By Kevin Hwang, James Douberley, Nathan Fung, Hubert Hwang, and Henry Wong
Answer: RAPPEL

After solving the Disgust memory puzzles, solvers are presented with the following answers (in alphabetical order):

  • BONE GRAFT
  • EXCEPT
  • FILM COUNCILS
  • HOW GREAT
  • KERNEL
  • NIGHTLY
  • REAL FOOD
  • ROUGH DATE
  • STEP DADDY
  • STYLE

Each of these answers (or one word of the answer, for multi-word answers) has a homophone. This is suggested by the use of “discussed” (with homophone “disgust”), and “pare” (with homophones “pear” and “pair”) in the flavortext.

The homophones for each answer are:

Answer Word Homophone
GRAFT GRAPHED
EXCEPT ACCEPT
COUNCILS COUNSELS
GREAT GRATE
KERNEL COLONEL
NIGHTLY KNIGHTLY
REAL REEL
ROUGH RUFF
STEP STEPPE
STYLE STILE

Within the set of homophone words, there are 2 words of each length between 4 and 8 letters long. Pairing up the words yields a single letter which occurs in the same position:

Answer Homophone Shared Homophone Answer
REAL FOOD REEL R RUFF ROUGH DATE
HOW GREAT GRATE E STILE STYLE
EXCEPT ACCEPT P STEPPE STEP DADDY
SKIN GRAFT GRAPHED E COLONEL KERNEL
FILM COUNCILS COUNSELS L KNIGHTLY NIGHTLY

Reading the overlapping letters in order gives the word REPEL, which probably accurately describes how Disgust would react to the next task. However, to get the actual answer, take the homophone of that word one last time to get a more productive instruction, RAPPEL.

Shortly after solving this puzzle, each team is visited by Disgust.