Two guys were eliminated during last week’s episode of The Challenge: Total Madness, and this week, it’s the girls’ turn. Before things get started, though, Big T finds out that she has to leave the game due to the foot injury she suffered last week. She receives a warm send-off. For the weekly challenge, the remaining players are split into teams of five. They have to descend below the ground into a tunnel of freezing cold water and collect one puzzle piece each. Then, once they emerge from the water, they can solve the puzzle. It comes down to a race between two of the teams, with Wes, Dee, Nany, Bayleigh and Cory officially being declared the winners. This means that all five of them are in the tribunal.
Back at the house, the rest of the players have to nominate two females to automatically go into elimination. Luckily, it’s not a tough decision, as Kaycee and Aneesa decide to volunteer themselves in hopes of earning their red skulls to run the final. Meanwhile, some of the other players are dealing with some personal issues. Jenna continues to have trouble with her boyfriend — fellow Challenge star, Zach Nichols — back home. After reading her Instagram DMs, he’s not answering her calls, and even though she has her red skull, Jenna still contemplates leaving.
Then, during a night out, Josh and Swaggy C’s alliance is torn apart as they fight over where they stand with each other in the game (Josh is not happy to learn that Swaggy is secretly teamed up with Wes). Plus, Dee and Jenny deal with some struggles after Dee contemplates throwing Jenny, one of the strongest players in the game who already has a red skull, into an elimination. Rogan spills this news to Jenny, who is not happy to hear it.
Finally, it’s time for the tribunal to nominate four girls to possibly go into elimination against Kaycee and Aneesa. They pick Kailah, Jenna, Jenny and Melissa. Kailah lets the group know that she’d be fine going into an elimination to earn her skull, and asks to have Kaycee as her opponent so she can take out someone who she thinks is a strong player. Meanwhile, the tribunal calls Jenna out for not having her head in the game, and she insists that she doesn’t actually want to go home, even though she’s contemplated it many times. Melissa and Jenny also ask to not be sent in.
At the elimination challenge, the ladies in the tribunal, Nany, Dee and Bayleigh, are given the option to go into the elimination themselves. Dee, who already has a red skull, declines. The elimination challenge is not familiar looking, so Nany and Bayleigh also decide to sit this one out. The tribunal grants Kailah’s wish to go against Kaycee, and then Jenna is voted in against Aneesa. The tribunal members see it as an easy vote, as they’re convinced that Jenna is really checked out this time. Kailah and Jenna are Nany’s tightest alliance members (their trio has been referred to as the ‘holy trinity’ all season), so seeing them both going into the elimination is obviously not easy for her.
In the challenge, the girls are put into a dumpster with heavy bombs, which they have to chuck out before getting out of the dumpster themselves and detonating a smoke bomb to win. Kaycee dominates Kailah, and Aneesa edges out Jenna, which means two of the holy trinity members are now out of the game. We’ll have to see how this plays out for Nany as the show continues on Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. on MTV!