An eliminated The Summit player’s warning haunts another player

Pati is out of CBS’s reality competition The Summit, but her departing words to Amy to not trust Nick echoed through this episode, and eventually came back to haunt him.

Coincidentally, Nick was lamenting Pati’s exit, because they were allies, by which he meant that she’d vote with him. “You have to make sure you have the numbers,” he said. For what? To stand in line at the deli?

Nick chatted with Dusty, and they decided Dennis and Jennye are the next targets for eviction. But Nick told us that Dusty is “a threat.” To what? Increasing global warming, because of his smoldering good looks?

Meanwhile, Amy was gunning for Dennis, on behalf of everyone in the world watching this show. “Why are we going to keep him around?” she asked.

Dennis was aware he was in trouble. “I need to build relationships and do a lot of damage control,” he said. Who knew that being a dick for days would not be a great idea in a strategic reality TV show?

Dennis’ plan was to go after Jenny, though he worried that, “if I call her out on this, people are going to think I’m just backstabbing and being more deceiving,” and added, “but she’s definitely on my hit list for sure.” Why would they think you’re deceitful when you casually use phrases like “evil” and “hit list”?

But Jennye foreshadowed a problem: “I am hiding a significant knee injury,” she said, and then wrapped her knee in a sleeping bag and attached a sign that said NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

At the start of their hike, Amy stepped in a hole and tumbled down the hill for several feet, looking like a stunt performer. Thankfully, she was fine. “Did you push me, Becs?” she asked, and Beckylee replied, “Trying to make final eight, Amy.” Don’t give the Mountain’s Keeper any ideas!

Amy came up with a creative way to get across the rope bridge on The Summit episode 6 (Image from The Summit via CBS)

The players arrived at this episode’s obstacle, which took most of the episode’s time: crossing a ravine by crawling across two parallel ropes 65 feet across a chasm between cliffs.

The last person had to take all $900,000. Apparently, the producers transported the players’ packs to the other side, but made them carry the money just for shits and giggles.

Dennis, trying to make friends, sat and watched Dusty cross the ropes first and helpfully pointed out how wobbly the ropes were and declared, “that’s going to be really hard.”

Dusty, as the first person to attempt the challenge, tried to walk, but then figured out that crawling, hooking his foot outside the rope and letting the thick, rough ropes rest on his shins, was the way to go.

The height of the chasm was a major concern, so Jeannie did her crawl mostly with her eyes closed. As The Summit does, we cut away frequently to learn about the players, and Jennie shared that she did a Spartan Race with her kids. Those races are no joke, so clearly she has the physical and mental ability to do it—and did!

A few players really struggled. “It just feels like the end.” Therron said. “I didn’t prepare myself to jump off of cliffs over and over again. It makes me want to leave.”

Then he said, “I’m mad, I’m angry I have to keep doing this stupid shit.” Now that we’re on like the sixth episode and our third rope bridge, he might have been talking about the challenge design.

Jeannie yelled to him, “This old fart did it—you can do it!” And he did, and said, “I feel like I’m underestimating myself. … I’m conquering a lot of my fears.” It is impressive that so many of these players are doing what seems physically and/or mentally impossible for them, even if it’s growing a little tedious to watch.

The players who’d not yet crossed took advantage of Dennis being away—probably taking a brief trip to the underworld—to decide they didn’t trust him enough to let him carry the money. They chose Dusty instead, and blamed Dennis’ arm surgeries.

But at the end, Dusty didn’t have to do anything except attach their money to the bridge, and then everyone else pulled it across. I guess this was a fake-out?

Dennis literally slithered across; Jennye fell, with the editors showing us her hands slipping off the ropes and her disappearing. Of course, she was fine—but had to restart. “I can’t move it anymore. It just won’t go,” she said, but did.

Of course, Dennis celebrated her suffering. “I want to laugh my evil demonic laugh,” Dennis said. “This is perfect.”

Jennye, who told us about surviving ovarian cancer, said, “I’m definitely a fighter,” and insisted “this mountain won’t conquer me, that’s for damn sure.” So she mounted the two ropes “like on the toilet” and made her way across on her second attempt.

Jennye first crawled across the rope obstacle despite an injured knee (Image from The Summit via CBS)

The Mountain’s Keeper showed up to chop them all to bits in its blades—I mean, let them know that they could not make their actual checkpoint because of “inhospitable” conditions. So the chopper dropped food and supplies; three people had to volunteer to carry them.

Dennis volunteered in order to “to save my game,” he said. But he, Dusty, and Nick ended up carrying just the backpacks of the people who carried the supplies: Therron, Punkin, and Beckylee.

Although they didn’t have a fancy camp, they camped beside a spectacular lake. Again, The Summit’s landscapes—and cinematography of those—are just incredible.

After Jennye was voted out, Dennis, Punkin, Nick, Therron, and Amy talked, with Amy accusing Nick of controlling the vote (Image from The Summit via CBS)

Everyone pretty much decided that it’d be Dennis or Jennye, deciding between shitty personality and shitty knee. I understand Jennye’s injury, but as someone observed, she always makes the checkpoints, and isn’t causing the group to fall behind.

When Manu gathered them to talk, Dennis said, “I don’t hold the grudge in this game,” and that was so ridiculous I thought it might actually cause Manu to have a facial expression.

Jennye called Dennis out: “I get from Dennis just a whole lot of bullshit.”

Manu channeled Jeff Probst and started doing some hinting. “Are you still feeling injured?” he asked Jennye, and she said, “Yes, but I’m still pushing through it.”

He said, “If I said to you, let’s cross this lake and let’s climb this mountain right now, would you do it?” She replied, “Yes I would.”

Manu previously polled everyone about who carried extra bags, and then declared: “So you pretty much know who’s the strongest, who’s in the middle, who’s behind.” Then he said, “So what do you think tonight’s vote’s going to be about?” That’s like saying to a kid, Your room is dirty. So what will you be doing for the next five minutes if you want to eat dinner and keep living in this house and not have me dump you off at an orphanage?

Jennye was voted out by Therron, Nick, Beckylee, Dennis, and Jeannie—five votes, so she was out.

Dennis got four votes, with Amy adding her fourth by saying “four.” She told us, “I thought the vote was going to be unanimous.”

Asshole-in-chief Dennis said, “I loved seeing the defeat in Jennye’s eyes.”

And that’s when things got interesting. Amy confronted Nick directly, saying to him, “I thought you said it was going to be unanimous,” and he sputtered back, “I did not tell you that. Why are you saying that?”

We saw a flashback, and she said, “It’s going to be unanimous? Can I not vote for her?” and Nick agreeing. What’s curious here is that Amy knew Jennye was going, but just wanted to have confirmation she could cast another vote so she wouldn’t have to vote out her friend.

But Amy basically used that opportunity to target Nick, taking Pati’s intel and running with it. At least, that’s what I think she was doing!

“I thought we were all voting for Jennye,” Amy said, and Nick said, “I didn’t tell you who to vote for.” No, that was the producers last episode.

I’m curious to see if Amy planting an anti-Nick seed turns others against him. That will wait for next week’s episode.