It’s officially Challenge season again. During the Wednesday, August 11, premiere of The Challenge: Spies, Lies and Allies, 17 American competitors (15 of them being veterans) were chained to bricks in Croatia while 17 international players had to find them and unchain who they wanted to be partnered with.
However, there was a lot not shown. While the American competitors appeared to be simply standing and waiting, they actually endured a challenge of their own.
“This is the sickest part that they don’t show. TJ [Lavin] comes out with literally cases of snakes, spiders, like, a whole bunch of s–t,” Josh Martinez revealed during the Thursday, August 12, episode of the “Watch With Us” podcast. “They start throwing them everywhere. So I don’t know why they cut that out, but we were screaming. It was, like, giant snakes, crawling all around us, like, on our shoulders, crawling up the bricks. It was terrifying.”
The Big Brother alum, 27, added that the group was out there for three to four hours.
“It felt like forever,” he recalled. “Then as they came approaching, just the anxiety and the buildup and the hype [started], which you guys saw.”
Of the new players, the Florida native, who has competed on the last five seasons of the MTV reality show, only recognized Kelz Dyke was because he had watched a few episodes of Too Hot to Handle.
“I knew that there were all big stars internationally and all that, but even watching them run down, I was like, ‘Who the hell are these people? I have no idea who any of these people are,'” he explained. “I couldn’t even understand half of the words they were saying. There were screaming out names and you can obviously hear the accents. I was just looking at flags, but it was just, like, we were completely in shock because we did not expect so many international people. … I have to say each one of the rookies all bought their A-game and they definitely put the pressure on the vets right off the jump to just play our best game because they were all in it to win.”
The former salesman also teased the veteran alliance, revealing that it was something they formed outside of the game.
“It actually happened in New York while we were filming the [Double Agents] reunion. We were in the city and we were partying for, like, three days,” the reality star shared. “CT [Tamburello] kind of set it off in the reunion. He’s like, ‘We had such a good reunion.’ It was, like, one of the first ones where we were all on a good page. And he was like, ‘I think the vets should keep this going into the next season.’ That night we partied, celebrated Cory Wharton’s birthday in the city. And we were literally all hammered, and we’re like, ‘Yeah, let’s do this.’ It was, like, an unspoken thing, but we all agreed that we would have each other’s back.”
Josh continued, “What people don’t understand is even though we compete and there’s this money on the line and we are pinned against each other, you build such a strong bond, especially the vets that continue to do this season after season. We spend so much time on the show, but also off-season doing promo and all that stuff together, that it only made sense. We all had such strong connections going in that it was, like, we have to make this work. It was the best, I think for every single veteran, it was the best decision because, especially once we saw the theme and once we saw the lineup of bad-ass rookies, we’re like, ‘Now we have to stick together,’ and it worked out.”
For more from Josh on this season’s twists, the hookups and who to watch, listen to the latest episode of the “Watch With Us” podcast above and subscribe for free.
The Challenge: Spies, Lies and Allies airs on MTV Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET.