The latest season of The Challenge, Total Madness, introduced Red Skulls to the show. Red Skulls are earned upon winning an elimination, and you cannot enter the final if you don't have one. Red Skulls are an interesting twist that really change how the game is played.
The preferred way of making it to the end used to be staying out of eliminations as much as possible. However, now players need to get into an elimination to ensure that they've earned a spot in the final. Red Skulls appropriately upped the madness in Total Madness, but should they continue to return in future seasons, or should they be retired after this?
Need To Stick Around: A Great Concept
Overall, the idea of Red Skulls is fascinating. It completely flips the game on its head. Rather than keeping away from eliminations, they send challengers right into the fray. You can't just make it to the end by hiding, which is how things used to be done.
If you want to make it into the final when Red Skulls are in place, you've got to prove yourself. That fact alone explains why Red Skulls need to stick around for the foreseeable future. They switch things up in a great way.
Don't Need To: Weren't Limited Enough
One of the main problems with Red Skulls on Total Madness is that they weren't limited enough. There was just far too much opportunity for players to win one, so there wasn't all that much of a rush to make it happen.
If Red Skulls are to return, there needs to be a rush to get one. They can't be so easily obtainable or it's kind of pointless.
Need To Stick Around: Force Eliminations To Happen
As mentioned earlier, Red Skulls change the way that the game is played. The Challenge is no longer about using your connections to stay out of eliminations.
Instead, it's about fighting to get into an elimination so you can earn your Red Skull, and then staying out in the future. Red Skulls make the players ready to jump into eliminations, which is great to see.
Don't Need To: Can Limit Other Twists
This isn't concrete, but it is a strong possibility that Red Skulls can limit possible future twists. Red Skulls really dominate how a season of The Challenge is played, they make it pretty clear what a player needs to do in order to make it into the final.
With that in mind, they could be a bit too dominant in the future, and might not work all that well with other twists that could also keep the series fresh. This could be quite the hurdle in the future.
Need To Stick Around: Can Cause Rivalries
If Kaycee and Bayleigh's fight is anything to go by, Red Skulls can cause rivalries and drama among the challengers. When Kaycee refused to send Bayleigh into an elimination, it caused a huge rift between the two players that ended with a massive blowup.
Fights always make for great TV, and longstanding feuds and friendships really are the backbone of The Challenge. Any more that can be created only add to the show.
Don't Need To: Might Not Work Well With Teams
Team-based seasons are very common on The Challenge, and it will be interesting to see if the producers can find a way to make sure that Red Skulls mesh well with multiple players working together.
Will both players need to earn Red Skulls to make it into the final, or just one? Red Skulls could cause unintended problems with the formula.
Need To Stick Around: No One Can Hide Until The End
As mentioned earlier in the list, an older strategy for making it to the final on The Challenge is to just stay out of eliminations. You can't be booted if you never have to fight to stay in. Red Skulls make that strategy impossible.
Watching a bunch of challengers hide until the end isn't entertaining, it's boring. You might dislike Red Skulls, but you can't deny that they make for good TV. They almost confirm that any season that they're in will be full of action and conflict.
Don't Need To: Wasn't Built Upon Enough
There are certainly problems with Red Skulls, and this ties in to how they were implemented in Total Madness. For example, as mentioned earlier, there were too many to go around in their debut season, as there was no limit.
As such, they weren't as coveted as they could have been, they weren't fought for enough. Red Skulls need to be workshopped a bit. However, that ties right into the next point on the list.
Need To Stick Around: Can Be Modified
The great part about any twist is that it can be modified. Red Skulls don't need to come back in the exact same fashion as they appeared in their first season.
They can be tweaked to make them even better than their first time around. Red Skulls weren't perfect when they were introduced, but that's okay. There's plenty of time to make them perfect.
Don't Need To: Make Way For New Twists
Red Skulls might seem great, but at one point, they were just an idea in a producer's head. The same goes for future twists that fans currently know nothing about.
If new twists are on the horizon that are even better, maybe Red Skulls need to move out of the way to make way for them. Perhaps they'll be more entertaining than Red Skulls and the audience won't know until they get an opportunity.