The Pressure Sandwich challenge certainly lived up to its name. It added a lot of pressure to teams who were struggling in the competition, and no team endured more emotional strain than Shane & Da’Vonne.
In episode 10, we saw the two yelling during the challenge — well, we mostly saw Shane yelling and Da’Vonne being yelled at. Apparently, the episode did Shane a lot of favors. According to other cast members, particularly Sam, Shane’s outbursts were much worse than we saw on screen.
During the challenge, we do see Shane yelling, and after the challenge we see that Da’Vonne is visibly shaken. We also see a confessional from Adam saying that Shane should be supporting his partner, but the edited episode doesn’t show Shane saying anything derogatory. He yelled, but they were mostly challenge-realted commands.
This narrative was enhanced by Shane’s story line at the club. He claimed he never yelled at Da’Vonne — then we immediately saw a clip of Shane in the challenge raising his voice. In this flashback he said, “Push against me, push tight! Stop, stop, stop! One second! Push against me — go slow . Goddangit.” While he definitely did yell, there wasn’t anything that wasn’t applicable to the challenge. The only exception was the “goddangit,” but this even showed Shane respecting Da’Vonne’s wish not to swear.
Later in the episode, we saw Shane & Da’Vonne discuss their communication styles and seemingly come up with plan moving forward. Still, Sam insists the events weren’t as rosy as the show depicted.
She went on live with Nicole and Adam to talk about the episode (note, this is a hard watch because Nicole just talks over Sam the whole time), and she said that Shane’s language was much more vulgar than we saw on TV. Adam somewhat defended Shane, saying that the episode showed enough of his outburst, but Sam disagreed. She said that we saw Frank shoving her up a hill on Battle of the Seasons, so there’s no reason to protect Shane.
And if we’re being fair, this isn’t the first time the show has given Shane a favorable edit this season.
While Sam didn’t get into Shane’s specific language, she did talk about how upset Da’Vonne was, and we can see this during the episode when Shane walks off set and other cast members compliment Da’Vonne’s composure. This indicates that Sam is telling the truth, and Shane’s language was more severe than we saw on TV.
Meanwhile, Sam has said this challenge was a highlight for her. She was very proud of the win, but most of her energy after the episode was dedicated to showing her disapproval of Shane.
Stop Being Polite 