The Challenge: New Recruits

**The Challenge: New Recruits** is the first season of the Bleak Network's fanseries of MTV's The Challenge. The season features 38 fresh faces competing against each other for a $75,000 cash prize.

## Format

* **Gender Divide**: In this season, the men will be competing against the other men and the women will be competing against the other women.
	+ Despite this, both sexes will live toegther and have opportunities to influence the other gender's game.
* **Solo Challenge**: In this season, it's every person for themselves.

## The Game

### Episode One

The episode kicks off with the thirty-eight challengers entering a luxurious mansion in Peru. Elissa, Tiffany and Kemi immediately hit it off and decide to work together as a Big Brother alliance on the lowkey, after noticing how many Brits are in the house this season. Meanwhile, Belle is bewildered by the other challengers and explains in a confessional that she is already losing faith in being able to perform well. She admits to being starstruck by the likes of Malika and Nikki due to their influence in reality television while she has only just got off of Love Island. Simultaneously Nikki makes a confessional comparing this show to Big Brother, and how weird it is to play with a cast of people who are all familiar from television whilst also knowing what they're capable of.

For the first night in the mansion, drinks flow and the challengers get to know each other. Kirk is furious that his ex-fiance Cami is in the same show, explaining about a fight they had when they last saw each other. Cami also explains worries about having to live with him, explaining to Chloe that she's concerned that her temper will get the better of her eventually when living with him.

However, drinks are cut short when the challengers are hit with a text to meet TJ outside of the mansion. Upon meeting him, information about the season is finally given. The men and the women will be competing for separate cash prizes, meaning that in this season one man and one woman will walk away with the ultimate prize. But before revealing anything else, TJ also reveals the first challenge of the season, which happens to be a purge challenge, shocking the challengers, and ultimately keeping the typical format of the season hidden for now. He explains that the challenge is an overnight half marathon, leading to a lot of complaints from the challengers, especially Luisa, who is already tipsy and visibly drunker than any of the other challengers.

For the men, Harry keeps a visible lead for most of the challenge, until shockingly Aaron overtakes him midway. When Aaron reaches a crossroads, he notices a sign telling them which way to go, and cheekily, he meddles with it to show the wrong direction to go, leading to many of the challengers to get lost through travelling down the left trail. Ultimately, Aaron completes the marathon first due to his meddling, by a considerable margin. After a couple of hours, Ika reaches the crossroads and immediately can tell that the sign has been tampered with due to the arrow looking really off when you're close up to it. She follows the other trail to the confusion of Tom, who decides to follow her. This allows Ika to land in first place for the women, and for Tom to place second. When the challengers realise the other trail is a dead-end, more challengers cross the finish line and end up in their respective placements. By now, only three men are outstanding, Jon, Caleb and Andrew.

After a couple more hours, Jon finally trickles in looking exhausted. Meanwhile, Caleb is completely lost and Andrew is burnt out, but ultimately Caleb manages to find an alternate route through the forest and manages to cross the finish line, hours before Andrew can reach it, eliminating him. Meanwhile, Elissa, Tiffany and Kemi reach the crossroads after deciding to run the marathon together. Kemi vocalises her apprehension to run down the left trail as she thinks the sign is obviously a trap. Elissa and Tiffany aren't convinced, so they take off down the left trail while Kemi takes the right without them realising. Hours later, Luisa, Elissa, Tiffany, Malika and Nikki are the last women to find the finish line. The sun is beginning to rise, causing groans throughout the challengers who have finished as they are sleep deprived.

Luisa takes a break from running to regain her composure and to try and sober up through drinking some water. After about an hour, Luisa finally starts moving again and crosses the finish line. Meanwhile, Nikki is struggling to make the slightest bit of progress, and it starts to get to her. She has a mental breakdown on camera, stating that she isn't built for running and that she didn't expect this show to be this difficult from the beginning. Her meltdown continues, while Elissa and Tiffany continue to get even more lost down the left trail. Malika is also really struggling to continue through the marathon. She reaches the crossroads and becomes incredibly overheated, causing her to blackout. The team intervenes to help her rehydrate. Nikki approaches the crossroads and sees this, before becoming livid and concerned for her safety, causing her to have another meltdown leading to her refusing to continue on with the challenge. TJ meets up with her and explains if she doesn't continue with the challenge, then she will be removed from the game and will be regarded as a quitter in all future challenges, to which she doesn't care and insists on being removed from the game.

By this point, it's early in the morning. Elissa is convinced that she and Tiffany are the bottom two women as they approach the finish line, causing Elissa to push Tiffany out of the way so that she can cross before her, only to realise Malika and Nikki are also missing from the group moments after crossing. Tiffany is furious with Elissa, leading to a massive public blowup between the pair, and eventually Kemi, after the pair of girls realise she's been here a long time. Tiffany brands Elissa as a snake and storms off, causing Elissa to become frustrated. TJ announces that Nikki has quit the game, but regardless a woman will be eliminated via the challenge, meaning that Malika has been eliminated from the competition.

Malika and Andrew say their goodbyes to the group after the completion of the challenge. In a closing confessional, Malika admits she didn't think the show would be as difficult as she expected, and confesses that she thinks she could've done so much more to prepare for the season and that after becoming more suited to it, she'd love to try it again and see what she can accomplish. Andrew says his goodbyes and wishes that he was more suited to the show's needs from its challengers, and he admits he wants to train harder and become better to achieve more in the future, regardless of whether it's on the show or not.

The episode closes with shots of Andrew and Malika leaving the group, as TJ announces that the overnight challenge was just the beginning of what's to come, explaining that if you're not prepared to go all out, you're gonna fall flat, as Nikki did. The challengers leave the challenge area in high spirits, despite being terribly exhausted. Belle explains in a closing confessional that she can't believe two of her highest regarded players are already eliminated from the game and that she is incredibly nervous and likely unprepared for whatever the season throws at her.

### Episode Two

The following day, Caleb is down in the dumps for nearly being sent home from the game already. Sarah Gr. and Sian are bonding over Big Brother, as well as Kemi when she joins the pair outside.