Spies, Lies & Allies Recap: 500

500 episodes of The Challenge, wow. Nelson celebrated by having a classic Nelly T meltdown, blowing up at Kyle for… playing the game? The Emerald Cell won, yet again, in a throwback daily. Ruby stayed true to form and were embarrassingly bad.

Question 1: What’s your take on the whole Kyle/Nelson situation? Is Kyle a snake or is he just playing the game?

TD: From a viewer’s perspective, I agree 100% with Ashley: it’s all in the game, and if you don’t like it don’t come on the show. But, Nelson did mention that he would’ve liked a heads up, and that makes me wonder if there isn’t some sort of handshake agreement among cast members on that sort of thing. At least within certain circles, anyway. Feel like this has come up before.

Blaine: From what I gather, Kyle is always a snake, admits it, and laughs about it. Why anyone would trust him at this point seems to be on that person. You know, the whole “fool me once” saying.

Adam: It’s a game. What did Nelson expect? Kyle didn’t throw him into elimination. Cory and Nelson have seemed annoyed by Kyle’s joking and easy going nature for weeks, and you have to wonder if it doesn’t rub them the wrong way that he can laugh his way to better game results than them.

Question 2: Loved the daily. It was, as T.J. said, a hard-hitting, throwback challenge. However, was that not the worst tackling you have ever seen?

TD: I mean, that was bad. Cory mentioned he flashbacked to his days under the Friday night lights, but he obviously has not explained the concept of “low man wins” to his fellow Challenge castmates. Square up and drive those legs, people!

Blaine: I’ll admit: I found this week’s episode the worst in three seasons. I was sort of bored by it. The unfair advantages of the numbers for each cell and then the drama between Emy and Bettina, two competitors I can nothing for, nearly caused me to drift off.

Adam: I am kind of with Blaine here. There were a few good collisions, but the unbalanced teams made it a little anticlimactic, and I hated seeing Emerald (Josh) get to act smug because they beat less people. I’ll differ with Blaine on enjoying the drama. Amanda got to flex a bit of her brand of social deviltry (Devin will not negotiate with terrorists/devils, proceeds to do exactly what Amanda wants), and CT openly talked game, which is a rarity. CT has been trimming the fat in a team based Challenge since before some of these folks could tie their own shoes.

Question 3: After elimination, Josh said that Emerald may have fucked up by letting Emy into the Lair, ultimately giving her the right to move to Sapphire. Will Sapphire (CT/Kyle/Ashley/Emy) finally break Emerald’s hold on the dailies?

TD: It certainly is a stacked squad now, at least physically. Losing Bettina is probably for the better, but losing Amanda could hurt politically. You just never know how she’s gonna react (judging from the tease, like we all expect her to). There’s also the matter of Emerald having six players, who actually like each other and work together. They may not be our favorites, but they’re killing the game.

Blaine: If they can get away from daily challenges that don’t give an unfair advantage to the cell who has the most numbers, I think the Sapphire group could get it done. You have to think Nelson and Cory work well together, so why wouldn’t they have a shot at some point?

Adam: Sapphire is pound for pound the best cell, but I doubt that will matter much; the show is not historically great at balancing competition for uneven teams. The daily results are entirely in the hands of the game creators, which is a bummer, but I guess it’s fun to see the cast politically try and make up for it.