Season 38, Episode 5 - Big Moves, Bigger Mistakes: Jay & Michelle’s Power Trip | The Challenge Recap

In this episode of This Ends Your Time on the Challenge, we break down The Challenge Season 38, Episode 5, where winning power leads to some truly questionable decision-making.We start by fact-checking production’s stats—because Veronica does not have the most final wins (she’s tied). From there, we go full data-nerd and analyze daily challenge win rates after manually scraping The Challenge Wiki. Here we find that size matters. We once again beg production to tell us where this season is filmed, discuss why Moriah should absolutely listen to her mom about Bananas being a snake, and compare Darrell to the veteran restaurant employee who comes back after years away and doesn’t recognize a single coworker.There’s an emo-themed party, another Burger King–sponsored episode (BK, call us), and Wes explains why challengers lose their minds over fast food. Devin calls Olivia a beast (correct), further proving she wasn’t “carried” in future seasons, while the house continues its weird refusal to give her credit.Michelle and Jay win the daily and immediately decide it’s time to “make big moves”—despite having no real alliances, no protection, and zero reason to believe anyone is targeting them. Their deliberation is chaotic, their interrogation feels like they’re the ones on trial, and the phrase “split decision” is used in a way that makes absolutely no sense.Laurel remains calm, cold, and terrifying (the scariest Wiley has ever seen her), Bananas politely shades Michelle and Jay’s gameplay, and the difference between Survivor strategy and The Challenge politics becomes painfully obvious.We close with an elimination that proves Laurel and Jakk are true ride-or-dies, Fessy mourning the loss of his cuddle buddy, and one of the messiest power weeks of the season so far.Listener Code: Get 20% off at PrettyGoodCards.com with code INTHESAND