Takin' on 'The Challenge': So Flip Floppy

Season 39 of The Alabama Take's favorite thing -- next to college football -- continues with Battle For a New Champion! This season is all about finding a first-time Challenge champ. Every week, devotees to The Challenge answer questions. Spoiler warning ahead!

A rather uneventful daily challenge led to a victory by the randomly selected team of Horacio, Kyland, and Big T, who were then tasked with selecting one guy for elimination. They ultimately chose Emmanuel, with the house voting for Corey to join him in elimination. During deliberation, Corey admitted he was acting as a double agent of sorts, saying in a confessional that he is only truly aligned with Michelle and Jay. Outside of that, Callum and Michelle had a date night, while Big T and Melissa tried to recruit new blood, in the form of Ed, to their alliance. At elimination, Devin was the champ T.J. called on, and he was the first champ to pull the chaos pole (which was just a fucking mace, haha), meaning he was able to chose any guy to face, except for winners Kyland and Horacio. Devin tried to elicit a name from the house, but they were oddly quiet. In a surprise move, he called out Callum, much to Michelle's dismay. In the end, Devin sent Callum home and stole $10k from the final pot.

Question 1: On a scale of 1-10, where would you rank Corey's deliberation confession on the "someone makes a really dumb move that they think is just oh so smart" scale?

TD: In the words of Billy Bob from Varsity Blues: "10! A Fucking 10!" I mean, he was so sure of himself while being completely oblivious to the fact that he was making it extremely easy for everyone to say his name without pissing off anyone else. It wasn't quite Josh levels of dumb, but his arrogance during his spiel was top notch. However, he got lucky in the end when Devin decided not to call his name.

Blaine: This guy, man. TD claims it’s not “Josh levels of dumb,” but dare I say a lot of the political maneuvers in deliberations have been confoundedly stupid? These truly are people who have never won the game, and these deliberations make for good examples as to why.

Question 2: Devin has to be the least-intimidating champ that could've walked through that smoke, right?

TD: Look, all props to Devin for finally winning the final last season, but I honestly can't think of anyone who would scare me less if I were in that pit. The strength of his game is not elimination. I do like how he was completely on brand in calling Callum's name out of nowhere, and after learning of Michelle's attachment to him, was completely indifferent. But, again, all props to the man because he won the elimination against a guy who's seemingly one of the the favorites to win it all.

Blaine: Intimidating? Not much. Made me happy? Absolutely! I have a soft spot for Devin, despite an occasional b.s. move here and there that’ll irk me. But he was perfect for this elimination, and a TD pointed out, his devil-may-care attitude is what this season needed.

Question 3: We're a few weeks into the "chaos" portion of the game, has it been chaotic enough for you?

TD: Eh. The champs in elimination is a nice touch (and similar to my idea of a "mercenaries" season), but it would be nice if T.J. would throw them into a daily challenge as well. Maybe something like if the champ wins the daily, they get to pick one person to straight up eliminate. Or perhaps a double elimination, something a little more spicy.

Blaine: I loved the chaos bit with the mace. That felt as close to monumental as we’ve seen yet in “Chaos”; however, what happened to T.J. telling them that he would see them sooner than expected? Did I miss that? Or was it so low-key that they didn’t bother to play it out onscreen in the next episode? Yeah, they need to go big with this at some point. Make it crazy!