Donny Ketchum

Pharrell's problem was that he put together a damn good team in the Blinds last season. But then, he kept dropping those who were easily stronger singers than others during the Battles and the Knockouts and also stealing questionable singers. (Jean and Menlik in the Battles? Sugar in the Knockouts? Really?) By the time the lives rolled around, his team was probably the weakest, with his two strongest people being Luke and DaNica, both of whom were dispatched at F8 (Luke surprisingly, DaNica not.) I'm hoping he's not gonna make that same mistake, but he's already worrying me with stealing Jacob and not Jeremy, and dropping Kimberly over Lowell and Ashley over Mia.

That was Nick, and yes, I thought he would be after he did that.

I know who Riku is! My brother plays the KH games all the time! It was a pretty good episode, and definitely one I plan to watch again while it's still on my DVR. Regina's voice coming out of Snow was probably one of my favorite parts, along with all things in the Ursula/Hook backstory, Ariel appearing, and seeing the warden from Oz back on my screen! Also, I was impressed that they cast the role of a powerful god with a man of color rather than the expected white man. I, too, am surprised that one Queen of Darkness had her happy ending restored so quickly, but I'm not complaining. I'm guessing Cruella's happy ending is coming in the next couple of weeks, and they're spacing out their endings. Maleficent has always felt like the main one of the trio, so I'm betting they're saving her for last. Still, great episode. But I'm not looking forward to next week. I'm fearing that it will wreck Charming and Snow's characters for good. :(

Dawn and Hawkes? I think they made it through their first battle, but got dumped at their second one.

I hate horror and am too nightmare-prone, but by all means. How did that scene go?

*Cue Blanche's reaction as though it were the ultimate insult*

Accomplished. He wasn't kicked off fourth. He was kicked off fifth.

Maybe Kelly and Lindsey thought they had to, for some reason. I don't know.

Okay. So I don't get what the church scene and Andre's disillusionment was all about. What, exactly, did Lucious do to drive Andre out of that?

This post that I quoted from the "Current Plots Discussion" thread leads me into my personal UO that might get me pelted with tomatoes, but I hope doesn't. I hate what the writers chose to do to Nick and Gabi just to sacrifice them both at Will and Sonny's altar (and to an extent, Sami and E.J.'s, as well). I hated that both of them got varying degrees of trashed just to prop up the golden boys. And because of that, I've actually enjoyed the current story with Paul because I feel like it is a certain degree of karma and poetic justice that they are the ones getting trashed now. Not that I'm a huge Ben fan, but I'm not bothered by him getting off since even with his anger issues, he showed amazing restraint with Chad at first. But that last attack, he never would have done without provocation, and by his own admission (the part that everyone unsurprisingly seems to forget), Chad went out of his way to provide it. Yes, Ben did assault Chad, but as it was provoked in the first place, he did have a case to get off, anyway. It's unprovoked ones that are harder to skate from.

I don't know what was to dislike about Yul. Ozzy, sure, but not Yul. But yeah, I, too, preferred Becky and Sundra to both of them.

I don't think she's boring at all. I listened to her the full way through. And yeah, not totally eloquent, but I still understood what she was saying.

Oh, clearly, @WendyCR72. That definitely looked like the case. The one thing I don't think was ever established was whether Bela's assistant's murder was truly an accident, or another one that she had happen on purpose. The guy who killed her and even her own brother were killed under her instruction, but the assistant?

That was definitely Jeff. I have no idea why he used a different name there. He was in the audience for the premiere of this season's Dancing with the Stars, too. Grayed up completely, but it was definitely he.

I don't know if ION's gotten to the episode yet, but as I mentioned in season six's thread with Kristy Swanson's sister being seemingly nice, but then doing a 180 near the end of the episode, I've also never seen such a 180 as with Bela in "Assassin." Damn it, I liked and was rooting for her most of the episode until something suddenly started seeming and feeling off with her. By the end, I still don't see how she thought her arrest was going to make her look like a martyr for her people. She did nothing to be martyred for. Taking her niece's father from her was supposed to do that?

Yeah, I'd count her, as well. She was pretty awful. But we've seen female sexual predators before. This was just, I think, the first one to contain female-to-female pedophiles. All of the others were female-to-male. I've asked all around for any episodes dealing with female-to-female ones, but no one here seems to have an answer.

Anna and Olivia's scene served to tell me one thing. For all the propping everyone seems to hate Sonny getting, I don't know how much of it can be put on Ron. He came in with a canvas full of characters in his orbit quite regularly and would normally be props or apologists of him, so he was just writing them as he thought they normally would act around him. He knew very well there are characters who think the opposite of him and writes them accordingly, too. It's not really his fault that so many of the characters would normally support Sonny rather than reject or ignore him. I do wish that even his supporters would call him on things a bit more than they do, but other than that, I think Ron's done the best he can with the canvas he has. That said, the fact that he still turned one of Sonny's former supporters so badly against him and had him right a wrong he did to someone else years and years ago has made this more than worth it.

If not for the things Dan, Mike, and Rodney said in their confessionals, I'd agree with you that gender wasn't the problem in their treatment of Sierra. But because of them, I have to think it at least partly was.

I have zero idea why Dan would say all of those things when everything we were shown indicated that Sierra was right in the thick of things in terms of challenges. Yes, the one true thing he said was that she switched out of doing that puzzle in the first challenge for Mike to do, but other than that, she's been a very capable challenge competitor. Dan has no idea what he's talking about.

Sadly, I think you might be right. I liked Max a fair bit on the show, but post-show, that liking is quickly fading away.

I'm actually holding onto their pairing, too. I hate that everyone here drops their favoring for pairings over the tiniest things. I'm not gonna blame J.J. or Paige for what the writers have done to them. That's on them. And yes, for Paige to act the way she did when she first came on was very welcome to me. It was actually just The Chipmunk Adventure, but that was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. And yeah, I was reminded of that, too.

Really? I thought he signed a year-long contract.

So apparently, Shirin and Max did themselves in not all that long after getting to their new camp. This video posted in Hali's thread pretty much details how badly they played the swap. No one was mean-girling them. Shirin and Max really did ostracize themselves.

My goodness. Not only did Max and Shirin do their alliance in with their social ineptitude, but according to a video posted in Hail's thread, they wasted no time in doing so! Apparently, Carolyn and Kelly jumped to Hali, Jenn, and Will sooner than we were shown! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvFEDqdFgKc

Yeah. I can believe Rodney was probably that bad on the island.