“Y’all want to know what it’s like to be one of us? This is what it is.” – Q
Five full days into the World’s Toughest Test and to kick off the sixth episode of Season 2, the same seven celebrity recruits “remain” who made it through the entirety of the previous episode, “Pressure”: Jack Osbourne, Tom Sandoval, Jojo Siwa, Boe Miller, Erin Jackson, Tyler Cameron, and Nick Viall.
Early in the morning, Jack Osbourne talks about how his heart rate, which he’s been monitoring via smart watch, has been high since the previous night and hasn’t gone down at all.
As Osbourne goes off to see the doctor at the base, it’s fascinating (and slightly unnerving) that he attempts to jog while doing this, still adhering to the commands from the DS (directing service) “staff” to move at double time speed whenever they are outside of their barracks.
On top of having high blood pressure, Osbourne talks about how he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 26.
Meanwhile, the other recruits are summoned to the assembly area and head off to their next task via jeeps. When they’re dropped off, there’s the shell of a helicopter that’s being suspended in the air.
“In this survival drill,” Narrator Guy tells us, “The recruits will be plunged into the icy cold water.”
We watch Jovon “Q” of staff demonstrate getting submerged into the lake while being strapped into the helicopter. The idea is to wait 15 long seconds and then unhook oneself, grab a life jacket from the back of the helicopter, and swim up for air and safety.
Erin Jackson, Olympic speedskater, is first up and it’s unsettling how gentle Billy is in explaining the real dangers of this particular challenge with her (as he’s normally all toughness and nails with the recruits).
On top of this, Jackson explains that while she’s a world class athlete, she’s actually a relatively weak swimmer.
Now submerged, as Jackson struggles through the 15 second waiting period underwater, she starts to panic (which, let me clear, a large percentage of people would do in this situation, I’d wager). She soon heads for the service without having first retrieved the life jacket and thus fails the task.
Panicking gets people in their line of work, Q tells her after she’s back on shore. “Terrible, big time fail,” he adds.
As Tyler Cameron gets ready to do the task, we see an interview with where he talks about how he wants to prove that he’s more than a sex symbol. I hadn’t fully tracked what his whole deal is until now, so I tracked down that he gained celebrity of a sort by way of being on The Bachelorette while fellow recruit Nick Viall was on The Bachelor.
At this point in the course, it’s nice to see how supportive the remaining recruits are of one another. The competition really is an individual one, and each of those remaining has done something that’s remarkable for anyone – especially those not already hardened to intensive military training – to go through.
While Jojo Siwa struggles with the task – mostly due to taking a big breath too early before being submerged – she ends up passing, as do the other participating recruits (Cameron, Viall, Sandoval, and Miller).
Back at base, the doctor does not mess around with Jack Osbourne’s assessment, saying that he could “keel over and die,” given his medical history. “I’m going to medically withdraw you from this course,” he concludes.
Billy takes Osbourne’s armband and allows him to say goodbye to the other recruits, something the “voluntary withdrawals” did not get the opportunity to do.
Which leaves us with six remaining recruits of the original fourteen.
In the DS’ office, the staff call out Tyler Cameron, Nick Viall, and Bode Miller for their performance in the day’s task, but question Jojo’s focus, relaying that she’s treating the course like a game. Which, in fact, is absolutely true as she tells Erin Jackson separately that that’s her exact coping mechanism to help her get through the training course.
This leads to Siwa getting called in for a round of “tactical questioning” with the DS. She tells staff that she has a lot of insecurities that stem from “growing up with the Internet,” where “everything gets judged.” As a… let’s say considerably older person than Siwa, who is 20, I found this to be a fascinating perspective.
Staff tells her that she has potential, but Q adds that she needs to tap into her aggression if she wants to pass the course.
Later, with Jackson and Cameron, Siwa gets emotional, telling them, “I miss my family… tell me not to quit.”
“You got it,” Tyler responds.
Downtime is always super brief on Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, and later that night the recruits are called outside to “face a task designed to test their will to fight for survival.
The setup here is almost like something out of The Walking Dead, at least to my pop culture-soaked brain. The recruits are challenged to go through a gate, and on the other side, Q is geared up in a massive bright red combat outfit replete with all kinds of guards and padding.
Staff refers to Q as Redman, though I’m pretty sure they’re not playing off this Redman.
“I need you to find ultra-aggression,” Foxy tells Tom Sandoval in his eerily calm, British accent.
What it turns into, once Sandoval enters the fray, is essentially an MMA training exercise with the recruit encouraged to go all out on the opponent (that being Q, who is not fighting back, and thus all the gear and padding).
Just as importantly, staff wants the recruits to stop attacking on their command.
Sandoval executes what he’s asked – and well from my perspective from afar – though Billy sneeringly asks if he’s trying to “bone” Q during the exercise and then deems him “pathetic” afterward.
During the montage of the other recruits doing the challenge, we see Nick Viall get praised for his performance. The last recruit to go against the Redman is Tyler Cameron, who fails the challenge by ignoring the orders from staff to stop and continues to lay blows down for a period of time after that.
Later, Cameron gets called in for tactical questioning. He talks about his reasons for doing the training course, which stem from his wanting to get back to being grounded after gaining some level of fame, and also that his mother had passed away recently.
Foxy encourages him to take on a leadership role with the remaining recruits, which is high praise indeed coming from staff – especially in light of his failing the most recent task.
You’d think that that would be it for the night at this point, but Q visits the barracks and says, “Y’all want to know what it’s like to be one of us? This is what it is.”
It turns out the next task is a far more personal one versus anything else the recruits have been asked to do this far: writing a “death letter” to loved ones in the event that they are killed during special forces operations. After the letters are written, the recruits are then to read the letters to each other.
The recruits take the assignment seriously, and it’s an emotional scene when the letters are read aloud to one another.
“War is relentless,” Foxy says separately. “Some of it is physical, but perhaps 70% of it is mental.”
Some stats and info about Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test
TV SHOW – Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 6
AIRED ON – October 30th, 2023
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – FOX/TubiTV
GENRE – Reality TV, Competition Show
CAST – Mark Billingham, Jason Fox, Rudy Reyes, Shaun Dooley, Jovon Quarles, Savannah Chrisley, Jack Osbourne, Tom Sandoval, Tara Reid, Robert Horry, Brian Austin Greene, Jojo Siwa, Angela White, Dez Bryant, Bode Miller, Erin Jackson, Kelly Rizzo, Tyler Cameron, Nick Viall