Devin & Cory vs. Bananas & Tony: Who was Wrong?

In a shocking turn of events, Cory & Devin have been kicked off The Challenge: Final Reckoning. This escalated from leftover pasta Tony threw out the window of the van.

Here’s the quick recap: the cast was taken out for dinner and the night starts off with people getting along. On the van ride home, Tony throws Cory’s leftover pasta out the window. Feeling disrespected, Cory is venting to Nelson, Hunter, and Devin. When Tony comes over, Cory isn’t having it. Then, Cory body slams Tony. Both Tony and Cory are sent to a hotel for the night.

Since the episode, a little bit of information has emerged. Firstly, Tony spoke to Us Weekly where he confesses he thought the whole things was a joke. Apparently someone sat on Cory’s pasta (rumor has it that Ashley did it, but even if she did it wasn’t intentional) and Cory was left with a destroyed box of pasta. Tony and Hunter found this hilarious and then Tony threw the pasta out the window because it was trashed. Cory didn’t think was funny and Tony didn’t even realize Cory was so upset by this. To be honest, I believe this story. The situation does seem like it started as a joke and it doesn’t seem like a huge deal to me. Especially because production feeds Cory for free.

Cory went on Instagram Live and spoke about the situation. Because this was live, I don’t have the video but TheAshley has a good and accurate recap up. Cory says he felt disrespected by Tony because he has been giving Tony drinks all night. Apparently, Tony has a drinking limit due to his past issues with alcohol on The Challenge. Cory had to sneak him drinks so he could exceed that limit. Cory then felt disrespected when Tony then threw his pasta out the window.

Why did this escalate into a body slam? No idea. All I can do is try to understand why Cory was mad.

Then, there’s Bananas vs. Devin. I can understand why both of them are upset, not necessarily at each other, but both of them had their game jeopardized due to the Tony and Cory incident. Devin admitted he didn’t see the actual incident by he kept insisting Cory wasn’t being malicious. While Devin didn’t see the incident, a lot of other competitors did and they knew Cory was intentionally body slamming Tony.

The frustrations from this incident boiled over into Bananas and Devin fighting. Immediately after the incident, Bananas runs over and berates Cory and Devin insists it was a slip. This sparks an initial fight between Bananas and Devin that should have ended when Bananas left to calm Tony down.

After Cory and Tony are removed from the house, Bananas is talking and venting with Cara Maria and Natalie. Nelson confronts Bananas and calls Devin down. Bananas doesn’t want to talk to Devin because “without Bananas, Devin wouldn’t exist.” Devin follows Bananas around the house and yells at him, trying to pester Bananas into anger. Bananas eventually retaliates by telling Devin he should have stayed at home to mourn the loss of his father.

Bananas certainly went to an extreme and should not have talked about Devin’s father. Clearly that was a fresh wound for Devin, but it had been a few weeks since his father passed. At some point people are going to return to their regular lives, and appearing on a Challenge is as “regular” as Devin’s life can be. No one, especially someone like Bananas who has both parents alive, should tell Devin how to mourn the loss of his father.

I can see how this would hurt Devin, even though I don’t know why Devin would place any value on Banana’s opinion. I also don’t understand what type of outcome Devin was expecting by chasing Bananas around the house and yelling at him. Both Devin and Bananas reached a point where they were making dumb decisions, but neither displayed behaviors worthy of being kicked off.

Do I think Cory should have been sent home? Yes. Do I think Devin should have been sent home? No, but I can understand why he was. People like Averey and Sarah have been sent home due to their partners before, so this is consistent with Challenge policy. Do I think Bananas is in the right? Absolutely not. Do I think Tony was in the wrong? Not really. I kind of think sitting on pasta is funny.

Thanks to this incident, Final Reckoning can be one episode longer.