Jay and Michele officially become public enemy No. 1 on The Challenge: Ride or Dies

Survivor winner Michele Fitzgerald and Jay Starrett have done it again. If you thought they made the most boneheaded decisions in The Challenge history when they finally got power last week on Ride or Dies, they really said, "Hold my beer, we'll make even worse decisions this week." And yeah, they sure did!

Before I completely start trashing Michele and Jay's gameplay, I need to make a confession: I'm a huge Survivor fan. I loved watching both Michele and Jay on their respective seasons, and I always want to see Survivor alums do well on The Challenge. So when I say their strategy (or lack thereof) this season has been the biggest disappointment, I'm not exaggerating. They've both done well in social/political competition reality shows before, and neither of them are rookies on The Challenge, so there's really no excuse for how horribly they're playing this season. Yes, Ride or Dies is set up to create enemies for whoever wins the daily challenges, but other teams have shown how to use that to their advantage, whereas Jay and Michele demonstrated last week they had no idea how to use their new power. And instead of learning from their mistake, they repeated it (but worse!) immediately in this week's episode.

At the beginning of this week's episode, Michele's anxiety is at an all-time high after her political and strategic fail in her attempt to get Laurel Stucky eliminated, but she's hoping it all blows over when someone else messes up. But the fact that she was the only one cheering for rookies Kim Tränka and Colleen Schneider during the elimination was noticed by everyone, including Laurel, so her troubles are only getting worse. And while Jay tries to work out next to Jakk Maddox, hoping that their friendship is just going through a rough patch, Jakk reveals in a confessional that he truly thinks Jay is garbage. It's all very hilarious and yet so uncomfortable to watch both Michele and Jay go around the house completely un-self-aware about how horribly they're playing the social politics here.

But while they suck at the social/political sides of the game, they're absolutely crushing the physical part, since they win this week's daily challenge — their second in a row. But with winning comes the responsibility of picking four teams for possible elimination, and everyone knows how chaotic that's going to be with these two back in power. And the chaos begins right away: Michele reveals she had just made a "one-day deal" with Devin Walker to not target him and Tori Deal, not realizing that was going to bite her in the butt immediately since they'd be a solid choice to pick. Amber Borzotra wisely points out to Michele that she's making too many deals, and even she is starting to worry about being allies with Michele (which is smart, because Amber was thisclose to being chosen for elimination despite being BFFs with Michele).

Michele and Jay sit down with Aneesa Ferreira and Jordan Wiseley to warn them that they're going to say the same names as last time, i.e. putting them into interrogation again, but Jordan says he and Aneesa are working with them and aren't trying to get revenge for going in last time. "That changes things," Jay tells a wide-eyed Michele. And yet... it doesn't. When they sit down to decide on the four teams, they know for sure they're choosing Laurel/Jakk, and since they caught a lot of heat for not putting Johnny Bananas Devenanzio/Nany Gonzalez in last time, they're putting them in this time. As for the other two, Jay calls Amber/Chauncey Palmer "dead weight," they complain that they can't call in Devin/Tori, and they know they need to put in teams who will save each other, forcing Bananas/Nany to go against Laurel/Jakk. The four teams end up being Laurel/Jakk, Bananas/Nany, Kaycee Clark/Kenny Clark, and Aneesa/Jordan — which doesn't make sense at all for what they just said they're trying to do! Come on Jay and Michele, not again.

Everyone is once again shocked at their choices and they catch even more heat. During the interrogations, Laurel acts fake nice to Michele, then Kaycee, Kenny, and Nany make it clear that they've now made more enemies while Bananas takes the fake nice route like Laurel. And then when Michele and Jay try to explain that they had to nominate a third of the house, Aneesa and Jordan hilariously tell them not to tell them how to play this game, since they've been doing it a lot longer (and a lot better) than them. And then Jordan goes off on how they can't trust anything they say, and they're weak for saying one thing and then doing another, to which Jay tries to argue that Jordan calling them weak makes Jordan look weak. Jay, no. But at least it fires up Jordan to go into power play mode after Jay gets upset and threatens to make them the main pick for elimination. After Jordan and Aneesa walk out, Michele breaks down in tears — again.

The next morning, Nany confronts Michele in front of Laurel about how she made her feel safe only to throw her in, and while Michele tries to apologize, Nany and Laurel completely shut her down because nothing she can say will change anything. They don't want to hear it. Words mean nothing on this show — actions are everything, and Michele has proven multiple times this season that she can't be trusted to make smart or loyal decisions. Michele breaks down in tears again to Jay, and they bond even more, which is great because at this rate they're on their way to having no one else on their side in the entire house.

When they get to the Arena, Michele and Jay end up picking Jordan and Aneesa to go straight into elimination, which again, makes absolutely no sense. They want Laurel and Jakk out, but now they've given them the opportunity to pick the safe dagger in The Draw! There's a chance they could get out of this! Thankfully for Jay and Michele, Bananas and Nany pull a dagger first and get the safe one, and they obviously choose Kaycee and Kenny to save, despite Bananas and Laurel being BFFs. Now Laurel and Jakk are going into their second elimination in a row, and Laurel's feeling even more pissed about getting put in this situation with her own friends because of the same two people. But while she was full on pissed off Laurel last week, this week she can't stop crying and seems more defeated than ready for revenge. This is not the Laurel I expected to see!

The elimination is a twist on dodgeball, perfect for four pissed-off vets. Jordan and Aneesa get an early lead by picking up four cinder blocks at once while Laurel and Jakk only do two at a time, and while everyone expects that kind of performance from Jordan, it's Aneesa who impresses everyone. Jordan really is the best partner she's ever had — look at how he's encouraging her to perform better than she ever has before! During dodgeball, Jordan hits targets immediately and with perfect aim while Aneesa blocks Laurel's shots well. While Laurel manages to tie it up at one point, Jordan just can't be stopped. Even when Jakk blocks some of Jordan's shots, Jordan keeps praising Jakk, proving why he's one of the best competitors here.

And then, in one of the most picture-perfect endings, Jordan lines up his last shot, looks up to Jay and Michele standing on the podium, and says, "What'd I tell you? What did I say?" as he hits the last target and wins. Jay and Michele can only stand there and stew in their misery, knowing it's all their own making. After the elimination ends, Laurel starts to tear up again, and Jordan hugs her as they both say how proud they are of each other. Jordan promises Laurel he'll make Michele and Jay pay for what they've done, and as Laurel is leaving, she says, "Take care of it." Nany responds from the sidelines, "I got you." This is The Challenge version of a mob hit, and we're watching it play out publicly and in real time. It's incredible and this is why I cannot get enough of this season!

So Laurel and Jakk are officially gone, and Jay and Michele have solidified their place as public enemy No. 1 in the house. I'll be shocked if they last longer than a week now.

Other notable moments in this episode:

• Nelson is terrible at Jenga. In true Nelson fashion, while playing it during the night out, he grabs a piece, celebrates his "win" for the cameras, only to have the entire block fall immediately. Never change, Scuba Nelly T.
• Laurel and Horacio Gutiérrez's romance ends early after he tells her he had been talking to a girl back home before he came on the show. Laurel assumes that means the girl was going to be his girlfriend when the show ended, so she immediately moves out of their room and cuts all communication off with him because she doesn't want to get hurt. But Horacio says it's a misunderstanding: yes, there's a girl back home, but he wants to pursue things with Laurel. He doesn't want to lose her but he thinks she just needs some space, so he doesn't talk with her to clear things up. That's a massive mistake because Laurel immediately lets Faysal Shafaat cuddle with her in bed instead.
• During the word puzzle portion of the daily challenge (which was just figuring out five synonyms for the word "friends"), Nany gets pissed at Bananas for making jokes and not taking it seriously. She thinks they could have won if he hadn't been making stupid comments and been focused on the challenge, and since she's still grieving her mom and is here to win like never before, she sits Johnny down to make it clear she needs maximum effort from him going forward. He takes the note well and promises not to joke around during challenges anymore. I am loving this serious, competitive version of Nany, but it's heartbreaking that it was inspired by such a tragic loss.
• Darrell Taylor and Veronica Portillo almost won their heat of the challenge, but Veronica rejected Darrell's idea to put the word "amigos" on the board, since she was convinced the words wouldn't be in another language. Unfortunately for both of them, it was one of the words, and their mistake allowed Horacio and Olivia Kaiser to win that heat. Ultimately, it didn't matter since Jay and Michele's winning time in the first heat was faster than Horacio and Olivia's, but who knows if Darrell and Veronica's time could have beaten them — everything would have changed.

The Challenge: Ride or Dies airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.

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