Cutthroat’s final has been off to a rocky start. Going into the race, the Orange Team seemed like the frontrunners, but the Grey Team took an early lead and held it for nearly all of episode 13.
As we head into episode 14, the Orange Team is about to pull ahead, but fans have been quick to scrutinize their progress. Based on episode 13’s edit, the final has had some inconsistencies as the teams complete the checkpoints, and every discrepancy benefits the Orange Team.
Of course, we saw CT suffer from heat stroke, which caused him to get medically assessed. This was handled very awkwardly, but I’ve already covered that. However, TJ and Bananas have outlined the medical assessment on the Death, Taxes, and Bananas podcast (spoiler: they believe the incident was handled correctly).
Eagle-eyed viewers also noticed that the barrel-balancing checkpoint appeared easier for the Orange Team, which was the fourth checkpoint they completed (Grey Team completed it first).
According to Cara Maria, her team was told they would not use hands to help them balance, making the task harder — likely, this contributed to Lete falling and resetting the Grey Team’s clock. Then, when the Orange Team got to the barrel checkpoint, they used their hands to balance, and they never had to reset (at least, we didn’t see it on TV).
However, the rules board doesn’t clearly prohibit using hands. This doesn’t mean the Grey Team wasn’t instructed to take their hands off the barrel; judges almost always add additional rules that aren’t aired on TV. However, this leaves some room for ambiguity.
Lete also discussed her frustrations with the tangram station at the House of Puzzles. In an Instagram Live, she claims she was told she could not solve the puzzle on the ground. Instead, her team was instructed to solve it on the puzzle board, a vertical surface that made it more difficult.
It makes sense that teams would need to complete the tangram on the board. Normally, these types of puzzles are solved on podiums that create a flat surface. Presumably, the vertical board adds a level of complexity that was intentionally part of the game.
However, when Lete was watching episode 13, she saw CT solve the puzzle on the ground, then transport it to the puzzle board. This bothered her because her team timed out at the tangram station, and she felt that viewing the puzzle from a different angle could have helped the Grey Team solve it and save time.
It should be noted: We do see Lete trying to solve the puzzle on the ground in the edited episode. By Lete’s own admission, she was instructed to solve it on the board because she tried to move the heavy pieces on the ground. We don’t know how much of the puzzle the Orange Team completed on the ground, and we can’t definitively say that production didn’t intervene.
What we do see, however, is the rule board, which never explicitly states that the puzzle must not be completed on the ground.
None of these inconsistencies prove that the final is rigged for the Orange Team, and we can’t definitively say it is. However, when there are multiple discrepancies that all favor one team, it builds a narrative, and it’s hard to ignore that one team seems to be penalized by differing rules while the other team has benefited.
