As The Challenge: USA, Episode 7 opened, host TJ Lavin was at The Algorithm board to reveal new teams. Some teams included Enzo Palumbo with Angela Rummans, Danny McCray with Justine Ndiba, David Alexander with Cashay Proudfoot, and Kyland Young with Kyra Green.
Other teams revealed were Leo Temory with Alyssa Lopez, Domenick Abbate with Cayla Platt, Ben Driebergen with Desi Williams, and Tyson Apostol with Sarah Lacina. That made for an interesting pairing after what happened several episodes ago where Tyson sent Sarah and Leo into elimination.
Back at the house, Kyland spoke with Tyson and Angela about their game plan. In a confessional, Kyland said he knew they were targets in the game. Dom said in a confessional that he’s looking for ways to “break up this three-headed monster.”
Sarah and Tyson Apostol spoke about working together and moving forward. They shook hands, and Sarah said she wouldn’t go after him. She called it a “win-win” in her confessional because she had a strong partner this week. She also said, “I will never trust Tyson” in her confessional.
Alyssa wasn’t too enthused to have Leo as her partner. Later, they showed him making a call to his girlfriend Alia, who said she was working hard back home to keep his business running.
Leo’s girlfriend expressed her frustrations on a video call that he wasn’t there to do certain things he knew how to do with the business. Leo told her he would leave the show immediately to come home and fix things.
He packed up his stuff and was ready to leave at night. Several cast members talked to him, including his partner Alyssa. She was concerned that she might get eliminated from the game if he left. She asked him to consider waiting until tomorrow morning.
Competitors in Bumper Cars daily challenge
The competitors all showed up at the next daily challenge, including Leo. TJ introduced Wreck-Reational Driving, featuring bumper cars with four balls attached to the sides.
Competitors had to drive cars around a dirt course and try to hit opponents’ cars to take off the balls. If a car lost all four of its balls or wrecked at any point, that team was out of the game.
In a twist, the teammate driving the car wore a blindfold while their partner was in the passenger seat, giving them instructions on what to do.
The first team to go out of the game automatically went into elimination. The winners would become safe from elimination and get to send in another team to elimination at The Arena.
Danny joked that he’s a great driver back home and his wife KiKi is the opposite, a “horrible driver.” Dom said he was happy to have Cayla as his teammate because she was clear and concise in her instructions.
In one part of the event, Leo crashed into a side area’s large dirt bank and was having trouble backing the car up. TJ Lavin laughed as he saw them struggling to back up. Another car slammed into them, and that meant Leo and Alyssa wrecked. That put them into elimination automatically as the worst team.
Angela and Enzo’s car also wrecked, as did Kyra and Kyland Young, and then Tyson and Sarah. In a confessional, Sarah said maybe this meant she could go into elimination with Tyson and get the money she needed to run the final.
The winning team was Dom and Cayla, who kept hitting Justine and Danny to take out all their orange balls.
Who went home from The Arena elimination?
All sorts of conversations began happening ahead of the big decision. Angela tried to talk to Cayla and Dom separately to ensure her safety going forward. However, Dom realized she had sent him in before and wouldn’t mind taking a shot at her.
Tyson also mentioned in a confessional interview that he wouldn’t put it past Sarah to go behind his back and ask for them to get sent into elimination so she could win money to qualify for the final. Dom and Cayla also met with Kyland about a possible deal going forward.
At The Arena, Dom and Cayla announced they chose Kyland and Kyra Green to go into elimination. Cayla said in her confessional that Kyland had one-on-one conversations with almost everyone before each elimination except her. Dom admitted in his confessional he didn’t want to go against Kyland in a final, so this was a shot at getting rid of him.
The elimination event was Ball and Chain, featuring a giant wall in the middle of The Arena. At the top of the wall were trivia questions. One team member had to hoist the other up to reveal a question at the top of the wall.
Each question’s answer was a specific number. The numbers were on 20-pound medicine balls chained to another structure on the ground. The competitors had to get the medicine ball with the correct number answer, then place it on the wall above the question.
Both women had trouble lifting the heavy medicine balls to the top of the wall. Their teammates figured out ways to give them a solid base to stand on to hoist the numbered balls up and place them above the questions.
Both teams got all their balls on top of the wall but had an answer incorrect when they asked for a check. Each team called out “check” several times but was still wrong. After switching up an answer they weren’t sure of, Leo and Alyssa ultimately got things right to win it.
That sent Kyra and Kyland home. Kyra was proud of herself for what she did on the show. Kyland said it’s his favorite show and wants to return to become a Challenge champion. Leo and Alyssa received $13,000 to split from their opponents. That qualified Leo to run in the final.
TJ was ready to start up The Algorithm but told everyone he was tired of that. TJ said they would switch things up a bit as the episode closed.
The Challenge: USA airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on CBS.