Jobiska

I was intrigued that TJ said Cara Maria was his favorite challenger. I too went off CM a little when she and Paulie got together, mainly because they seemed to be rubbing everything in Kyle's face which I thought was pretty immature, but I did feel that Paulie showed a modicum of growth in his recent season, and it seems their relationship is strong and not as weird as hers with Abram, and, well, I prefer CM at her worst to Laurel at her best, so, yay CM but I'm sorry she didn't beat Michele just because I'm tired of the Michele show. But Michele did earn her win, so yay her too, I guess. Still rooting for Horacio, Kyland, Ravyn, Zara, Ed, and Colleen. I don't dislike Asaf or Emmanuel but them being part of this Michele/Jay crew is kind of annoying.

If someone had said Madison was the one who would exhibit the most personal growth and maturity from previous seasons to this...well, I don't know who else I might have thought of (coughNotShepcough) but it wouldn't have been her. I'm impressed. Brett seems lovely (as does Venita's Manny). I thought it was very considerate of them to both go see Patricia and bring her champagne in the preferred glasses. Which is more childish: Taylor's puffy bunny ear things when she was selling that weird drink, or that bow on top of her head? The costume department get a big discount on bows in bulk or something? Olivia's black bow was distracting, especially since the hair pulled into it revealed her really dark lowlights and it almost matched and I was all "who has that two-toned hair?"

She probably should have bought all his first terrible attempts at pillows and just placed them wherever he sits whenever he comes over.

So the biggest questions I am left with are: Is Dee the longest-toed winner ever? Why all that time on Jake fainting etc. in early episodes if it never really amounted to anything? I have been waiting for him to collapse and be medevac'd out for the entire season! Do the editors think we all lurrrrve Kendra? I felt like the final tribal council and the reunion were basically "yeah yeah Austin and Dee with a side of Jake but look! Look at Kendra patting her heart and smiling! Look at her nodding! Look at her sympathetic looks!"

I too was surprised about enjoying this unironically. As all their DRs were obviously scripted (at least to make sure they delivered the puns), I don't feel that Taylor was insufferably smug, just that she delivered what TPTB wanted quite well. I mean, of course she agreed to the flavor of the lines, but hey. I was also basically won over to Frankie mainly by how he delivered his DRs--he would give the awful pun and then make an expression that was a perfect combination of "I can't believe I said that" and "Yeah I said it, whaddaya want to make of it?" and "I'm fabulous, so I can't be unfabbed no matter what pun I make!" Like, he knows it's ridiculous and BB is so often ridiculous but he doesn't mind, he will give it his all. And I thought it was sweet when he said that he minded losing less bc Taylor was so happy. And then Nicole saying how beautiful Taylor was and that she amazingly performed with her perfect hair down...that was also endearing! Cody looking down @ Frankie when he came over to hug him was also actually kind of touching--he looked really sad for him! And he yelled out for Santa so enthusiastically! All those cookies everywhere on set though and nobody eating them--glad Santa grabbed one in the final scene, heh.

Highlight: Craig/Madison hiccups/fish scene. Second: I liked Madison's table setting with the (clementines on branches? or whatever)? Brett's too normal for this crew. He should just become buds with Rodrigo if he's ISO guy friends. Whitney, does everyone have to turn something into a bar or whatever? is he doing this as a business or just his little boozy man cave? Because of the scene with the 1K whiskey and its suppliers, I assume the former. Basically, this show is turning half the people into booze providers (I'm not a teetotaler, but what are the odds?): Austen--trop hop Taylor--puffy bunny ears weird canned booze purveyor JT (though to be fair he comes on as a semiregular with this plan already in place) his covid-delayed bar spot Now Whitney with Michael's cottage, all in doom and gloomy black, so he can blend in!

I (note I have absolutely no arm strength: I can't even do a pushup unless my knees are on the ground) think it's partly that they have to hold their elbows up to shoulder level (or higher?) so that both their faces and their hands can be visible to the camera. That would wear me out immediately! As a southpaw I always note when people are left-handed, and I saw Josh started out with his left but later switched to his right, so that was interesting that they can use either hand. Yay for Derek. I always enjoy seeing him.

The whole numbers thing is one of the things I dislike most about the challenge...3 v. 2/2/2/whatever is actually relatively innocuous compared to when a team has dwindled down to 4 or and they are still going against 8. Not that I like it even in this case. They could say the one person not drawn sits out, but is immune from the vote, but doesn't have a vote themselves....oh well. I'm assuming the 2 women's arenas in a row were mostly dictated by Tori's travel schedule, but I do like to see the challengers shaken up in their assumptions.

Both the clue-giver at the maypole task and the greeter were wearing the Swedish National Costume (in the colors of the flag plus white, embroidered with white flowers). Some of the provincial costumes are really elaborate. Most of my Swedish-born colleagues at the American Swedish Historical Museum in Philly had their own national costumes, and some had their provincial ones too I think. I'm pretty sure the stop's name was something like "Western Forest" (Skog means forest) and when I saw Joel and Garrett being directed to a wooded path I thought, "aha!" Seems like an odd approach to a subway stop, but there you go. Yes, the artistic stops were already there when I was last in Sweden in 1994. Gorgeous! I had to laugh when they said they needed to "debug" the wreath task like it was a computer program. If the judge didn't so obviously count the flowers while checking, or if Ashlie had looked over and seen her counting, things might have been different. I agree that if I had sweated over the lotus task which was so exacting, I would not want to have to totally undo the wreath. Again, my colleagues were obviously a small sample size of Swedes, but they all always made sure to call the pole a "Midsommarstång" or Midsummer Pole, not a maypole, because, well, it's used at Missommar. With the way some of the experts paired with the jumpers were looking over to the side, and with the one shot of the final parachutes descending (with no other camera-shoot-'chuters), I'm pretty sure the experts were holding out a camera, perhaps on a selfie stick of some sort. There were at least two dances, and it seemed they had to just finish out the one that was happening when they got to it. The one with the funny hand gestures was Small Frogs. The Wikipedia link has a translation, but basically the words are "small frogs are funny to see; they don't have ears or tails; [croaking onomatopoeia]." The gestures are for the things frogs don't have. Well, they don't have external ears, anyway! Yes, I remember these lyrics and their translation from a job I had almost 30 years ago, but I can't remember to call for a doc appointment or put the laundry in the dryer. Brains! My son was trying to remember what team in the distant past always intentionally missed their high fives like Joel and Garrett do. I think it was the Hippies? mertensia beat me to it with the Snork link. I'm a huge Moomin fan! Tove Jansson was a Swedish-speaking Finn. Three of my thirteen cats through my adulthood had names from the Moomin books! But none were named Snork.

Indeed, but the point is not exactly how many more buoys there are--whether there were 100 marked buoys or 20, Greg and John got to find 2/100 or 2/20, leaving 98 or 18; Rob and Corey as next in line would have found 2/98 or 2/18, but had they taken a 3rd buoy, leaving the other mussels to languish on the bottom of the sea, the 3rd team to attempt, had there been one, should have had the chance to find 2/96 or 2/16, but if Rob and Corey had taken 3 altogether (by messing up one beyond retrieval), team 3 would have had to find 2/95 or 2/15. If this were allowed, any of the teams could have sabotaged by scuttling other buoys. I think it was the season with the clowns???? where another team (intentionally) hid someone's race-provided equipment and got time-penalized? Basically, the only legit way you can make other people's tasks harder is by getting there first and getting the easier needles, not messing up other needles as well. (or getting there first and getting chance 1 on the ticket board, not hiding all the other tickets on the first boat, etc. etc.) Your own errors, your own abilities, race structure as it is set including obeying local laws and customs, and natural occurrences such as weather, should be the only things that restrict your options on the race.

My theory re the mussels task is that if Corey and Rob had just done two more floats, they would have effectively taken 3 floats out of commission, because it was fine for Rob to try to dive for the messed up one, but no other team should have been made to do that. Let's say they only had enough marked floats for each team to get their two--no others, and let's say every team went for the float task. That would mean the final team would not have been able to complete the task no matter how much time they have, because effectively one trap was unintentionally sabotaged. It would be like if on the pomelo task someone somehow sank all the pomelos behind them. Or if someone took two rolling pins on the woodwork carrying task leaving the last person with zero. Even if there were more than the bare minimum of buoys, the same reasoning applies. You get an advantage by being first, as Greg and John pointed out, but you shouldn't get an unfair advantage by "breaking" part of the task. I'm sure C and R knew this or were informed of this. I'm glad they pulled through as they and Greg and John (who do entertain me) are my two favorite teams.

It wasn't until the next episode's flashbacks that I remembered noticing how very proud the camerafolk/editors/stagers were that they had decorated the on-site "club" with those circular wall mirrors so they could catch angles of Corey and Michele arguing with one person reflected in the mirror. Ooh artistic. heh.

I thought they said 1974 for the Beef Wellington meal (which would have been Elizabeth hosting, not Charles). Tellingly, the most interesting things to me this episode were that when Whitney put down Patricia's vermouthy martini, there was already a wet ring on the table, so Patricia had already been imbibing; the coir mat on the patio that said "don't bother me, I'm watching Bravo;" Craig flumphing around on the sofa he already stained in earlier years, holding a full beer and almost spilling it; and the terrible parking job the guys did with the golf cart--pulling into a spot that could fit at least three cars and parking smack dab in the middle, making it a lot harder for any other cars to park (if I did that on my Philly side street my neighbors would hate me)! I want that potato dish, not gonna lie. I learned how to make Baked Alaska in Home Ec. in around...well, I guess it was 1974 give or take! I only ever made it once more, to show my family I could.

I was wondering, if Ciarran had won (ha), TJ would have said "Good job--you beat a champ AND I'll add $X to the pot." But now we'll never know.

I didn't think I heard TJ say that Cory and Ravyn should choose one man for elimination the first time (maybe he did and I didn't catch it), so right up until the arena where he did specify and called Asaf down, I was hoping that (Chaos!) it would give Asaf some extra power or immunity or something. But they sure like people pulling things out in the Draw, so oh well. Less time on lovey dovey smoochy woochy stuff, so that was good. I mean, it's okay, but they just have too much of it sometimes.

Yeah, the hypocrisy of "you shouldn't burn votes, but we can" was really annoying. IIRC the first time I saw Berna she and someone else were judging Amber as "fake" and being really mean-girl about it, which is why I have a bad taste in my mouth about her. She should talk about bullying. Ugh. Jujuy and Ed both are too sweet for this group--though actually, I'm really liking that most of the people are not really jerks. Some are a mess (now or in the past), but not jerks. I think it's cute that when coming back from anything a lot of the women are skipping along holding hands/arms around shoulders as if they really like each other. Go Big T. Great montage and party and message. Swimming puzzle a little unclear--I would have thought most of the good swimmers would have gotten there, unhooked, and gotten their puzzles at once--maybe the filming timing was different from the real timing (shocker, I know). It looked like they were going serially. LOL @ Baywatch Ed. LOL @ Jay assessing correctly that Michele loved yelling at everyone what to do. She did it well, also. I am so baffled by Callum's weaselly waffling during his talking heads--I have no idea what is up with him and an old girlfriend but I do know it will not sit well with Michele! He puts his head down in embarrassment at the producer questions and that makes it even harder for me to follow his accent. And I suppose Hughie's "joking" about cheating was because he knows more about Callum's status? TJ was really getting into it at the driving one--he was cheering just like he was one of the challengers, not cackling at their cluelessness! Good for Ed and Kyland and subbing-in Jay for doing the math. I do get it about brain freeze even if you're good at math. I was on the academic quiz team in HS and even though I did fine in math in real life, I always froze when I had to do it on the spot and on the clock Luckily the others were better at that (including the annoying friend of my brother whom I did not know at the time would eventually be my husband of, now, over 30 years! To be perfectly clear, it was the annoying friend of my brother whom I married!)

I kind of find JT's awkward tryhard moments entertaining in a weird way. But I think after this episode I'm going to be mainly watching for reaction shots from Rodrigo. They gave me some genuine chuckles. I'm no Nancy Neatnik, but if I had a morning after mess left around, I certainly wouldn't let anyone film it! Especially if it was in a place I expected to serve the public! I hope JT doesn't get vermin, well, non-human vermin! Madison's son and his "your little boy is growing up so fast" was one of the other entertaining moments.

Ridiculous to waste time on 2 climbing ropes! Well, considering with all Chauncey's speed and endurance he could not figure out the 3 in a row options, I guess I should not expect anyone else to be that much brainier. When Hughie and Olivia were chatting and you could see a very tatted body (presumably Ciarran?) sitting in the hot tub behind them and the way he was mostly so still with his hands sticking out in front of him (and you couldn't see his face) he looked kinda...dead? Happy Halloween, I guess! Hughie's more interesting to me now that I know of his backstory. And the home scene of Chauncey feeding Sunny a bottle was adorable. Yeah, Jay's a mess no matter what or when!

I somehow missed the discussion of an eating disorder. Maybe it was when the cat who seems to have a stinky butt was trying to sit on our laps. Can anyone do a quick recap?

What is the name of the kind of ring Taylor was wearing--it was gold and had a sort of a diagonal scrolly puffy top? That's all I've got because the only other reaction I had was how disgusting the flume was and that's already been covered!

The most notable part for me was that JT's dog-at-home-with-"Mommy" was named Peppercorn, as I have a cat named Peppercorn. Peppercanine was pretty cute. Also noticed the injection-thru-pants. !!! And here I feel a little guilty if I inject meds into my freshly showered self without doing the alcohol wipe! How, er, gallant of Craig to quasi-accept Taylor's phone apology. Yeah, that warehouse. Is it even climate-controlled? Pillows with southern-summer-humidity-mildew in them, yay!

That was a weird little bit in her talking head when Madison asked if she had winked and then said something about her eye being paralyzed. Even if Madison isn't doing Patricia's hair any more, she may know stuff!!! Dog waste centered epi, with Whitney picking up one of those ankle biters' pee pad (or was that last time?) and the whole pollute the creek deal. I will say that corgi that greeted Olivia and Taylor while they were on the bench was quiet cute.

It was "into the creek" which I assume was on the other side of the fence. So...eaten by fish which are then caught and eaten by the bros? That would explain a lot.

"Wallcomp, when the contestants fell."

I keep meaning to comment about Tiffany's loungewear attire--a set of pale gray fleecy sweatpant-style bottoms and a leisure bra-shaped top out of the same pale fleece. Wear what you want, of course, and I'm sure the house is kept cold due to the filming lights etc., but it is such an illogical outfit! If you run cold, why is your midriff bare, and if you run hot, bluh! I am sweating just thinking about it. Oh wait, that's just bc it's in the 90s in Philly, and my window ACs, though trying valiantly, do not compensate for when I leave the cooled rooms. Anyway, Sorry to see Tiffany go just bc of her commentaries, but I like Michaela too.