The Challenge: Ride or Dies recap: The Nelson vs. Fessy rematch finally happens
Ever since Fessy resorted to dirty tactics to eliminate his own friend Nelson on a previous season of The Challenge, we've all been waiting impatiently to see Nelson get some revenge. He didn't take the opportunity earlier this season on Ride or Dies to throw Fessy into elimination, but Nelson was ultimately forced into a rematch with his so-called BFF in this week's episode. How did that end up for him? Unfortunately, not great! Let's recap.
This week begins with Nelson missing his ride or die Nurys now that she's gone — and so is Jordan, since she was his "cuddle buddy." But Amber's happy to be back with her man Chauncey. Meanwhile Nelson video calls his actual BFF Cory Wharton who's not on this season, and Cory can't even hide his disgust over finding out Nelson's been "rocking with Fessy" in this game after all he's done to him in the past.
Fessy once again shows his true colors by asking Moriah if she's going to help him win this next challenge since it's a guy's elimination — we sure didn't see him helping her team win during the last women's elimination week! Good on Moriah for pointing out that hypocrisy, but he just gaslights her by blaming her for not asking him to do that. As if he would have lost on purpose if she'd just asked him to. Please. Fessy's so hypocritical and delusional. It's getting exhausting watching him pull this week in and week out.
Then Jordan video calls his friend who's been taking over leadership of their humanitarian efforts in Ukraine while he's filming this season. Shout out to the producers who put in that call to action onscreen — "Help provide meals for people in Ukraine through World Central Kitchen and donate at WCK.com" — during this scene. Jordan's humanitarian work this year has been incredibly inspiring and it's amazing to see it getting such a spotlight on the show.
But back to the game! In this week's challenge, players hang from a helicopter and attempt to drop into targets of different point denominations in the water below before swimming to the finish dock. In the first team's heat, of course Nelson grabs the bar backwards, resulting in him spinning around comically. And they put Olivia and Aneesa on the floating docks since they have two extra players, meaning they don't have to swim as far. Every player hits the right targets, but a few of them struggle with swimming (Aneesa and Kaycee decide floating on their back is somehow the right strategy to finish faster?) and Fessy of all people is the only one to help Olivia while Tori and Kaycee bring up the rear.
MTV
In the second team's heat, they decide to rename their team the Underdogs, and they all hit the right targets too so it becomes a race to see who finishes the swim faster. Jordan decides to go backwards to literally push the women on his team to swim faster, but did it help? TJ reveals just under two seconds separate the two teams' times ... with the Underdogs finally pulling out their first win. Teamwork really made the dream work, and as Nelson oh so eloquently states, their team now must suffer the "consequesses" of not helping their slower swimmers.
Nelson doesn't want to go against Fessy again in an elimination after what happened last time, while Fessy is already thinking how bad he'll feel sending Nelson home again, because his ego really is that big. Meanwhile Bananas makes a deal with Chauncey knowing how tight Nelson and Fessy are, so if he and Chauncey end up in The Draw together, they'll save each other. Devin makes it clear that what's best for Team Underdogs is keeping Chauncey in the game, so he devises three different gameplans to make sure that's the case.
During the interrogations, Bananas makes a case for Fessy to be the main vote over him, but the other three guys don't give up any names. Jordan wants to see Fessy go into an elimination that's not Hall Brawl or Pole Wrestle, because he knows that Fessy's still entirely untested in eliminations that aren't unfairly weighted towards him winning just due to his size, and both he and Devin agree that a Fessy vs. Nelson elimination is the best thing for their team. Now they just need to make sure they can make that happen.
Meanwhile Fessy tries to make a truce with Jordan until the final while also claiming he's not the kind of player who makes deals to keep himself safe. Again, he is delusional. And I love how he has no idea just how much Jordan and Devin want to see him go into elimination. But then Tori tries to use her and Jordan's history as a bargaining chip to guilt Jordan into helping her game by not targeting Fessy, and things just get super messy. Tori made a huge mistake in trying to leverage her relationship with Jordan for a game move, because he's always prided himself on keeping real life separate from the game.
So at the elimination, Jordan kicks off the voting by saying that although he's always played a straight up game, "someone" tried to use their real life relationship with him as a "hostage" to sway his vote, and he does not "negotiate with terrorists." So he votes for Fessy and Tori starts shouting at him for blaming her for the way he's voting. Then Amber votes for Nelson, Devin votes for Fessy, Nany votes Nelson, and Horacio votes Fessy, and since Moriah refuses to make it a tie not knowing how that could hurt her own team, she burns her vote on Chauncey which shocks everyone — but mostly Fessy, since her burn vote ensures he's now going into elimination.
Now that Fessy's the main vote, he once again gaslights Moriah by making it sound like he's been the best ride or die for her and she owes him everything only to throw him to the wolves — but we've all seen the way Fessy's acted towards Moriah since the game changed into teams! Ugh. Again, I'm exhausted by watching this guy's antics. In The Draw, Bananas pulls a blank dagger first and then Chauncey picks the safe dagger, so he saves Bananas, and we've officially got our Fessy vs. Nelson rematch!
MTV
This elimination requires them to untangle a bunch of chains and free nine spears from inside a cube, so there's some strategy and strength required. It's not just a physical brawl, which evens the playing field. Both guys get to work on untangling the chains but Fessy gets to the spear pulling first ... and doesn't even make a dent in the wall. He freezes and can't figure out the right strategy to getting the spear through the drywall. At this point I get a little excited thinking Nelson's going to come up from behind, but Fessy gets a slight lead in getting the first three spears out. And then halfway through, Nelson's arms start to get exhausted and he falls even further behind.
Eventually Fessy gets his final spear out and wins, sending Nelson home (and Nurys too, for good, since she was waiting just offscreen to find out her fate). But Nelson, ever the good sport, tells Fessy he's proud of him and then apologizes to his fans, friends, and family for losing. What a class act! It's even more tragic since Nelson had his chance earlier this season to send Fessy into an elimination, and could have potentially avoided going against him now. But will Nelson ever learn his lesson to put his own game first over Fessy's? Definitely not.
The Challenge: Ride or Dies airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.
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