Recruits will be training in Wales, the home of British Special Forces Selection, and will endure the harsh reality of ocean warfare. On their way to base, and with hardly any time to get acquainted, the new recruits are faced with their first challenges which include taking a mighty leap out of a moving boat onto a helicopter, testing their endurance by treading water as a group and bungee-jumping off a 12-story viaduct.
Entering their final week of Selection, the remaining recruits are challenged mentally to harness their vulnerability and shift their mindsets to overcome the final tasks. The recruits fight the "Redman," escape an ambush and evade an enemy hunter base, and approach the most terrifying phase of the course, resistance to interrogation. As the recruits experience the most challenging part of their journey, they must try their best to conceal that they have been working with the Special Forces in order to successfully pass Selection.
A new troop of household names is enlisted to endure some of the harshest, most grueling challenges from the playbook of the actual Special Forces selection process. This time around, the recruits will be training in Morocco and will endure the extreme circumstances of urban warfare. New this season, some recruits arrive in pairs consisting of spouses and family members but will compete individually. As the recruits make their way to the base, they are faced with an initiation and their first brutal challenge: rappelling out of a military-grade helicopter. Later, the recruits get a taste of what it's like operating behind enemy lines as they carry supplies weighing 800 pounds in sweltering 100-degree heat.
With nothing more than a radio kit and each other, the recruits must communicate effectively and move quickly as they work together to identify fallen comrades in a casualty evacuation test behind enemy lines. Then, when their team's mission is compromised, they must cross rooftops to make it to extraction.
The recruits are split into teams and face a high-stakes physical challenge: they must sidestep along a 165-foot rope suspended above a canyon floor, testing balance, coordination, and nerves. Once on the rope, the teams must fight to get a ball over the opposition’s goal line — turning the rope traverse into a competitive “murder-ball” style exercise under extreme conditions. The episode is described as pushing the recruits’ grit: physically, mentally, and as a team.
The recruits must perform under stress, but also learn from failure (as some pairs did) and improve their mindset. The staff keep pushing the notion that attitude matters as much as skill.
In one of the most intense physical challenges yet, the remaining recruits are split into two teams to attempt an extraction operation and are uplifted by heartwarming messages from home.
In the final week of selection, the recruits are subjected to a multi-stage process of interrogation and are placed under gradually increasing duress. The recruits must create a believable lie as to why they are with the special forces and are then placed into confinement where they confront distressing sounds and restrictive body positions.