Tonight on “The Challenge: Battle of the Eras,” a staple of “The Challenge” sees the players swinging for their safety in the game. One player attempts to break up a solid alliance in an attempt to save their friend.
Here are the contestants still in contention for the Season 40 championship:
Era 1: Rachel Robinson
Era 2: Aviv Melmed, Cara Maria Sorbello, Derek Chavez, Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio
Era 3: Cory Wharton, Jordan Wiseley, Tori Deal
Era 4: Jenny West, Josh Martinez, Kyland Young, Michele Fitzgerald
Below, read our full recap of tonight’s episode, titled “The Era of the Purge” airing Wednesday, November 6 (8:00 – 9:30 PM ET/PT) on MTV.
After last week’s arena, Michele selected Bananas, Cory, and Josh as targets. With her best friend Olivia out of the game, Cory turns to Cara Maria and Derek as her new closest allies, with Tori as a strong third. She had Cory in her corner, but now that she’s named him as a target, he says if he has an opportunity he’ll have to fire that shot right back.
This week’s Daily Challenge is called “‘Nother Trucker,” where players begin hanging off the side of a massive truck. When the truck gets up to 55mph, players will use precision and power to swing out and hit as many targets as they can. Whoever gets the most will win today’s challenge. Since Cory lost the last challenge, he has a penalty — he’ll start with a one target deficit.
Each player takes their turn in this exciting challenge and below are the results:
Men
Derek – 12
Jordan – 12
Bananas – 11
Kyland – 11
Cory – 8
Josh – 6
Women
Rachel – 9
Cara Maria – 5
Jenny – 5
Michele – 3
Aviv – 2
Tori – 2
Derek and Jordan tie for the with most points, but Derek wins a head-to-head sudden death showdown, ensuring victory. Josh has lost, so he’ll head straight into the arena to battle either Bananas or Cory, and the women’s winner, Rachel, will decide who that is. She’s friend’s with both of them, so it will be a tough decision, but she’ll likely save Bananas. Meanwhile, Tori and Aviv got the worst scores for the women, but Tori hit her targets faster, so Aviv is declared the loser and she’ll suffer a penalty next week.
Rachel reveals that her top three are Bananas, Josh, and Jordan, which isn’t good news for Cory. Although Rachel likes Cory, she considers Josh a real friend of hers outside of the game. She thinks Josh’s best chance to make the final is to go up against Cory, who is similar to him in both size and puzzle ability. If it were up to Derek, he’d throw Bananas in the arena, but it’s really Rachel’s decision.
The Chamber was basically a formality and Cory will indeed be facing off against Josh in the arena. Cory and Josh are friends, but Cory is still salty that Josh sent him into the arena earlier this season when he didn’t have to. Prior to the arena, Cory gets a motivational phone call from his best friend Nelson, who of course hasn’t been back on “The Challenge” since the car accident that led to his leg being amputated.
Tonight’s arena is called “Coming From Behind.” Players will start on either side of a wall, with one on offense and one on defense. The offensive player will sprint towards a bell. If they get to it, they earn a point. If the defensive player is able to catch them and knock them out of bounds, the defensive player earns a point. The first person to get four points wins. Cory absolutely smashes it and beats Josh by a score of 4-0.
As the winner of this elimination, Cory targets Michele, Jenny, and Aviv. As Josh leaves, he makes one final impact by giving Rachel, Bananas, and Tori each five karma points. He’s gives every other player just one, hoping to make the biggest impact possible on this season’s final.