‘The Challenge’ Season 42 Finale Begins With C.T. Going ‘Full Circle’ With Big Easy Moment

Things came full circle on The Challenge Season 42’s final, as Chris “C.T.” Tamburello faced a moment almost two decades in the making.

The final, which arrived on Paramount+ on Wednesday (October 21), saw Team Gray and Team Orange face off in the first heat of a two-day stretch… with heat being the operative word, as it was a sweltering day over in Thailand for the competitors.

Team Gray initially feared that Alexis Lete, due to her fury over being thrown into elimination the week prior by captain Adrienne Naylor, would throw their final challenge out of spite. However, she more than proved her mettle in the game, and even helped teammate Cassidy Clark when she was struggling with fatigue. Plus, she and Cara Maria Sorbello were able to work together to solve some tough puzzles, and all day long, the all-girl squad had a nice lead over the vet-heavy Team Orange.

Jonne Roriz / Paramount+

Orange, meanwhile, was struggling due to C.T.’s lack of endurance. Since the challenges involved them hiking from their compounds over to an arena called the “House of Puzzles” to complete puzzles and collect components for a “power source,” they had to do a lotttt of running. And Uncle C.T. made no bones about the fact that he couldn’t hack it in the cardio part of the challenge.

Johnny Bananas, of course, was instantly reminded of the “full-circle” moment when C.T. was on the exact opposite side of this issue and threw an absolute fit. Back in 2006’s Gauntlet III season, Johnny was sent into elimination instead of Eric “Big Easy” Banks, and he warned that it was a mistake because Easy would drag the team down. However, C.T. believed in Easy when he insisted that he would not go down in the final and was quite literally screaming mad when that’s exactly what happened. Big Easy was eventually medically disqualified from the final, and, since he didn’t cross the finish line with his team, it caused the veteran team to lose. Highlights of C.T. screaming at Big Easy about his inability to keep up were, of course, revisited in the episode to prove that, yes, he was in pretty much the exact same boat as Easy was… only, instead of screaming him down, his team captain, Tori Deal, encouraged C.T. to care for his health first and foremost.

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Once C.T. started vomiting due to his distress, the production team medics stepped in and ran tests on him, allowing the other players to continue in the game. It was not clear if a medical disqualification would result in a default loss, as it did with Gauntlet III, but luckily, we didn’t have to find that out. Once the medics were sure C.T. didn’t have a heart attack just then, he was allowed to resume playing with his team.

From there, Team Orange started to make up some ground. Though C.T. wasn’t very helpful with all of the challenges, he brought enough puzzle master mojo to the game to get his team into the lead at long last…. for now, at least. One more week ’til we find out exactly how the final stretch of the final went down for Teams Gray and Orange.

The Challenge, Wednesdays, Paramount+