The Challenge: All Stars recap: Power trippin'

If you thought the drama was explosive last week on The Challenge: All Stars, this week turned up the heat even higher. The longer all the players stay in the house and game environment, the more they're reverting back to their old personas from decades ago. And I'm loving every second!

Coming back into the house, Kendal's riding high from her elimination win, and Jisela's already worrying about what's going to happen next. Meanwhile, Nehemiah is getting some much-needed advice on how to politic in the house from Jemmye, and she spins it into offering him a deal to work together all season. Jemmye's already been working her social game magic on Beth — Beth absolutely has a girl crush on her, calling Jemmye her daughter, and this is the duo I want to see wreak havoc on this house. They've never been on a Challenge together before and we've been missing out!

Meanwhile, Teck gets naked and jumps in the lake behind the house. Just for fun. After all these years, Teck is still absolutely the same guy, doing the same things. And Ruthie is still holding onto the same feelings she had against Aneesa all these years later for helping facilitate her last Challenge elimination, so you know that grudge is going to come up again.

The Challenge: Melt Away

Remember that ice challenge on Battle of the Sexes 2? I know you can picture it perfectly in your mind — it was one of the most iconic challenges of the earlier seasons for... reasons. And now it's back and better than ever. The ice is thicker, and there's a trivia aspect as well. I can already tell this is going to be a season highlight.

Players will be in teams of four and must work together to melt giant blocks of ice by any means necessary to free shields frozen inside. Those shields have names of Challenge seasons on them and teams must place all the shields in chronological order. The first team to get the correct order wins. And in a twist, if any of the shields break, the team gets a five-minute penalty.

The teams are randomly selected: Copper is Big Easy, Nehemiah, Jisela, and Katie; Gold is Mark, Alton, Beth, and Jemmye; Black is Jonna, Aneesa, Laterrian, and Derrick; Silver is Syrus, Darrell, KellyAnne, and Kendal; Gray is Yes, Teck, Ruthie, and Arissa.

Immediately this challenge turns into a gross amateur porn hour, with people grinding, spitting, and even peeing on the ice to try and melt it. And the way they pile their bodies on top of each other... I can't even describe it because it's absolutely NSFW. Beth's screaming and moaning definitely don't help! At one point Arissa calls on the sun and her ancestors for help, and Nehemiah starts to worry that his team is in last place. But really, all the teams are doing terribly and it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen on this show.

TJ has to stop the challenge and give every team a hammer to make some actual headway because they're all doing so poorly, but he also reminds them not to break the shields inside. The guys with the hammers start going wild on the ice, and the Gold team is the first to get a shield. All the teams start making real progress, but Gold is the first to get all their shields free. They rely on Jemmye to get the order right, as Silver gets all their shields next, with Darrell stepping up to order them since he spent some time studying the chronology of the seasons in his time off. Gold team calls for a check, and they get it right, but they've got a few broken shields so they'll have a few time penalties added. Copper team calls for a check next, but they got it wrong. Black gets all their shields as Silver gets the correct order next. Gray gets it done third, and Copper gets it wrong again. Black gets it right fourth while Copper keeps on arguing and eventually loses, which means Nehemiah, as the Copper team captain, is going straight into elimination.

You've got to love Teck immediately talking s--- to Nehemiah after the challenge ends. But Nehemiah's already fired up and ready to go, and Teck's trash talk only puts the target on his own back. And while Gold team is celebrating their victory, TJ announces their broken shield time penalties mean that the Silver team actually won. So now Darrell is safe from elimination (since this is a male week) and Kendal has control of the Life Saver.

Back at the house, Nehemiah decides that he wants Teck as his elimination opponent because of how he trash-talked him after the challenge loss. And since Teck is not the biggest or strongest competitor, Nehemiah's got a good shot of beating him, so it's a smart choice and rooted in revenge.

Nominations

Teck doesn't waste any time during the deliberation and immediately volunteers himself, knowing he was basically going in anyway. He gets a round of applause, and some mixed reactions — Derrick thinks it's an epic move, Jemmye hates it because she loves watching people vote and calling them out. Classic Jemmye.

Then the cast has a night out, and everyone's thinking about the Life Saver and how it works. Kendal's worried that if she uses it to save Teck, she'll have to throw someone else in and doesn't want that blowback on her. Meanwhile, Jemmye wanted Big Easy to go in against Nehemiah because her biggest fear is getting stuck with him as a partner (a totally valid fear since he cost a bunch of vets the win on Gauntlet 3). She convinces Nehemiah to politic with Kendal and talk her into using the Life Saver to save Teck and throw Big Easy in instead. Kendal keeps talking extremely loud about the Life Saver in the middle of the bar where all the guys can hear her, and it's making them all very, very nervous since no one knows exactly how the Life Saver works this season. Kendal's elimination win, plus the Life Saver, is putting her on a massive power trip, even if she's not actually trying to be arrogant. It's rubbing a lot of people the wrong way — especially all the guys who worry she might throw one of them in.

But you know who isn't feeling nervous? Jemmye and Nehemiah. Because they're making out! Just because these Challengers are older doesn't mean there won't be drunken hookups — they all practically invented the drunken reality TV hookup. And there are drunken fights too, because Ruthie overhears Aneesa talking about how she plays a paranoid game, and it brings up everything that happened between them on Duel 2. And to be fair, Aneesa literally was talking s--- about Ruthie to a group of people when Ruthie overheard her, so is it paranoid if it's true?

Elimination

In the middle of The Arena, there's a curious elimination setup, so it's not immediately clear what it'll be. Now it's up to Kendal to decide who Nehemiah's opponent will be. Big Easy's got a uniform under his normal clothes ready to go but despite the past 24 hours of her going back and forth, Kendal decides not to use the Life Saver on Teck. Big Easy's breathing a sigh of relief.

Elimination challenge: Going Out of Tile. I actually don't remember seeing this one before, so I guess this season won't be all classic eliminations from the past. Players race through a structure and have to knock out their colored tiles on the walls and ceiling, and whoever gets it done and races back to the start first, wins. Considering this is all about speed and adapting to the wacky carnival game rules quickly, it really can be anyone's game.

But wait, there's a twist! Before TJ blows the horn, he stops everything and takes out Carolina Reapers, a.k.a. the hottest peppers in existence. He cackles as he explains that both Teck and Nehemiah have to eat two of them before they can start smashing tiles. Ouch. This is so random and yet I love it so much. These guys are about to be in a world of pain.

Nehemiah and Teck both struggle with swallowing the peppers but they take them down, both at once. The burps and dry heaving afterward look absolutely painful. Teck flips TJ the bird, which has to be a Challenge first. And while the actual elimination is kind of a blur with plaster flying everywhere, Nehemiah and Teck are neck-and-neck the entire way through. But Nehemiah gets it down a split second faster, winning the elimination and sending Teck home. I'm definitely going to miss his wisecracking quips.

All Star of the week: Teck for flipping off TJ. It takes a lot to impress TJ, and that absolutely did it!

Related content:

• The Challenge: All Stars recap: Trishelle puts old drama to bed — and stars a new fight
• The Challenge: All Stars premiere recap: Welcome (back) to The Challenge
• Mark Long wants The Challenge: All Stars to battle against newer The Challenge players