Hey Fandom! Welcome back for another episode of Roundtable Recap with your Challenge Fandom Podcast hosts Rick, Corrina, Josh, Tony, Katie and Alexis. We are back for a full recap of The Challenge 40 EP1 "The Era Invitational Part 1" and we had such a great episode. We kick off talking a bit about the episode 0 Launch Special including how we feel about the past break between seasons, why this season has been made to be so difficult to watch for fans, what we liked (and disliked) about the house, Rachel's speech, the tribute to Diem and more (0:00 - 19:00).

Next we break into recapping episode 1 and we start off with some discussion topics like TJ's stats, whether or not the cast is too big, how we felt about the commercial trick, whether or not episode 0 and episode 1 truly needed to be separated and did the cast really arrive in that shipping container? We also discuss everything in the intro from TJ's entrance and CT's emotional moment to our favorite "what I would do with the money" confessionals. We move on to discuss the purge nightly including whether or not we thought it was sufficient enough to be a deciding challenge for 8 iconic players to be eliminated right out the gate. We also break down some of the editing missteps in this episode such as editing some of the finishers out of order, and why were people from one era helping people from another era? To end the daily breakdown we discuss how we felt about Nurys' reaction to losing the challenge, what impressed us most about the first place finishers and who shocked us most in this opening performance? (19:00 - 1:05:00).

Lastly we break into the house deliberations by discussing the possibilities between Ryan, Derek and Laurel as well as Paulie's interesting conversation with Bananas. We also discuss Tony's pitch to Cory, Josh's pitch to Theo, Bananas' odd speech about relationships in the house and would you rather have photos of your loved ones with you or leave them at home? Lastly we break down the various nomination chamber pleas including Derrick volunteering for Darrell, Cara's logical argument followed by a potential mistake, Brandon taking Ryan's callout personally, Tony taking shots at Jordan right in front of him, Amanda using insults to try and get a favor, how Michele botches power every time she has it and of course, Paulie calling out Theo for calling out Paulie. What a mess! We also discuss why this cliffhanger was a bad place to do it, what we hated most about this episode, who we think will end up in eliminations in episode 2, how season previews mixed with social media can give more spoilers than production realizes, MVPs and of course.. we give a special shout out to a Challenger who went that extra step this season! All this and more on this special opening roundtable of The Challenge 40 Battle of The Eras!

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