Fiftyninth

When he was putting the scratch-off tickets away for Cole's mother, Luke found a wad of cash wrapped with a receipt from Midland.

Stick, newly handless, to Colleen: "Where's the Fist?" Me, to myself: "The question has me Stumped!"

A box full of C-4 (explosives).

Never, ever, ever place U-Turns before the Detour again.

I love Peppermint so, so much, followed by Sasha. Sasha's evocation of medieval tapestry for her unicorn look was genius.

Man, I loved Kris and Jon, and she remains one of my all-time sentimental favorites. On a season with some truly horrible people, she just glowed with an inner and outer beauty. If they ever did an all stars strangers pairing, I'd love to see Kris and Floyd team up.

"No, Cheyenne, that's only if the tornado is molesting you!"

I still find it outrageous that the U-Turns are coming before the Detours this season. That's terrible race design!

As far as the presence of racial coding and dog whistles in some of the language used, I can't figure out if "shady" is a word with a racial component of some kind, or if I just am reminded too much of "shiftless," which definitely has a racist past.

You know, maybe the "out and proud" ones are the ones he "knows about," and maybe he has other friends who happen to be trans who haven't shared that with him - and maybe he didn't "figure it out" in their cases - how would he even know? (Presumably not all his FTM friends go around topless the way Zeke did at times.) It's sure not for him to decide whether someone should be "out" about their gender history. I think it was valuable to be reminded by other posters on the episode thread that transitioning is the act of coming out as your authentic self - presenting as male is Zeke being truthful, not Zeke being deceptive. Lastly, I believe Jeff is regretful, but I don't believe he is contrite. He is far too self-serving with his justifications and excuses for me to find his apology tour sincere enough to redeem him.

Every time Varner opens his mouth, it's either uglier or less convincing. I really liked him until this week; I quite sincerely dislike what I have seen from him over the past 72 hours, including all these interviews (and his Gordon Holmes pre-season interview). This man needs to shut up and find a place to hunker down for a good chunk of time, and stop yapping self-interestedly to anyone who'll grant him some press.

I'm sort of secretly hoping for a little Pearl Islands Outcast craziness, with Scoutmaster Lil brought back for a visit.

I dunno. If I came in as the last two out of three individuals on the initial task (and last overall out of 11 teams), I wouldn't have expected Phil to help me cut the line to make it to flight 1.

Michaela was one of my two favorites last season - probably my favorite, with David a close second. And she and Sandra are my two favorites this season.

By partnering with someone who was way smarter and way less attractive than himself? Stephen is one of my biggest Survivor crushes ever. And he's certainly aged better than JT (not to insult JT).

Oh, EHG. I missed you last week. I hate weeks off!

Or is that specifically to torture Chidi with impossible decisions? Do we ever see Chidi eat the froyo, or does he always go without? (I know he certainly sometimes has gone without.)

I am just realizing we should have seen this coming when Michael kicked that dog into the sun back in the first or second episode!

I have to admit, I had a nervous ball in my gut through the last 10 or 15 minutes of that episode, from the point Ken went to Jay until the end of tribal council. I don't remember ever having that physical reaction to the show before. Leading into the loved ones visit, I told my husband, "Adam should say, I'll give the advantage to whoever wins if they take me." That would allow him to get the target off his back. Then when Jay won, l said, "Jay should offer to take Adam in exchange for Adam giving Jay the advantage." Neither did exactly as I predicted/suggested, yet the end result worked out exactly the same.

Did Wes kill himself and frame Annalise as revenge for Rebecca? It would be in keeping with the comment above that he was at the heart of (violently) attacking someone on every midseason finale.

I couldn't help feeling like Adam is TV-aware enough to be giving the producers and editors options to work with in his interviews - like, "here's what I can say to make it seem like I'm siding with FigTayls, but here's an alternate interview where I mention I'm tempted to work with Ken and Jess instead."

More NYC! (Or should that be "more NYC..."?)

God, did I love Koko's speech about the book he was reading.

Rather than discuss the terrible/predictable elimination choice, I'm going to make an unrelated observation: Isn't it a true missed opportunity that Ms. Tantrum's mother/daughter act wasn't called "Alaska and Hawiieeeeeeeeeeee!"?

Paul cried copiously when he won HOH at final 4, didn't he?