A lot of clever gameplay often goes into The Challenge, and with the Double Agents season, one of the major masterminds in the game is Kam Williams.
She has become a top strategist when it comes to playing the game, and in Season 36, that’s been especially true. While she and her boyfriend Leroy Garrett made some smart moves, they also pointed out why a castmate did something many people may not have noticed.
There was a mission where it seems one player didn’t try to win, and for good reason, just ahead of going into TJ Lavin’s final.
The Challenge: Double Agents featured volcano rescue mission
The male competitors went off with TJ Lavin at the start of Double Agents Episode 17 and were put 500 feet down into a frozen volcano for a rescue mission. Their female teammates had to go through a race involving various checkpoints to free them before they could head for the finish spot and solve the final puzzle together.
As viewers saw, Kam Williams breezed right through the first checkpoint involving a math equation to get the combination and unlock a briefcase. Nany Gonzalez figured out hers next, followed by Kaycee Clark. Meanwhile, Amber Borzotra struggled due to Dyscalculia, a math-related disability she’s had all her life.
Kam ended up freeing her partner Cory Wharton first. Nany arrived shortly after to free her partner Kyle, and then a bit later, Kaycee got there to rescue Leroy. However, Amber’s struggle with the first math equation had Fessy stuck in the volcano for most of the challenge.
In the end, Kam and Cory finished the mission first to become Double Agents. That made all of the other teams eligible for possibly going into elimination at The Crater.
Unfortunately, that didn’t bode well for Kyle Christie, as a win would’ve helped him stay safe ahead of the final. He’d end up getting hurt when taking on Fessy in another of The Challenge’s Hall Brawl eliminations. Kyle was medically disqualified and sent home.
Why Double Agents competitor may have lost on purpose
The outcome of the frozen volcano rescue mission set things up to give Kam some power in terms of who was sent into elimination. However, she and her boyfriend Leroy had to figure out a way to prevent him from going back into elimination. Kam said she’d send Cory in at The Crater, although Leroy tried to set up a different deal with Kyle.
Luckily for Cory, he helped out by convincing Fessy to volunteer to go in. Since Cory helped protect Leroy, Kam didn’t feel she wanted to send Cory into elimination, so Kyle was their choice to go against Fessy.
Once Fessy won the elimination, he got to decide if he wanted to keep his current teammate, Amber, or choose a new one. He chose Kaycee, which is what he’d said he wanted during the episode. They were a solid part of the Big Brother alliance all season.
So Kaycee losing the mission was actually smart on the Big Brother star’s part. According to Kam on MTV’s Official Challenge Podcast episode, it seemed like an intentional loss to set things up in her favor.
“She’s always been bad at math, but I feel like in the running part she could’ve caught up to [Nany], and I do remember CT before the challenge kept saying, you know putting in all the girls’ head, ‘It’s not a bad thing if you don’t win this one. I’m still up for grabs,’” Kam revealed.
Kaycee and Leroy won five missions in the season before Episode 17. So Kaycee may have been holding back in her effort to win the frozen volcano one, to keep herself available for Fessy to choose.
It finally clicked with podcast host Tori Deal as she realized that Kaycee “threw” the mission because if she won, she’d be a Double Agent and unavailable as a partner option. That would’ve kept Kaycee with Leroy to run the final, which still seems like it may have been a smart move.
Now viewers will get to see how well Kaycee and Fessy perform as a team, when they run the Double Agents final together.
The Challenge: Double Agents airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on MTV.
Episodes of The Challenge are now streaming on Paramount+. Try it FREE!
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