“If you cut corners, people will die.” – Dusty
As Day 6 of the third season of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test begins, we are left with eight remaining celebrity “recruits”*: Golden Tate, Cam Newton, Brody Jenner, Christy Carlson Romano, Carey Hart, Alana Blanchard, Kayla Nicole and Kyla Pratt.
* It’s worth noting that no recruits left the show due to VW (voluntary withdrawal) or other means in the last episode, “Panic.”
DS (directing service) “staff” member Dusty talks about how this phase of special forces “selection” involves pushing the recruits – already physically depleted at this point – further than they thought possible.
The first task of the day takes place at “an isolated wild headland” in north Wales, United Kingdom, “where the most dangerous task of selection lies ahead.” Once assembled, Billy tells the recruits about the importance of “helicopter insertions” in the world of the special forces.
“It’s the workhorse of all the assets we use,” he explains.
The task involves jumping out of a helicopter into the water, and swimming “40 meters across choppy ocean to meet an extraction vessel.” In some ways, this task doesn’t seem quite as daunting as some of the others the recruits are ordered to take on, but the really tricky bit, it seems, is swimming fast enough through ocean water to time things correctly to get scooped up by a speeding extraction vessel.
Actress Kyla Pratt, who has not yet successfully passed a task, is up first.
Pratt gets nervous before stepping backward from the hovering helicopter but managed to drop into the water. To be fair, watching Rudy perform the task for the recruits makes it look much “easier” than when the recruits to do it for the first time.
Pratt isn’t able to swim nearly fast enough to catch the extraction vessel and fails the task. I’m reminded here that Rudy absolutely booked through the water during his demonstration.
Actress and podcaster Christy Carlson Romano just makes it to the extraction vessel and is hauled in by DS Jovon “Q.” She passes and whoops out a yell of triumph. “Shut up, recruit,” she gets in response from Q.
It’s relatable that even an ex-NFL star wide receiver like Golden Tate can get nervous before the task. It’s hilarious too when, after fellow ex-NFL star Cam Newton gives his guy encouragement in the form of, “You’re Golden Tate,” Tate retorts with, “Yeah, but I’m a land animal, bro.
As Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test typically does at this point in a task, we see a montage of other recruits performing the task. I get why they do that for editing purposes, but it’s frustrating to not get a read on exactly who passed and who failed. Captions giving us a quick tally would be greatly helpful here.
Pro surfer Alana Blanchard is up last, and she demonstrates how dangerous the task is by messing up and not listening to the admonition each regret gets to not “jump” off the helicopter but to step backwards. She does jump a bit and is yelled at immediately by Billy that she almost got everyone killed.
“Follow instructions, you moppet,” he adds.
Blanchard’s comfort in the ocean as a surfer helps her in the water, and she “barely makes it” and passes the task.
Finally, we learn half the recruits passed and half failed the task, or four and four.
Back at base, Blanchard gets called in by the DS for “tactical questioning.” She tells them that she reacted the way she did during the task was due to “total panic.” Billy isn’t really having it when she starts to tear up, cuts her off and asks, “What are your motivations? What are you trying to get out of this?”
Alana talks about how her friend got bitten by a shark and lost her arm while surfing when she was 12. It was a traumatic experience, but she and her dad managed to get the friend back to the beach, and Blanchard’s father helped to save the girl’s life. It’s remarkable given that experience that Alana went on to become a professional surfer.
Billy tells her that selection is where she will find out who she really is, if she’s really meant for this. “So you need to show us commitment, show us why you’re here,” he adds.
After Blanchard heads back to the recruits’ living quarters, the DS determines that it’s time to expose the recruits “who have lost the will to follow simply orders,” especially given the 50% failure rate on the helicopter insertions task. Part of it will specifically involve observing behavior when the recruits believe they are not being watched by staff.
Dusty then gathers the recruits and tells them that they are going “to conduct personal fitness assessment.” The recruits will take on a circuit of six stations, with the idea of doing 20 reps on each. Maximum effort is requested.
As things get started, Dusty shows off his occasional glimmer of humor when he exclaims, “MC Hammer!” while watching Golden Tate do a high knees exercise.
The final part of the circuit involves running out of the parade square to an area not in direct line of site of staff. However, they are still being watched with the notion of catching any recruits who choose to dog it and not do the assigned 20 reps.
Speaking of rep(itition): it would be helpful to have some on screen captions here that explain the exercises that the recruits are being asked to do. The editing during these sequences could also be cleaner in terms of who is doing what.
Three of the recruits were “found to have not followed orders” and are immediately brought in together for tactical questions: Cam Newton, Kayla Nicole, and Kyla Pratt. Like a legal or police procedural, staff pulls out the video “evidence” that shows precisely when each of them stopped doing the final circuit before they were supposed to.
And like a cop show, excuses are given of the “that wasn’t me” or “I didn’t know” note by both Nicole and Pratt. Very weirdly, the trio is simply sent back to their living quarters without even an admonition from staff.
Things are soon explained, however, when all of the recruits are assembled and brought to the beach. Dusty tells them, “If you cut corners, people will die.”
The punishment is a group one: the five recruits not caught cheating are “buried” on the beach in deep holes that really do resemble makeshift coffins. Nicole, Pratt, and Newton are then tasked with filling in the holes with sand. We can see video footage of the recruits trapped in their coffins, and some of them start crying.
If that’s not enough, water is then poured on top of the coffins for reasons that remain unclear to me except to upset everyone involved even more.
“As the innocent suffer, the cheaters are forced to watch,” Narrator Guy tells us.
The point is driven home that when corners are cut, it raises the odds that innocent people in a war zone can die.
After 30 minutes, the buried recruits are released.
When Brody Jenner is released, he actually looks relaxed and has his hands behind his head, so Dusty quips, “Looks like we’ve found Jesus.”
On the way back to base, Kyla Pratt tells Newton about how upset it made her to have her mistakes cause hardship for the entire group. “I’m burnt,” she adds.
Back at base, Newton tells everyone that it’s important to him that everyone know that “I don’t cheat like that.” Again, this is a show failing where we could easily “check the tape” and see if he’s telling the truth or not, but we’re left in the dark as to whether or not he did the 20 reps he was asked to do on that final part of the circuit.
DS calls Kyla Pratt in for tactical questioning. “I’m messing up,” she tells them, “and I wasn’t ready to accept the consequences.”
She then tells them about being raised in a single parent home and having a distant relationship with her father, who is now deceased. She regrets having “pushed him away” before he died.
Q tells Kyla that he’s been impressed with her ability to be resilient after going through “failure after failure” in selection, but if she VWs now, “it was all for nothing.”
“You’re a very caring person – don’t let guilt beat you up,” Billy whispers to her before sending her back to the living quarters. This is noteworthy because we rarely see Billy this empathetic and encouraging with recruits.
As the recruits settle down for the night over an open fire, Tate cracks everyone up by saying, “I done had to laugh a few times just so that I don’t cry.”
Remarkably, another day of selection has gone by without any recruits leaving.
More info about Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test Season 3
TV SHOW – Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 3, Episode 6
AIRED ON – January 22nd, 2025
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – FOX/TubiTV
GENRE – Reality TV, Competition Show
CAST – Mark Billingham, Jason Fox, Rudy Reyes, Shaun Dooley, Jovon Quarles, Stephen Baldwin, Golden Tate, Cam Newton, Denise Richards, Brody Jenner, Christy Carlson Romano, Jordyn Wieber, Marion Jones Thompson, Landon Donovan, Carey Hart, Nathan Adrian, Alana Blanchard, Ali Manno, Trista Sutter, Kayla Nicole, Kyla Pratt