‘The Challenge: Total Madness’ power rankings after ep. 15

One competitor put his friendship before the money this week.

When we last left MTV’s reality competition show The Challenge, a team made up of CT, Dee, Jordan and Rogan claimed victory after a wild season.

This time? It’s every competitor for his and herself in Total Madness, as 28 of the best vets and some very talented rookies compete for a million dollar prize while living in an underground bunker.

As always, we task our resident Challenge expert Charles Curtis to power rank each of the competitors after each week.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

This week: We got another double elimination and EVERYONE had Red Skulls. So two contenders went home … and next week THE FINAL BEGINS!!

A note before we begin: As you may have seen, Dee Nguyen — who was eliminated on Total Madness this week — was fired by the MTV series after her offensive statements about Black Lives Matter on social media. Nguyen apologized, and episodes have been edited to leave out much of her storyline.

Given this entire situation, I’m leaving her out of the rankings.

1. Johnny Bananas

He was the winner of the Crash Course challenge (in which competitors drove a skidding car into a bunch of barrels like it was bowling) this week, which decided his fate — I’m pretty sure if he hadn’t, he would have been thrown into Purgatory. What a huge week for the front-runner, who will go into the final as the favorite.

2. Jenny

WOW. You already knew she was a superstar. Then you got to see her run through Dee in the Hall Brawl … and yeah, she’s ready to do the same to the other competitors in the final.

3. Fessy

He continues to check all the boxes from muscles to mind, and we saw for a second straight week how he’s wielded some political power in the bunker. He kept himself out of elimination in a situation where he probably was a leading nominee to go in, and now we get to see what he can do in a final.

4. Kaycee

She was the female winner of this week’s challenge, continuing to impress in a fantastic rookie season. She’s definitely a contender, even without final experience.

5. Rogan

The fact that Hall Brawl was the Purgatory lined up perfectly for the rugby player. If he couldn’t win the challenge this week, he knew he was getting thrown into elimination. And there was a point where Nelson had him in the first round … but Rogan’s strength proved to be too much.

6. Cory

We’ll get to Nelson in a second, but if it wasn’t for his best friend’s incredible move to volunteer, we probably would have seen Cory in there. Cory’s the bigger threat in the final, right?

7. Bayleigh

I had her lower last week because I thought she was going into Purgatory this week. Now? I think she’s a bigger contender than the other two names on the list.

8. Melissa

I don’t think she deserved all that blame for not voting to help Jenny avoid elimination. It’s what she said: she came in with an alliance with Dee and Jenny, and she couldn’t choose between the two and voted for Bayleigh instead.

9. Kyle

It took Johnny bringing him into a Tribunal for him to make one! It made me wonder: I know he and Bananas are buddies, but we know Johnny doesn’t make any move without considering all the options. Did he help Kyle because Johnny would rather run a final against him? Hmm. Also: we found out that Kyle’s dad is a stunt driver, which made Kyle’s failure to knock down any barrels pretty hilarious.

10. Nelson

Didn’t you have tears when you saw him volunteer to go in over Cory because his friend has children to support? What a move, one of the most selfless moments we’ve ever seen in the series. Regarding his performance in Purgatory: there was a point where he had Rogan right where he wanted him … but he didn’t let go and run to ring his bell, which we’ve seen work in Hall Brawl in the past. And his trip in the second heat was costly.

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