A new elite training team welcome 20 brave recruits to the searing, epic Jordanian desert, with an intense start crossing a ravine balancing on a rope suspended 165 feet above the ground, and escaping a room full of CS gas.

The recruits pair up for a 50-foot freefall off a cliff. They also face a brutal beasting in the desert, which pushes some recruits to the edge, and are forced to make a split-second decision about whether to fire in a combat situation.

The recruits try a seven-metre backwards dive and face an elimination sickener on a major sand dune. After hand-to-hand combat in murderball, they're ambushed while driving back.

After a set of tasks designed to test trust, including hand-to-hand combat and a terrifying abseil, Shylla's pushed to confront how a lifetime of racism has made her withdraw.

After a beasting on base, the teams are pushed to their physical limits as they race to pull vehicles weighing 1000kg from the sand while under indirect simulated fire. Calls from home unsettle some and prompt an honest reflection of the cost of war.

In the series finale, the last recruits are subjected to all kinds of punishing interrogation techniques. In the most feared phase of the course, they receive severe punishments, being buried alive, and thrown in water tanks, to force a confession.