ImpinAintEasy

I like that the characters are flawed. You can see why they may feel the way they do, even if they make you want to reach through the screen and smack them sometimes. I understand why the North would be reluctant to bend the knee to a Targaryen. But sooner or later they are going to realize it is better than the alternative, at least until the White Walkers are dealt with(if they are). Love is the death of duty, and Jon’s story of course would lead to this. I think he kneeled to Dany to protect the North AND because he loves her. It’s easy to say it was a mistake to mix duty with love, but these characters are only human. I feel like I know where this is headed, and it won’t be a fairytale ending.

Wes is a far better narrator for the show than Johnny. I’m loving this season, mostly because of the competition, but Wes being the main talking head has helped too. I don’t know if he can win, but I hope he does. I’m not sure if he has run an individual final since winning ‘The Duel’. So hopefully he gets a chance this season. Cara rarely goes into eliminations anymore. She’s had to compete in one h2h elimination in the last 4 seasons combined! Another reason she is now the female Bananas. I can’t stand her. Turbo’s celebrations are incredible. He’s still the favorite to win this thing. I’d love to see him get a physical elimination against Paulie Peacock.

I’m pretty sure Georgia and Bear is just for show. The UK reality stars know how to perform. Bear is a professional at this. He and Georgia knew each other before the show. It’s probably all an act.

Speaking of the preview, the twist of the game turning individual has to favor Turbo. If he’s good at puzzles, he will be very difficult to beat in a final.

Bear is winning me over. My big complaint about him not competing seems to have been a one time issue. He’s a great heel. He entertains me, and that’s more than I can say for Gus and Jenna, as wholesome as they seem. Hunter can fuck right off too. I can see why Smashley took his money. Roided up little man baby. Wes is dominating this season and he knows it. His Cartman “respect my authoritay” act at the tribunal was ridiculous. Another reason I’m starting to like Bear is that he is good enough to get under Wes’ skin, which is saying something, particularly with older Wes.

Bear is a troll. He gets off on being a nuisance. I’ll admit, he is pretty funny. And he actually tried in the elimination. I’ll take his villainy over Paulie’s fake tough guy act. I’m still rooting for Wes and Turbo. I used to hate Wes in the Duel-Fresh Meat days. Much like CT, he has turned into a favorite. It also has helped that he hasn’t done a real Challenge in a while. Plus, being against Johnny(even if his real rivalry was with Johnny’s buddy Kenny) helps. LeRoy is upset on social media about the way MTV edited him this season. Which I can understand because of how bad he looked in the whole Kam-Theo situation. It wasn’t a good look being so clingy. At this point, I think RoyLee needs to hang it up. Being Johnny’s buddy doesn’t have the advantages it used to.

Supposedly Johnny,Theo, and Kyle wrapped duct tape around Amanda’s face and mouth as a “prank”, even though Amanda was yelling for them to stop and crying. The tape wound up ripping some of her hair out. https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/the-challenge-cast-describes-unaired-amanda-garcia-attack/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

I wanted to like Bear. He seems like a witty guy(or cheeky). But like TJ, I hate quitters. Just finish the challenge. There are no repercussions for finishing last, which is the only problem with this format. So instead of lugging it out he quits and proceeds to show an amazing amount of unwarranted arrogance, which you know is all a performance. MTV paid him to come and be Bear, and he’s giving them him. He’s there to perform, not to compete. I do still like the other UK members, particularly Georgia. Turbo continues to be the best. I’m rooting for him or Wes to win. Wes has a better partner, but Turbo is a far better competitor than him at this point. Just like Johnny stole Kenny’s schtick, Cara is morphing into the female Bananas. I was never a big fan, but I didn’t actively dislike her. She is my least favorite challenger at this point. And spare me her women empowerment speech after she cherry picks when to defend women. Amanda is essentially assaulted, and Cara takes the stance that she deserved it. Fuck Cara.

It’s really hard to trust editing. After hearing about stuff that isn’t shown I can see how Amanda is edited as the villain and Cara the female face of the show. All of the sanest people from the show(excluding Smashley) seem to like Amanda. It’s the Caras,Bananas, and Zachs who hate her. In other words two assholes and whatever Cara has become. The girl is a nurse outside of the show. So I respect that about her.

I think Wes is actually in decent shape politically. Unlike Bananas, he has made an alliance with the new kids and Hunter, who has basically placed his game in Wes’ hands. I like most of the crop of new contestants. I continue to love the UK people they cast, as I don’t have a problem understanding them and feel like they are more entertaining and interesting than the ‘Young Bucks’ and AYTO crew. So even if the vets continue to fall, I’ll continue watching. As I said earlier, the editing is so much better. I think I saw that the season will only be 13 episodes. Hopefully they continue with the double eliminations and don’t do any purges.

The Challenge is back baby! They finally fixed the editing and stopped stretching the season out for a ridiculously long time. Sad to see CT go, but at least he lost in a legit competition. I think at this point he shows up for the appearance fee, which I assume at this point is $75,000+ per season for him. Paulie and Cara are THE WORST! My lord she is so insecure. And Zach is right, she is still obsessed with Kyle, whose crime seems to be he wasn’t that into her. And don’t get me started on that pygmy Paulie. Talk about a fake tough guy who is playing to the cameras. Kyle is a sleezy fuck boi, but at least he can be entertaining. He wins my support for this “rivalry”, which I’m sure will last a while because they have the two strongest female partners in Ninja and Mattie. I never liked Nany, and I still don’t. It’s a shame Turbo is paired with her.

I don’t want to jinx it, but so far I am enjoying the return to what seems like a more competition based show. I know they brought back some producer named Justin Booth, who supposedly was in charge from 2007-2015. Everything from Bloodlines to Final Reckoning he was not a part of. And TJ mentioned being disappointed at Final Reckoning not being tough enough. So here’s hoping for more competition and less fake drama. Speaking of fake drama, does anyone else think the Wes-Johnny stuff is mostly for show now? It’s not personal like Wes-Kenny was. Don’t get me wrong, I love having Wes back, and he will never work with Johnny, but their barbs at each other are just for entertainment. I wouldn’t call them frenemies, but they are just a rung below that.

I buy that Ashley actually won. It’s illegal to rig these types of shows. Or at least that’s what I’ve read before when people throw accusations at ‘Survivor’. I saw someone post on Reddit that they edited out a couple of other legs of the final, including a puzzle portion and another run. It’s no shocker that Ashley would do better at the puzzle, as she has shown to be successful at them before. And supposedly she beat him in a couple of the running portions. I’m one of the rare people who enjoys the train wreck that is Smashley. Like her or not, she’s now a 2 time champ. I don’t blame her for taking the money. A million bucks is a lot more enticing than the $275,000 that Johnny took. I think Hunter and maybe Joss are the only ones dumb enough to have actually elected to share the money.

Isn’t the speculated format basically ‘Fresh Meat 3’? At least that was the last I saw. It’s nice to see Wes do a real season again. It might be his last, so hopefully he does well.

Only thing I’m happy about is there should be a first time winner. They are all mostly sociopaths, but I still oddly enjoy the show, other than the stupid purges/double cross/redemption house. I am generally against teams losing an elimination and still winning the game. So even though I’d prefer for Brad and Kyle to win, on principle I have to root against any of the Redemption House teams. So I guess I hope Nelson/Shane win. Shane’s a bitch, but he has been a good competitor through the years who just chokes in eliminations. Nelson is the only Young Buck I like, if only because he is so earnestly and entertainingly stupid. I’ll never root for Johnny. Fuck him. He has too much power with the producers. He basically got to hand pick the cast of the next season, if rumors are true.

The funniest part is that you know Kyle doesn’t give a shit about Brad’s kids, but used them to try and guilt trip Cara. His “he’s got two little ones! He hasn’t got no job!” had me laughing. Kyle is without a doubt an ass, but he is the most entertaining member of the cast. Shane knows that drama equals being cast for future seasons. It’s a shame that his shit stirring gets in the way of being a good competitor. He should be one of the favorites this season, but you know his mouth is going to doom him. Glad to see Johnny not win. Zach dogs Amanda, but she is a solid competitor. She’s agile and good at puzzles. Zach’s strength should more than make up for her lack of size. I think they could probably win.

I like CT, but cast members have said that he is still a bit of an asshole. He gets the best, most forgiving edit according to some on the cast. That was a bad challenge for Veronica, given her height. She’s not a strong competitor anymore, but for that specific challenge I think she deserved to not be treated like crap.

BMP can fuck up anything. Why of all things would they make it to where two teams lose by sheer luck? Why not make the loser of Armageddon go home? Make it so where the team who draws the double cross can choose any two teams to compete to win their way back to the house or be sent home? If they want to risk going home, they can vote themselves in. If not, they can send two other teams in. Either way, teams are given a chance to compete. The fact that Paulie and Natalie have lost twice and are still in the game is laughable. They could conceivably lose several more times and get to stay in the game. I’m sick of purges in general. They seem to only exist to give weaker competitors more of a chance. And even then, none of the newbies, save for Smashley, have been able to win. So far this is the worst season of the show. The previous two weren’t great either, and they were made worse by the Finals. Maybe this season will give us a good Final, but I doubt it. Supposedly the reunion will be 3-parts. If they make us wait to reveal the winners again, I will just look up the spoilers.

Paulie being 5’8 and like 150 lbs didn’t help with that elimination. I think many of the other guys would have handled it much better, to where it wouldn’t seem like such a disadvantage. Still, it’s obvious the formula used to determine the resistance was ridiculous. Kam had it way too easy. They should have made Natalie do the bungee portion, or simply don’t do same sex and mixed sex pairs in the same damn season.

Kyle is funny. On a show full of awful people, he at least is amusing. If MTV is trying to position anyone as the new face of the show, I think it’s Kyle. They made him a part of the strongest team. Barring a major upset or prop malfunction(Brad was screwed last season), I don’t see these two not making the final. I’m willing to chalk up the lack of challenges and eliminations to Melissa and Kailah being sent home and waiting for Tony to be flown in. But unfortunately it’s looking like another long drawn out season with probably another stupid purge. Instead of eliminating 3 teams at once, how about we get 2-3 more eliminations?

It was actually a good final. With the rain, I’m sure it was tougher than the Vendettas final. The challenges and finals in the spinoff shows are often more creative and interesting than the main Challenge. The drama is 100 percent contrived, but I actually do enjoy the challenges. I’m not too hyped for the next real season. So maybe it will surprise me. The show needs some new winners.

I’ll watch. But I doubt it will be well received by critics and non-fantasy fans. I was hoping for more political intrigue. A series that heavily features the Children of the Forest is going to be a tough sell. Maybe it’ll surprise me, but at this point I have White Walker fatigue.

Pretty boring episode. It was obvious who was going home. I’m waiting to see whether Dom or Wendell turn on each other. Dom is starting to get an overwhelming winner’s edit, so I hope Wendell comes out on top so as to not make it obvious. Though I’m cool with anyone but Kellyn winning. At this point, I’d be shocked if one of Dom,Wendell, or Laurel don’t win. Unfortunately for Donathon, I don’t think the jury will respect his game enough to vote for him.

I really don’t get the people who feel Dom is an asshole. Other than the opening episode where he was the only one to criticize Chris’s decision, I haven’t seen him be an asshole. Bradley was/is an asshole. Dom just has that Jersey/New York accent that people associate with players like Tony. Dom seems like a good natured guy to me, but perhaps it’s the edit, in which case, he’s totally getting the winner’s edit. Kellyn makes my skin crawl. Such a prissy little spaz. People wanting the girls to gang up and take out Dom and Wendell realize that Kellyn wins in that scenario, right? Which is why I’m cool with the obvious winner situation if Dom or Wendell win.

I’m starting to worry about Wendell. He seems like he is too good at this game, and the other tribe members surely must notice this. He’s a physical and social threat. He’s very well spoken and would likely crush the final tribal council. I’m more confident in Laurel and Donathon surviving longer than Wendell right now. Dom seems to be safeguarded by Wendell being seen as the bigger threat. I doubt this alliance lasts, unfortunately, as I like all 4 of them.