RRS5: The Duel

## Overview

Each player participates in numerous challenges (sometimes called "missions"), which are followed by an elimination round — "The Duel." The challenges can involve either members of the same gender competing against each other, or groups of both men and women competing against each other. Each challenge has a male and a female winner, who will both be safe from the duel in the episode.

The "safe" (or "immune") contestants collectively decide and begin a voting process by voting for a member of a gender, who then selects a member of the opposite gender. This process continues until there is one person remaining of each gender; the remaining boy and the remaining girl will compete in the duel that evening against another player of the same gender.

The two players "voted" into the Duel then select a competitor of the same gender to go against him/her that night, for the exception of that day's challenge winners, and randomly selects from one of four cards held by host T. J. Lavin to determine the Duel game in which the two players will compete.

Note that this selection process occurs immediately after the challenge, unlike in other *Challenges,* where there is a period of deliberation between the end of the challenge and the selection of the contestants for the elimination game.

The loser of the Duel is eliminated from the game and is sent home.

At the end of the season, there will be six contestants left — three of each gender. These players will compete in the finale.

## Gameplay

### **Challenge Games**

* **Reaching Out:** Sixteen ropes of equal length are connected to the center of a large circle in the sand. Played in separate male and female heats, each player is padlocked to their harnesses, and have to crawl and reach out to the end of the circle, where they will dig into the sand in order to retrieve a key needed to unlock the padlock from their harness. The first player from each heat who set himself/herself free from their padlocks first wins.
	+ **Winners:** Chris & Sammie
* **Ring Toss:** Thirty poles are located at the ends of a waist-deep mud pit — fifteen different-colored poles on each side. On one side, each pole contains six rings of a particular color. Played in separate male and female heats, each player races from one end of the mud pit to another, and grabs a ring of an opponent's color, and places the ring around an opponent's pole. The goal is to eliminate an opponent by placing six rings round an opponent's pole. The last player standing from each heat wins.
	+ **Winners:** Armando & Ava

* **Roller Derby:** Players compete in an oval "roller derby" rink, and each player has to race 10 laps around the rink, using roller skates. The challenge is played in separate heats for each gender — two 5-player & one 4-player heats. When host T. J. Lavin sounds the horn, each player races on their own, competing against opposing players, and can eliminate an opponent out of the action zones by launching their opponents over the crash pads outside the railings. If a player is knocked off the track on the inside of the course, that player has three seconds to get back on the action zone, or he/she will be disqualified. A player is also disqualified if he/she clings onto the railing. The winners of each heat advance to the final round, in which the last player standing wins.
	+ **Winners:** Michael C & Avery

* **Pass With Care:** A pair of platforms are suspended 20 feet above water, connected by an unstable rope bridge with crooked planks. Unlike the previous challenge games, this challenge is played with guys and girls partnered together. Each partner starts on opposite sides of the ropes, and have to meet each other halfway through the bridge on a red plank. The catch: A team is disqualified if one player sits, kneels on, or touches any part of the bridge with their hands, or falls off the unstable bridge. Since nobody made it across the bridge on the first go-around, the challenge was repeated in a second round, in which teams were allowed to make it across the bridge by any means possible, including sitting on, crawling and kneeling on the bridge planks. The team that makes it across the bridge in the fastest time wins.
	+ **Winners:** Jaylen & Erika

* **Don't Let Go:** A swing is suspended 360 feet in a canyon over the Shotover River. Players are teamed up into male/female pairs, with the girls harnessed from a swing and their male partners harnessed from a platform hanging from the edge of a cliff. Once the swing mechanisms are released, the guys have to hang on to their female partners with their hands for as long as possible, before the girls are eventually swung 200 feet downward in the form of a bungee jumping contest. The team that hangs on for the longest time wins.
	+ **Winners:** Michael K & Sammie

* **Spelling Air:** A platform is suspended from a structure above Lake Johnson, and players are hanging 100 feet above the water from the top of the platform. Each player is asked to spell a word. A player is dropped into the water and disqualified if he/she misspells a word. The process continues until the last player hanging wins.
	+ **Winners:** Adam & Ava

* **Upside Downer:** A rope platform is suspended from a structure high above the Kowhai River, and players have to swing upside down from ropes from one side of the platform to the other, and collect as many Māori carvings as possible within a 10-minute limit. A player is disqualified if he/she does not make it to the end of the platform within 10 minutes. The player that collects each carving in the fastest time wins.
	+ **Winners:** Jaylen & Rachel

* **Push Over:** A player has to "push" their opponent off a plank that is attached to the end of a boat, with each players' hands tied to where they cannot grab their opponent. Prior to the challenge, match-ups are determined in which T. J. Lavin asks each player to pick colored tokens out of a bag, and players with matching tokens are paired up in same-gender heats. The challenge is played in three rounds of separate male and female heats. The first player to get pushed into the water is eliminated, and the process repeats until the last player standing wins.
	+ **Winners:** Marcus & Evvie

* **Sunken Treasure:** Played in male/female teams, and one team at a time, each partner must swim down into a deep water tank, inside an oxygen cage, where players can catch their breath. Only one partner at a time is allowed to swim further down toward an anchor that has three 4-digit codes that a player must relay back to his/her partner, and memorize the numbers that are needed to unlock three locks to a treasure chest at the bottom of the tank. Like the anchor, only one partner at a time is allowed to swim toward the treasure chest. Once all three locks to the treasure chest are unlocked, a soccer ball attached to a flag will float to the water's surface. A team is disqualified if both partners swim down toward the anchor.
	+ **Winners:** Brij & Avery

* **Stacking Stairs:** Played in male/female teams, each team has to create an ascending (albeit unstable) staircase by transferring wooden crates toward the base of their designated flags that are hanging from a ceiling. The challenge is played in two different heats. (Jasmine chose which teams would compete in the first heat, since she won the duel in the previous episode.) Each team debates amongst themselves as to which player will be harnessed in order to climb to the top of their "staircase," and jump up in an attempt to retrieve their flag. The team from the first heat that retrieves their team flag in the fastest time wins the first phase of the challenge, and the remaining teams in the second heat have to beat the time of the winner of the first heat.
	+ **Winners:** Casey & Hannah

* **All Shook Up:** Players have to hang on to a pair of parallel ropes that are stretched out over a muddy pit, and have to shake their opponents off the ropes. The challenge is played in multiple rounds — guys vs. guys and girls vs. girls — with the winners of the first three rounds advancing to the final round. The last player standing on the ropes wins the challenge.
	+ **Winners:** Marcus & Evvie

* **Burnt:** The challenge is played in separate rounds — male and female. A structure is suspended from a platform hanging 30 feet above a lake, with a pulley system and seven flags attached to barrels on the lake's shore. Each player is hanging from the top of the structure, and has to pull on their designated rope as fast as possible, which will send their flag toward their own barrel. Once six out of seven flags have reached the barrel, the one remaining barrel will explode, dropping the player attached to the barrel into the water. The process continues until the last player hanging wins.
	+ **Winners:** Brij & Jasmine

* **Luging My Mind:** Played in male/female pairs, each pair has to race up and down a luge course to solve a puzzle, while wearing oversize replica bobbleheads of themselves that resemble lamp shades. To start, the guys race up the course to the top, and have to ride back down in a luge car to the bottom of the course, where their female partners will repeat the process. Once the girls meet their male partners at the bottom, each pair will team up, and race to solve a puzzle. The first team to solve their puzzle wins.
	+ **Winners:** Josh & Rachel

### **Duel Games**

* **The Elevator:** The competitors are placed in two separate cages with a pulling chain inside. Each competitor must pull the chain that is inside of his/her cage, and with each pull, the opponent's cage is raised. The competitor who's cage reaches the top first loses.
	+ **Played Six Times:** *Michael T vs. Jonathan, Rebecca vs. Sterling, Jaylen vs. Michael K, Evvie vs. Sophie, Josh vs. Casey, & Hannah vs. Rachel.*
* **Spot On:** There are two rock-climbing walls, one for each challenger. There is a pattern that is designed on each wall. The pattern is not complete, though, and each challenger must use the pieces given to them in order to complete the pattern. The first challenger to complete the pattern wins.
	+ **Played Six Times:** *Daniel vs. Brian, Jeannie vs. Hayley, Michael C vs. Brian, Ava vs. Jasmine, Evvie vs. Jasmine, & Brij vs. Marcus.*

* **Ascender:** Players must climb a rope, pull another rope to release a basket containing puzzle pieces, and climb back down the rope to assemble a tiling puzzle similar to a tangram.
	+ **Played Four Times:** *Brij vs. William, Erika vs. Jasmine, Michael C vs. Jaylen, & Avery vs. Jasmine.*
* **Pole Wrestle:** Players are placed at the center of a circle and are asked to place both hands on a wooden pole approximately 2 feet (0.61 m) in length. The first contestant to wrestle the pole out of his or her opponent's hands wins the Duel.
	+ **Played Six Times:** *Daniel vs. Jonathan, Sammie vs. Sterling, Brij vs. Adam, Angela vs. Sammie, Michael C vs. Marcus, & Angela vs. Alena.*

* **Back Off:** Each competitor has a hook attached to his/her back. The challenger must take the hook off of the opponent's back and place it on a ring on at the side of the arena. The first challenger to successfully hook his/her opponent's hook to the ring twice wins the challenge.
	+ **Played Four Times:** *Xavian vs. Armando, Sammie vs. Antionette, Michael C vs. Chris, & Jasmine vs. Jeannie.*