“It’s gonna get brutal.” – Billy
It’s the penultimate episode of the second season of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, and with the “medical withdrawal” of Jack Osbourne in the previous episode, “Survival,” we’re down to just six recruits of the original fourteen as the final stretch of “selection” begins on Day 7: Tom Sandoval (the goat/hero of Vanderpump Rules and #Scandoval fame), recording artist Jojo Siwa, Olympic champions Bode Miller and Erin Jackson, and Bachelor/Bachelorette reality stars Tyler Cameron and Nick Viall.
Jojo asks her fellow recruits why the others are sticking it out at this late date, and Viall responds, “Honestly, you guys,” relaying that he wants to make it through to the end with everyone who is left. And Siwa relays that she’s focused on calling her family to tell them that she made it through selection successfully.
And with that, the Final Six are called out to the parade square by Rudy Reyes. As always, Billy doesn’t pull any punches when addressing the recruits. “Probably the worst phase of selection” coming up, he tells them. “Hardest.”
He adds that the next task involves being “sent on the run to evade an enemy hunter force.” This leads up to an invitation for anyone who wants to drop out to give up their armband and therefore formally “voluntarily withdraw.”
None of the remaining six take Billy up on his offer.
And then it’s off to the task, up in a mountain range in the South Island of New Zealand that’s been the location for this season of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test.
When they arrive, Foxy tells them that “we’re going to be pulling pulk over horrendous terrain” as a way to replicate what special forces often endure to bring equipment with them on missions in hostile terrain.
I looked up what “pulk” means, and the Internet says it’s a reinforced sled for military use.
Foxy himself is leading this mission, pulling a pulk himself, and the challenge is for the recruits to keep up with him. “Not all of you will be stood here at the end of this task,” he ominously adds.
The DS (directing service) then splits the recruits into three teams of two, pairing them off to balance out physical strength across the teams. Each pulk has 130 pounds of equipment and has to be tied down and secured by each team.
The race covers “two miles of treacherous terrain,” including a bunch of hills that they must take on.
Watching the teams begin the task, it occurs to me that this is one where winter sports Olympians Bode Miller and Erin Jackson would surely have a particular advantage. And indeed, the team of Tom Sandoval and Nick Viall have the roughest time even getting the pulk going through the icy terrain.
Meanwhile Bode Miller guns it with the pulk, with Jojo Siwa working behind him to help keep the pulk moving as smoothly as possible. However, the 40-year-old Miller bonks out after his adrenaline runs out and then gets a bit taciturn with Jojo.
Sandoval and Viall finally get moving, but they are in last place, which of course earns them an earful of abuse from Billy. “It does not pay to be in the back,” he yells at them.
When we finally get to see Tyler Cameron and Erin Jackson’s team, they seem to be doing quite well, with the young and strong Cameron pulling the pulk and Jackson doing her bit by carrying some of the equipment herself – a potentially smart move – which includes a large tire.
The race ends up as a close one between Team Miller/Siwa and Team Cameron/Jackson, with the latter team coming from behind with momentum. With Jackson now taking on the pulk with Cameron’s help, they are able to win and take first place.
Erin Jackson has talked all season about the calm determination that helped her become an Olympic speed skating champion, and it’s clear here that that skillset was helpful for her team – as was the harmonious communication and collaboration that she and Cameron had during the race.
“You’re a beast, Erin, incredible,” Tyler tells his teammate with admiration.
When all the teams reach the finish line, there’s a twist: no brea for them, and they are told to sprint for a ways and then do an army crawl over frozen ground. That then turns into being put into pushup position “until somebody gives up,” Q taunts them with.
“Somebody’s ready to go,” he says, nearly gleefully.
Next: more army crawling up a hill, and this is the part that breaks Bode Miller. He spoke that morning of having a sore groin on one side, and the army crawl pushes him past the point of being able to continue. Q and the DS have zero sympathy for this – their thing is finding superhuman special forces people who are like the Olympic champions of the military world, I suppose – and Bode finally rips off his armband and announces he’s “VW.”
“Disappointing. Liked him, to be honest,” Foxy tells Billy and Q.
Bode showed an immense amount of focus and grit (to use the word that forms the episode’s title) throughout the season, and I was surprised that he was the next one to bail out from the remaining recruits.
Speaking of: we’re down to five recruits remaining from the original fourteen at this point.
Back at base, the DS discuss the “final pecking order.” Cameron is called out for “really stepping up” over the last few days, as is Jackson. “She attacks everything, holds it together, trusts in what we teach her, and gets on with it,” Billy says in what might be the biggest compliment of the season from staff.
Jojo is also lauded for stepping up as the youngest recruit (she’s only 20) of the recruits. Nick Viall is also complimented for “smashing through it.”
Of Tom Sandoval, Q notes that “he was dragging ass for sure by the end.”
“Maybe his mind’s somewhere else,” Rudy says.
Later, staff meets with the recruits in their barracks to tell them that “escaping evasion is the final phase.” This is surviving behind enemy lines stuff going on here, training for the most elite forces in the military.
Interestingly, there’s also an espionage aspect to the training. Billy talks to them about having a cover story to help “buy time” in a foreign land. The cover story the recruits get for the final task is “conservation of birds,” and specifically a bird called the kākāpō, which is native to New Zealand.
Before the final task begins, we get a little bit of a Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test version of what Survivor does deep into each season, allowing the remaining participants to see a message from home. However, as with all things on SF:WTT, this is also a test – Billy talks about how they want to see how the recruits “respond to influence from loved ones” as a test of their character.
Nothing really dramatic comes out of the scenes of the recruits seeing their video messages from home, though some, especially Sandoval, get more emotional than others.
Soon enough, the recruits are told to get “ready to roll” to be off for “the final stage of selection.” A “remote forest” is the destination, where they’ll have to “navigate through unknown territory” with only a compass and map to guide them.
Then we finally get a read on what the recruits don’t know: they’ll “be pursued by an ex-military hunter force.”
And by “pursued,” the recruits come under “attack” while they are relaxing in the vans that they believe will drop them off at the starting point of the attack: explosions, gun fire, the whole deal.
They exit the vehicles before being given final instructions by staff. “Your final extraction is on the water. Remember that,” Q tells them. From there, they’re told they are “on the run” and sent off into the cold, dark night.
The recruits are now in two teams:
- Team Alpha – Jojo Siwa, Tom Sandoval, and Erin Jackson
- Team Beta – Tyler Cameron and Nick Viall
DS is set up to monitor the progress of each team back at base via monitors.
Each team has a different starting point and must navigate on their own to reach the extraction point. This kind of breaks the “narrative” of being attacked while all being together in the jeeps, but I’ll cut the show some slack about it.
Meanwhile, there are still creepy looking hooded soldiers with barking dogs trying to track them down (or make an appearance of it) to make the entire ordeal more realistic.
Foxy tells us that “nothing sharpens the mind more than being hunted.”
Some kind of communication issue develops with Team Alpha that seems based on Sandoval kind of freaking out and agitated by the stress of the task. He starts running off by himself a few times, which Jojo and Erin clearly aren’t cool with.
Viall and Cameron make it to the “rendezvous point,” where the idea is that they can find rations and instructions on how to get to the final extraction point. A holdup happens though when Viall loses a glove for a little bit, but soon enough they’re back on the move.
Eventually, Team Alpha makes it to the rendezvous point.
A funny Vanderpump Rules-esque moment occurs when Tom Sandoval says, “I’m gonna take one handful of this trail mix,” and then gets frustrated when he can’t open the bag.
That maps against the Narrator Guy then telling us, “The hunger force are dangerously close,” as we see bright lights in the darkness and hear barking dogs.
Tom’s snack time seems like it could be the thing that gets a big fail slapped on Team Alpha, but soon they’re back on the move.
Both teams then reach a point where there’s open ground between where they are and the extraction point, so they are in a scenario where they have to use their training to make it out safely in a scenario involving a clearing a road, cars crossing… and the hunter force.
Soon, gunshots fire off, forcing the teams to act decisively. This causes Team Bravo to “run straight across the path of the hunters,” and they get “captured,” and told to lay down with hands behind their backs. They then get hooded to get taken off for interrogation.
It really seemed throughout the task that Team Alpha was poised to get smoked by Team Beta – mostly due to Sandoval’s shenanigans (after being, I’ll note, a stellar participant throughout the course) – but instead Tom, Jojo, and Erin make it to the extraction point safely…
Or so they thought, as Team Alpha is then “caught” and hooded as well.
And with this, we’re set up for the final episode of Season 2, where “we will know who’s capable of passing the selection.”
Some stats and info about Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test
TV SHOW – Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 7
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