The Challenge: World Championship recap: A season-ending injury throws the game into chaos

When a massive threat gets caught up in silly mistakes, and a season-ending injury takes a powerful team out in this week's episode of The Challenge: World Championship, it once again proves how you can never predict what's going to happen in this game. So who came out victorious and who's now in trouble? Let's recap!

After last week's episode ended in yet another cliffhanger, it's finally time to find out who Darrell and Kiki are throwing into elimination against Wes and Zara. To absolutely everyone's shock, Darrell announces it's Ben and Kaycee — which totally goes against the Team U.S./Australia alliance and deviates from the whole "target Jordan and Kaz" plan on the other side of the house. Ben and Kaycee were never even discussed as an option, but clearly Darrell is not a fan of how they caused chaos during nominations and were targeting Team Australia, so now they're paying the price.

In the elimination, "Herculean Strength," one player holds up heavy weights while their partner solves several math equations. When a player correctly solves a math equation, they add more weight for their opponent to hold up. Whoever drops the weight first is out. Wes is a self-described mastermind when it comes to equations, so his concern centers on Zara's skinny noodle arms and whether she'll be able to bear the increasing weight, especially with a powerhouse like Kaycee handling the weight on the opposing team. It's surprising, honestly, that the men aren't taking on the strength and endurance element of the elimination, given that success hinges much more on that than the math portion.

After the horn blows, both men get their first equations wrong. They eventually find their groove, however, with weight being added to both Kaycee and Zara. After a few rounds, Zara starts to really struggle, her arms visibly shaking. She calls out to Wes, and a few moments later drops her weights and loses the challenge. It's a quick defeat.

Even with her dyslexia, it would've been more strategic for Zara to have handled the math part and Wes to bear the weight. It's very likely he would've outlasted Kaycee even if no extra weight was added to her. But now he and Zara have been eliminated, and Ben and Kaycee are going back into the house with a vendetta against Darrell and Kiki. At least Wes leaves with an amazing speech about how all the MVPs deserve to be there and are elevating the game to a place he could never have imagined 20 years ago. Zara, meanwhile, leaves with these wise words: "Next time we'll just drink the f---ing drink!" Who would have thought we'd see Wes go down on a stupid mistake like voluntarily taking a penalty instead of choking down a smoothie. Rookie move!

Back at the house, Kaycee and Ben have a chat with Kiki and Darrell, but they don't give any good reasons as to why they said their names. Meanwhile, upstairs, the Team Australia and U.S. MVPs decide to continue targeting Ben because of his messy gameplay. The next day, however, Amber and Troy talk with Tori and Kaycee about how they don't trust Grant and Emily, so Team Australia is falling apart just as much as Team U.S. is right now. This is what we call beautiful mess, people!

The Challenge: Rocketman

TJ gleefully announces teams will launch their partners into the stratosphere using a giant inflatable blob, and the players flying through the air will attempt to clear different bars to subtract time from their overall total. Once both players hit the water, they swim across the quarry to collect puzzle pieces, swim back to shore, and assemble the puzzle to stop their time. The team with the fastest time wins, so the more bars cleared on the launch, the better.

Jordan and Kaz go first, and she clears all three bars. Jordan swims out to help bring her to shore, and they finish strong together. Tristan and KellyAnne go next, and she also clears three bars. We don't get final times as teams finish, so there's no way of knowing who's winning or losing during this whole segment. At this point, it'll come down to whoever can't clear the three bars on the jump — or, if everyone clears all the bars, who is clearly struggling in the water.

Ben and Kaycee go next and clear three bars. Grant and Jonna, on the other hand, can't even get one bar after Grant misses the spot where he's supposed to jump, and, as a result, doesn't launch Jonna at all. She just kind of falls into the water as he slides off. He also feels a "burning pain" in his leg from landing on the blob wrong, and now they have to make up a ton of time on the swim. After they finish, Grant gets taken to the hospital in an ambulance to get his knee checked out. Things aren't looking good for Grant and Jonna right now — either they lose and go straight into elimination, or his knee is too injured for him to continue in the game. Neither is a good option.

Bananas and Justine go next, and not only does she clear all three bars easily, she outpaces him in the swim. Bananas is impressed by his partner for the first time this season. The rest of the teams speed by in a montage, so we don't even see who does well or not (although it looks like Amber fails to launch in the same way as Jonna). Next, Emily launches Yes, and everyone is excited to see Emily beast the swimming portion as an Olympic gold medalist. She finishes her part extremely fast and then swims the entire quarry again to bring Yes' puzzle piece in, and then a third time to drag Yes back in. She's an absolute machine!

TJ reveals Jonna and Grant are indeed the losers and going straight into elimination, and that only one second separated the top two teams of KellyAnne and Tristan and Kaz and Jordan. Since KellyAnne and Tristan had the better time, they win. From the bottom to the top, and on a week where Jonna's in the elimination? That's almost too perfect.

Back at the house, Tori meets with Danny and Sarah to lay out how only Australia and Argentina pairs are up for nominations because of how the numbers work out. Bananas worms his way in and tries to strong-arm the conversation, which pisses off Danny and Sarah. Sarah provokes Bananas and things devolve quickly from there, causing Bananas to just get up and leave. There's very little love lost between the Team U.S. legends and MVPs.

Nominations

Amber kicks things off by voting for Yes and Emily, because it turns out Emily and Yes were secretly targeting them right before nominations. Of course, Ben and Kaycee were the ones to tip off Troy and Amber, so that feels more than a little suspicious considering how Ben was trying to manipulate their vote last time. They also vote for Theo and Sarah. Emily then claims she would never vote in another Team Australia pair, adding fuel to my suspicions of Ben and Kaycee.

Tori tries to hold her vote until the end, but Theo calls her out. Danny jumps in and a massive fight ensues. Tori puts an end to the arguing by "burning" a vote on Jordan and Kaz and Jodi and Benja, but you can't burn when you're the second one to vote! Come on, people. That's Challenge 101. The rest of the votes are as follows: Darrell/Kiki vote Jodi/Benja and Tori/Danny; Yes/Emily vote Amber/Troy and Jordan/Kaz; Jordan/Kaz vote Jodi/Benja and Yes/Emily; Sarah/Theo vote Jodi/Benja and Amber/Troy; Jodi/Benja vote Yes/Emily and Theo/Sarah; Ben/Kaycee vote Yes/Emily and Jodi/Benja; and Bananas/Justine vote Jodi/Benja and Yes/Emily.

The votes come down to Jodi and Benja and Yes and Emily. Upstairs, Jonna tells KellyAnne and Tristan that Grant won't want to go against Emily, his No. 1 ally. But there's no way KellyAnne will give Jonna what she wants, and KellyAnne and Jodi have a new bond over being targeted together for the first few cycles. Plus, it all depends on if Grant can even continue on in the game with his injury. Still, props to Jonna for having the balls to suggest that to KellyAnne. You have to respect her for trying.

Elimination

Some good news: Grant's in The Arena when TJ calls him down into the sand with Jonna. Some bad news: Grant comes hobbling in on crutches. Oof. The writing is on the wall but TJ says it anyways — Grant is medically unable to continue this season. TJ gives him props for completing the challenge with a hurt knee, but the compliment isn't enough to dry the tears in Grant's eyes.

With that, Jonna's winning streak comes to an end. It's a true tragedy, as she had a real shot at a three-peat! Now, Team Australia's down a team, the elimination is cancelled, and the two nominated teams are safe, so all that messy fighting during nominations was for nothing. But you know what? At least we're finally back to a normal structure for next week's episode. Give me a challenge and elimination in every episode. No more unnecessary cliffhangers!

The Challenge: World Championship debuts new episodes Wednesdays on Paramount+.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Related content:

• The Challenge: World Championship recap: Danny forces the house into a tie vote
• The Challenge: World Championship recap: A civil war starts brewing on Team USA
• The Challenge: World Championship recap: Jonna shoots her shot
• The Challenge: World Championship recap: A legend proves her worth while another crashes and burns
• The Challenge: World Championship premiere recap: A player gets cut early