Yahoo Finance Watch Nelson attack Kyle for stealing his spot in The Challenge: Spies, Lies and Allies sneak peek
For over 20 years and 37 seasons (plus a few spin-offs here and there), The Challenge has delivered episode after episode of shocking blindsides, hilarious hook-ups, and epic and inspiring stories of success — not to mention all the fights in between. And now the long-running MTV franchise hits 500 episodes this week, so it's only fitting that the milestone moment kicks off with ... yet another fight. Some things never change!
When The Challenge: Spies, Lies, and Allies begins in this Wednesday's appropriately-titled "500," all the players arrive back at the compound after Kyle Christie's hard-fought elimination win over Ed Eason. But instead of letting Christie bask in the glory of keeping his Pole Wrestle record undefeated, Nelson Thomas attacks him right away for stealing his spot on the Sapphire team. Below, EW has your exclusive sneak peek at the episode in which Thomas runs up to Christie, shouting about how he has to "own being a snake" and a whole lot of other nonsense that's hard to hear because after he gets up in Christie's face, the situation explodes. They're really making the security guards earn their paychecks this season.
As for how The Challenge made it to 500 episodes, co-creator Jon Murray — who also created The Real World and Road Rules franchises — spoke about it on MTV's Official Challenge Podcast (debuting Thursday) and EW also has an exclusive sneak peek at his interview.
"The Challenge has become a large family that you get to revisit each time as a viewer," Murray says. "I think what sets it apart is it's not just a competition show, but a real life soap opera. It's a soap opera because people like CT [Tamburello] and Aneesa [Ferreira] have been on the show for 20 years. We have followed their ups and downs in life. In some cases we have even followed people who've married and met on The Challenge and then divorced later. It's a real life soap opera in all the best aspects in that you really get to know people. You get to see how CT has grown over time, I mean look at how he has changed and how rich his journey has been for all of us. I think it has that element which no other show has."
And since you can't talk about the long history of The Challenge without acknowledging all the fights, Murray addressed that too. "The best cast members are people who are flawed," he explains. "Overall they are good people and you root for them, but they are not perfect people. And none of us are perfect, but if you have a camera on you 24/7 we are going to see your flaws."
Watch the explosive exclusive clip from the episode below:
The Challenge: Spies, Lies, and Allies airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.
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