On the latest episode of MTV’s The Challenge: Total Madness, it’s a girls’ elimination week, which means it’s kind of anybody’s game because none of the women have huge targets on their backs so far.
The episode is titled “Karma Chameleon” and the description teases, “Bear seeks to prove that no one can extinguish the fire that he has burning for Kailah; Ashley and Mattie get into a heated argument; the players compete in the freezing Cold War challenge, which proves too chilling for one person.”
Sounds exciting. Follow along here with our live recap but be warned of elimination spoilers. All times Eastern.
8:05 — After reliving Chris “CT” Tamburello’s surprising elimination, the show jumps back in with everyone at the bunker reeling from the fact that Jay Starrett beat CT in an elimination battle. Stephen Bear is particularly gleeful, cackling about it all the way home. Kyle Christie welcomes Jay to the “we beat CT club,” which now has two members. Also, Mattie Breaux and Ashley Mitchell have formed an unlikely and uneasy alliance. Honestly, it’d be fun to watch them pair up.
8:08 — Meanwhile, Bear and Kailah Casillas are getting all flirty-flirty but have so far stayed platonic. Aneesa Ferreira points out that Kailah has a boyfriend at home, and as Kailah leaves, Bear tells her not to come in when he’s alone and say nice things to him. She calls him a psycho, so he decides to spray a bunch of the ladies with a fire extinguisher. Yes, that will have people thinking you’re not an unstable psycho. Did he think that would impress her? What is he, 6 years old? But then in the aftermath, Ashley spits on him. Gross! Is everyone here a child?! Actually, that’s an insult to children. My 7-year-old would not have done either of those things.
8:11 — Mattie has a huge problem with Ashley spitting on Bear, which — what she did was gross, but what he did was also completely inappropriate and dangerous, so maybe don’t take sides? But when Ashley says she had toxic chemicals in her mouth, Mattie says, “You’ve had worse, b*tch,” and then Ashley makes a snide remark about Mattie’s recent arrest and then calls her a “d*ck-sucker” and… guess that’s the end of that alliance.
Weigh-in here: Bad boy or fireman? #TheChallenge35
Then Nany Gonzalez starts laying into Mattie about how she wasn’t even in the room that Bear sprayed, which is correct. Mattie might feel very differently if she had been sprayed with fire extinguisher material. What it boils down to is that Bear is the one who started this and behaved inappropriately and is a total child, but the women fighting like this has completely taken away any focus on what Bear did. Ughhhh.
8:20 — Challenge time. This week, the contestants are taken to an abandoned factory for “Cold War,” which puts them into five teams of five, each team divided into three divers and two breakers. The divers will dive into an ice-cold water pit to retrieve puzzle pieces. Then the divers will solve the puzzle as fast as they can. Meanwhile, two breakers from another team will be breaking ice chunks and sending them down a chute into the water. The team with the fastest time wins and all five members form the Tribunal. The water is between 51 and 59 degrees at different times depending on the ice.
TJ coming in *hot* with some honesty. #TheChallenge35
The teams are:
Team 1: Rogan O’Connor, Josh Martinez, and Faysal “Fessy” Shafaat are the divers, Nany and Ashley are the ice breakers.
Team 2: Kailah, Dee Nguyen, and Nelson Thomas are the divers, Jordan Wiseley and Chris “Swaggy C” Williams are the ice breakers. But Team 2 ends up having to be told to stop because they’re struggling so hard with the cold and they’ve been in the water for so long. An ambulance ends up being called for Nelson.
Thanks for the visual. 😲 #TheChallenge35
Team 3: Tori Deal, Wes Bergmann, and Jay are the divers, Melissa Reeves and Mattie are the ice breakers. Interestingly, Melissa and Mattie decide not to break any ice so as not to make the water colder for their team, which is going to dive next.
Team 4: Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio, Aneesa, and Bear are the divers, Kaycee Clark and Tula “Big T” Fazakerley are the ice breakers. Bananas has a good strategy of using the warmest period (when they’re first in there) to get the pieces unhooked from the bottom and then worry about lifting them onto the deck after they’re all unhooked. It seems to work well for them.
Team 5: Bayleigh Dayton, Cory Wharton, and Kyle are the divers, Jenna Compono and Jenny West are the ice breakers. But Team 5 ends up quitting.
The winning team ends up being Team 4, though no one’s time is revealed. Bear is kind of an obnoxious winner. Surprise, surprise.
8:45 — Back at the bunker, Kyle is worried about how sneakily Ashley is at becoming friends with whoever can help her get to the end, so he advises Mattie to lead the charge to get Ashley voted into elimination. At the vote, Mattie does just that and Ashley gets voted in unanimously, even by people who are supposedly her friends, like Tori and Dee.
Captions this. 👇 #TheChallenge35
8:55 — Everybody goes into town for a night out and Bananas and Big T start scheming. He sends her to go around to talk to the Holy Trinity alliance of Jenna, Kailah, and Nany about how she’ll protect them from being interrogated and then they’ll each owe her one. Smart.
My BFF hyping me up to take that fifth shot. 🍻 #TheChallenge35
9:00 — Back at the bunker, Bear tells Wes and Rogan that he’s falling in love with Kailah. He’s being crazy persistent with Kailah, which she actually respects. Hmmm. As long as it doesn’t cross the line from “persistent” to “needs a restraining order.”
9:10 — The Tribunal decides to interrogate Dee, Tori, and Mattie. Everybody is pretty chill about it, though things get a little prickly between Tori and the Tribunal because she doesn’t want to go into the arena if it’s a puzzle. Dee really wants to go in because she feels like she missed her shot the last time, but they also grill her about saying their names at any point. Afterward, both Dee and Tori say the Tribunal is drunk with power.
That tribunal has everybody SHOOK. #TheChallenge35
9:18 — The Tribunal votes Dee into the arena to face off with Ashley. The elimination battle is called “Code Breaker” and it involves spinning a ring on a wheel, then they have to find the corresponding tile hidden in a pot. They will use a giant die as a step ladder. When they break the pot, if it matches, they bring it back to their board. They continue it for each of five rings. When they have all five tiles, they flip them over and they’ll have to put the seasons of The Challenge that are written on the back of the tiles in chronological order.
9:20 — Ashley gets off to a strong start, she’s certainly calmer than Dee. But Dee quickly takes a lead finding tiles, which is something that has a bit of luck involved because the tile you have to find is identified by spinning a wheel and who knows if those tiles are closer to you or not?
CHAMP vs CHAMP LET’S GO! #TheChallenge35
It takes Ashley a long time to find her pieces. By the time Dee finds her fifth piece, Ashley only has two. But Dee might struggle with arranging them in order. However, there are only five options, so it can’t possibly take that long. But then! Wes starts helping Dee. Whoa. That feels like cheating. I feel like the observers should not be allowed to help the elimination battle contestants. That should be a rule.
9:28 — Lo and behold, several competitors don’t like Wes helping Dee, so they try to make noise and stop him from talking. But he helped Dee enough that she gets the rest by guessing and she wins. Ashley Mitchell is going home. She cries on her way out and tells everyone she loves them, then advises Bananas to get Wes’ “b*tch *ss” out.
Next week: The guys’ elimination battle looks like something out of American Gladiators. And it looks like Kailah and Bear make out!
The Challenge: Total Madness airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.
READ NEXT: MTV ‘The Challenge’ Season 35 Spoilers: Who Are the Predicted Winners?