Last time, on The Challenge: Battle of the Exes: Vinny and Sarah won Power Couple, and Vinny proceeded to be a total douche and rip off Mandi-with-an-I’s top while they were at da club. To complete the douchiness, Sarah and Vinny sent Mandi-with-an-I and Wes into “the dome” vs. Leroy and Naomi. Alas, Vinny was sent home for being himself and unfortunately, Sarah was sent home too. Leroy and Naomi won out at “the dome” and Wes and Mandi went home too.

Today’s episode, “Where Did Our Love Go?”, is brought to you by The Supremes, or Soft Cell depending on the decade you were born in I guess. The episode opens with a water fight – men vs. women. The girls try to use their “panty power” but the men seem to be winning out. Except for Abram, who is drawing on a shirt.

Cara Maria, everyone’s favorite gypsy, camera talks that Abram is being very serious and is in a funk. She approaches him while he draws, and he tells her to leave him alone. She tells him he should be more social and nice. Abram says he doesn’t want to pretend to be friends with people who are going to fuck him over in a few days. He camera talks that this is not his first rodeo. Well, obviously.

Something has happened to Justin’s knee. Apparently he was running by the pool and he slipped and busted it open. And let that be a lesson to all you kids, “No running by the pool!” Justin goes off to the hospital to get stitches in his knee and when he returns he says he thinks he should be able to compete still. Heather disagrees.

“TJ” sends a clue to the “competitors”: “For tomorrow’s challenge prepare to go in head first.” It also says to meet him at the lagoon, and Johnny Bananas, genius that he is, says it sounds like somewhere new. Well, it’s definitely not the water park you’ve been going to the last two episodes. God, I miss the old days when Johnny Bananas would make funny guesses about what the clues meant the challenge was. I guess I’ll have to fill in: I think…it’s a diving contest…but the teams will be tied together.

The next day they get on a bus and meet up with TJ Lavin, game show host extraordinaire, at the Blue Lagoon. TJ starts with bad news: Justin is medically unable to compete and he and Heather are getting sent home. Shit, this is going to be a short season. Seriously, 3 couples have been sent home in less than 2 episodes.

The name of their challenge is “Mental Connection.” Each person starts by laying [sic, yes, that’s incorrect TJ, we were looking for lying] on boards suspended 25 ft. above the water. TJ will be asking the competitors a series of questions from various categories (pop culture, spelling, Challenge history, etc.); if they get the question wrong they get launched off the board into the water. 2 teams compete at a time and 1 point is awarded per correct answer. The team with the lowest total number of points gets automatically sent to “the dome;” the top 2 teams will go head-to-head at the end to determine the new power couple.

First up is Old-Lady-Paula and Dunbar vs. Gypsy-Cara Maria and Abram. They all get questions about celebrity exes, and Abram immediately gets launched for not knowing Britney Spears’ ex (Kevin Federline). Cara Maria also gets launched for not knowing Madonna’s ex (Sean Penn). So Team Abra CaMaria gets 0 points. Team Punbar gets 4 points.

Next is Ty and Emily vs. Tyrie and Jasmine. Team EmiTy gets 2 points; Team TyMine gets 0 points. Johnny Bananas and Camila go up against CT and Diem. Team Johnila gets 2 points; Team CTD gets 3 points. Leroy and Naomi go up against Rachel and Aneesa. Aneesa does not brace herself at all when she gets launched and busts open her lip and gets taken away by the medics to get stitches. Team Leromi get 0 points; Team Racheesa gets 4 points. Robin and Mark go by themselves; they get 1 point.

TJ says there’s a tie for the winners (Aneesa and Rachel and Dunbar and Paula) and a tie for the losers (Abram and Cara Maria and Leroy and Naomi). The 2 best teams go first and Dunbar and Paula win the prestigious title of Power Couple. The 2 worst teams go and Cara Maria and Abram win, automatically sending Leroy and Naomi to “the dome”…again.

Back at the house, Dunbar and Paula reign in the court of kiss-ups. Team Punbar goes around asking each team why they should or shouldn’t get sent to “the dome.” Cara Maria says they should send in Emily and Ty; Abram has some weird-ass scars on his chest…what’s up with those? Maybe some battle wounds from a previous Challenge?

Diem is telling Abram about her bout with cancer and how CT built up her confidence after she had chemotherapy, and Abram starts crying. She says that she was still in love with him but she dumped him because they were going on different paths, and Abram is very disappointed.

The next day TJ shows up to find out who Dunbar and Paula are sending to “the dome” vs. Leroy and Naomi. Team Punbar says it was a difficult decision but they’re sending in Emily and Ty. Naomi camera talks that old-lady-Paula is a dumb bitch for pairing her up against Emily because Emily is like a 6’5 Amazon and Naomi is like a 5’0 smurf. Both Naomi and Emily take the decision very personally. P.S. during the decision making Rachel is wearing a weird-ass pair of shortalls with a bikini top, WTF?

The “competitors” go to “the dome” for the elimination challenge: “Band Together.” Each team will be connected to each other with a rubber band that’s also attached to a pole. The object of the game is to race across “the dome” and hold onto a second pole for 5 seconds wins. It’s kind of hard to recap this part, basically both teams are crawling on their hands and knees trying to get to the other pole. Emily is way stronger than Naomi; they get to their pole first and manage to hold on for five seconds. Leroy and Naomi get sent home.

Next time, on The Challenge: Battle of the Exes: There’s some kind of barrel roll high above the water, because that’s how all the challenges must be. Robin cries.