The Challenge: USA opened with a recap of what happened in the premiere episode, as Tyson Apostol and Angela Rummans won the first challenge, Down to Do the Math, becoming the power team and banking $5,000 each.
They sent in Cely Vazquez and Javonny Vega to take on the losing team, Kyland Young and Azah Awasum, at The Arena. Kyland and Azah won in the Knot So Fast elimination, sending Cely and Javonny home.
Kyland and Azah also claimed another $1,000 in money for their bank accounts, putting them at $2,000 each. That had them partly on the way toward qualifying for the final, as they’d need $5,000 to be eligible.
Algorithm randomizer creates new teams
Episode 2 started with TJ Lavin talking about the twist, aka the Algorithm randomizer, and how it would give everyone a new teammate each episode. They started it up, revealing the first new team: Kyland and Sarah Lacina.
Tyson got teamed up with Justine Ndiba after sending her friend Cely home last episode. In a shocker, Love Island exes Cinco Holland and Cashay Proudfoot also got teamed up.
Another team consisted of two of The Amazing Race stars, Cayla Lee and James Wallington, making them nervous about being targets. The randomizer created the rest of the teams, and the cast headed back to the house.
Justine and Tyson talked about how she was upset her friend had gone home already. Later on, Tiffany Mitchell was flirting with Cinco. That had some Survivor castmates saying they didn’t trust her, which made Tiffany a target.
Competitors play Yeah Buoy daily event
TJ introduced The Challenge: USA stars to their next daily challenge called Yeah Buoy. It involved swimming out to ladders and climbing up to platforms. From there, the teammates had to jump onto hanging buoys consisting of tires all around them. There were letters scattered around the buoys, and teammates could each grab five at a time.
Then they’d bring the letters back to their boards on shore and create as many words as possible. They had 20 minutes to complete the event. The team that made the most words in that time would win, while the team that performed worst automatically went into elimination.
During the event, Cinco was supportive of Cashay as she was afraid to drop into the water. He encouraged her, and they were able to finish with four words.
Several teams got six words, but Tyson and Justine got nine words to win the event. Cayla and James finished with zero words, the worst of any team, so they were automatically going into The Arena.
Who went home from The Challenge: USA, Episode 2 elimination?
Tyson and Justine met with James and Cayla to find out who they wanted. James wisely advised them to send in Cashel Barnett and Tiffany since Tiffany was like the “glue” amongst the Big Brother players and had a lot of pull.
Later that night, Cinco carried Tiffany to her bed, and Cashay saw it. The next day, Cashay and Kyra talked about how Tiffany was trying to get all the Love Island men under her control in the game. Tyson spoke with Tiffany to ask who she thought should get sent into elimination. She recommended Enzo Palumbo and Alyssa Lopez.
Alyssa and Xavier spoke about their friendship. Xavier said he would talk with Tyson and see if he could prevent him from sending Alyssa’s team into the elimination.
The Arena had stationary bikes and a large tower with lights. TJ called the daily challenge losers James and Cayla down as one team. Tyson and Justine sent in Cashel and Tiffany as their opponents. Tiffany felt blindsided.
They competed in an event called Knowlege is Power. Four stationary bikes were connected to a power station they needed to light up. The teammates had to pedal the bikes hard to light up the tower and reveal sets of unique symbols on the board.
The event involved three sets of 12 symbols to memorize and recreate on a puzzle board. The first team to recreate all three sets of symbols would win. Cashel and Tiffany jumped out to an early lead, getting their first set correct on the board.
Cayla and James caught up. Both teams had two of their three sets completed, making it neck and neck. In the end, James and Cayla got their final set recreated before Cashel and Tiffany could reveal theirs.
In his confessional interview, Cashel said he was disappointed to leave so early and told Kyra Green not to be scared without him. Tiffany said she respected Tyson as a major player. She said Cinco could call her, but everyone else could “kiss her a**.”
The show closed with TJ standing by the big board as the randomizer was getting ready to create new teams.
The Challenge: USA airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on CBS.
