Episode 7 is a cooking challenge where the contestants must make a cake that tastes good and also resembles Chris. Owen makes a return as a special guest, his design hasn't changed at all and it's not clear how old he's meant to be. It's also outright stated he was the winner of Island, too. I actually like this cameo, it was done better than most of the ones from Revenge of the Island in that he got plenty of spotlight to himself. Julia and the hockey duo are on one team. Caleb, Priya, Damien, and Zee. Then the last team is MK, Ripper, and Axel. They have to go to a raft to get the ingredients, fighting for the best ones. Had some surprisingly brutal smackdowns, and Damien wielding a trident in an odd Anchorman reference, and there was even a bit where Axel literally did a "This is Sparta!" scene with Zee. I know a lot of challenges are based off of Squid Games, but it seems today's two episodes were oddly heavy with references. And weirdly, they're references that the target audience of grade schoolers wouldn't even get, like The Shining and Ghost of all things. Just struck me as odd. Anyway, with the ingredients mostly gathered, the teams return. Not much of interest happens aside from comedy shenanigans. Of note, Axel and Ripper are too busy flirting and sucking face to even help, and Priya has nothing to make the dough rise so she uses Ripper's armpit fungus(?) to help it out. The results are MK's cake looks melted and tastes like shit. Julia's is great and looked just like Chris, because she conveniently grew up working at a bakery. Priya's team had their cake be a more muscular version of Chris to appease his ego, and it tasted even better than Julia's, but it was ruined because Priya, for some reason, mentioned the use of Ripper's armpit stank as an ingredient, so Julia's team wins immunity. For some reason, despite Priya ruining her team's victory and being a major threat, it's Axel that gets voted off for being a threat. Very blatant plot armor indeed. When Axel leaves, Ripper starts to cry and clings onto her as she is sent away on the drone and they crash into the lake. For some reason, Chris decides this counts as a double elimination. I'm glad Ripper is leaving, he was the worst character of the reboot by far, but it doesn't even make sense. They crash like, ten feet from the dock. If they flew off into the distance and Ripper's retrieval being too much of a hassle, I could understand, but the way it actually happened seemed rush and forced. And while I hated Ripper, it was almost as annoying that since he and Axel got together, they basically became Geoff and Bridgette from the first part of Action where their entire personalities devolved into making out and being lovey-dovey with each other.
Also, Damien finds the immunity statue, but no one else knows.
Episode 8 starts with Damien having gotten an anonymous note saying the writer knows he has the statue. It turns out Julia sent this note to everyone, and while Damien freaks out and checks where he hid the statue, it's not clear if Julia even noticed this. Meanwhile, Zee sees Caleb and Priya flirting, not realizing Caleb is getting sincere feelings for Julia, and he starts to freak out and keeps putting objects in his mouth. Julia and MK realize he's holding a secret, but for the moment he's not blabbing. The challenge is basically a giant pinball course, where getting bounced around and hurt awards points. After a trek on a mountain to the course, Priya and Caleb try to kiss, but falling boulders ruin the moment while Julia tries to get Zee to share his secret. The pinball portion of the episode is pretty fun, lots of well-done slapstick here. I swear, the slapstick this season just feels different, in a good way, to others. Maybe it's the way the animation has improved, but it's not like the animation is that drastically different or better, but the slapstick parts just stand out so much to me. Probably just autism. Anyway, amusingly Izzy, Duncan, Courtney, and Scary Girl have obstacles modeled after them. Naturally, Damien is launched into Scary Girl's portion and he gets absolutely decimated. Slapstick shenanigans happen, and Priya wins through a sort of combo situation and she gets more points than the scoreboard can show and gets immunity. She and Caleb finally get a kiss, and for some reason the other contestants just stare at them as it happens and treat it like a big moment they're waiting for. This sends Zee over the edge, and he confesses that Caleb told him that Priya was just a means to an end and Caleb doesn't like her. Of course this ruins the mood and Caleb doesn't even try very hard to explain himself. Zee also spouts out a bunch of other secrets about the other contestants (that he just knows for some reason) to just let it all out, which pisses everyone off. This leads to his elimination, and I find it pretty unusual how being ticked off at Zee's stupidity got him booted over Caleb playing with Priya's heart. Just smells of plot armor to keep the Priya/Caleb arc going. I'm baffled that Priya was the absolute, canonical winner of the first season and has made it a whopping eight episodes into the second season. I highly doubt she'll be going next either, so she could easily make it to the final five, maybe, twice in a row. That's some Owen/Duncan/Zoey levels of Creator's Pet right there.