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My thoughts exactly. I had been hoping Zeke would be the one to go next week before the ones I'm rooting for (Andrea, Cirie, Michaela) start getting knocked out, so the order between Zeke and Sierra doesn't really matter to me in the long run, just adds another week of enjoyment for me. I'm thinking that too. Or they only get to get their way for so long until the others band together. Like I can see Aubry and Sarah seeing themselves at the bottom of that side, and voting with the other side to take one of them out. I'm thinking Andrea gets the boot first of the three, since she's the competition threat, but Michaela has also been a consistent target too, so maybe her.

I'm pretty sure Jeff said Cirie was one of the captain, so that was why she was on a team. I'm sure if she wasn't a captain, she would've been the one sitting out. And probably would've found that advantage. I think Michaela realizes already that there's no way she's winning, or at least not gonna win anyone over. Half the people there already hate her, and no matter what she does, she's not going to endear herself to them, so she's not gonna suck up or be fake to them, and is just gonna have fun/get those memes. The people that already like her and are on her side don't seem to mind, so I don't think she's really losing anything.

The Cirie moment was definitely sweet, but also felt very patronizing. I think she was happy about it after, but during it, probably felt a bit embarrassed. But I'm sure glad she did it. So glad Andrea was safe, but that was too close for comfort. Loved her and Michaela's showing at Tribal Council, though, seeing Debbie go and Sierra/Brad knocked down a peg was very satisfying. Also satisfying was seeing Andrea get the comp beast threat edit she's always deserved. She's a really solid all around player, and seems to have found a good balance this time around, so I hope she can stay around for a long time.

Debbie and then Sierra? Beautiful. Two episodes off from dreading who the boots are. Though there's still Zeke in there for canon fodder before my favs, so hopefully I can extend that to three.

Not surprised the show did exactly what everyone knew it was going to do from the start. She had "surprise" elimination written all over her, and they really telegraphed it all in the past few weeks. I'm sure Heather knew what she was in for when she signed up, but it's still a shame the show did her so little favors. I'm just disappointed how the obvious narrative will probably follow her for a bit. Final three is obviously Normani, Simone and Rashad, so there's hardly any suspense left until the end.

Clearly Simone is miserable and hates life or just Maks and Heather. There's also another one where everyone is smiling and goofing off. People on the internet love to analysis pictures or frames from something with zero context and project all kinds of things onto something that is literally just a split second in time.

This is my ideal final 3 right now. I know it's a pipe dream, but I'll still hope Cirie can pull off a miracle and Michaela and Andrea can win lots of immunities. We haven't seen Cirie get to do much because she has been on the winning tribe all throughout the game so far. She never had to go to tribal council so how would anyone be "dragging her to the end"? Now it's merge, and people that aren't great at physical things are the perfect people to keep around. However, her social and strategic game is still going to make her a target even though she definitely won't be winning any immunity idols anytime soon. Also, she's great at puzzles. No, Ozzy still would've gone home. Debbie still would've played her extra vote and Ozzy still would've had more votes than Zeke. This is what I was thinking as well. The big move people were hoping she'd make by pulling in both Hali and Michaela and taking a shot at either Brad or Sierra would've required a lot of scrambling and securing votes, and could've backfired and made her a big target. I just don't think there was enough time to pull it off, and Cirie has never been a player that goes for those big moves like Parvati was. Especially not when her reputation is already so big, she's not about to let herself be caught trying mastermind a huge thing and become a huge target. She has to stick to making smaller moves and lining things up as best she can for now.

Seriously. At best, her target Ozzy was going home, at worst, someone who wasn't truly in her alliance and was more in the middle was going home. Waste.

There's such a thing as coded language, and almost everything Sierra said was full of it. Racism comes in many forms, some a lot more subtle than others.

I enjoyed these episodes, if just because I finally got to see Cirie do her thing. And I'm loving that she's aligned with my other two favorites left in the game, Michaela and Andrea. I really wish she had decided to pull Hali in and save both her and Michaela, but I'm guessing there were things going on preventing that from being a logical option. Maybe just because she wanted to stay under the radar with helping Michaela, which I'm assuming was her reason for voting for her still. Zeke's motivations are a complete mystery to me, he just blew up his game for no logical reason. Cirie said in her confessional during the second vote that her vote was to "spice things up" so I guess she knew they didn't have the numbers to get Zeke out? Ozzy would've gone regardless of Debbie's extra vote, so. I forgot about that one. I knew she was very solid (though doesn't seem to ever get the credit for it that others do), but that one slipped my mind somehow, despite being her most impressive performance, I think.

So there's not currently an accurate boot list out, right? There was an accurate one for pre-merge and we know the F3 (unfortunately), but the only one I remember seeing for merge-F4 already came with the disclaimer of not necessarily being in order, and it definitely had Hali in the top 6 or 7, so definitely not in order.

I was really hoping for something like this, but after the previous episode ended with the girls dancing (on their own, even), I kinda figured it wouldn't. But just something light in there somewhere would've been nice.

Man, Heather cannot catch a break with this show. I expected some evening out at the beginning, with all the professional dancer complaints, but they seem to be actively working against her at this point. She would've been fine if Glee was still on the air, but I don't think her core fanbase is strong enough to compete with the obvious favorites for much longer. I really hope she gets the chance to get a really great performance in there before she goes, but with Maks behind the wheel, I'm not holding my breath. Yeah, Heather was obviously brought on in a dancing capacity at first and Brittany was always featured heavily in the dancing department, but her role was much more acting heavy than it ever was dance. She never got the kind of dance solos or dance focus that Harry Shum Jr got. Even Kevin McHale, whose character was in a wheelchair, got more dance solo time than Heather did on the show, I'd say. Her role on Glee was much more about being the comic relief with her ditzy/weird one liners, and her on/off/on again relationship with Santana (and other place holder relationships with dudes in between). I think she still does dance classes and dances for fun, and her best friends are mostly all professional dancers, but yeah, I don't think she's anywhere near where she was. It's not like she could go on tour with Beyonce now a days, I'm sure.

Marnie's original motivations for wanting to move in and help Hannah were certainly not unselfish or altruistic, but I think the fact that she stayed for five months, despite being yelled at and taken for granted and probably generally really bored, showed some signs of selflessness and sacrifice, as well as maturity. Marnie isn't exactly someone that sticks things out or takes all that long to bail on something when it's not going the way she wanted, and while she seemed to be a natural with Grover and it probably felt good to be so good at something again, I do think she ended up sticking around for so long because she saw just how out of her depth Hannah was. She called in Loraine when it became too much for her as well, but she had still planned on sticking around until Loraine pointed it out and suggested she needed to go. So while I don't think Marnie is suddenly some mature adult making some totally selfless sacrifice for her best friend, I don't think she was doing it entirely for herself either. It showed some growth, even if just a little bit.

"You think you have a lot of friends, right? Who's here? Elijah's not here. Jessa sure as hell isn't here. Adam isn't here. Shoshanna literally despises all of us. Who's here? I'm here. I win. I'm your best friend. I'm the best at being your friend. I love you the most." That whole speech and the crazed/Hallmark movie stalker way Marnie said it was my favorite part of the finale. It felt like the perfect reflection of their dynamic throughout the show. Shame the rest of the finale couldn't follow suite in reflecting the rest of the show so well.

This felt more like one of the show's weird season openers, setting the stage for the theme/tone of the new season, than it did a series finale. I get that they seemed to want to end on a note that was more about the beginning of something than the end of it, I suppose, but last week's ending had a much bigger impact. Not even a pretty song for the last scene? It's just leaves me with such an 'okay, and?' feeling at the end. The only scene that really amused me was the beginning, with Marnie being Marnie, celebrating her win as Hannah's Best Friend.

Is the finale an hour long like the premiere or just the regular half hour?

That was really hard to watch. I'm so glad we got to see every member on the tribe come for Varner for that, and had Zeke's back. I don't really buy Varner's remorse at all. He was upset that he realized how badly he's going to come off now, after getting a taste of the tribe's reaction and disgust, but considering he was defending his move for a bit there, he can save his apologies. Not to mention the fact that he was hinting at it long before TC and it was a very calculated move that he thought about long before saying it. He's gonna earn every bit of hate the internet hurls at him. I can only assume the show talked to Zeke about airing it. It would have been nearly impossibly to edit out.

Realistically, I agree, Marnie probably wouldn't be a reliable co-parent to Hannah's kid, but I do think the show will end with them planning on doing that. But I'm sure everyone will agree/headcanon it doesn't even last a year.

As I suspected, last night's episode was indeed the last we see of Jessa and Shoshanna. From what I've gathered from Inside the Episodes, I think we already saw the last of Ray and Adam, too. Not sure about Elijah.

I was wondering how much of it was old footage, a lot of the show blends together for me, and I didn't recognize everything. I thought maybe the last few bits was at least new?

I enjoyed the episode. I appreciate the show for acknowledging how frayed the group has become. It's something the show has always been pretty on point with, usually from Shosh. As much as I enjoy a good "gang" on TV shows, sometimes it just comes off fake because you hardly ever see these people together, or at least genuinely enjoying each other's company, and it's been a while since we've seen that with the girls. So that conversation was needed and something I wish more shows would do. I've never been a fan of Jessa or the Jessa/Hannah dynamic, but I really liked that they made peace and had a last good night together before Hannah left. I thought that scene was really well done.

It's one of the first shots of the pilot episode (right after the title card) and I believe they paralleled it with Hannah/Elijah in the S2 opener and then Hannah/Adam in the S3 opener (I think they dropped it after that), so it was definitely a memorable shot for the show, so I'd bet money on it being the opening shot of the finale. I could see the finale possibly having a time jump to after the baby has been born, and the episode opens with Marnie spooning Hannah in bed, one of them waking up to the baby crying, and then getting out of bed to reveal their new house, wherever they're living now. From what I could tell from Instagram posts about filming, Lena and Allison seemed to be the only cast members filming for a while at the end there, so I could see next episode being the send off to Jessa and Shosh and Elijah, and the finale focusing mostly on Hannah and Marnie.

Yeah, the Glee nostalgia worked in her favor; with the song and especially with Naya Rivera (Heather's onscreen wife from the show) being in the audience for it, I've seen a lot of celebrating about it.

As someone that is admittedly a huge fan of Heather and her dancing for years, I've always noticed she has a bit of a problem staying in time with the other people she's dancing with. Wasn't as big a problem on Glee, because she was always supposed to be the best dancer, so it was natural, but watching a casual routine with other professional dancers, I find she tends to be a a little bit ahead of others. I'm not surprised by this. I think she's really weird and goofy and friendly, but somewhere along the line during Glee she started getting really awkward in interviews and any kind environment when the attention is solely on her, and it can come off cold. I can totally relate to that as a person, but I expected it to hurt her on this type of show, where she needs to let loose and show more of her personality.