The Case of the Stubborn Medallion: Was Production Involved?

Shake It Off may go down in Challenge history as one of the most suspicious eliminations we’ve ever seen. Both Zach & Amanda and Jozea & Da’Vonne lost to Mercenaries by one medallion. Now, Cory & Devin are in the game.

The second Cory & Devin showed up and TJ explained the rules, things started to look fishy. Cory & Devin had to win two times to come into the game. While that seems to make some sense, the two-victory requirement didn’t apply to Zach & Amanda. What if they won the first heat of Shake It Off? Would Jozea & Da’Vonne have just returned to the game? Would they still have to face Cory & Devin? The possibility of Cory & Devin losing to Zach & Amanda was not explained.

Of course, this is an edited show. This possibility didn’t need to make the final cut of the episode, even though the episode only contained one elimination and there was ample time to include this angle. It would have built suspense and avoided confusion, but it ultimately wasn’t critical to the final cut of the episode.

The real suspicion was the one medallion that wouldn’t come off the rope. Both Zach & Amanda and Jozea & Da’Vonne were able to shake off 8 of the 9 medallions. The one remaining medallion was the same one for both Zach & Amanda and Jozea & Da’Vonne. Even Cara Maria addressed the medallion on Twitter:

Cara may have been taking a humorous approach to the situation, but it is suspicious. Allegedly, some of the medallions on Zach & Amanda’s and Jozea & Da’Vonne’s rope were secured more heavily than others because they were male/female teams. The stubborn medallion was one of the more heavily secured ones. The girls were mandated to compete on one side of the rope. This is why Da’Vonne competed on the same side as Amanda, even though it would be logical to put Jozea (the heavier competitor) on the side of the stubborn medallion after watching Amanda struggle with it. There’s also a rumor that people tried to remove this medallion after elimination and it didn’t budge.

I can’t say anything for certain because I wasn’t there, but it seems awfully suspicious. It seems unlikely that Mercenaries would fly to South Africa just to lose an elimination after production built all the hype around them. All of the evidence I’ve seen would support the idea that production played a role in Cory & Devin’s success. I could be wrong, but with the evidence I have, I think production wanted Cory & Devin to win.