This season of The Challenge was supposed to be an easy clean sweep for Team U.S. But The Challenge: War of the Worlds 2 has seen champion after champion get blindsided and sent home early, by their own team no less. It’s making for some pretty great TV, as the predictability has been thrown out the window. Team U.S. being stacked with champs and vets who come to beast the competition season after season has turned out to not matter at all now that they keep turning on their own. That’s pretty lucky for Team U.K.!
First Wes was thrown into the elimination Proving Ground by Laurel, where he lost to Bear. Then Laurel was burned by her own betrayal, getting sent in by her own teammates next and losing to Ninja when her cockiness resulted in a fatal mistake in the elimination. And continuing the trend of sneaky players getting hurt by their own big moves, Johnny “Bananas” was sent in by Paulie last week, where he lost the elimination against Theo because of his own stupid mistake (turns out Roman numerals aren’t easy for everyone!).
Now, EW has your exclusive first look at this week’s episode that shows yet another strong Team U.S. alliance crumbling early in the game. We’ve heard for so long that the Big Brother alliance is more than just a Challenge team-up. Josh has repeatedly said that he and Paulie are real friends outside of this game. But Josh throwing his hat in with Laurel to send Wes into elimination hurt Paulie’s overall game, since Paulie was one of the players this season who had a secret alliance with Wes. The betrayal ran even deeper last week, when Paulie shook Bananas’ hand and promised that if he was nominated as the speaker for Team U.S., not only would he not throw Bananas into the elimination, he also promised that he wouldn’t throw in anyone from Team U.S. It was time to start playing as a team again, and not an individual game systematically taking out their strongest players when there were still challenges to win against Team U.K.
But Paulie obviously went back on his word (which was not the first time he’s done that!) when he threw Bananas in. And Josh is, of course, emotional about it. In EW’s exclusive sneak peek at this week’s episode, “One Nation Under Leroy,” Josh confronts Paulie and their heated words threaten to turn into a physical fight. And as all Challenge fans know, when things get physical, players get sent home. Will Paulie and Josh’s alliance survive this, or will someone get sent home early?
The Challenge: War of the Worlds 2 airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on MTV.
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Episode Recaps
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