djlynch

I think that they had a “no negative critiques” policy. If it had been a regular Snatch Game, Nico would have gotten some criticism for not having better improv skills. They nailed the physicality and the bits that seemed to have been prepared in advance, but everything else failed to land.

I got the impression from the meeting with his family that the dynamic is one where he was constantly disappointing his parents because he wasn't as mature as his older brother and that never changed once he grew up. He seemed a lot more quiet and reserved around them and the lead up to that was the only time that I can remember him saying anything about Amber's lack of filter as a negative. Living that way your whole life will really mess with your head.

I can totally see "you signed this contract that says you were going to participate until the weddings" being a pressure point from whatever producer she was talking to without actually saying that she couldn't walk away. Or the contract saying that if you don't make it to the wedding, you don't get paid or even have to pay the producers back for the trip to Mexico and Jessica feeling stuck because of that.

Mark reminds me of myself at 24. I was so completely in love with a friend who was so not into me that I wasn't even the right gender, and knew it, but just couldn't manage to get past it until I finally got hurt so badly that it became the main thing I associated with him for a while. I'm also kind of amazed that Kenny didn't seem to see that coming. They got along so well that I assumed at first that they were just kind of low key, but it seemed pretty obvious as the season went on that there was no spark there. I only ever watched half an early season of the US version of Married at First Sight (from the same production company) so I don't know if they're doing it here, but the Australian one apparently now has several opportunities for couples to announce whether they want to stay together rather than making all of them wait for the end. I feel like Love is Blind could have used something like that and milked it for some extra drama without waiting until people were left standing at the altar, because I mostly felt like the show was stringing people along and letting them get hurt just as much as the people who didn't say "I do."

Carlton needs therapy more than he needs a wife or reality TV. He was so ready to be proven right about the content of his secret being the dealbreaker that he never bothered to listen enough to figure out that it was the keeping a secret that was Diamond's problem. As much as I hate the stereotype that men who claim to be bi are secretly gay and refusing to come all of the way out of the closet, I wonder whether he's really that into women.

I can’t help but notice that the quote in the other link doesn’t actually say that they aren’t dating, just that you shouldn’t conclude that they are dating based on a single hug. However, he does seem to show a lot of platonic affection physically. There was a moment between the baking and the judging at one point during the season where he and David were sitting on a bench outside the tent together and he had one arm around David and was resting his head on his shoulder.

I managed to see the "least-laddy lads' club" clip and a still of Henry with his head on David's shoulder during the deliberations before

According to those who have worked out the math, we know that Jasmine's match has to be... If Danny and Kai are a match, Kylie could be with Amber, Justin, Max, or Remy. If Justin and Max are a match, then we know everybody's match and Kylie's is...

I'm kind of taking comfort in the idea that Danny/Kai can only be a match if Justin/Max aren't. And I could definitely see Justin matching with Amber (and, judging from next week's promo, so can Justin,) but I can't see Max matching with anyone else unless the matchmakers got something wrong. I was actually kind of hoping for Danny to be matched with Remy because they both seem like they're smart people who are in touch with their wild side. Unfortunately for the game, we know they aren't because they were in the same ceremony as Aasha/Brandon and Basit/Jonathan and there were only two beams.

I don't think they've changed anything about how the "at least ____ women" rule works compared to last season, but it's annoying me a lot more this season. Some cities have a lot more female talent than others and two women advancing per city finals doesn't feel like enough even in the cities that aren't stacked, but it also doesn't feel fair to the men that the number of them that advance is dependent on the number of women who make it to the overall top 12.

I finally got around to watching my recordings of The Titan Games over the long weekend and spotted Robbie as a contestant on episode 2. Apparently, he does videos on YouTube about staying fit while being a stay at home dad these days in addition to wrestling. His wife was mentioned, but not named or seen, so I have no clue if that's Brooke or not.

I don't think there is any logic to decide who gets an invitation other than who they think is going to make good television. Under the previous format, they never explained how the "wild card" ninjas who went to Vegas despite not getting out of the city finals were selected, either.

When Russell got bitten by the snake, I wound up feeling the opposite. Or at least that if you can come back from being taken to the medical tent at base camp overnight, going to the hospital shouldn't be an automatic tap. Before she said something about it, if you had told me that the Laura who was partnered with Jeff and the Laura who was in Alaska with Steven at the start of the current N&A season were different people, I would have believed you.

Basit seems to be playing one of the smarter games at this point. They said something during one of their confessionals about thinking that the experts had matched Jonathan and them up, rather than just going on pure emotion. Also, the match ceremony doesn't have a "none of the above" option, so the two of them might actually be stuck together until the end of the show even if they don't mesh well in person.

Dear editors: When you WWWA a ninja who makes it to the buzzer in the second-fastest time of the night, and make a point of mentioning that, it kind of makes it obvious that he's not actually going to make it to the Power Tower.

Give a naked man a fish and he eats for a day. Give a naked man a few fish hooks...

They kind of look similar but the last names and ages don't match. Also, either MAFS Luke has a shirtless pic on his Instagram that doesn't show any of the tattoos N&A Luke has.

It certainly has my DVR confused. They mark the back-to-back hours as single episodes so I get "new" episodes that are two hours that I've seen before or one-hour "new" that I've seen as part of a two-hour block.

XL has its own thread, but it got buried in the list because there hasn't been any activity there for a while.

I'll say this much about tonight's TC: I'd rather have this kind of chaos than the "(day 1 tribe) strong" stuff that's taken over the last few seasons. Even if you have the numbers at the merge, going for the easy pickings for the first few TCs and then hoping you can make some moves in the last few seems like it's got a pretty good chance of backfiring.

I had heard something about Halston Sage not being available for this season of The Orville in particular, so I was kind of assuming that all of the "it could be a few months or a few years" and "the job is yours whenever you're ready to come back" was just setting it up for there to be some throwaway thing at the start of next season about how Alara is back now, but then the last couple minutes felt more like she was leaving permanently, so I'm a little bit confused as to what her status actually is. It kind of felt like maybe they had to re-do the end after she changed her mind on coming back.

I just caught up with the last couple episodes after the holiday, and I was kind of annoyed about Tom knocking Pablo's dish for having underripe raspberries. Maybe the point was that he shouldn't have used them, but the production did the shopping here so if the ingredients in the dish are showing their poor quality, that's on the production and not the contestant.

This felt like Drag Race doing a parody of itself, which is really a step too far considering that the real thing does so much to make fun of itself. I would have preferred a more standard drag revue type holiday show with some skits between songs to link them together, rather than whatever the hell this was with a fake competition but real backstage drama. Definitely the best looking of all the regular Pit Crew guys, although I'm going to need the Instagram handles of some of the dancers they had on there. Particularly the one with the hairy chest who I only saw in the mini challenge.

That gave me an idea for an all-returner season that starts out as four tribes, each of which was an alliance from a previous season. Call me, Probst.

Based partly on the description my DVR has for next week, I think that the "funeral" is either for the menu or a dish that has been on it for a long time and not a person.