Ready?
Season 38 of The Challenge is here: Ride or Dies, which pairs up competitors with one family member, friend or significant other as pairs try to win money. There are sure to be twists and turns that we’ll see throughout the season that might change everything.
As usual, we’ll do some power rankings each week to see who’s in the lead … and who could fall short.
In this week’s episode: In what was the best episode so far in this season, one pair angers pretty much everyone before two of the stronger teams there face off for an elimination.
1
Devin and Tori
For this week, we’re putting these two at the top. They performed well in this week’s challenge — in which competitors dug up bags with puzzle pieces and ziplined to an area to solve it (they had to unscramble four words that had to do with teamwork) — even if they didn’t win their heat.
And the others at the top? They struggled this week. Therefore, they’re No. 1 … for now.
This part of the daily is kinda like Wordle IRL 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟨 #TheChallenge38 pic.twitter.com/sasfwuM7ft
— The Challenge (@TheChallenge) November 17, 2022
2
Bananas and Nany
We’ll drop them out of the top spot this week after the conflict we saw for the clear favorites — Nany got mad at Bananas joking around as she struggled with the puzzle portion of the challenge.
But he made it clear to her later that he was committed to getting her that first win. That’s a positive.
3
Jordan and Aneesa
OH BOY.
Jay and Michele pulled off quite the power move, probably knowing no matter what happened in elimination, they were going to be targeted. We’ll get to that in a sec.
But throwing these two in? Yikes. They went up against Laurel and Jakk in a game called “In Your Face.” They had to carry cinder blocks to put on top of a cage filled with balls, then they had to throw those balls at photos of their opponents while each opposing player played goaltender against the throwers.
Of course Aneesa was spectacular defensively and of course Jordan threw like he was Patrick Mahomes. And now they’re mad at Jay and Michele. Look out.
4
Jay and Michele
Go ahead and argue. Because this ranking reflects what happened this week and not what’s probably going to go down.
My argument for this spot: They won a second straight challenge and they put together an absolutely brutal list of pairs to throw into elimination with Jordan and Aneesa (whom they chose to go in outright), Bananas and Nany, Kaycee and Kenny, and Laurel and Jakk.
If you’re going to anger a few people, you might as well make a move like this. It’s bold, it’s a little reckless but given their week-to-week performance, it’s not the worst idea.
That said, yikes. It’s going to be a tough road ahead.
5
Horacio and Olivia
They’ve consistently been in the top five and they won their heat even if they didn’t get the overall weekly challenge victory. Horacio’s situation with Laurel — they’ve been flirting a bunch but he told her that he’s talking to someone at home who he wants to date — wasn’t great.
From an on-field perspective, they’re doing spectacularly for a pair of rookies.
6
Kenny and Kaycee
Not a ton from them this week, but a great way to tick off Nany is to send her girlfriend, Kaycee, into possible elimination.
7
Darrell and Veronica
Flying under the radar this week, and that’s probably a positive thing in a drama-filled ep.
8
Chauncey and Amber
We finally saw some extended camera time for Amber, and she was rightfully suspicious of Michele after the deal Michele made with Devin this week not to say each other’s names. Other than that? I’d like to see better performances going forward.
9
Nelson and Nurys
Another underachieving team.
10
Faysal and Moriah
Oh, Faysal. SIGH.
He claims he wants to stay out of the drama and be less “messy,” but just a week after Colleen went home, he went and snuggled with Laurel, who’s now going home.
That’s not being less messy.
….. unless 👀 #TheChallenge38 pic.twitter.com/KFMvhdnRfe
— The Challenge (@TheChallenge) November 17, 2022
11
Jakk and Laurel (eliminated)
UGH. After last week’s victory in The Zone, they weren’t chosen again by Jay and Michele to go in … but when Nany picked up the SAFE dagger, she had to save Kaycee.
And that meant Laurel and the extremely entertaining Jakk got thrown in and lost to Jordan and Aneesa. Laurel’s still a Challenge legend no matter what, and I hope we’ll see Jakk again.
