Heading into the third episode of The Challenge: USA spinoff, one group of cast members seemed to be the dominant alliance of the show.
CBS’ version of the popular MTV competition series features stars from the reality TV shows Amazing Race, Big Brother, Love Island, and Survivor bringing their experiences into the game.
Among them are several former show winners, including Big Brother 23’s Xavier Prather and The Amazing Race’s James Wallington.
Despite worthy competitors from all of those shows, a “Survivor Strong” theme was apparent early on, with former winner Tyson Apostol seeming to lead the way.
That said, following the elimination in the third episode, one of the Survivor stars spoke about how the alliance had its share of early issues which she thought might cause problems.
This report will contain spoilers through The Challenge: USA, Episode 3, including the names of daily challenge winners and elimination results.
First Survivor star ousted from The Challenge: USA
This past Wednesday’s episode featured the Hang On Man daily challenge, where competitors participated in a human game of Hangman. One pairing set up by the Algorithm randomizer at the episode’s start was James Wallington with Survivor’s Tasha Fox.
During the daily event, Tasha had to balance herself on a narrow plank with a rod across her shoulders. James had to grab letters to make guesses on a giant puzzle board with a phrase similar to Wheel of Fortune. However, a correct letter resulted in him having to add a 10-pound bag to Tasha’s rod she was holding on the plank.
James abruptly let go of the first bag he attached to Tasha’s rod, and it caused her to lose balance, dropping the weight to the ground. That caused them to DQ, and as the first team to do so, they automatically went into elimination.
At The Arena, the daily challenge winners Kyland Young and Angela Rummans chose to send in the team of Domenick Abbate and Cashay Proudfoot as their opponents. Dom and Cashay won an event featuring tanks of water and large blocks called Plug and Play (below), eliminating James and Tasha from the game.
Before that event, three Love Island players and one Big Brother star went home. Tasha became the first member of the Survivor alliance to get eliminated.
Tasha speaks about early alliance issues she saw
During an exit interview conducted by Rob Has a Podcast’s Rob Cesternino and Brian Cohen (below), Tasha Fox spoke about her exit. She also revealed how she noticed some potential early issues with the Survivor alliance, even though they looked so dominant and impossible to break in the episodes.
Tasha said what she saw happening early on with her alliance almost reminded her of what happened during her Survivor: Cagayan season featuring Sarah Lacina and Kass McQuillen.
“[It was me] trying to hold this thing together. So, it was Sarah and Shan [Smith],” Tasha said during the exit interview.
“Shan was like, ‘I don’t know if I can trust Sarah. She’s over here talking to this person,’ and I said, ‘Oh my gosh. Here we go again.'”
“And then you got Tyson, who clearly has got a good relationship with Angela, and they were doing their thing, and we could see that too,” she said.
Tasha said she felt she was “just trying to hold everybody together,” adding, “We really were Survivor strong, but there were just so many other good relationships going on that nobody was willing to rock that boat so early.”
Interestingly, something not shown much at all was how The Amazing Race crew, consisting of just three cast members from their show, also had a solid connection with the Survivor alliance.
“Tasha and Sarah pulled Cayla [Platt] and I aside night one and said, ‘If you need a home, you have a home with Survivor.’ I was able to build on those relationships, and it also benefited Cayla and Leo because they weren’t as connected socially,” James shared.
Both groups of cast members took a hit with the third episode’s elimination, but even so, one has to think the remaining Survivor stars still hold the competitive edge in The Challenge spinoff.
The Challenge: USA airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on CBS.