Tony and his brother, Shane. Shane, who is wearing a pashmina over his tank top, claims to be “sober” while also starting a fight, holding a drink, and acting sassy as hell. He lays into Tony for how he acted with the girls outside, and this turns into a fight between the two where Tony pins him against a wall. They break a few plates, get separated by Cara’s prison guard cousin (I legit think they brought him in just for this purpose), and then Shane talks things out with Nany because we all know she’s the voice of reason.

Shane and Tony reconcile their differences before longtime cast member, Mark Long (who is not on this season) tweeted what we all needed to hear:

Day 3

Finally, Challenge Day. I don’t really mean that because the actual challenges are my least favorite part of the show, but I feel obligated.

The day begins with TJ trying to scare Tony and Shane into thinking they’re going home for fighting the night before. We all know this isn’t going to happen because 1.) Brother-on-brother violence isn’t a justifiable reason to send someone home, and 2.) These bimbos are too reality television-worthy to send home night one. MTV is smarter than that.

After confirming what we already knew, TJ lets them stay and then introduces the game. Simply put, everyone has to run up a giant ant hill that has a hose rigged above it. Once atop the hill, they must fill the buckets with hose water, slide down the hill, and dump the water into their container. After 10 minutes, the team with the least amount of water gets sent into The Pit.

The girls go first, and it’s a complete and utter shit show. Jill can barely even verbalize what’s going on to the point where MTV had to subtitle her hillbilly accent. She talks like an inbred character from season one of True Detective.

Jenna and Brianna clearly suck at this challenge, and it’s evident from the beginning that they’re going to be the one’s sent in. I mean, Brianna fucking climbed the hill without a damn bucket, and the entire point of the game is to fill the bucket with water.

Dario put it best when he explained that he wasn’t watching for the competition because he was “too busy looking at booties.”

Come the guys turn, Stephen took to Twitter to give the excuse that he had a 103 degree temperature at the time of the challenge. I wanted clarification around this, which I got because I’m essentially an insider at this point.

The guys clearly have a more defined strategy for the task at hand. With buckets on their heads as they race up the hill, they mean business. It looks like Bananas and Vince may fill up about six barrels in the ten minutes before Cara convinces other people to start filling Cohutta’s barrel with water in an effort to beat them. It worked, but you have to wonder why Cara (or anyone) would want to get on Bananas bad side midway through the first challenge.

Unsurprisingly, Jenna and Brianna lose by a mile, Bananas and Vince come in second to Cohutta and Jill, and the victors seem unexcited about their victory as they didn’t truly do anything to win. As winners, Cohutta and Jill get to decide who goes into The Pit against Jenna and Brianna. While deliberating, Cohutta looks fly as hell in some newly purchased Tommy Bahama threads.

They end up deciding to throw Christina (the one who tried to fuck three people in one morning) and Emily in, which should surprise no one because they’re sloppy rookies.

Night 3 (The First Night Out)

After all the logistics are figured out for the game itself, everyone heads out to some Turkish club. Camila states, “This is the first time we can really let loose and enjoy ourselves,” which is an absurd statement considering they partied for about 72 hours without sleeping leading up to the first challenge. The night out is typical as hell: Aneese and Cory are grinding (and later hook up), KellyAnne and Dario are vibing (and later hook up), and Rianna and Mitch are flirting (and you guessed it: later hook up).

The pot gets stirred when Vince allegedly tells everyone that Cory slept with Nany (which, he probably did). This leads to Cory confronting Vince, which leads to Nany telling Cory that “Vince is just jealous because he’s a personal trainer and Cory has a better body than him.” She also expands on the subject and says she’s over people calling her a whore, but she has a history with at least five guys on this season alone so she may want to tread lightly.

The bus ride home is filled with Nicole dead asleep on Nany’s lap and Candice throwing up through her braces into a plastic bag. When asked about it, she says, “I had a throw up moment, but I still looked cute though.” I can’t knock her for having unjustifiable confidence in herself like that.

The Pit

The moment everyone’s been waiting for: Christina and Emily vs. Jenna and Brianna. Truth be told, the game is stupid. There’s a rope looped around a bunch of wooden polls shoved into the ground, and they have to unwrap the rope from the polls in order to get it long enough to reach a hook. The first team to reach the hook wins.

Each team can only select one person for The Pit, so it pans out to be Christina vs. Jenna. Just two tiny blonde chicks sweating it out, which should make Dario very happy. After an early lead, Christina relinquishes it to Jenna who takes The Pit in a very bland manner.

Current Top 5

1. Bananas and Vince
2. Cara Maria and Jamie
3. Cohutta and Jill
4. Cory and Mitch
5. Leroy and Candice

But that could all change, as the preview for the rest of the season contains Cara’s boyfriend and former legend Abram, CT (who says, “I’m here to cause havoc.), and Jenna’s boyfriend/Challenge beast Zach.

Stay tuned. .

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Will

Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.

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