‘The Challenge’s Chris Underwood on Elimination Regrets & More

They say to be careful what you wish for, and that was certainly a lesson to be learned for Chris Underwood on the latest episode of The Challenge. The Survivor alum, who’d won the second season of spinoff The Challenge: USA, knew he was guaranteed to go into the elimination on Wednesday’s (September 23) new episode, aptly titled “A Captain’s Worst Nightmare,” since he was the only male member of the new “Team Blu-Ray.” But thanks to a hard-won daily win in the “Telephone”-esque game of “Devil’s in the Details,” he had some sway with new captain Adrienne Naylor as to who from Team Orange would face him in the elimination.

Chris didn’t want to go head to head with Chris “C.T.” Tamburello, and of the remaining options, he was very vocal about his preference to face Justin Hinsley. Through tears, Adrienne, Justin’s friend, honored Chris’ wishes and sent Justin into the arena. But things didn’t quite work out the way Chris might’ve hoped.

In the elimination battle, “Chain Reaction,” the two had to drag giant blocks under a heavy net of chains one by one and then, once they were all moved, try to squeeze them into a container — and there was only one possible way to do so. Though Chris got a massive lead in moving the blocks, and Justin was visibly exhausted (to the point that Chris even called him out for it), Justin managed to pull off a victory and send Chris home.

So does Chris regret wishing for Justin to join him on the proving ground? What does he think would’ve happened if he faced C.T.? And how did his experience on the flagship show compare to USA 2? TV Insider caught up with Chris Underwood to find out all of that and more.

You started the season out pretty strong, and then you kind of got on a bad footing with Johnny Bananas early on. Why did you decide to take that shot so early in the game?

Chris Underwood: Interestingly enough, I didn’t care one way or the other. Sydney [Segal, cocaptain] was the one who was going to make that call, and I felt like I had an alliance and allegiance to Sydney and what she wanted to do in that because she was kind of adopting me into her previous alliance members. That was a really awesome thing to get brought into that based on her relationship with Justin and then Adrienne and then Leo [Dionicio]. I just got brought into that, and I didn’t do anything to deserve that. I was just like, “All right.” Sydney basically told us, “Chris is a part of us, we’re gonna look out for him. He’s gonna look out for us. That’s fine.” That meant that Johnny Bananas and C.T. were the options on Team Orange, and I had actually told Michele [Fitzgerald], “Hey, it doesn’t matter who it is, but probably Johnny Bananas getting on your bad side or mine. That bad side’s not best for our game, so maybe do C.T. this time around, and then we’ll figure it out from there.” But she didn’t listen; she did Bananas. But it’s all good.

Moving forward a little bit, how much did the loss of Cory [Wharton] for personal reasons and Leo for the triple DQ affect Team Gray’s morale?

I mean, absolutely gutting. Just the worst of the worst. Just bottom of the barrel feelings. I mean, on paper, Team Gray was so good, and then to lose Sydney to an ACL injury, to lose Cory right after that — both my number ones, by the way, guy and girl. Then to lose Josh [Goldstein] and Nelson [Thomas], we didn’t even have any more options. I’m the last guy in the house at that point. I was like, “I’ve been doing really good, a month of just kicking ass, and then within a matter of six days, truly everything kind of fell off the wheels, and I couldn’t get back.” There was nothing more for me to do. Even when I got captaincy, I lost it right away. It’s like, “I don’t know what else to do.”

Yeah it did seem like you were in a good position when you got the captaincy, but it was so short-lived. Why do you think it was such a struggle to bring you back into that? You’d gotten over the stalemate before.

Everybody had their own agendas. Everybody wanted to be captain, and when I realized that I wasn’t — there was no way that I was going to get all the girls to vote for me… I wanted to be captain, but I knew if we could get someone, at least have a person on Team Gray be the captain, and if it wasn’t going to be me, then I felt like I could get Adrienne to earn captainship based on the relationship that I had with her, and then the respect that like me and Cara [Maria Sorbello] and [Alexis] Lete had for each other as just strictly the competitor level. Not saying that [with] Anna Leigh [Wilson] and Cassidy [Clark] I didn’t have respect for them, but they were in every team lower on the priority list, the pecking order, non-emotionally. So that was the only difference with that.

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Well, obviously, your gambit did work out because Adrienne did do what you wanted, and you wanted Justin. Now, I had seen him on Vets and New Threats taking down Rogan [O’Connor] in that first elimination. Did you know that that had happened, and did you maybe underestimate him a little bit?

No, I feel like I definitely equally estimated him. I didn’t underestimate. I didn’t over. I appropriately estimated him, and I felt like 49 times out of 50, if you give me something that is going to just be a physical challenge or elimination, something that is hand-eye coordination, something that is vertical — something like any of the other challenges we’d seen in previous the whole season up to this point, I could have beaten him. The one thing Justin had on me as an equalizer was puzzles. Yeah, and you don’t get to decide what you go in against. If I’d have gone in “Balls In,” if I’d have gone in “Pole Wrestle,” if I’d have gone in “BackPack,” literally anything that’s like an in-game male elimination, I feel like I had it, so I wasn’t afraid of him. And because of that thought process, that’s why I didn’t want to go in against Bananas, Will [Gagnon], or C.T. He was just my best option based on where we were at at that point in the game to come back into the house. That was it. But he got me. Little devil.

Yeah he got you. You were taunting him a little bit in the arena, saying he was very tired. Was that you trying to get into his head a little bit, or was that wishful thinking?

One hundred percent, yeah, mental warfare out there. And I was frustrated, too. I’d just busted my ass getting so far ahead of him, and to get to that point, and then spend 45 minutes that I couldn’t figure out to save my life, and I even tried to jam puzzles in the same way he did when he won, and they just weren’t fitting for me. It was just a heartbreaking moment, and I was totally pissed off. Girls were trying to give me advice. Some of it worked. Some of it was good advice. Some of it was bad advice. I tried to drown out the noise and just focus on my side. But man, moving those puzzles for that, the puzzles are so heavy. Those were at least 100 pounds. Each one was about 100 pounds, and that’s a lot to move. You’ve got to move 500 pounds worth of sh*t just to get a puzzle. It’s a lot, and it and it gasses you out. So I knew that he was tired, and I had more stamina than him. He just, it clicked. The puzzles clicked. They either get them or you don’t. Christian Hubicki, Season 50 of Survivor, pretty smart guy; lost on a puzzle. Just you either get it or you don’t, and that’s the hard thing about puzzles. So even though Justin beat me, I don’t feel like he beat me. I feel like I beat myself because at the end of the day, I couldn’t solve a puzzle when I had 30 minutes of leeway. I just couldn’t do it. So it’s just frustrating, but it’s what it is.

So looking back, all the analysis, I guess, that’s been going on about C.T. is that he’s kind of a drag on the physical stuff. Given that this was so physical, do you think maybe you would have had a better chance against him, or do you think the fact that he’s good at puzzles too just made it still the right choice?

I was 50-50 on it. I thought that there’s a chance that he’s gonna gas out faster than me and not be able to push those underneath. But he has a lot of weight to him. I don’t think that moving heavy pieces were gonna be very hard for him. And he’s good at puzzles. I mean, even just based off of the elimination that we had, I still felt like Justin was the best bet for me to win. The only other person 50-50, if I really thought that there was going to be a puzzle involved, again, like I said before, we have no idea what’s in the elimination. I truly did not think that I was going to get faced with a puzzle. Like, “What the hell? We’re at the end of the game. You give me a puzzle. What are we doing?” But if I would have thought that there was a probability that was going to happen, I for sure would have gone with Will because I feel like I would have been able to handle myself under pressure, and I already knew that Justin was pretty good at puzzles because of Episode 1. We both became captains because of a puzzle, and then he beats me on a puzzle. Yeah, it’s just crazy. Screw puzzles. [Flashes a double bird.] If there’s two words you’re gonna take away is to say, “Screw puzzles.” I hate them.

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Before this appearance on the flagship, you’d obviously been on USA, too. In the end, how did those experiences compare to you? Were they more similar than you expected, or were they completely different?

I would say this a completely different energy, different feeling about the season, different format. I loved being in a team. I can tell you, with confidence, this was my favorite season that I’ve ever done. More than Survivor, more than USA 2. I had to dig so deep mentally and emotionally to get through those seasons based on the format, where this was a team format where people actually wanted me on their team. I was like, “Wow, I’ve never felt this before. I’m actually wanted. This is so special. I feel valued, and people want to stick their neck out to save me,” which we saw time and time again. That’s why I didn’t have to ever go into the arena because people wanted me on their team. They wanted me at the end, and even in the last episode, we were trying to fight to give Gray every shot they could, the best probability to keep me, and I just couldn’t get it done. I just couldn’t get it done.

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