Wes Is Still The Same, Perfect Shithead Villain In His Return To 'The Challenge' | Challenge All-Stars Season 3, Episode 1 Recap

What perfect timing for The Challenge All-Stars Season 3 to start. Season 2 was rough in the middle of college hoops season. Mark, please don't do that again. But now? Now is when we need it. Can easily pop it on and enjoy a Wednesday night of nostalgia. I can't stress how awesome the first 2 seasons have been. It keeps delivering a master class in what this show and what nostalgia is supposed to be. Don't get me wrong. I'm going to enjoy the normal Challenge that's on MTV. It's just a different game. The Challenge All-Stars delivers everything that made us fall in love with the show. Yeah, I said, fall in love with the show. 

Obviously I don't think No Quitters is coming back (it's not). So maybe if people keep bothering us we'll try to do a Twitter spaces one night or something. Either way you'll be getting weekly recaps. 

Let's get into it. Oh and let me clarify. They dropped both episodes 1 and 2 last night. We're just calling episode 1 because you watched it back-to-back. You understand. 

Big names back

- They showed us who is in the season in different ways to start the show. Some were alliances, some were former castmates, etc. But you know who is back? Nia, Jordan, Wes, Kailah, Sylvia and Veronica. Some of the biggest names from the days past and here they are. This is why you watch The Challenge. 

- I was dying laughing that they showed last season's champs MJ and Jonna last but only because they played this song over it: 

Good luck not getting jacked up now. 

Jordan and Nia .... Power Couple? 

- As they showed people walking in they did a little montage for each person. However, they made it seem like Jordan and Nia were dating or at least fucking. That was my takeaway. Maybe I'm just a dumb dumb, not ruling that out, but they had a picture of them where it looked like they were on vacation. Remember they started on Real World together before The Challenge. Jordan dominated (more on that in a second) and Nia was a loose cannon. 

Right into the challenge

- This is what I like about the show. They don't waste time with unnecessary bullshit. They also don't drag out the challenges because they know what the people want. It was a standard challenge. Race to a little eye pocket view, try to replicate the puzzle. 

- Naturally Wes wins the men's heat. I'll talk about that here in a second. The women's heat was won by Sylvia. Now we knew the first two seasons this meant that they'd come together and ultimately decide who would be going to the vote for elimination. We also know the last place finisher goes right to elimination. 

The twist

- We now know there are two twists this year. The winners get to sabotage someone in the next daily challenge. Also joining the winners in 'The Authority' are the 2nd and 3rd place finishers from the men's and women's challenge. I love this. It adds drama in terms of the vote between The Authority. It also means each daily challenge matters more. If you finish top-3 you get some immunity. That matters. We're going to see people going at it. 

Wes is the perfect shithead villain for this show

- We are getting old school Wes over the first two episodes. With the power he debates throwing Jordan in. He ends up listening to The Authority and going with the 11th place finisher from each side from the daily challenge. But the whole montage of people like Bananas yelling at him and CT cussing him out while he's running on the treadmill sets up the scene for the year. Wes is going to fuck Wes. He's exactly what this show was missing. The first two seasons were great because we got a lot of 'oh yeah that guy' type feels. Now we're getting guys like Wes who can come in and help make it even more old school. Wes is already talking about power plays and all that. Perfect. Remember every reality show needs a villain. You need someone to piss people off as long as they do it smartly. I know I wouldn't want CT and Bananas against me. 

First elimination

- The Authority (Wes, MJ, Yes, KellyAnne, Sylvia and Veronica) goes with Tyler vs Syrus and Tina vs Cynthia. Now this matters because KellyAnne and MJ are friends with Tyler, so he's pissed. Veronica's biggest ally is Tina and she's pissed. It was 'Crawl Brawl' which was good! Basically had to crawl through sand, help move sand and drag three weights through this course. Syrus and Tina both won fairly easily. 

Onto Episode 2

Shout out Mark's mom

- I've become friends with Mark over the years so shout out his mom. There was a scene early in episode 2 where he calls his mom who is battling stage 4 cancer. She talks about how her scans were good and how she's going to keep fighting. A nice reminder that these reality stars are actual humans. 

2nd Daily Challenge

- Another easy challenge to follow. Hey, MTV, learn. This was basically sitting on swings hanging above water, having to get enough momentum to kick over a ball into the water, drop into the water, swim and then unlock a puzzle and solve it. I say simple until you see Tina - yes that Tina - deliver one of the funniest moments in this show's history. 

I don't know how one starts swinging like this but I was laughing my ass off. So perfect. Goddamnit this what this show is made for. 

- Wes decides to sabotage Jordan, where we learn it's a minute hold during the challenge. Sylvia does the same and sabotages KellyAnne. Wes decided to sabotage Jordan because as he says, Jordan dominated him for a decade. Jordan ended up as like a top-6 male contestant on the MTV version of the show. He kicked Wes's ass. He didn't want to throw him in right away to really stir it up, but he decided to sabotage him. It didn't matter. 

- Winners for this challenge were Yes and Kendal. Authority was made up of those two, Jordan, Brad, Kailah and Jonna. Shout out Kendal. 

Rivalry brewing

-While Wes vs Jordan was a thing we started to see Wes vs Yes. You can see Wes getting pissed that Yes does well. He even calls out Yes for being kind of an asshole and everyone being fooled by Yes' nice guy personality. On the flip side, Yes is just a straight forward player. He doesn't really back stab or scheme. That's basically how Wes lives life. This has the potential to blow up into something more. 

2nd Elimination

- Tina (again, see the swing video) and Laterrian are the two auto losers into Elimination. This time The Authority switched it all up and decided to each be allowed to save one person. Instead they vote in Mark, which is shocking. They vote in Mark because Brad saves his friend Wes. That's basically how we got to here. Then there's the women's side where Tina didn't want to go against her friend Melinda. Guess what? Melinda got voted in. 

- Melinda ended up bailing on the elimination because of her ankle. They showed it swelling before the challenge and then her talking about how it hurt on a fall during the challenge. She ends up saying she can't go and TJ actually understands. No no quitters here. 

- Mark vs Laterrian is a battle man. It was reverse tug of war where Mark just used his strength. He's the biggest guy in the house and this is where it paid off. 

Stars

- There's one more twist we don't know yet. TJ mentions that after you win an elimination, you get a star on your shirt and that carries weight. We don't know what sort of power that carries. But Tina now has 3. Mark and Syrus each have two. 

The Favorites

-If you asked me to name the top-3 from each side I'd probably go Jordan, Mark and Nehemiah and then Jonna, Veronica and Kendal