Has Team USA Taken Over The Game?

On episode 5 of The Challenge: World Championship we saw Danny force a tie during the voting ceremony. Many of the Challenge legends thought they had a perfect plan — vote in two Australian teams to guarantee one goes into The Arena — but at the last moment, Danny’s burn vote put everyone in jeopardy.

Clearly, the global MVPs aren’t going to blindly follow their legend partners, but they also have fewer people. It seems like Danny and Sarah are working together, and Justine is on board but continuing to follow Bananas. They also have the Australian MVPs on their side, which add to the numbers, but it’s still a minority.

This small group has made waves. Regardless of Darrell & Kiki’s vote, the legends are probably scared because they realize the game won’t be as straightforward as they expected. But are they really screwed?

While this won’t end the entire alliance, these types of moves are likely to have a few casualties. The legends have two choices. In one scenario, they make compromises with the MVPs that preserve their core alliance but shed some of the less central players (legends like Amber, Jodi, or KellyAnne come to mind). Or, they could throw MVPs into eliminations and lose some key members of their alliance. For example, they’d lose Tori if they took out Danny.

Undoubtedly, this makes the season less predictable to watch, which is a good thing. And I have to say, the Survivor players seem to have a mentality that fits this competition. Only one team can win, so a huge alliance isn’t going to last very long. It’s better to have a small alliance that makes power moves that get its members closer to the final.

But, it’s fairly safe to say this is just the start of the drama, and power dynamics will shift as different people win. The players that want to skate to the end may not be able to, but early targets like KellyAnne and Jodi may find some comfort as the targets are shifted toward bigger alliances.