The Challenge: USA 2, Episode 4 picked up with Johnny Bananas at The Arena getting to decide whether he’d remain loyal to the Red Team or defect.
Bananas said that rule was in the game for a reason, and it was time to shake things up. He officially defected to Blue Team to align with many of the players trying to oust him from the game.
That put him with his ally Tori Deal and MTV castmate Faysal “Fessy” Shafaat and newer players like Alyssa Snider, Alyssa Lopez, Chris Underwood, and Cassidy Clark.
He took Cory Wharton’s spot, sending him to the Red Team. Cory joined Josh Martinez, Dusty Harris, Chanelle Howell, Michele Fitzgerald, and Tiffany Mitchell.
Early in the episode, Desi Williams talked about struggling with issues involving the self-limiting beliefs that always haunt her during her career and personal life.
At The Challenge house, Josh had a blowup around his castmates. He said everyone stays quiet and acts like someone died in the house when it comes to having to vote. He said he was “fired up” and going after several people there, including Desi and Luis Colon.
Sideswiped daily challenge brought some sneaky gameplay
In Sideswiped, players were on harnesses to swing between two parallel semi-trucks as they drove down a road. The objective was to grab colored discs off the side of one truck and swing over to place them on the side of the other truck.
Each heat had two teams competing, with two players from each team going at once. For a team that had fewer players, some would play in a second heat. The team with the most points at the end of the event won, becoming safe from elimination and getting to vote in a male and female competitor.
Host TJ Lavin said it was crucial to win today since there would be a double elimination at The Arena later.
During the event, Amanda Garcia made some mistakes for Green Team when she dropped several discs. Other Green Team players made up for Amanda’s errors. It ended up that Red Team and Green Team were both doing well, so Blue Team devised a plan.
The Blue Team made a deal with Red Team to keep everyone safe. Bananas and Tori intentionally dropped their discs and played defense against Green Team’s Michaela Bradshaw and Monte Taylor to prevent them from scoring. That helped the Red Team claim the win.
Josh blew up the nomination meeting for Red Team
When Red Team had to decide on which players to put into The Arena for elimination, Josh was able to stir things up during the meeting. Several Secret Garden alliance members were still lobbying to get MTV vets thrown in, but Josh defended his friend Amanda and wouldn’t allow her name to be said.
During the nomination meeting, Josh got loud and dramatic as he confronted and yelled at teammates about who they voted for. He suggested that if a stalemate happened, one of them would probably go into elimination.
His blow-up during the meeting caused a few people to backtrack on who they initially voted for. Michele and Tiffany changed their votes from what they’d first said. The most votes went to Green Team’s Desi and Luis Colon.
When Desi learned she would be in the elimination, she told several other people there she wanted to go against Amanda because she felt that would be her easiest opponent.
Who went home from Episode 4’s double elimination?
At The Arena, TJ revealed the vote,s and a large majority of them went to Chris for the men and Amanda for the women. That’s who competed against Luis and Desi in the elimination event.
TJ informed them they were playing Evil Eye, a variation of Pole Wrestle. The two players competed inside a rope ring in The Arena. The Evil Eye, a disc with grip areas to hold onto, hung in the middle.
The object was grabbing that disc and getting it outside the ring to win. However, the other player would try to wrestle it away so they could win.
Chris and Luis went first, and both men battled it out. However, Chris overpowered Luis, pulled the disc away, and placed it outside the ring to win. Chris chose to stay loyal to Blue Team and rejoined his squad in the stands.
The women went next, with Desi having what looked to be a size and strength advantage. However, Amanda showed how scrappy a competitor she is by holding onto the disc and making it even tougher for Desi. Even Tori and Wes admitted in confessionals they were impressed by Amanda.
Desi finally yanked the disc away from her smaller opponent and got it outside the ring for the win. TJ praised Amanda as “great” as everyone said farewell. Desi made the power move to swap places with Alyssa S. on the Blue Team, making that team even stronger.
The Challenge: USA 2 airs Thursdays at 10/9c and Sundays at 9/8c on CBS.