‘The Challenge’: Fessy Makes the Elimination Unnecessarily Messy & TJ Is the Best Part (RECAP)

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Challenge: Spies, Lies and Allies, Season 37, Episode 4 “Messy.”]

Fessy made it clear he wasn’t happy when Amber showed up — the two had drama in Season 36 — but he takes it to a whole new (and stupid) level in the September 1 episode of The Challenge: Spies, Lies and Allies. After all, they’re supposed to be in two alliances: the vets and Big Brother (with Josh and Kaycee).

But even before the daily challenge, Fessy’s thinking about targeting Amber, which Josh tells him “is not smart.” (And poor Amber thinks that she’s seeing growth in Fessy and he’s “genuine” this season.) And then Fessy and his partner, Esther, win the daily challenge, becoming the agency and gaining the power to send in one man and one woman (from any team) to face the pair voted in by the house in elimination.

As a rookie-rookie team, Michele and Corey L. have resigned themselves to being the house vote, so they’re looking to use this as an opportunity to win and switch partners (and get those rookie targets off their backs). Corey L. goes to Fessy and requests he vote in Hughie as his opponent and suggests Bettina as Michele’s.

Fessy just won’t let go of his plan to send in Amber, so Josh tries to change his mind. “It’s going to be a tough decision. I trust Josh, and he can see the big picture in everything,” Fessy says. “He won Big Brother for a reason. But Amber B. doesn’t have my back like she has Josh’s back.”

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And so when it comes time for Fessy to name the woman he’s sending into elimination, he begins his reasoning with, “At the end of the day, there’s some people that I don’t have a target against but I don’t know where I stand on that list.” Josh interrupts: “Don’t do it.” But Fessy continues, “And Amber, I respect the hell out of you —”

“Change your vote,” Josh tries to order him as Amber says she believed Fessy when he said he wanted to work on trust. (“I need a dictionary. I don’t think these people know what a damn alliance is,” she says.) Josh and Fessy start yelling at each other, it’s a mess, and host TJ Lavin may very well be the best part of this because he just stands there and takes out his phone.

“If he does this move tonight, Big Brother, that whole alliance, I’m done. It’s over,” Josh decides. “A vet-on-vet crime is being committed, and I have never seen an alliance implode like that in my life,” Tori remarks. Security has to get involved, and TJ finally has enough and puts an end to all the fighting. Fessy votes in Amber, and Esther backs her partner. “Fessy is still messy, y’all,” Amber says.

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Michele and Corey L. face off against Amber and Hughie in an elimination that sees each pair handcuffed together by a pole. They have to make their way through an obstacle course, retrieve a key, then go back through the course, unlock themselves, and pull down a lever. Amber and Hughie use their anger about being sent in and win. “F**k Big Brother,” Amber exclaims.

As winners, they can choose to stay together as partners, return to their old ones, or steal anyone except for someone in the agency. Hughie steals Nany, and Josh and CT gesture for Amber to choose Devin. With their partners stolen, Emy and Gabo become a rookie-rookie team — and the next targets.

And so now we have to wait until next week to see the messy fallout of Fessy’s very stupid move. Is the Big Brother alliance over?

The Challenge: Spies, Lies and Allies, Wednesdays, 8/7c, MTV