10/19 - Challenge USA 2023 Finale Discussion

Final Challenge

The final eight contestants competed in the Final Challenge, which began the day after the "Hall Brawl" elimination.

Day One

For the first day, players compete in four trials based on four traits needed to become a champion. The top-performing male and female player of each trial earn a one-minute advantage for day two, while the respective last place male and female player receive a one-minute penalty. For each trial, players can also "double down" and call that they will win a trial. This doubles their advantage to two minutes if they win the trial, but also doubles their penalty to two minutes if they place last.

Trial 1 (Strength): Players must use a sled to haul four boxes proportional to their bodyweight up a hill.

Trial 2 (Smarts): Players compete in a five-word spelling bee, earning one point for each correctly-spelled word.

Trial 3 (Skills): Players must arrange tiles into a grid, with the rule that four squares of the same color cannot be in a row.

Trial 4 (Steel Stomach): Players must consume three out of four dishes from the choices of: a tofu and sauerkraut smoothie, a chia stack topped with mealworms and crickets, wasabi crackers and loaded chilli truffles.

Day Two

Players complete a ten-mile race to the finish line at the top of a mountain, departing based on the time advantages or penalties earned during the previous day. Along the way are three "Risk Stations". Players can choose to spend time attempting the challenges at the first two Risk Stations to earn an advantage, while the third Risk Station is mandatory to complete. Additionally, the last male and female player to reach the second Risk Station are eliminated from the Final Challenge.

Risk Station 1: (1.25 miles) Players can attempt to throw an axe and hit a target within five attempts to access a 1.2-mile shortcut to the next station. From this station, all players must carry a heavy rock to the next station.

Risk Station 2: (4.6 miles) Players can attempt to place rocks in one side of a scale so that it balances out the other side, within one try. If they are successful, they can ride an ATV to the next Risk Station. The last male and female player to arrive at Risk Station 2 are eliminated. Anyone taking the shortcut only ran 3.4 miles total instead of 4.6 miles.

Eliminated: Faysal and Tori (4th place)

ATV ride was 1.4 miles, from mile marker 4.6 to the 6 mile marker. Everyone in an ATV ran from the 6 mile marker to the next Risk Station, which was another 1.8 miles. So for those who were successful at Risk Station 1 & 2 they only ran 5.2 miles.

Risk Station 3: (7.8 miles) Players must stack cinder blocks with the names of eliminated contestants in the order they were eliminated before proceeding to the finish line. The first male and female player to reach the finish line are declared the winners of the season and receive $250,000 each. So those with both advantages ran 7.4 miles while Bananas ran 8.8 miles.

Winners: Chris and Desi ($250,000 each)
Runners-up: Chanelle and Cory
Third place: Bananas finished and Michaela - medically disqualified - did not cross finish line - so really is not the third place finisher

The Challenge: USA season 2 winners reveal what you didn't see in the final

"I absolutely smoked it and crushed everyone," tells EW.
By Sydney Bucksbaum
Published on October 20, 2023

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Challenge: USA season 2 finale.

Desi Williams and Chris Underwood earned so much more than $250,000 each when they won The Challenge: USA season 2.

Both Survivor alums felt their win brought them justice and validation for the last time you saw each of them on TV. For Desi, it was karma after her partner quit on her during season 1's final, which forced her into an involuntary DQ. And for Chris, it proved his Survivor: Edge of Extinction win wasn't a fluke.

"Chris had a rougher season than I did, but coming off of season 1 and feeling like it was ripped from under me, it was good to get my payback," Desi tells EW.

"It was a total validation," Chris agrees. "Before playing The Challenge, it was, 'Chris is one of the most undeserving winners to ever play Survivor.' That was what I had to deal with. So having the adversity that I experienced on The Challenge and then overcoming it has been awesome."

Below, the winners break down their epic finish, what viewers didn't see on TV, and more.
“The Pursuit of Glory” – The final eight competitors battle it out in a grueling two-day final challenge where only one man and one woman will have the chance to be crowned champions and split the $500,000 grand prize, on the season finale of THE CHALLENGE: USA, Thursday, Oct. 19 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Congratulations on becoming Challenge champs! How do you feel about the way your seasons went now that you've watched it on TV?

DESI WILLIAMS: Something that they didn't show, actually Chanelle brought this up to me, Chris and I had a behind-the-scenes alliance all season long. Certainly everybody in the house didn't know about it, so I've actually had some cast members come to me and be like, "They're making it seem like you were really close to Chris. Were you close to Chris?" And I was.

CHRIS UNDERWOOD: [Laughs] You were. They could totally do 90-minute episodes like they're doing with Survivor, and we'd be able to see it all. But this one is so different than my first television experience from having gotten voted out third, being on Edge of Extinction, and not getting to play the game from start to finish, to then in this season, being a big part of every decision. "What's Chris going to do?" "Is he going to win or not?" It was so much more fun.

Take me back to the moment you won — how did that feel?

CHRIS: I felt like I was walking on the moon for the first time. I had so much against me from the middle of the game to the end that I had to fight through to get to standing up there with TJ, affirming that I absolutely smoked it and crushed everyone. And that's all I was wanting to do, not only beat them, I want to win by a mile. I threw my helmet like 50 feet in the air. I was yelling into the valley. And then to see Desi coming up, it was just perfect. It was emotional. We got to celebrate that together as two Survivors and people who played the game together for the entire season.

DESI: I think Chris won by way more than a mile. I don't think I've ever been so dehydrated in my life — I had so much emotion and so many tears inside of me, but I literally had no liquid to cry it out, so I was dry heaving. That was my own fault, I never refilled my water pack. But it was confirmation that I was in the right place at the right time. I went back and forth in my head about whether I even wanted to come back for season 2 — I didn't know if season 1 was a fluke that I'd made it to the final, I didn't want to perform worse the second time around, so actually getting to the top reconfirmed the confidence that I had built up in myself from season 1 making it to the final, that I was actually able to play that out. And I was really proud to be there with Chris. We said at the beginning of the game that we thought the two of us could win it, and to have that come to fruition was like, "Did we manifest this? How did this happen?"

Chris, how far ahead did you finish before Cory?

CHRIS: Maybe half an hour. I was up there for 20 minutes before I saw anyone coming up the mountain, and once you saw the flag, there was still a good hike up to the top. Even though I knew I was in first place, I was visualizing in my head the back of Bananas' head, the back of Cory's head, so I was just trying to beat this imaginary version of Cory and Bananas and Fessy. I just was cranking.

Desi, how much time passed after you won before Chanelle finished?

DESI: Maybe 20 minutes. My perception of time in that moment is so warped. Chris, do you remember?

CHRIS: I do remember you were pretty much neck-and-neck with Cory and finished within a couple minutes of each other, for sure. And then Chanelle was probably 10 minutes behind you.

What do you think was your winning move to solidify such a lead?

DESI: That's a really easy answer. It was that trial that Michaela thought she could run instead of taking the ATVs. She's probably beating herself up because that was a $250,000 mistake. We were literally neck-and-neck, she paused and was like, "What do we do?" And I was like, "You don't know what we do? I know what we do at this trial." So I just started doing it and she decided to run on foot instead of taking the ATV. Other than that, I think we would've been neck-and-neck to the end.

CHRIS: For me, a lot of it came to the ax throwing. I had tunnel vision and I didn't even realize that there was a risk associated with missing the ax throws, I just picked them up and started throwing them. And I was throwing them kind of carelessly, but I hit the fourth one. If I had missed that, I would've been on the same track as Fessy and it would've been a neck-and-neck race all the way to the top.

DESI: Yeah, and Bananas messed up that second trial and that screwed it for him.

CHRIS: Those risk stations were make or break, and the winners had to perform perfectly.

DESI: Once I got past Michaela in my ATV, I never saw another female competitor until Chanelle came up and crossed the finish line.

Chris, you had the most difficult journey to get to the end out of anyone else in the final. Looking back on it, why do you think you were you sent down into the most eliminations?

CHRIS: I was okay at politicking, and it put me in difficult positions that I knew I would probably have to be in eventually. Playing the middle is risky. And then the tides turned and I was just like, "You know what? This is just me against the world at this point." My game went off the wheels in the middle, and I just had to battle it on my own.

DESI: Long story short, he had too many promises to too many people, and it imploded. But it made for a very entertaining season, if nothing else.

If you could go back and redo this season, what would you do to avoid going into elimination so many times?

CHRIS: We could have had a super strong rookie alliance with Michele, Michaela, Chanelle, myself, Sebastian, Tyler, Monte. We could have gotten a lot of those vets out, at least put them down in the sand over and over again where they were scrambling. But I personally was like, "I want to make a really great TV show, I want to have these vets here as long as possible. I want to align with them and play with the people I think have the best shot at winning." If I were to go back, I would've probably voted with all of the rookies and it would've been a clean sweep, but that's kind of boring. Let me play the middle. Let me get a little risky here.

DESI: [Laughs] My eye was on the prize. What's the path of least resistance to the end where I can just win the final? But different strokes for different folks. It worked out for both of us.

But Desi, you also made your path to winning more difficult by aligning with the "strong women" and bringing your biggest competition with you to the final. Did the way your game ended last season, with a weaker player quitting in the final and forcing you into a DQ, factor into your strategy to bring the best to the end this season?

DESI: I don't know if it's for good reason or not, but if you can win among the best, that means so much more than pulling a bunch of people who you know you can beat to the end. But more importantly, it was about making it to the final, so I aligned with the people who I thought would win daily challenges, and it proved week after week. And then I'm going to bet on me in the end. I know these girls are strong and they can all probably beat me on any given day, and I still feel that way — on a different day, different set of circumstances, they could have beat me in the final — but at least I made it to the final.

Were there any checkpoints you did in the final that we didn't see on TV?

DESI: [Laughs] Yes. It probably would've been really boring to watch, but there was an overnight challenge. We had to stand on these little pedestals, and as a group, we had to collectively count in our head to an hour. If it was less than an hour, you had to do it again. If it was more than an hour and five minutes, you had to do it again. We did that three times.

CHRIS: Three hours' worth of standing on the pedestals. We got it on the third time, but trying to count to an hour, three hours straight, by the second, it was pretty miserable.

DESI: I think that's why so many people were dehydrated day two. There's no context to demonstrate why people were struggling so much, hydration-wise, but we didn't have time to drink water. After that, we just wanted to go to bed. Then we woke up and ran 10 miles uphill.

CHRIS: Our butts were pretty sore.

DESI: My whole body was broken. I physically couldn't run at certain points because my muscles were spasming. Michaela's body actually shut down, but I felt like my body was getting to that point, and luckily it held out long enough.

CHRIS: I was in such a locked-in zone that I had been living in for a few weeks going down in the sand over and over, so there wasn't any individual part for me that was really difficult. I, the entire time, was in this vortex of deep, dark, negative energy thoughts, cursing up a storm as I was running. I tapped into what an ultra-marathon runner would tap into, being in a different mental state — I probably could have broken an arm and wouldn't have felt it.