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Is ‘Final Reckoning’ The Last Season Of ‘The Challenge’?

By Stacy Carey
Published on: 07:33 PST, Jul 10, 2018

Tuesday night brings the premiere of MTV’s The Challenge: Final Reckoning and this one should be intense. There have been a lot of references to this being a final season, especially with it dubbed Final Reckoning, leaving fans feeling worried. While the reality is that MTV has not formally moved forward with Season 33 yet, an interview E! News just did with executive producer Scott Freeman makes it pretty clear there is more on the way.

There has been buzz across social media with Challenge fans worried that Final Reckoning, Season 32, would be the final one for the entire series. While this is expected to be a last in a sense, it is just meant to be the last in the trilogy that started with Dirty 30 and continued with Vendettas. As was previously detailed via the Inquisitr, this third installment in the trilogy is designed to capitalize on the dynamics created in the last two traditional seasons and take it all up another notch.

According to Freeman via his chat with E! News, when it comes to future seasons, “Everything’s on the table.” He notes that they start considering potential themes far in advance, and they love how things have turned out by bringing in non-veterans like they did in Vendettas. They added international stars from other MTV shows into that Season 31 outing, and now they’ve turned to other reality shows like Vanderpump Rules and Big Brother to cast new Challenge blood.

Freeman says that those who have watched Dirty 30 and Vendettas are really going to love Final Reckoning. He clearly has a handful of favorites that he’s worked on, as he’s been with the franchise since it began in 1998. Freeman and his team, which includes Julie Pizzi, the president of entertainment and development, along with the Bunim/Murray development team, typically focus on generating a theme first and then they do some checking on whether casting will fall into place.

The executive producer also notes that they have a lot of fun coming up with new themes and twists that will surprise both the cast and the viewers.

“Our favorite thing is when the cast hears it and goes, ‘Oh my god! We didn’t see that one coming!’ We’ll even see Bananas go, ‘Hmmm…’ He has that look like, ‘You even surprised me! Well played!'”

The development team is always working a season ahead, plotting out what they plan to do next, and they do consider cast burn-out when they are putting together ideas. Veterans like Johnny, CT Tamburello, and Cara Maria Sorbello pop up nearly every season, it seems, but the producers do work on changing things around so nobody gets fried on returning to compete. Freeman adds they have a system in place so when the next step comes, they’re ready.

“A lot of it now is just being ready and getting the wheels turning so that when the time comes that we really have to start getting into pre-production we’re already ahead of the game.”

While there still doesn’t appear to be anything active regarding filming or a cast for Season 33, all signs point toward more on the way. Sorbello told Consequences of Sound that while she doesn’t know anything for certain, her perception is that the series is going to be set to evolve into something different going forward, with Final Reckoning essentially closing out this era of The Challenge.

Freeman and others behind the show continue to talk about the future and the ratings have been stellar for MTV. Viewers may see more and more casting from outside the Challenge, Real World, and Road Rules family, but it doesn’t look as if Final Reckoning is the end of the line by any means. Tune in to the premiere of Season 32, The Challenge: Final Reckoning on Tuesday, July 10 and stay tuned for spoilers regarding who reportedly scores the big money this time around.

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