10 Eliminations Where the Audience Messed With the Outcome

There’s a new trend on Ride or Dies: The audience is helping teams win in The Zone. Horacio & Olivia have benefitted from this twice, and veterans have seen this cost them the game.

While it’s prominent this season, it’s not exactly new gameplay. During many seasons, spectators have chirped in during eliminations. TJ mentioned that having friends is part of the game, but that’s not the only factor. Sometimes, the audience can’t see everything that’s happening because of the set up of the elimination and camera angles.

Throughout this list, you’ll notice one big theme: Puzzles are a particularly easy way for the audience to help, but they’re not the only competitions. Any way people on the sidelines can assist an ally, they’ll do it, and it can manipulate the outcome.

10. Branched Out- War of the Worlds 2

This infamous elimination could have been great, but it did absolutely nothing right. It’s very hard for the audience to interfere in a climbing match, but after TJ blew the horn, Ninja continued to play the game because Laurel put her branch into a fake hole. But, it was allegedly Theo who found he final hole (the one Laurel and Ninja overlooked) and told Ninja. This allowed her to complete the game with accuracy — after the horn was blown — to win.

9. Triple Threat- Spies, Lies and Allies

Devin won this elimination fair and square, but it was a lot closer than it should have been because Tori (his “ride or die”) told Emanuel how to solve the second puzzle. She shouted out the middle piece, which angered her veteran friends, but did nothing to benefit her game.

8. My Way or the Highway- Battle of the Bloodlines

This one is a little different, because Dario wasn’t competing with Raphy, and he had every right to give him advice. Here’s the problem: Dario celebrated a victory before the horn was blown. He went to go hug (or something) Raphy for winning, but the twins hadn’t won. Because Dario interfered, Mitch had a come-from-behind victory.

7. Chill Out- Rivals 3

While Kellyanne & Jamie worked well together, it was actually Amanda who figured out to put the circular pieces on their sides to give them extra height. The audience saw this and conveyed the information to Kellyanne & Jamie. It then became a race for accuracy and time, and Amanda & Nelson proved they were clumsier than they are smart.

6. Spun Out- Ride or Dies

Jay claimed he knew the puzzle portion of this elimination as soon as he saw it, but the audience was screaming answers to Horacio & Olivia. This gave them the information they needed to win, but they made it impossible for Jay and Michele to communicate. The wheel put a big barrier between the two partner, so it was hard for partners to communicate before the audience polluted the air with their voices.

5. Map It Out- War of the Worlds

While watching this elimination, it’s not explicitly said that teams were throwing out answers, but it becomes quite clear when players ask Turbo where Turkey is. While competitors definitely received answers, the placement of boards literally divided the house. People supporting Zach were on one side, people rooting for Bananas were on the other. Zach & Zahida won, likely because Zahida knows where countries like Bangladesh are, but was anything stopping someone from looking at her board then conveying this info to Bananas & Morgan?

4. Knock Off- All Stars 3

In this elimination, competitors were supposed to push buttons to determine where their opponent was, then use that information to push them off the board. Well, Jonna benefitted from MJ telling her were Beth was. This angered Beth, and she quit the elimination, but her frustrations weren’t completely unfounded.

3. Sliders- The Gauntlet 3

When Katie and Paula faced each other in Sliders, there was one problem: neither girl knew how to solve a slider puzzle. So, Frank fed Katie information because he wanted the weaker veteran to win and Adam told Paula what to do. Both girls became puppets, and apparently Paula is better at taking directions, so she won.

2. Memory Lane- Ride or Dies

Turbo’s return on Ride or Dies was met with a lot of anticipation, especially because he’s never been in an elimination before. So, it was a bit disheartening to watch him lose because the audience fed answers to Horacio & Olivia in a game of Memory — which kind of defeats the purpose of the competition. But, after watching this happen, Jay & Michele shouldn’t have been surprised to see the audience can carry a team to victory.

1. Code Breaker- Total Madness

There wasn’t anything fair about an elimination that started by smashing clay pots like piñatas and randomly find puzzle pieces inside. Dee got a head start simply because she found her pieces first by chance. Then, she had to arrange Challenge seasons in the order they aired. I’m not sure why production didn’t interfere here, because there’s no way an international competitor would know when The Inferno or Cutthroat aired because they couldn’t watch these seasons in their homeland. So, Wes told Dee the order and she won. Was this a merit-based victory? Absolutely not. But there was no way for Dee to win if she didn’t receive information from someone else.