‘The Challenge’ Recap: Brad Stirs The Pot & Finds Himself With 2 New Vendettas

Brad is at the center of the drama on this episode of 'The Challenge: Vendettas,' and finds himself with two new enemies -- not a great place to be in on a show centered around getting revenge!

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Image Credit: Courtesy of MTV

The Jan. 23 episode of The Challenge: Vendettas picks up where last week’s left off: Kam, Kayleigh and Alicia are at the Inquisition, trying to prove to the Troika, Johnny Bananas, Devin and Natalie, why they deserve to stay out of this week’s elimination against Melissa. All three members of the Troika decide to send Alicia in, because of her relationship with Johnny’s vendetta, Cory, who was eliminated last week. Melissa and Alicia are tasked with building chain ladders — whoever climbs to the top first wins. Despite a foot injury, Melissa pulls out the win, sending Alicia home.

Along with the win, Melissa gets a Grenade. This week, the Grenade choices are “Team Up” (choose the teams for the next challenge), “Money Hungry” (choose any player to drink a liter of cream before the next challenge) or “Sit Out” (choose any player to sit out the next challenge and go into elimination). Before she makes her decision, she celebrates the win by spending the night with Nicole. There’s drama in other parts of the house, though, as Brad and Marie go AT it over…pizza. Yes, really. Things get personal when she brings his kids into it (Brad is recently divorced from former Challenge vet, Tori Hall, with whom he has two kids).

At this week’s challenge,  the competitors are split into eight teams. It’s a game of trivia — the team who gets the question right chooses one other team to be safe, while the rest of the group has to choose one team member to eat a gross food selected by the winner. The last team standing wins $24,000. The challenge is genderless — so guys AND girls are on the chopping block.

Melissa uses the “Team Up” grenade, giving her the power to choose the teams: 1) Melissa, Shane, Devin // 2) Leroy, Britni, Kylie // 3) Bananas, Kayleigh, Cara // 4) Brad, Joss, Sylvia // 5) Veronica, Jemmye, Nicole // 6) Tony, Marie, Zach // 7) Natalie, Nelson, Kam // 8) Kailah, Victor. Bananas and Leroy’s teams are safe after the first question, and of all the other teams representatives, Tony is the only one to finish the rotten cheese.

Team Bananas gets the next question right, leaving Leroy and Tony battling it out to eat a huge plate of marshmallows. Tony wins again, and each of the remaining two teams has to choose one person to eat the final food…of T.J. Lavin’s choice. It’s Tony (yes, again!) vs. Cara Maria…and they have to chow down a bowl of mayonnaise. Tony miraculously pulls out the win, making himself, Marie and Zach the Troika.

This week, the Troika has the power to select the losing team, which then has to choose one member amongst themselves to automatically go into the Ring. Tony has vendettas with both Sylvia and Brad, so it’s no surprise when he chooses their team as the loser. Even though Sylvia was the team member to represent the team in the eating challenge, Brad and Joss choose her for elimination. Rough. Obviously, she’s PISSED. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until next week to see who the Troika chooses for the Inquisition, and ultimately, who will face off against Sylvia in the ring.

HollywoodLifers, what did you think of this week’s episode of The Challenge?