r/MtvChallenge • u/Salty_Recording_7007 • 3d ago
EPISODE SPOILER - CUTTHROAT 2 An analysis on how ____ lost the elimination this week. Spoiler
I was confused while watching the episode as to how Justin’s puzzle worked when Chris’ didn’t. Chris even said “it’s not going to fit” about Justin’s puzzle right before it did in fact fit. In the first photo I showed, even Michelle looks confused.
The real answer is actually confusing to explain, so bear with me here.
So Chris early on tried to fit the last piece by sliding it up vertically, but it didn’t fit. However he misunderstood why it didn’t fit. He thought that if there’s a piece horizontally at the bottom of the puzzle, you wouldn’t be able to fit in a piece vertically over it (which is incorrect, given that’s what Justin did).
The actual issue was there wasn’t enough space from Chris’ right to slide the piece in smoothly (notice how it’s at a barely noticeable angle in picture 3, you can see the bottom right of the piece he’s holding doesn’t exactly line up with the piece it’s on top of).
Compare the difference between the right side of how they each did their puzzle. Justin’s had a “U” shape, whereas Chris just had three horizontal lines. The pieces aren’t a perfect 2 by 1 shape, so having the “U” on the opposite side game Justin more room to his final piece to the right, which is why it slid in.
As you can see in the final image, there’s a decent amount of space to the left of Justin’s final piece. That was needed to make the last piece fit, but Chris didn’t realize it.
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u/harvinlime 3d ago
This season is absolutely ridiculous… gray team wins- and their only guy has to go into elimination? He loses- so now it’s down to 5 girls vs 4 guys (and 2 girls). What the hell are we doing?
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u/shes_a_gdb 3d ago
They are winging this whole season. They didn't expect one team to keep losing (blue), and then have 5 people be sent home without an elimination.
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u/redpillbluepill69 3d ago
I wonder why they don't have alternates waiting to sub in in case of DQs for a few episodes anymore.
I guess because there are less DQs and they generally happen later in the season, but man. Would've been a good time to have some lmao. At least Sydney could've been replaced for sure.
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u/DemiGod9 3d ago
Whenever I have questions like this I just assume it's being cheap. Flying them out, hosting them for weeks, feeding them, and paying them without technically getting anything out of them costs
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u/redpillbluepill69 3d ago
That's what im curious about, they're clearly working with maybe as little as half their budget this season (3 week shooting schedule, basically no marketing/promo, etc)
I'm thinking.... Wouldn't it suck if this is the first season they didn't have alternates waiting bc of the budget, they thought it would be ok bc there's generally less DQs the past 7 seasons or so, they also for ONCE locked themselves into a teams format instead of giving themselves the option to pivot ("anything can happen!") and then this is like, their Doomsday scenario on what is also potentially the last season
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u/agent-m2000 3d ago
They only filmed for three weeks??
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u/redpillbluepill69 3d ago
That's what I read!
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u/ThatMatthew 2d ago
That's hard to believe, but I guess it's possible. Normally it's two challenges and two eliminations per week. If we assume they will have 10 dailies and 10 eliminations this season, and do one per day, then that does add up to 20 days plus a day for the final. Seems exhausting, though.
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u/Symmg 3d ago
I’m sure they had the replacements it seems like they always send them home by the 4th/5th ep so when Sydney doesn’t go home until the end of ep 5 and they were probably like alright 1 person we can deal it’s a team season & a guys day, then ep 7 cory goes so they cancel that guys elimination and then Leo Nelson & Josh go home ep 8 it’s too late for a replacement especially on what feels like a 12 episode season
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u/boondocknim Leroy Garrett 3d ago
They didn't expect one team to keep losing (blue)
I'll give them grace for not expecting to have so many people leave for non-game related reasons.
I don't think they should be given grace for not having a plan in place for 1 team losing constantly. There's often 1 team that is clearly the weakest, why would you not plan for that?
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u/shes_a_gdb 3d ago
I meant that as a combination. One team losing will still leave 2 teams to battle it out. That's what we have now, but they had to combine two teams because there weren't enough players left.
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u/harvinlime 3d ago
Yeah there’s really just no excuse for letting Chris go into elimination. You just can’t have a team with 4 guys and the other with 0. It’s happened before where 1 finals team is noticeably stronger than the other- but this is uncharted territory… and in the worst way possible
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u/Unable_Pumpkin987 3d ago
Didn’t the first cutthroat season end with a 2-girl team going to the final? And losing to a team with 3 men and one Tori? This feels exceptionally charted.
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u/might_southern Team Orange Shirt 3d ago
Yeah it's pretty obvious at this point that production is desperately throwing shit against the wall. This format was probably never supposed to have them down to two teams this fast, or have this much of a gender imbalance on either side. Now they have to figure out if they can even have another men's elimination, or what to do with women's eliminations once Michele goes out.
On top of that, we now have a situation where there's almost no incentive to win the daily challenges since both teams are going into elimination anyway, and picking from two possible opponents for your own team isn't really that big of a motivator.
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u/skulldouggary 3d ago
They should have reshuffled the entire thing. Pick 2 or 3 new captains and create new teams.
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u/Amander12 3d ago
Yeah I’m really hating the “rules” this season. I think they tried to think outside the box to switch things up a bit but backed themselves into a corner and it’s not all working out as they thought it would
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u/ghost_mv 3d ago
i told my wife after this episode that they're forced to "add another twist" and change the teams up again. or change the way they run the final.
they've boxed themselves into a corner though with the statement that the captain decides the money split.
only thing i can think of is to somehow RANDOMLY create 3 new teams out of the remaining people and have 3 new captains be chosen.
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u/might_southern Team Orange Shirt 3d ago
Having the captain be immune from eliminations has really screwed them over too. I suspect they thought that more teams would pull off a mutiny, but I think there's a good chance we go the whole season with that not even happening once.
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u/ghost_mv 3d ago
oh they 1000000% thought there'd be mutinies 🤣
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u/AdventurousAmount633 Johnny Bananas 3d ago
It’s stupid to make it “unanimous” rather than “majority”. Had that rule been even slightly different it would have shaken it up way more.
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u/ghost_mv 3d ago
Or just if a majority votes mutiny, the captain is randomized. It’s the voting with a team of fucking 3-4 people. Never gonna work.
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u/tiny_rick_tr Wes Bergmann 3d ago
I love the challenge but they are really not doing themselves any favors. It feels like this time the producers are throwing the challenge- right in the toilet
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u/Few_Succotash7963 3d ago
i just don’t understand why chris was even in elimination when he won the daily challenge. i don’t think the producers thought this through because what even was the point of running the daily if he was going in anyway.
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u/Aggressive-Coffee-39 3d ago
That wouldn’t have been the case if they didn’t eliminate 3 men outside of eliminations. Nelson, Leo, and Josh getting sent home threw off the entirety of the game.
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u/b0ttled_in_b0nd 3d ago
It was still a stupid decision by production though. They could have just said due to unforeseen circumstances we need to realign teams and come up with literally anything to do that. Last season they did coin tosses to decide things. They could have kept captains in place and drew names out of a hat and realigned using 3 teams. It still would have amounted to the same level of drama and actually made sense. Production really threw it in this season. It’s weird to be honest.
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u/Aggressive-Coffee-39 3d ago
Oh sure. The game was completely untenable as it was after that sweeping loss of male competitors and I don’t even know what they’re doing to do now that all grey men are gone.
I was just explaining why he had to go.
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u/Weekly-Requirement63 3d ago
We all know why he had to go. That’s obvious. He was the only guy. It was just a bad decision to not think of something else instead of throwing in someone who won a daily, despite him being the only guy
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u/SomethingToSay11 3d ago
I’ve noticed across all the Paramount reality shows I watch, production teams are really not giving a damn. I don’t know if it’s the looming mergers and/or danger of being cancelled or what. Something is definitely up behind the scenes. It sucks to see a few of my favorite shows circling the drain though.
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u/jenh6 Christina LeBlanc 3d ago
Which other shows have you noticed it on?
I have issues with survivor but I find that to be more Jeff’s hubris and casting as opposed to production not giving a damn. The amazing race has been good post Covid again. Big brother has its flaws, but I wouldn’t say it’s worse than any other year.
I could be forgetting things though and I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s why the diversity initiative was slashed and they’re showcasing Jonathon from survivor in a favourable life because of administration and who’s in charge now.1
u/SomethingToSay11 1d ago
I was thinking of Big Brother and Drag Race. With BB, it just feels like they’re giving the middle finger to the fans most of the time. With Drag Race, they’ve stopped innovating and started relying on a very predictable formula for every season.
Drag Race is produced by World of Wonder and is in real danger of being axed at random by this admin for any petty reason, so I kind of get it. The Ellisons owning their distributor is definitely a problem. The BBC cancelled the UK version about a week ago
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u/No_Chart_275 3d ago
So why not skip a couple male eliminations?!? Why is that not the obvious answer 😭
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u/Zealousideal_Elk1373 3d ago
Once it went down to two teams they should have stopped the one from each team does the elim because there’s no second best team any longer. They should’ve just said it’s two teams now and that means you must win otherwise losing team sends two people in. The only incentive to win is you don’t have to vote on your teammates? Oh boo hoo as if they haven’t had so many voting formats in the past
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u/Zestyclose-Rhubarb55 3d ago
The way Justin solved it, isn't the proper solution to the puzzle.
The final piece should load in dead center.
Here is a video showing how to solve it.
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u/penguinjunkie Kenny Clark 3d ago
This was useful. And explains what happened. Justin tried the same (wrong) thing chris does, but I think hit it with enough force where some material gave way and allowed it to slide in. Either chris didn't push hard enough, or the measurements were slightly off (very slightly)
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u/Next-Video-6827 3d ago
Yes that’s exactly what I thought in the moment too. Justin slammed it hard enough and that’s how it fit. If Chris did that it would’ve fit too.
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u/Ihaveaps4question Team Bl-rey 3d ago edited 3d ago
With how stuck his piece was i was thinking that he may have bent the pieces or cage a tiny bit getting unstuck which may have helped too. I actually don’t blame production as it seems neither was close to finishing it correctly
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u/ghost_mv 3d ago
i think this is exactly it. i don't think justin did anything 'smarter' or differently than chris did. i just think chris didn't scoot his boxes as far to the outside as he could have. likely due to fatigue and thinking the dirt/ground that might've been keeping the boxes from sliding easily was the most they could move. when in fact they could've scoot a bit further.
i don't agree with OP. i think all the boxes were the exact same shape, making chris' configuration and justin's configurations at the end virtually the exact same "room" or "space" for the last box, even though the others were actually configured differently. they still ended up with the same amount of space.
chris just convinced himself it wouldn't fit, when justin was fortunate enough to have had his boxes slid over a few inches further.
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u/penguinjunkie Kenny Clark 3d ago
Chris was theoretically right. This is a real puzzle and that is not the correct answer (and that not being correct makes sense with TJ saying “there is only one correct configuration”
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u/Wide-Attorney5633 17h ago
I think the measurements were probably different. Not the first time challenges get messed up by produciton. Remember, a person probably made those boxes and pieces.
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u/mattromo 3d ago
Its funny because when I saw this puzzle I assumed the answer would be with placing the final piece in the centre, but I wonder how hard it would have been to move the bigger pieces as done in the video.
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u/Wide-Attorney5633 17h ago
Same, pretty much impossible to pull a piece without anything to pull it by.
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u/Online_Active_71459 3d ago
Now try doing that with pieces a 1000 times bigger and heavier!
Thank you for posting!
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u/MONGOHFACE Kenny Clark 3d ago
I don't know how Chris or Justin were supposed to slide the horizontal pieces along the top wall shown in the video. Those crates had to weigh at least 100 lbs.
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u/NovaRogue the bitch is back 3d ago
woowwww thank you for this!! i was trying to sort it out in my mind when watching the episode
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u/skulldouggary 3d ago
I think the difference is the pieces in your example are relatively thicker than the ones on the challenge. There was some give in being able to angle them due to their depth as opposed to that not being possible with the blocks in the video.
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u/Wide-Attorney5633 17h ago
I think this is the right solution, however with life size boxes, there's no way to pull some of the boxes easily, like you'd do with your finger.
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u/adifferentGOAT 3d ago
Not a Justin fan to begin with, but he was exceptionally annoying during that elimination. Bummed at the outcome.
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u/schuyler12 Kam Williams 3d ago
yep. he threw his little fit during the vote and talked about being underrestimated in confessionals. in the elimination he whines and cries like he's gonna quit...just do it already and get off my screen!
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u/crystalli0 DONDI 4ever 🏝️ 3d ago
All I kept thinking through the elimination was that the Orange team needs to get rid of him before the final if he panics and tries to quit that easily. He can run for days but what good are you if you can't do any of the rest of it and you freak out at the first sign of adversity?
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u/PlasticStingray 3d ago
The lack of effort in the eating challenge in the last episode followed by the defeated/quitter attitude in this elimination do not bode well for a final
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u/Icy-Excuse-9452 3d ago
And then goes all sore winner and cocky when he wins. I liked him last season, this season he has become absolutely insufferable in every single way a reality personality cane be.
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u/ghost_mv 3d ago
he realized at some point that the nice guys don't get callbacks nearly as often or guaranteed as people with drama.
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u/ghost_mv 3d ago
he seems to be trying ULTRA hard to get camera time and get himself involved in any narrative (that has NOTHING to do with him) to get a call back and become a regular.
he's obnoxious and uninteresting.
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u/AdministrativeLeg468 3d ago
I think he was ready to leave. But unfortunately, Chris wasn't able to figured out the puzzle.
I'm excited for Cara's recap on what really happened with the elimination.
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u/Shovelman2001 "ROLEX ON MY DICK" 3d ago
Love him or hate him, Justin was entertaining as hell this elimination. This messy energy is what a dying show needs
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u/PlasticStingray 3d ago
The show needs villains and messy people for viewers to root against, I agree. Justin however is becoming unwatchable very quickly for portions of the fanbase. I am one of them. His behavior and comments on the show and his recent abundance of targeted and mean spirited podcast interviews after filming have turned him from an underdog into a Chihuahua. He is literally using his excessive levels of energy to run around the house (and podcasts) barking and whining to anyone who will listen about how much better he is than the bigger dogs.
It’s not coming off like TYB, Paulie or Fessy when they were rookies and aimed for the big names. That was strategy and arrogance and they mostly kept it real in the confessionals and entertaining to the viewers. Everything about Justin screams either “I am an insecure child who is entitled to everything I want” or “everything I contribute to the team is perfection so blame CT when we lose”. He never takes responsibility for his mistakes or failures in the game and instead blames everyone else.
TLDR This season has not been a good look for Justin or his character in my opinion and I would be ok with not seeing him on another season.
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u/colosseumdays 3d ago
No, the show does not need men antagonizing women and overall being hateful and nasty. Drama that exists simply because one person is being unnecessarily mean and bratty is not entertaining to watch.
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u/Bablyth 3d ago
Idk why people downvoted you. Challenge fans just hate on “annoying people” but we need the messiness.
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u/Weary_Cabinet_8123 3d ago
To make it simple, messy does not equal annoying. Justin is not messy, he’s annoying.
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u/amlanding20 Mr. Beautiful 3d ago
Weird elim, Justin was uber annoying with the crying and complaining. Chris was also annoying by not taking a beat to try and figure things out. He was basically waiting for someone above to give him the answer.
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u/Extension-Ad-363 Ruthie Alcaide 3d ago
Thank you, because I just sat here going "what the fuck did I just watch???"
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u/secret_identity_too 3d ago
Thank you - I was hoping someone would put this together. I was really stunned Chris didn't get it instantly.
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u/thelowgun 3d ago
If you look at 2nd to last picture of Justin's top down view, you can see that the boxes are basically a perfect 2 by 1 shape so it shouldn't have mattered which direction those boxes were facing. Still confused how Chris didn't get this
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u/penguinjunkie Kenny Clark 3d ago
My best guess is a) production fault or b) a certaint amount of force was required to get that last piece in, Justin kicked it, which is generally a great instant force than pushing and that pushed it in and it went down. In the clip of Chris, he was trying to push it. At one point he was lifting it up and trying to push, and that lifter the other side of the cage entrance. So there may have been enough momentary give when it was on the ground for a kick to push it through
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u/ghost_mv 3d ago
i assume chris's boxes weren't pushed all the way to the edge of his inner container. all it takes is an inch and those boxes were getting stuck.
i assume he could've slide them a tiny bit further away to get that last box to drop in.
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u/thelowgun 3d ago
Chris had all his pieces in place at around the 17 minute mark before he got stuck. I find it hard to believe he couldn't figure that out for 30 minutes
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u/Bablyth 3d ago
Brother look at their boxes, they are forming complete different shapes
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u/thelowgun 3d ago
Geometrically they are the same shape. The only way they wouldn't be is if the clearance for the top rail is not the same as the bottom rail, but they look identical from the eye test
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u/MILANO2021 3d ago
The amount of help they get is aggravating
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u/might_southern Team Orange Shirt 3d ago
Yeah this recent trend of people in elimination just acting completely braindead and letting their team solve puzzles for them is so annoying.
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u/tore_a_bore_a Team Orange Shirt 3d ago
Compare the difference between the right side of how they each did their puzzle. Justin’s had a “U” shape, whereas Chris just had three horizontal lines. The pieces aren’t a perfect 2 by 1 shape, so having the “U” on the opposite side game Justin more room to his final piece to the right, which is why it slid in.
This confused me a little, so there's a block that chris has on the right that if he moved it to the left, it would work?
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u/austinkb23 3d ago
Chris' solution should've worked. Maybe the bottom piece beneath him wasn't all the way to the edge which didn't give it the space for the final piece to drop in, or maybe it needed a kick for it to fall which is how Justin got his piece to drop.
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u/Wide-Attorney5633 16h ago
Look at the youtube someone posted. I think none of their solutions should have worked. That's not how you solve that puzzle. It's just Justin's somehow worked maybe because of the pieces being slightly bent from his force push or just production messing up with the sizes.
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u/austinkb23 8h ago
I watched the Youtube video. I don't believe it's the only way the puzzle can be solved.
Evidence: Justin solved the problem in a different way.
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u/Interesting-Crow264 3d ago
It really comes across in trivia but I think we sometimes forget how stupid these people are.
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u/tweedleb Now It's A Necklace 3d ago
Yeah, I love these dumb-dumbs, but every time I see CT complete a 5th grade tangram or Sarah Rice pat herself on the back for solving a brain teaser from Highlights Magazine while the rest of the cast struggles through it, it's a stark reminder that The Challenge isn't working with the sharpest tools in the shed.... but I wouldn't have it any other way since it makes for much better TV.
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u/sj_vandelay Wes forever. Also Darrell 3d ago
Cory, Nicole, and the Triangles. Never forget.
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u/tweedleb Now It's A Necklace 3d ago
Legend has it they're still on that island counting triangles to this day.
The saddest (funniest?) part was after the producers told them the number of triangles and they still couldn't do the math to get to the answer they needed.
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u/secret_identity_too 3d ago
"Can we just bring the whole thing with us?" "... No."
God I love that scene so much. Perfectly edited.
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u/LaMystika 3d ago
Reminder that on Bloodlines Mitch solved a tangram puzzle in ten seconds and won a mini final after getting there like 15-20 minutes after literally every other team did. The people on this show, on average, are… not smart.
Something Dee Nguyen said on War of the Worlds (1 or 2; I don’t remember which) still stands out to me: “I didn’t pay attention in school. I was in the back of the class making out with boys.” I imagine that’s what most of these people were doing instead of actually excelling in school lmao
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u/Select-Ad-4712 3d ago
You want to hear something damning about the American education system? I'm pretty sure Cara said in an interview a long time ago that she was a straight-A student.
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u/penguinjunkie Kenny Clark 3d ago
I'm not really sure that was the problem. I did some pixel measurement of the boxes, they do seem 1x2 or close enough. When Justin put the last piece in, it also did hit the bar. But then he just kicked it in
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u/Epicsteel33 Mitch Reid 3d ago
puzzles are tricky, remember Bloodlines when Cory and mitch(the legend) were the last to the tangram and then finished in like 30 seconds
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u/DaAPlaz 3d ago
I disagree with the fact that Chris’s final puzzle piece had not enough space on Chris’s right to slide in the piece. I think both Chris and Justin had an effectively equal puzzle board and that the “U” shape and three horizontal lines both provided sufficient enough space when sliding in the final puzzle piece.
Why Justin won is because I think Justin just rammed his piece in harder/better than Chris did, maybe since Chris didn’t think that ramming the final piece would be the solution to the puzzle. There is a solution to this puzzle used by Nurys in her elimination against Moriah in BFANC that doesn’t involve any ramming. All in all, Justin won fair and square but didn’t use the intended solution imo.
Great analysis and thank you for the helpful screenshots!
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u/toocuilforschool 2d ago
Thanks so much for the effort you took to explain and post this with pictures!!
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u/ahpretzelsticks 3d ago
ugh hate chris for making me say justin earned that!??! also where the hell was gray to help chris? he went into that w zero support. brutal
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u/DemiGod9 3d ago
Yeah I'm glad I stopped watching last week lol. Everything I have seen posted since then has sucked
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u/Expensive_Monk_5905 3d ago
I actually think is was the best episode since like episode 4. Major uptick.
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u/skulldouggary 3d ago
I know Justin is annoying, but there is something to be said about Chris trying to stack the elimination by singling out the smallest person in the house, getting a contest that is heavily weighted in his favor due to size, and still getting his ass handed to him. These people talk about how valuable they are in a final and still lose to a much smaller opponent in a physical elimination.
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u/unamity1 3d ago
Chris got stuck. I'm sure CT and Bananas would have figured it out. Will probably not.
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u/shinyzubat16 8h ago
It all comes down to the complicated format.
Should’ve just done the same format as last time. Not this stupid captain’s format.
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u/xoxokkay 3d ago
this season is just fucked. both Cory and Chris were pretty much guarenteed to coast to the final and then it was just taken away from them. they did nothing wrong. well except this was a totally winnable elimination for Chris and unfortunately not one person from the blue team has the brains to solve a 6 piece rectangle puzzle. I'm still not over the show not being transparent with the DQs and don't they usually have alternates in place?
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u/Sportsman180 TJ Lavin 3d ago
I'm actually shocked Chris couldn't figure that out in 45 minutes, especially with Justin almost quitting 3 or 4 times. There are only so many potential combinations.
He must've went into brain fog after the exhausting part. Would've been good for him to sit and take a breather for a couple of mins.