‘The Challenge’ Recap: An Automatic Elimination Sends 1 Of The Strongest Players Home

The slowest pair is sent home after a tough swimming competition during this week’s episode of ‘The Challenge,’ and it leads to one of the strongest guys in the game getting eliminated at the hands of his partner.

On the Nov. 20 episode of The Challenge: War of the Worlds, here’s where the alliances stand: Cara Maria/Paulie/Kam/Leroy/Ashley/Joss/Kayleigh/Rogan/Dee are up against Tori/Jordan/Nany/Josh/Zach. However, Dee still feels on the outs after learning that her team isn’t confident in her abilities to run a final, particularly when it comes to swimming. It leads to obvious tension between Dee and her teammates, especially Rogan, who she’s been hooking up with all season long.

At the challenge, the contestants have to swim 150 meters in pairs to retrieve keys in the middle of the water. Once all the keys are retrieved, they can use them to unlock a riddle that they’ll then have to solve. There’s a twist, though: The slowest swimming pair — on either team — will automatically be eliminated. Team U.S. has one extra player, so they get to sit one girl out. They choose their slowest swimmer, Ninja, which means she’s automatically safe. The rest of the team is paired as follows: Cara/Paulie, Kam/Leroy, Nany/Josh and Ashley/Zach. On team U.K., the pairs are: Tori/Jordan, Joss/Kayleigh and (reluctantly) Rogan/Dee, leaving CT to swim his leg alone.

During the difficult swimming challenge, Dee proves her team wrong by completing her leg much faster than expected, but Kayleigh and Leroy both struggle on their respective teams. When it comes to the riddle, Paulie pulls through to solve it first, giving team U.S. another win. T.J. Lavin announces that the slowest pair was Joss and Kayleigh, which means they’re automatically sent home. This leaves Joss with some major regrets, as he protected Kayleigh throughout the season, while getting rid of stronger female players on his team.

Ninja is named speaker of the team for team U.S. and she chooses the fastest pair on her team in the challenge — Zach and Ashley — to join her. Team U.K. votes Jordan into another elimination, as Rogan, Dee and CT still hold the majority alliance on their team. Now, the tribunal must pick Jordan’s opponent. Ninja and Ashley decide to stick with their alliance and vote Josh in as Jordan’s competitor, as opposed to another team U.K. member.

The elimination game is tug of war challenge. To win, one player has to retrieve the full rope on their side or knock their opponent off a pedestal that they’re standing on to complete the challenge. Jordan wins the first round by knocking Josh off the platform, and then pulls a similar move in round two and three, giving him the overall win and sending Josh home. It’s getting good now!