Iseut

Yes, I love all of these people! George was the last one who wasn't going to totally break my heart at elimination. I liked him a lot too, but I knew that he didn't quite have enough baking ability and time management skill to make it all the way. These last 5, though, are all amazing in different ways. I'm guessing/hoping that Lizzie wows everyone in Free From Week. The themes of each week have seemed to stress her out, and she's very creative with a lot of interesting flavors, so I'm hoping the freedom from restrictions will really let her shine. I loved Jurgen instantly in the first episode when he was playing trombone with his family, and they also showed his pet free-roaming bunny! I have two pet bunnies, so bunny people are my people. I also just love Jurgen's Werner-Herzog-ish way of explaining things. Pretty much everything he says makes me giggle, just because of the voice.

My husband walked in for about 5 minutes while I was watching this and Zack Bagans was yammering (so I was kind of tuned out). Hubby's like, "Wait, does he have some sort of museum or something?" And I said "Yeah, some haunted museum thing in Vegas..." and hubby started laughing and said he was being sarcastic. "I know, he just mentioned it, like 20 times!" Heh. Shut up Zack.

The visuals this season alone are Emmy-worthy...the Guide with the remote control for the car and the fire-breathing hellhound were such quick blink-and-you-miss-it visual jokes, but they were both so hilarious! And the two-second visual of the sweet snuggly Golden hellhound being a fire-breathing squirrel-murderer had a multi-episode buildup! Amazing.

A month+ late, but we finally finished this and OHMYGOD. SARAH. GIRL. Not surprising, but soooo dumb. The finale was the only time I actually liked (maybe too strong a word...respected? Maybe) gross slimy Garrett, because he dropped the schmoozing act and stayed true to the selfish Fboy he has been all along. He was given a choice and chose exactly what his character represented. He was under no obligation to pretend to like Sarah or want a relationship with her anymore. Agree with a previous poster who said "Justice for Garrett!" Though I also agree with the poster who said that he was awful and just getting into her head and negging her. He is an awful, awful, gross person, but he was on the right show to be that person, and shouldn't necessarily get penalized for being that person on this show. Aaanyway. I find it hilarious that he and Josh are hanging out together. I think Josh's antenna is broken too lol. Josh, you're a mature hottie with a super sexy voice, why are you trying to hang with fratty baby losers like Sarah and Garrett?

Echoing all here who are completely bummed out by the changes to this show. I do give a lot of leeway for COVID restriction challenges, and I have to still give FN a lot of love for keeping me entertained with comfort TV these past 18+ months, but this was still a huge bummer. I watch and enjoy Halloween Baking Championship; I don't need a simultaneous lesser version of it by a different name. The haunted "host" guy? Blech. That wasn't hosting, that was self-promoting. "Me me me my museum my scary stuff my show me me me here's a doll that's creepy I guess do something with that or whatever me me me..." The Lego blocks themselves were cool, but the "monster" itself was just a big ugly mess. I would have eliminated that team and kept the record player people, though I do agree with Shinmin that the discs themselves were really the coolest part.

Was just coming here to share this too! Cutest thing ever. And now I can't stop singing, "Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruuuuby..."

The doll's eyeroll was epic! Hee, we've all been there when see a friend barking up the wrong tree for love. I love to hate on Twilight and the music played during the kickball was the perfect callback. Also, font humor! "Franklin Gothic would just be a bit on the nose, don't you think?"

Adam's win kind of surprised me, but I'm down with it. His shed design was really bright and lovely, and well-thought-out, though overall I liked Melanio's and Kara's better. Chelsea was my favorite throughout the season, but her shed didn't wow me as much as the others. I think what bugged me about Kara was that she was working sooo hard to be inspirational, with her platitudes and speeches. I understand that she has been through a lot in her life, and I'm sure the producers egged her on, but it made the fact that she really IS talented and inspirational seem manufactured.

Fun to laugh about, but I saw it actually happen! When I was a contestant, in the green room the contestant coordinator was reviewing our applications and the stories we'd submitted before we went out to play the game, and said to one of us, "So, I see here that you took a scary walk on that clear walkway over the Grand Canyon! Tell us more about that!" And the contestant was like, "Yeah, no, I didn't do that. I just wrote it down because I thought it sounded interesting." It just seemed kind of...icky and not in the spirit of the game, and it put the coordinator in a weird position.

I also hate NBC's obsession with only showing "disasters." In addition to cutting out decent, if not medal winning, gymnastics routines, some of the primetime coverage would only show a promising gymnast from another country if that gymnast fell from glory or whatever. It happened when the Chinese gymnast fell off the bar (didn't even show her routine, just clipped to the fall, made a bunch of gasps over it, and cut back to the Americans), and the Russian rhythmic gymnast who made an error on the ribbon and had to switch it out to the white RIBBON OF SHAME. That was literally all they showed for rhythmic gymnastics on primetime one night; not the routines of the others that were nearly as good or better. So frustrating. Show at least the top 5 damn routines, no matter what country they're from!

My understanding (as very much a nonsurfer) is that the best Portuguese surfing is way offshore, with bigger, more unpredictable waves. The waves in Japan looked relatively small to me, and a short paddle right off the beach. Tahiti is probably more manageable altogether, though I agree that those athletes will not really get the Olympic experience. ( But they probably aren't complaining too much about having to go to Tahiti! 🍹 ) The Olympics have done this type of split thing before, too...definitely in equestrian events and probably some others. At least the Games in LA and Brisbane will definitely have easy access to surfing venues! Back on topic...as always, there was a lot of controversy around whether to hold these Olympics, but Japan did as well or better than could have been expected, and the closing ceremony was beautiful and respectful. Very grateful to everyone who made it happen, and hope that everyone involved felt safe and continues to stay healthy.

I do often like just turning on a channel and being pleasantly surprised to get interested in a sport I might not otherwise seek out, like table tennis or handball, and with the fairly vague descriptors for each network, I was able to do that a lot and receive a lot better coverage and usually more interesting commentary than I did on the basic NBC daytime or primetime options (though I often watched those too, to get the "old school" Olympic experience with the more glamorous sports and the tearjerking stories. What can I say, I'm a sucker for it all!). That said, we also have a Fire stick set up one on of our 2 tvs, which had the more general options above, as well as a better organized system that made it easier to search for specific sports when I wanted to do that. I'm sure it's harder for them to get ad dollars when the events are split out like that, but there were still plenty of commercials, and I think more viewers overall would tune in if they knew they were going to be able to watch the sports they wanted, rather than, say, 2 hours of beach volleyball wherein they keep teasing 20 minutes of gymnastics (15 of which are just USA gymnasts walking around dramatically in slow motion).

I didn't expect to get as emotional about the USA Women's Volleyball gold as I did, but once I saw Karch get choked up about it in the pre-game interview, I was a goner, and then in full waterworks at their win. I love how passionate he is about the sport and the team. I can't really imagine an Olympics without him! One of my original Olympic Gods, and my mom and I always liked to point him out: 1988: Hey! It's Karch again! Remember Karch? 1996: Karch is back again! He's on the beach now! 2012: Aww, ol' Karch is back as a coach now! Yay Coach Karch! That's such a long amazing legacy for the sport, and to cap off this already-fraught and emotional Games with the first US Women's win is just absolutely huge!

I don't think I've ever watched the Modern Pentathlon before, but it's pretty awesome! Kind of obsessed with it now...doesn't hurt that the winner, GBR's Joseph Choong, is such a cutie!

The videos of the athletes meeting their families at their home airports are lovely but bittersweet. I keep thinking "Aww, they're not staying for closing ceremonies? ...Ohhhhh right." It must be such a fun crazy party in the normal times; I'm sorry they have to miss it.

Hummina. I guess he knows his audience! 😍

Congrats to surprise gold medal winner in the 110m hurdles, and man-so-beautiful-I-gasped-out-loud-when-they-introduced-him-and-also-what-an-awesome-name Hansle Parchment! Swoooon.

Yes! My friend and I were just talking about it the other day and both of us started tearing up. "I can't wait to meet her..." 😭♥️😭

I found this article, and especially the pics within, extremely relevant to our interests...Male gymnasts would like to compete shirtless. Well if they want to, who are we to stop them? I say we throw our full support behind this noble endeavor! Who wants to start the change.org petition? ETA this article is from 2016?!? We've been letting these poor men suffer through competitions in shirts for far too long!

I've been watching a lot of water polo this Olympics, and definitely in awe of the beauty and awesomeness of our USA goalie, Ashleigh Johnson.

"I'm sitting in my sauna..." [faints]

Aww, the nostalgia in this thread for previous Olympic hotties just makes it better and better every time! Aww, Thoogie! Mmm...Popov rabbit hole. I had the pleasure of seeing Popov in person several years ago and he is at least as heart-stoppingly gorgeous in person. I seriously couldn't breathe for a few seconds. And aww, as a Portlander, I love the Lillard love! He is the absolute best. Surprised that my first crush of these Games would be in the table tennis arena, but the heart wants what it wants! (Those thighs. The heart wants Alberto Mino's thighs.) https://images.app.goo.gl/FMBQnP5PVDSyvuLG9

Narrator: He did NOT stay on his board. (But at least he didn't break his other wrist!) I've found the skating enjoyable, but I can see what people mean by it feeling "small," especially compared to snowboarding. I think the skate park will offer some bigger tricks. I really really wanted to like the surfing, and I'm glad it's included, but that is a sport that needs to be just televised in highlights. I tried to watch it yesterday, but watching two people sit on a board bobbing up and down in the water for the allotted 30 minutes each, while surfing a couple of small-ish waves throughout, was not the nailbiting gasp-inducing thrill watch that many other Olympics sports are. And I don't think they explained the scoring very well for it either.

I do think that the addition (at last!) of the 1500m race in the Olympics helps to soften the blow a bit. I'm pretty sure that Katie is a shoo-in for gold in that one, and probably for the 800 too. In her 1500 heat today, the commentators were talking about how Katie likes the longer races because she has more time to be in tune with her body. So I think the fact that she has been so dominant in the 400 is just icing on the distance cake for her. It's exciting that she gets to share the glory with up and coming swimmers like Ariarne Titmus.

I really loved this series. They covered so much and each episode was so rich, but it still felt as though they barely scratched the surface! Our history lessons have been so lacking.