MTV Kailah Casillas on The Challenge: Total Madness
When we last saw the intrepid Challenge: Total Madness contestants, it was a guys’ elimination week and it was a double elimination week. Faysal “Fessy” Shafaat faced off against Jordan Wiseley and emerged victorious, sending Jordan home in the first elimination.
Then Stephen Bear faced off with Nelson Thomas and Thomas won, sending Bear home — much to the dismay of Kailah Casillas. But the bigger piece of drama that happened was that during the elimination battles, Josh Martinez got hip to Chris “Swaggy C” Williams and Bayleigh Dayton’s secret alliance with Wes Bergmann, something that made him really angry because he thought the newbies and Big Brother alums might stick together against the veterans.
This week, it’s the “Tunnel Rats” challenge and Josh and Swaggy C might get into an actual fight. To find out what happens and who gets eliminated this week, follow along with our live recap but be warned of spoilers. Do not keep reading if you don’t want to be spoiled.
All times Eastern.
8:05 — After the elimination, Fessy, Nelson, and Cory Wharton talk about how that elimination could not have gone better for them. It has Cory champing at the bit to get his red skull. Kailah, meanwhile, is not pleased to see them preening over their victories. Josh and Nany Gonzalez talk to her about the Swaggy-Bayleigh-Wes alliance, which they are very concerned about.
Smells like a ticket to the final! #TheChallenge35
Meanwhile, Swaggy tries to warn Wes about keeping everything on the down-low, but Wes dismisses it. He’s unconcerned about the “Holy Trinity” — Nany, Kailah, and Jenna Compono — ever going against him. Famous last words, Wes.
8:10 — Dee Nguyen starts worrying about Jenny West because going up against Jenny in a final is going to be tough. So she’s wondering if it’s time to throw Jenny into elimination again and see if she can eliminate Jenny before the final. Oooh, that is diabolical.
Goodbye Big T 😩 Your scheming will be missed! #TheChallenge35
8:12 — Challenge time. Poor Tula “Big T” Fazakerley is eliminated by host T.J. Lavin before the challenge starts because of her toe injury. The challenge this week is called “Tunnel Rats,” which involves teams of four or five people dropping into a series of tunnels where there are five puzzle pieces hidden. They have to retrieve them and solve the puzzle. The team with the fastest time forms the Tribunal. Today is also a double female elimination, which means three girls will be gone by the end of this episode now that Big T is gone.
The teams are:
Team 1: Fessy, Nelson, Jenny, and Kaycee Clark.
Team 2: Kyle Christie, Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio, Rogan O’Connor, Melissa Reeves, and Jenna.
Team 3: Cory, Bayleigh, Wes, Nany, and Dee.
Team 4: Josh, Swaggy, Kailah, Aneesa Ferreira, and Mattie Breaux.
8:15 — Teams 1 and 2 go first. There are some dope camera shots from Melissa’s helmet cam of her dropping into the tunnels and swimming around. They’re doing OK, but Nelson is kind of a weak link when it comes to swimming and that’s the team that’s short one player, so Team 1 is kind of at a disadvantage.
Going into the puzzle portion, Team 2 has a small lead and they manage to win this round.
Baywatch (1989) #TheChallenge35
8:23 — In round two, Swaggy C is the one struggling with the swimming. He actually needs a diver to come to get him and is eliminated from the challenge. Because Team 4 is now down a member, they fall behind a bit and Team 3 has a big lead going into the puzzle. Unsurprisingly, Team 3 wins that round, though Team 4 had a shot at it.
8:30 — It comes down to Team 2 and Team 3, with the winning team being Team 3, so the Tribunal is Cory, Bayleigh, Nany, Dee, and Wes. Dee is ready to unleash her diabolical plan to get rid of Jenny, but she needs her fellow Tribunal members to do her dirty work.
8:32 — Back at the bunker, it’s time to check in on the drama that is Jenna’s dysfunctional relationship with Zach Nichols. He won’t answer her video calls and whenever there is downtime in the game, she can’t stop thinking about it. She has started spiraling, talking about how it’s her fault. Um, no. This is Zach’s fault. He snooped and got mad about something that happened when you were broken up, lady. Stop apologizing for him.
8:35 — At nominations, Kaycee and Aneesa volunteer to go into the elimination battle and that’s that. Meanwhile, Bayleigh and Nany are talking about putting Jenny into the elimination battle. Dee is down with that, but she doesn’t want to “know” about it so that she has plausible deniability to her ally.
No one’s playing a scared game here! 👑 #TheChallenge35
But her plausible deniability may be gone because Rogan goes to Jenny and tells on Dee wanting to get Jenny out. Rogan wants Dee to go, so he needs Jenny on board to do that and he wants her to be prepared for the elimination battle.
8:55 — They go out to the local bar and Josh and Bananas talk about how fake everybody is. Swaggy C jumps in and says Josh is a hypocrite because he’s fake. Josh takes major umbrage with that and it devolves into an actual fight, with security having to keep the two guys apart. In the melee, Josh throws a drink on Swaggy and then jumps on the bar and starts yelling. It’s completely insane.
Never, in the history of the world, has someone being told to calm down, calmed down. #TheChallenge35
9:00 — The next day, the Tribunal chooses to interrogate Melissa, Jenny, Kailah, and Jenna. Kailah wants to go into elimination and says she prefers Kaycee and not Aneesa. Jenna says she doesn’t want to go in. She says she’s a complainer and very emotional right now, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to be there.
Melissa says she’d prefer not to go into elimination yet because she’s worried about going up against Kaycee and Aneesa. In return, she says she wouldn’t go against any of them. The problem with that is as the game gets smaller, those promises are hard to keep.
9:05 — In Jenny’s interrogation, they admit she’s a strong competitor but say that she kind of got handed her elimination win. Jenny kind of rambles on about how much she respects all of them or something. It’s hard to say, she really just blathers on.
9:15 — In the arena, the challenge is one no one has ever seen before, so that makes everyone a bit nervous. After Kaycee and Aneesa take their places, the Tribunal votes Kailah into the elimination to face off with Kaycee just like she wanted. To face off with Aneesa, they vote for Jenna, who is not happy about that.
The challenge is called “Bombs Away.” It involves getting into a dumpster full of 100 “bombs” (heavy rubber balls) and tossing all 100 out of the bin. They then jump out and detonate a smoke bomb. The first person in each match-up to do so wins. Kaycee and Kailah are first.
9:20 — The bombs are quite heavy and Kailah says the more you move, the heavier they feel. Kailah is really slowing down about halfway through, while Kaycee is like a machine. She actually makes pretty quick work of the challenge, so Kailah Casillas is going home.
9:25 — In the second match-up, the women are more evenly matched at first, but Aneesa pulls it out and sends Jenna Compono home. This is Aneesa’s 13th season! Damn, girl!
Next week: Wes and Bananas’ not-so-secret alliance might be in trouble. And the challenge to figure out the Tribunal is a classic where they hang on things over water. Woo!
The Challenge: Total Madness airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.
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