Why couldn't Dirty Hands win their team challenge? Reasons explored as team loses by "one tree" on Tough as Nails

Tough as Nails aired its premiere episode on Wednesday, January 4, 2023, at 9 pm ET on CBS. The two-hour offering featured people working in the hard labor field, including firefighters, construction workers, and pipeline laborers.

The show also included other hardworking individuals whose mission was to get down and dirty at real sites, working tough jobs. They competed in a series of individual and team challenges, earning cash prizes.

On this week's episode of Tough as Nails, Dirty Hands lost their team challenge as their teammates overpowered the leader, Beth. They had to pick a total of 40 trees and missed out on the last one as they miscounted while unloading on the truck. Savage Crew won the challenge with a lead of one tree and a cash prize of $12,000.

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Dirty Hands lose their team challenge on Tough as Nails

This week's episode of Tough as Nails began with the cast members traveling in their two designated teams - Dirty Hands and Savage Crew.

While the former roster was confident after having won the previous challenge, members of Savage Crew decided to communicate better with each other. This is because miscommunication and improper scheduling lost them their previous challenge and a cash prize of $12,000.

The official synopsis of the episode, I Look Like Curious George, reads:

"Crew members visit a plant nursery where attention to detail is key when building a complex planter box in the individual challenge."

For their first challenge, the Tough as Nails contestants reached their destination, which was the Devil Mountain Nursery. They had a list of 40 trees for their order and had to pull them from over several thousand trees kept in the nursery.

What made the challenge even more difficult was the fact that they had to stick to the correct number of trees from 10 different species, names of which they couldn't pronounce.

The teams got help from host Phil Keoghan's father, John Keoghan, who is an agronomist and was working in a garden in New Zealand. He helped them with the names of the Latin and Greek species of the plants, following which both teams got down to work in the nursery, trying to pull trees from scratch.

The Tough as Nails teams had some help from the map that told them the approximate location of the trees placed in the nursery. The two sides had pens with them to take a note of everything, however, it was difficult for them to jot stuff down as it was raining heavily. The contestants managed to write it down on the dry side of their jackets.

While looking for the trees, they found that all the trees had tags, however, they were different throughout the location. Some had other teams' tags, while a few had customers' names. It naturally became difficult for them to gather the trees.

Throughout the course of the challenge, both teams did their best to gather the trees. While they initially struggled, they paced up and got to collect and bring the material back to the site, unload them on the truck, and pack them up.

Since Savage Crew, led by Larron, communicated with each other effectively and managed to do the jobs assigned, they were able to work well. On the other hand, Dirty Hands, led by Beth, overpowered the leader and didn't have effective communication. This ultimately led to them being short of one tree in the end, eventually losing out on the challenge.

Fans celebrated Savage Crew's win and cash prize of $12,000 on Tough as Nails.

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Tough as Nails Season 4 saw the contestants test their boundaries and skills to the limits to stand a chance of winning cash prizes. As the season progresses, the competition is only set to get stiffer as they will compete in a variety of challenges. Viewers will have to tune in to find out what's in store for them.

Don't forget to tune in to the show next Wednesday, January 18, 2023, at 9 pm ET on CBS.