'The Challenge' Was an All-Female Showdown

Last week's love fest between Cohutta and Nany was a short-lived ray of sunshine for the cast of MTV's The Challenge: Free Agents as Thursday night's episode was an all-out brawl between the female competitors. The now former BFF's Layrel and Cara Maria started it all off when Laurel explained to Cara Maria that even she wasn't safe from her elimination wrath. All the while, Cara Maria was rightfully stupefied while Laurel called her an idiot and told her to shut up repeatedly. Suffice it to say, things turned pretty icy pretty quickly. What Laurel didn't realize was that Cara Maria was perhaps the only person in The Challenge house who has her back for reasons other than personal gain and strategy. In losing her boyfriend and her best friend, Laurel is starting to lose her steam.

The tension between the women in the house lead to a vicious physical challenge. As they duked it out in pairs to run across a star-shaped pit, Nany was given a bloody nose and tore through it and managed to take the win. In the elimination Jessica, who was voted in, faced off against the ill-fated Cara Maria who pulled the kill card. Even though everyone underestimated her strength, Jessica gave Cara Maria a run for her money. The women on this season just may be the toughest we've seen yet. There has been far less name-calling and hair-pulling than previous seasons and more of a "take it out on the field" mentality.

Even though Laurel and Cara Maria are the two to beat, Nany proved herself to be a fierce competitor this week. With Cohutta eliminated, she will end up putting all of her energy back into the game and has a real shot at taking the big win. Devyn still remains the dark horse of the competition as she plays to the height of her intelligence as well as her physical strength. There's no doubt that unless she wins next week, Theresa will be voted into elimination. Remember when The Challenge used to be all about guys like CT and Wes picking fights and punching each other? YAWN. Bring it on, ladies.