A Temple Mission is one of two types of missions found on Endurance. This determines which team would send two other teams to the Temple of Fate; in the final three, it determined which team gets a guaranteed spot to compete in the Endurance Finals.
About[]
Temple Missions usually occur the day after an Endurance Mission, and is usually based on endurance (e.g. Walk the Plank). The winners of the Temple Mission are immune from being sent to Temple, and guarantee themselves at least two more days on the show. However, they also have the power to send two teams to the Temple of Fate.
When a team gets the Samadhi, the penalty is placed at the Temple Mission, which makes it harder for them to win. Out of the 19 Samadhis given on Endurance, only four teams have overcome the Samadhi. As a result, most Samadhis result as an automatic loss. In two cases, a team has to sit out of a challenge, guaranteeing them that they won't win the mission while another one saw a team sitting out by default as the mission was completed before they could compete.
When making their decision, it can be based on needing a team to eliminate another (as in the case of Endurance's first, Knotted Up, as well as Rollerball, Bagging on You, Walk the Plank and Box Launch), to break up alliances (shown in Squeeze Play, Eruption, Cherry Picker, Raft Pull and Weight an Hour), or to constantly eliminate an outsider team (hence the three times before the final Temple Mission where Blue in Endurance: High Sierras was sent to Temple, as well as the two times before the final Temple mission where Yellow in Endurance: Hawaii was sent to Temple, and Green's third trip to Temple in Dial In during Endurance). In other cases, the winning team would choose the weakest teams (shown in Tower of Power and Bamboo Jungle), or strongest teams to go to Temple (shown in On the Ropes, Plank Maze, You're Fired!, Super Stumped and Shark Bait) whichever seemed like the smartest decision at that time. However, they must be careful, because one team is coming back.
In the Final Three, the Temple Mission is always the last mission before the final day of competition. With the exception of Endurance: Fiji, the winner gets an automatic spot in the final two; the two losing teams are automatically sent to the Temple of Fate, where one team is eliminated one day short of winning it all. In Fiji, similar to the elimination mechanic in Moolah Beach, the first placed team pulled stones out of a bag and the placement of the teams in the mission determined how many nuts would appear in the bag (1 for first place, 5 for second and 10 for third). Each person on the first place team takes a nut out of the bag and the 2 colors pulled out are send to temple. Thus each team was at risk (this was why Red was sent despite coming in first in the challenge).
Endurance: Tehachapi and Endurance: High Sierras each had a mission where a team gets a penalty for coming in last in the previous endurance mission. That penalty was that they would be sent to temple if they didn't win the following temple mission. This happened to the Purple team in the former and Red in the latter, neither managed to win the temple mission. The former caused a unique case where Purple was up against the team that sent them to temple as their opponents, Orange, had eliminated them the that day's challenge. The latter was also unique in that they could have also been saved by that season's Purple team's triangle of immunity though it was not used.
Trivia[]
- The team who wins the first Temple Mission ends up getting to the final four or higher. However, The Blue from Endurance 1 was the only team to do this and win the whole series.
- Every team who won the second Temple Mission never ended up winning the whole series.
- With the exception of Endurance Tehachapi, the winner of the third temple mission (or at least one of them if multiple teams won) ended up winning the series.
- With the exception of Endurance 1 and Tehachapi, each season had back to back temple missions. Hawaii though was the only one of them where it occurred with the first two temple missions rather than the last two.