Lady Calypso

I know this show has made a lot of weird choices with characters, but I do think they've been extremely respectful of their LGBTQIA+ characters. I really, really can't see them doing an identity crisis/whoopsie we're backtracking. They've baited people for a while now, but now they've gone all in so I don't think they're ever going to move backwards. Plus, it would be completely out of character for Buck to have a freak-out about discovering his bisexuality. He's not the type to go "wait, I kissed a dude? Oh no!" More like, "I kissed a dude? Well, what happens next?"

Honestly, I was gonna say that this 100th episode didn't feel like a 100th episode, minus the stupid Bachelor stuff, until the end. I never ever thought the show would actually go there with Buck, but I'm glad they did. There really have been hints throughout, this isn't just thrown in. I think my expectation is that they wouldn't go there, they'd just present Buck being super-affectionate and comfortable in his masculinity, etc. But I'm very, very glad they went there. I'm glad Bisexual (or Pansexual, that could work too) Buck is now canon. I didn't have any hope for them to do it, but it's good that they actually committed. So, thanks ABC. I doubt Fox ever would have gone there, even with them having so many LGBTQIA+ characters on 911 and Lone Star. I think I'm just mostly happy that the baiting I thought was happening here was actually REAL. Sure, it's no Buck/Eddie, but Buck/Tommy works just as well. I do think, now that they've opened the door, they COULD go there with Buck/Eddie eventually. But even if they never do, Bisexual Buck is all that I've wanted out of this since season 3. As for the rest of the episode, new Harry is probably going to be annoying but the new actor is surprisingly good. I have some hope that this Harry plot could be decent. But I also don't know if it will since Harry kind of caved immediately. Athena having to parent a rebellious and angry teenager would have been interesting to see. It's no surprise, either. Harry's been through a lot. I hope it's a good plot for them both. The cases worked well enough, even if they were minimal. The case with the mother killing her own son accidentally was a small role, but super sad.

To be fair, Robot says they're "pretty sure Moriah doesn't make jury", not that they know for a fact that she doesn't, so there's still a small chance Moriah could be first juror. But still, that does shake up the order that I thought players might go. Charlie making F3 doesn't surprise me, but annoys me. I think because his archetype always makes it too damn far and I was much more intrigued with Ben or even Tevin making F3 instead. Instead, we get another Charlie-type in the finale. Woohoo? But with all of this, now I feel more confident on Kenzie winning and now Maria not winning. Just because, knowing this goddamn cast, they'll credit Charlie with moves, rather than Maria. His edit has basically been screaming that whereas, if Maria was the person in charge in their alliance, she'd get the credit in the edit. Damn, was hoping for the first female winner who's the oldest of the cast. And for a non-Yanu to win, since Yanu's middle school playground behaviour with Jess and Bhanu have really turned me off of them.

I guess the switch to ABC really did give them the budget they needed for this disaster arc. Fox did a good job with the disaster arcs, but no way would they have had the budget to create entire sets not just for the upright cruise ship, but the upside down cruise ship too. I'm not sure if any of the locations were just in a green screen room, but it felt real enough where it was impressive. Out of the three episodes, I liked this one the most because it didn't feel AS campy. I mean, still campy as well with the 118 getting their old firefighter mate Tommy to fly them to Mexico, but still better than the "pirates invade the ship for five minutes and Athena's trying to cartoon run away from her husband" from the first two episodes. Also, less melodramatic acting that I found from the last episode. I'm gonna be real honest, because I've only seen Rick Cosnett in a few roles where he's fully American and have not heard him in interviews, I absolutely thought he was faking an Australian accent for some reason. Turns out, nope, he's just speaking in his natural accent. Oops, I'll have to take back all the thoughts I had about his accent. Sucks for the three deaths, kind of, but they made sense. The first guy was a sacrificial lamb to show that the stakes are high, Wes' death was for that emotional impact (it was either going to be him or the ship's captain and I'm glad they didn't choose her) and Julian's death was for....actually, they really could have just had him badly injured but alive, but I guess it was for redemption. Zero purpose to the 118 all needing to show up for five minutes, but I guess I wish there had been more time with them on the ship. I did have a good laugh at the flight scene, especially the 118's new chant. "Who cares?" The Mom and Kid Ship Alone plot was really just there to add one more obstacle to get to the outside of the ship and to split up Athena and Bobby once more. So I didn't feel one way or the other about it. Overall it was a fun three parter, rough in places and not their best three parter (I think the blackout three parter was a lot weaker than this) but still entertaining and I've taken it for what it is: pure camp. But I don't think this disaster solved Athena's fear of a quiet, disaster-free life with Bobby. If anything, it strengthened the idea that disaster and danger is just part of their lives forever, even if they retire, let's face it. But I'm glad to have seen Bobby get some actual hands-on stuff. There was a point where I thought Peter Krause opted out of the stunt work completely but between some of last season and now this one, I guess he finally got his chance to shine. I'm gonna guess we'll see Norman and Lola together again at some point down the line. I'm mildly curious to see if they can actually work through this.

Not EVEN a nine month old relationship; Nico would have had to decide by month three or four, since their surrogate is 24 weeks along, or whatever. Nico's reasoning sounded insane, honestly. I also don't buy his whole "this new guy lit up my entire world and the choice between having a child with a guy I barely know is better than not being with him at all." Nico doesn't know Jason at all. He went on a date, knowing this guy's preferences with kids and decided he'd just jump right into parenthood and living together so fast. And it's not like either are old; Nico can't be older than his mid-thirties. There's literally no reason to rush into a family situation with a guy he just met online. And bragging it about with Schmitt, not telling his partner about his ex, and not correcting his partner immediately and waiting until they got the elevator? Yeah, as much as this plot annoyed me, at least it solidified these two never getting back together again. Jo's response to Schmitt was funny. Maybe a bit harsh, but funny. And hey, Schmitt in Peds, it's about damn time instead of making us believe he has a career in General Surgery. I'm still iffy on the new Peds Surgeon, Beltran. She's so unlike any of the peds surgeons we've had. They definitely had her a bit more abrupt, a bit more direct in ways, she didn't feel the vibe of a Peds Surgeon, especially not like Arizona or Addison or Hayes. She has more of a General or Trauma vibe to her, but maybe that's just the actress. However, I think by the end of the episode, with her pushing for her patients' needs and doing a great job explaining to Kwan about Peds being about the families first and requesting him for her service because she sees potential, maybe she'll just fit a different mold to Peds. Maybe she'll be more like an Alex Karev than an Arizona Robbins. They're definitely pushing for an Amelia/Beltran relationship which, if it's casual and hate sex, it could be kind of fun. I'd love to see a truly casual relationship that actually stays casual. So, they're determined to make Lucas the worst intern in a long time, right? The way he decided to be so selfish and steal Mika's win, knowing full well she was the only one following the rules AND diagnosed the patient, is just low. All to get back into surgery, even though he was part of the problem? They're regressed Lucas, all because he's upset about Simone? And then Simone decides to have an epiphany and defend Lucas against Mika. Ridiculous, but also, it's kind of fun to see the show truly dedicate their time building these interns' storylines, even if it's in a negative direction. Yawn to the Meredith/Teddy stuff. Of course it's just that simple for her to get some funding. Honestly, Meredith could start her own foundation, at this point, and not need Catherine's money.

To be fair to Maria, I don't think she knew she would side with the men over the women. We did see that scene where she was telling Charlie, her closest ally I guess, that Ben was the vote and Charlie was the one to tell her why it shouldn't be Ben. I think Maria was fully open to keeping Ben AND Jem, but for some reason, everyone wrote Tim off as the official vote. That, and when Jem started behaving weirdly, it made the decision easier. I don't blame Maria either; we've now heard from pretty much all the men that they trust Maria the most, so Maria's been in a lose-lose spot while playing the middle due to how good she is with everyone. Similarly to Charlie, but Maria didn't stand her ground on getting Ben out. Or at least, she should have stuck with pushing more votes on Tim. It's more a shame she listened to Charlie, because his reason to keep Ben as a shield is bullshit; he obviously wants Ben around because he's his next closest ally and would probably prefer Ben and Maria work WITH him.

I think they're on the journey for more than an hour; I think they're gone for a couple of hours. I get what you mean, but I also fully get that Kenzie/Tiffany/Q have not been able to eat more than a coconut a day. As nice as it could have been to wait, I fully understand that they just simply were too hungry to wait. They did still split the food equally, so the good thing is that they didn't just eat almost all the food and only saved Q a little bit. They made sure he got his share when he returned. But I'm not angry at them being a bit selfish when they haven't eaten proper food in 11 days.

I will give a likely reason: because there's a lot of activity during the episodes as people are live chatting, enough where if we merge it all into one thread, discussions will get blurred. Some people, like myself, like being able to read people's thoughts on an episode but want to have discussions (such as quoting) that can get lost when live chatting is mixed in. When the live chat thread is going into multiple pages, I think it's not a bad thing to have separated threads because it makes the overall episode thread cleaner and easier to navigate and easier to have these discussions. In terms of the episode, I very much enjoyed it. I like that Siga went to Tribal, because that tribe was kind of getting TOO much positive content. It was important to see the split within the tribe. Jem was a very messy player, thought she was a better liar than she was and thought she was in control when she wasn't. I really love Maria so I was glad to get to see more of her, but I'm annoyed that Charlie is Siga's main narrator. I wanted to hear more from Maria but we got a whole lot of Charlie. We get a lot of his archetype narrating these new seasons and it's fun for a while but when we see it so many times, it's tiring. I would have loved to see Maria take charge of the narrative instead. Plus, I wanted to hear why Maria decided to burn her extra vote. Part of me thinks maybe it's so that she's not painted as a target come merge, as they know she has an extra vote and this now doesn't give anyone incentive to vote her out. I do love Ben, so I'm glad he's not gone, but none of the women were wrong to clock Ben as a long-term threat. But I also don't know why they chose to only place two votes on Tim. Had he decided not to play his idol and let's say Maria/Charlie decided not to vote Jem out, Tim would have stayed, Ben would have gone, and Tim would have still had his idol. What a bad plan. Venus vs Hunter was a lot funnier than I thought it would be. But it's great to see someone like Venus break her archetype; she was expected to be a social butterfly, turns out she's just an annoying entitled whiny player, but also super oblivious. Yet, for some reason, it didn't annoy me this episode to see her go at it with Hunter a bit. The journey was fine, it was fun to see a new type of challenge about Survivor knowledge and fun that Hunter got it so, so wrong, but annoyed that a bro's alliance formed, even if the duos picked were Tiffany, Maria and then Tevin. But it's also not a bad final 6, if they can make it. I just don't think they can make it. Jeff has got to stop blurring the lines between host and self-insert player. Alas, Jem is gone now, with an idol in her pocket, and now they still think Tim has the idol. I wonder how that'll impact Tim's game going forward. Oh, yeah, Yanu, a tribe we've discussed a lot. I am glad they won their immunity challenge. It isn't fun to see a tribe get decimated due to weak tribemates and no food, no flint, no warmth. So I'm glad they earned a little victory.

So that would mean Soda, Tim and then Q are the next three boots, if this is true. I could see it.

They really need to make it clear in the edits because they've given Siga so little airtime and any airtime they get typically goes to Charlie, or Charlie with someone else.

I agree. There's also been a couple of rumoured spoilers that Tevin is a 0 boot finalist. I think booting Soda over Venus would certainly be the first piece of evidence on why that is and how Tevin may not be as strategically aware of the game as he appears to be. Even if he gets to the end, it's becoming clear why he'll get 0 votes, if that information is accurate. I think she got lucky that some people are looking at Tim as the one who had the actual advantage because she could blame a non-vote on him, if needed. But I haven't seen much evidence that Jem's in such a great spot on her tribe that the lie can hold up for the next few days. I do think that the lie will unravel at some point. I think Jem will slip up and tell someone and immediately become untrustworthy.

So, here's how I see it. Rich entitled dude verbally said that he did not consent to an examination. The team was right smack in the middle of an emergency. He said multiple times he didn't want an examination. Even if Hen had forced an examination after he was cuffed, the dude was dying, anyway. He was dead before he hit the ground, it sounds like. There was literally nothing Hen could have done. He was still fighting the officers who cuffed him. She was right in just focusing her attention on the other people who were harmed at that moment. Chimney certainly could have just examined him himself if he wanted to, but ultimately, the rich dude said he didn't want to be examined and imagine if he was fine and an examination WAS forced on him, he would have sued Chimney/Hen for that. At the time, the only sign he was showing was aggression/agitation but he wasn't bleeding, didn't show any physical signs of trauma, nothing. They still detained him after he refused care. Seeing as this guy didn't care one bit about the victims he injured, and that's likely NOT due to his brain bleed but overall personality (you could tell he had threatened law enforcement once or twice before with implying his family connection to the city), I also fully get why the potential brain bleed wasn't immediately recognized. Hen may have partially been acting emotionally, but she really was also correct in letting the focus be drawn to the victims in the other car. They were the ones who really needed help and the rich dude who caused the crash didn't want to be assessed. The Hen stuff was decent, but probably not necessary just to push Hen into the Bobby/Athena danger ship plot. The Bobby/Athena stuff was overdramatic and the writing/acting when they were trapped in that room with the water filling up was melodramatic, but I've kind of accepted that both Peter Krause and Angela Bassett are just having fun with this series, rather than treating it like a serious TV role. They have earned their pay, so they can do whatever the hell they want with the corny dialogue and the ridiculous plot. I feel like they really could have gotten rid of two subplots and the cruise ship disaster stuff would have flowed a bit better. But, it is overall just a fun plot to watch. It's supposed to be ridiculous, so I'm just having fun with it.

Yeah, there have been more spoilers pointing toward Soda going next than anything, and they planted the seeds fairly well for a Soda boot. It's a bad plan for Tevin/Hunter, I think (Soda would be more loyal to them at merge than Venus would), but whatever floats their boat, if they feel Soda's that dangerous for merge, then I think she's gone. I do think it's possible Q could be the mergatory boot, but I also think Jem could be. I have to imagine her fake planting of the beware advantage will come back to bite her (like the ants did). But I think the only clear person gone in the next episode or two is Soda. Charlie's edit feels like he'll get pretty far, just because he's gotten the most airtime out of everyone on his tribe and it's been a positive edit. But seeing as Bhanu got the most airtime out of Yanu and was an early boot, maybe it's this season's uneven editing choices where characters are prioritized over good gameplayers and Charlie will be a merge boot.

I believe it was to separate the chats happening in real time (so reactions in the moment) vs people discussing the episode after, once they had time to sit and digest. Activity has certainly decreased over the years, but I think the live chat threads have been still active enough where two threads are warranted. The fact that the episode threads are still getting to two pages is still REALLY good. A lot of forums have episode threads that don't get to a second page, and only a select few have an active live chat thread. Also, the reason why live chat threads aren't locked anymore is because moderators are the only ones who can unlock/lock them and there aren't any moderators anymore to do that. Thus, the threads are left open. I'm glad Bhanu left. I think this season has gone back to being very poorly edited and characters are being favoured more than actual gameplay. There's been way too much focus on Bhanu in these four episodes. No, I have no interest in seeing him whine and complain and cry about his position while expecting everyone else to solve his problems for him. He's just a terrible Survivor player, probably one of the worst I've seen, quite frankly. He was ok physically but his social and strategic game are pretty much at the bottom of a well. People seemed annoyed to coddle him the entire time, and people seemed annoyed to have him ask them to solve his game issues. Kenzie wasn't wrong in being annoyed that she has to waste time apologizing to Bhanu when she didn't say anything wrong. And Tiffany telling him to get off his knees and stop begging was a great scene. I was less impressed with Q. He was trying to pull a Kaleb to Bhanu's Emily, but the biggest difference is that Emily was able to pivot the game on her own once she had a good standing, and she didn't need to lean solely on Kaleb to figure out how to turn her game around. Kaleb gave her advice, but Emily was also a decent Survivor player under the right circumstances. Bhanu would be hopelessly bad in ANY scenario of the game, even if he had tribemates who bonded with him. I had to laugh at Soda's attempt at a song session, Tevin joining in, but Venus, Hunter and Liz looking like they'd rather be anywhere else. But Hunter's getting himself into tricky water if he keeps beasting these comps. Unlike 42's Jonathan, he doesn't have a solid alliance beyond Tevin to get him super far, especially since he already wants Soda out. Siga's a solid tribe, but I don't get the point of Jem's excitement in tricking the tribe with the advantage. It's fun to watch, but does she realize that could easily backfire on her? They may assume Tim for now but Jem would need to have an excellent standing with her tribe to keep it that way. Plus, she still needs to get the idol. Back to Yanu tribe, I'm glad they basically just said "yeah, Bhanu's going, we aren't changing our minds." I'm less impressed with Jeff not just skipping the vote, presumably to spare Bhanu's feelings, but he gave him a hug afterward. Jeff, you need to be more informed about what's going on at the different camps. Because Bhanu solely caused his own demise. He could have turned it on Kenzie, as Q was interested in voting Kenzie out and so was Tiffany. But Bhanu ensured he was gone, no matter what. He might be a decent guy, but he was a terrible player and also very fake with the way he presented himself. It was clear he was there for fame, not for the game. I mean, he was the one uttering that he wanted to win a million hearts. He did not succeed in that.

I've accepted the fact that 95% of any reality show player, competitive or even just a general reality TV show, are looking for some degree of fame or attention. So there's going to be plenty who do anchor for a reality tv career. Some are in it for the experience, sure, and some will likely be a one and done player, but most are doing these shows in hopes that they can appear elsewhere. Some are just more obvious about it than others. Bhanu is one of those people who's just outright admitting he's there for the fame and attention, not about the experience or winning.

It does feel like this plot of Athena hiding from Bobby because of her insecurities about the stability of their relationship without danger or drama is coming two seasons too late. This feels like a plot that should have been earlier on in their marriage, not four years in. Especially given the fact that it's not like every day is non-stop danger and drama. They have days off. I presume they have days where they can just hang out and chill. I get they both have very stressful jobs and, in hindsight, I get what they mean (take away the days of their jobs, have them on vacation for a couple of weeks and now it's just them being themselves), but it still didn't quite work because of the extremes Athena went to. Plus, Athena was being very obvious so of course Bobby would figure it out. And they also completely undermined Athena's issue BY introducing the maximum amount of drama and danger. So what, is Athena going to come to the conclusion that their lives are filled with danger and drama and that's all good for them? I did like the Buck/Eddie/Christopher stuff. Christopher being a player is really great and the reasoning for it makes so much sense. I didn't even hate the Shannon cameo because clearly, Christopher has unresolved issues with his mother. I really like how Eddie handled that. Also, yay to Buck and Natalia breaking up! Boo to Eddie and Marisol being together still. I did like the Chimney/Maddie plot. I think they did a good job at establishing the true problem and solving it, for the most part. The cruise stuff was decent, I enjoyed seeing Lola and Norman again, but I think the kidnapper stuff was a bit too much. But will I enjoy it? For sure, yes. It'll be fun mindless drama.

It does suck to see Nick leaving. He had such a great rapport with all of the interns and was probably one of the only truly competent doctors in that hospital to lead them. Bailey's changed a lot since the early years where she'd lead interns. I hope she can recapture that early series Bailey. Hopefully, this Director role does her better than the Chief role. It looks like they're just completely embracing a villainous Catherine. They really went all out with her this episode, so I suspect it will get much worse with her. I also assume, at some point, Catherine's cancer will be her karmatic downfall. The premiere was overall just fine. Good to see Winston leading in a way that works. I'm glad he outright kicked out the people who weren't supposed to be in the room and focused on the medical aspect of his job. Mika standing up to Jo was great to see. She wasn't wrong; this is why interns have gotten away with so much in the past. They have incompetent residents and attendings who choose their romcom drama over teaching the interns. I mean, the interns also choose the romcom drama too but they're not leading themselves. Self driving car case was annoying to watch but hey, it's no operating on a deer kind of stupid. So, Blue and Jules basically call things off because Jules can't get past what Blue did. And Simone/Lucas are already arguing about their romance drama. I mean, this does feel very early Greys still, so they are attempting to recapture those early years. I did like all the references they made, such as with Derek and the LVAD wire, so that's nice.

I don't think he will. Yam Yam could be a lot but he seemed extremely well liked and he was good at the game. Everyone seems annoyed with Bhanu. He cannot win, even if he does get (dragged) to the end.

I felt so bad for Randen. I was very up and down on him in these few episodes, but he seems like a great guy and I think him and Venus would have provided some great opposition against Tevin/Hunter. Alas, we not only get minimal Randen, we get 300% more Bhanu, which is not a good thing. Bhanu's a good character, he seems nice enough but he's definitely a terrible Survivor player. For all that Jelinsky and Jess did wrong, they at least tried (somewhat). Bhanu spent the entire episode not just crying (I can handle the crying) but whining about his position while expecting someone else to solve his problem for him. I was ok with him breaking down to Liz/Ben, but that scene went on forever and he just showed how weak of a player he was. He had Ben and Liz spend the entire time comforting him and then he just gave them the entire tribe info. The other issue is how performative Bhanu feels. A lot of them are doing this with the analogies, and it's no different than the mermaid/dragon analogy Bhanu made about Kenzie. So when he does that and then spends the entire journey whining to Ben and Liz about how bad his position was on his tribe, it did feel a bit manipulative. Bhanu seems to wear his heart on his sleeve so it was likely genuine, but part of it felt like he did that with them for a reason. But it's not going to help when Bhanu is voted out at some point, either pre-merge or right at merge. He can't be trusted as an ally. He's too reactive. The cast is a complete trainwreck. Siga may be the only competent tribe, but that may be because they all seem to get along. I like Ben and Maria and will just enjoy the downfall of everyone else. I hope Ben/Maria make it far.

I think next week it's supposed to be Bhanu, at least according to spoilers that Yanu loses again. But I think the week after it's Soda and then merge starts? If I'm doing the math correctly. Or there will be someone else after Soda and then merge.

So, some things I've read on the subreddit: A very reliable source on there does confirm that a woman does win and it's not of the F3 hinted at from the boot list in this thread. It is nice to finally see so many female winners in this new era, especially after the dude-geddon of the 30s, where only two women out of 10 won. And the pool is narrowed to: Kenzie, Liz, Maria, Moriah, Sodasia, or Tiffany. Kenzie has gotten a weird edit even this early on so I don't think she wins. She's gotten the "played too hard, too fast and now is suspicious" edit. Tiffany also has a weird edit but unsure about her chances since it's better than Kenzie's. Liz is not winning with the way she's been bragging about her wealth. Soda also hasn't gotten a good edit. So, for me, it leaves it to either Maria or Moriah who win with a chance that Tiffany could win. For me, Maria has the best shot to win because she's gotten a fantastic edit AND I feel like I read pre-season at some point that Maria was a contender to win. Moriah had a decent edit episode 1 and nothing in episode 2, but we'll have to see on her.

Well, that would line up with the speculation that Bhanu goes pre-merge. Q and Tiffany probably go back and forth between Bhanu vs Kenzie but if Bhanu behaves like he did in the last Tribal, it's very clear why they'd vote Bhanu out despite not trusting Kenzie. I think the speculation on a tribe swap was based off of a couple of players in previews seemingly wearing different coloured buffs (Kenzie wearing a green buff, for example). Still unclear, but possible. It would need to be after Randen's boot, unsure if it could be right after that or if it would be after Bhanu's potential boot.

Apparently, Randen sits out during the third episode's Immunity Challenge so unless there's a Reward thrown in to episode 4, with the "sit out" rule, it's very likely Randen. Which makes sense, given they've set up the fact that Randen and Venus have been the odd ones out, and Randen will not have a vote during the next Tribal Council without that idol. I have a feeling, unlike with Tiffany, that he won't solve it before Tribal. Oh, why am I reading spoilers? I told myself I wasn't going to. But it does look like the spoilers that have been out there are somewhat false.

It's hard, because I do think Jess made some blunders but it really does seem like her ADHD just made it harder for her to concentrate. She even said at one point that she wasn't getting any sleep. Factor all that in and I don't think it's being dumb, it's being sleep deprived and being unable to concentrate. Would she have been able to adjust with a couple more days? That part is unclear, but she was trying. I think the issue was that the tribe basically gave up on her day 1 or day 2. Kenzie even said she tried on the first day, got nowhere and then gave up and tried getting her out from there on. Everyone but Q was ready to vote her out on day 3 but it was Q's insistence that Jelinsky had to go. I don't think Jess was dumb; she clearly was smart enough to recognize what Kenzie was doing and she was smart enough to clock the fake idol (I assume she still played it in a 'just in case it was real' scenario) and she seemed to try to turn the tides on Kenzie, but there really wasn't anything she could do once she was seen as the weakest link for the challenge and perceptions from the first day were already set in stone against her.

Honestly, it made me sad to see how Jess was treated. Sure, not all of it was to her face, and maybe part of it was strategic for the tribe, but the way they talked about Jess all episode, the way they played with her just because her ADHD was causing her to be more spaced out than what I assume she usually is, the way they mocked her for not daring to find the fake idol planted in the fake location, the way they compared her and Bhanu to clown school or whatever, all of it felt more mean spirited than it should have been. I may understand that Jess didn't fit in, I understand that she wasn't doing well socially and someone had to go. I may understand that the fake idol play was to prevent a SITD play. But it felt so unnecessary and extra, all for more camera time, at the expense of another player being humiliated, or an attempt at being humiliated. I'm trying to separate feelings from objectivity but I still come out of the episode, feeling like Kenzie, Tiff and Q blamed the challenge loss on Jess (it was all of their faults equally), blamed Jess for being too stupid at Survivor "but she's SUCH A NICE PERSON!", and then laughed at the idea that she didn't buy the ugly fake idol Q handed her. There was just a lot there that made me uneasy. And now Bhanu will be the next scapegoat for that tribe because he had a full on meltdown. Not that I'm happy with Bhanu, either. His "passion" was really just angry screaming and being frustrated. Don't mistake passion for outright anger, Bhanu. Similar to Venus, who has been consistently talking about being on the outs, being ostracized, and we're actively seeing that in small clips (not just Soda, but Tevin was rolling his eyes at Venus at one point). I know that she got way too obsessed with the challenge and the cart running over her foot and she absolutely should not have brought that up back at camp the way she did, but she's expressed feeling on the outs (as has Randen), and it's clear that it's gotten to her. Though, can she be more on the outs as Liz, who is almost guaranteed to either be an early boot or a goat dragged to the end? Bragging about her wealth, then nonstop cheering loudly during the challenge? I like Venus but she's definitely a sloppy player. She's going to talk herself off the island if she keeps it up, but at the same time, I don't think she's done anything horrible to warrant not just the ostracization, but Soda trying to rip the immunity idol out of her hands twice. It makes me not like Soda at all. Venus may also want the attention, but Soda's definitely gravitating toward it as well. I think the only tribe I marginally like is the green tribe. I really like Maria, and I love Ben. I'm on the outs on everyone else but at least their tribe seems to like each other. I don't know, I'm all for villains and catty and sneaky behaviour but I think the episode was sloppily edited, so something made it very awkward to watch.