We’re back for episode two of The Challenge Australia and there is yet another hookup. Are the producers putting that Horny Goatweed stuff in the water bottles? Has Lovehoney hidden vibrators in everyone’s beds? Idk man but the horniness is off the charts in this show.
We return to everyone coming back to the house and getting pissed again. I don’t think these people realise what show they are on, because having a hangover before some kind of demonic F45 class that runs for two hours is not the action of a sane person.
Idk if it’s Emily Seebohm in the pool at 11pm doing a casual squad swim, it probably is, but I do know that Eggsy wants attention so he puts on budgie smugglers, gives his own self a wedgie, and runs around in circles.
Meanwhile I’ve worked out why David is here – to do the dirty work. He’s a producers dream, grilling Johnny the boxing guy and Jessica Brody, because apparently they’ve been spending heaps of time together. “Do you guys like, LIKE like each other” he asks. Everyone blushes. They like-like each other.
We know because the next scene is them dry-humping in a bunk bed. Anyone who has ever stayed in a hostel and tried to sleep under two drunk people fucking before just clenched. I can practically hear the crunchy plastic sheets.
In the morning David is more than happy to tell the entire house about this hook up. Everyone, that is, except for Brooke Blurton – we now know why she seems to have dropped off the face of the show, it’s because she actually has. She’s hiding in dark corners with Grant, telling him how she essentially hates people and wants to be alone always.
“I don’t form alliances in my own fucking life,” she says. “I don’t want to do it on this show.” She might be my new favourite for this.
OMG LOL guys Johnny isnt a boxer he’s from Survivor. Anyway Jess is feeling wierd about their hook up, and Johnny’s telling us it might “affect his game”.
Jess then becomes my favourite because she tells Conor (who is this man, where did he come from) “I think he got drunk and affectionate with me and now regrets it, and this is a theme of my life, men want me and like the idea of me and then are off me when they have me as an option.”
WELCOME
TO
DATING
IN
2022
JESSICA
Conor is like “you can sleep in our room if you want” and it’s giving year 9 camp.
Conor then reveals himself to be some kind of TERRIFYING SOCIOPATH MURDERER TYPE, telling us to-camera in his lovely, warm voice that the way he “gets what he wants” out of life is by “genuinely building a connection with someone” so he can “get what he needs out of that relationship going forward”.
This crazy motherfucker over here!!!! Didn’t expect that one. Appreciated it, lovely villain arc. Scared of you but appreciate you, Conor.
Off to the first challenge. We’re back in some oversized ex-aeroplane runway in the middle of nowhere.
The game’s called “Truck It” and honestly who is making these games up, it’s like they got a 16-year-old Christian and a psychopath in a room and were like, come up with something that’s equal parts “gonna kill someone” and “would be played at a church youth group”.
Basically there’s a huge truck that has two sides, and each side has a team on it. They have to cross the moving truck on a rock climbing wall, swap a baton, then launch themselves off the truck and break some vase filled with powder dangling off the edge.
See? Youth group meets murder.
Ciarran/Megan and Audrey/Jack are up first, and Ciarran/Megan clear it easy, but Jack and Audrey fail. Next up it’s Kiki/Ryan and Emily/David. Neither of them make it to the other side in time, because apparently there is also a time limit on this overwhelmingly complicated youth group murder game.
Konrad and Brooke Jowett are next along with Cyrell/Marley. Konrad misses the vase smash thing and Cyrell/Marley dont make the time limit.
It almost seems like the game-masters overreached a bit but then Troy and Jess SMASH it. Probably because Troy did Ninja Warrior and these are all basically thinly veiled Ninja challenges, which seems deeply unfair to everyone else, but who am I to judge.
But then their opponents Grant and Sugar also make it too. Next up is Brittany/Johnny and Brooke/Conor. Brooke loses her peg onto the road really early so she’s just hanging about on the wall while Conor yells stuff like “don’t give up Brooke!” to her while also having zero solutions for her getting across a wall WITHOUT PEGS TO HOLD ON TO.
He then decides to fling himself around in the air while yelling the encouragement. Why? What went through his sociopath-murdery brain?
In the end the flying circus encouragement does shit because neither pair makes it to the end in time. But the end of the challenge, Jack and Audrey are the shittest, Troy and Jessica the best. That means, you guessed it, that Troy and Jess get to pick Jack and Audrey’s competitors for whatever hellscape challenge faces them in the elimination round. Meanwhile David is convinced that Jess/Troy will put him and Emily up for elimination because Emily is an Olympian.
Off to party! This time at what looks like a professional winery cellar. I’m always having a boogie inside chilled manufacturing rooms.
Emily is up on a table dancing like a drunk aunty at a wedding while everyone else deliberates about who will be up for elimination. David, in a bid to shift focus from himself re: elims, is like “you know who sucks? CONOR”. Then he flicks out an oversized fan and honestly I will marry this man.
David’s plan seems to work because when Jack and Audrey go in to chat with Troy/Jess, they’re also like “YOU KNOW WHO SUCKS, CONOR”. Jess, once his bestie, has succumbed to the manipulations of David and does an about-turn, saying to Troy she’s not sure if she can trust Conor anymore. Troy’s like:
Except Jess then goes right to Conor and dobs. She’s all, IDK if you’re my friend and everyone’s saying you’re shit, and Conor’s all, I’m a great and healthy normal person and not a sociopath using people to get what I want, and David’s not doing himself any favours drinking his tea like this while it’s all going down:
In the end, Jess and Troy pick Emily and David for the elimination round, which is a game called “In Your Face”. It involves stacking cement blocks on a thing that “frees the balls” (hehehehehehehehehehehe I’m 10 years old).
Then they have to grab the balls (ohohohohoho) and throw them at this wall of faces, hitting enemy ones, while someone from the other team defends (kinda like soccer but stupider). But also the faces EXPLODE WITH FIRE when they’re hit. Why? Dramatic effect babey!!!!!!
Host Brihony tells us they used to be a brickie labourer and then gives these like, massive cheaty clues to both teams about laying the bricks cleanly. DON’T TELL THEM THAT BRIHONY WE WANTED TO SEE THEM COLLAPSE UNDER A BRICK WALL.
David’s like “thank god I’m with an Olympian” because everyone in this game seems to think that because Emily has been to the Olympics for swimming, I repeat for swimming, she is suddenly good at not just sports, but any form of physical labour. Even SHE is like “I’m not an Olympic brick-thrower mate”.
Meanwhile Audrey has a real skill for this game – she’s played a lot of soccer, so she’s confident she can smack all the balls (ahahaha) as they come (AHAHAHAH SORRY). David, however, is suddenly Ironman and able to carry three heavy bricks at a time.
He and Emily build their stack in record time, letting their balls drop (okay okay I’m done) meaning they can start pegging them at the face wall.
Emily is all business and even Soccer Champ Audrey can’t get a defence in.
Except then shit turns around oh my god. So Jack’s balls are freed (one more okay!! Let me have it!) and suddenly he’s like a champion quarterback hurling those things with wild force. He nails EVERY ENEMY FACE in record time, until there are just a few left. Meanwhile, Audrey’s soccer skills emerge once it’s down to the bottom level of faces where she can reach easily. Emily’s getting jack-shit past her and Audrey has the energy of a bitchy netballer who will elbow you right between the ribs and then knee you as you fall.
Eventually it’s down to ONE FACE EACH. It’s so tense! I’m internally screaming, everyone watching is internally screaming, Brihony’s actually screaming.
I don’t know what team I’m on here! On one hand David’s blatant pot-stirring is just kissy fingers for The Challenge Australia drama but also Audrey deserves this win because she’s basically a stunt double for Bend It Like Beckham. By now all four of them are giving bitchy netballer, eyeing each other smuntily and making sassy comments because it’s gotten down to the wire.
In the end, Emily out-bitchy-netballers everyone else and takes out the last enemy face. Emily and David win, which is truly terrible news for Jess and Troy, who threw them into this fire hoping they’d be burned to death, not rise like phoenixes from the ashes.
Also, totally unrelated but Grant has been wearing his shirts like this and we must stop him.
Over to the “totally computerised” partner algorithm thingy.
Yes you saw that right – Brooke and Konrad have been paired up and like me, maybe you forgot how she broke his heart into pieces just a year ago on Bachie. I cannot wait for next week now. I’m fully prepared for some really uncomfortable side-hugging and a lot of avoiding each other’s eyes.
Some other little The Challenge Australia observies:
- Okay, maybe you need SOME physical strength in these games, did you see how Emily and Jack got super tired in the ball throwing? Time to hit the indoor gym.
- IDK if the best play is to put strong contenders into elimination when you can pick them. Now Emily’s got it out for Jess and Troy, and that is not ideal.
- Consumption Cyrell seems to have recovered from her bout of ye olde wasting disease. Good for her!
- Current fave: David, you joyous little weasel.
- Current villain: Ummmmm obviously Conor the sociopath, god love him.
- Are they even on the show: Who is Sugar? If a tree falls in the woods does Sugar make a sound? I feel like we’ve seen her once and I could be convinced that that was just a figment of my imagination.
Melissa Mason is a freelance writer, you can find her on Insta and TikTok.
