Cornhusker12

Is this for real? He seriously lives at home?

Since I don't resent Ben or Rob I thought it was equal parts hilarious/charming/impressive how susceptible Ben was to Rob's Jedi mind tricks. I remember now why so many people think producer shenanigans led to Ben's win but I'm not sure why that makes him hateable as a person, he just seems like he's an admittedly kinda simple guy who was able to laugh at himself for being put under Rob's spell so easily in that moment. It's not like he had any control over the producers allegedly giving him a path to winning his season (unless I'm totally remembering wrong).

Ohhh gotcha yeah I missed that bit, makes sense now

I am the only person I've ever talked to or seen posts from who absolutely loves Tony hahaha. He's insane, he's constantly at a 10, he makes wild leaps that either miraculously work out or totally faceplant, I'm just completely entertained by the guy. Now that I'm seeing him again he kinda reminds me of Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems, another character that I absolutely loved watching while others couldn't stand to sit through 3 minutes haha.

I'm confused by this haha. Wasn't he talking about how grateful he was that winning Survivor enabled him to be a stay at home dad rather than work a 9-5 job? Did I miss something there?

I was sooo annoyed when we found out Edge of Extinction was back, it was truly the dumbest of all Survivor gimmicks. But it seems like they're at least trying to give it some kind of use this time at least. I don't really understand how the fire tokens and menu and opportunity to get back in the game are going to work yet, but it should be so much better than just leaving the game action several times per episode to watch miserable people complain while they sit on an empty beach bored out of their minds.

Can somebody explain why Ben is so hated, and what the producers did to "give him a win?" I watched his season but I don't remember much of it. He seems like a decent dumb/affable guy though so I'm surprised to see so much hatred toward him.

I was sad to see Kelly go out this way, I was a fan of hers for most of the season up until this episode. She was never super interesting or fun or funny or all that attractive, but it was extremely entertaining to watch her just be completely disinterested in Peter and the whole process, while also staying out of the drama. I don't know if I've ever seen that in the show before haha. But in this episode she just seemed bizarre. I don't know if she was suddenly insecure or what, but the weird bragging and condescension mixed with desperately trying to stay with Peter, I was pretty baffled by it all. Maybe as things started 'windling down' she used her genius lawyer brain to realize she should've 'cut it in the butt' a long time ago.

I was skeptical of this claim from the beginning but after watching this season I'm now fully convinced it was made up on the spot by Hannah to make weirdo Luke feel bad and then she kept reveling in it to give herself the role of "Strong Sex-Positive Woman."

It's pretty fascinating haha. I totally admire her for not being pulled into the ridiculous drama of this season, and for not being fooled into swooning for Peter (or even seeming remotely interested in him at this point), but on the other hand she kinda seems half asleep most of the time so it's not like I'm over here rooting for her to become the Bachelorette or anything. All things considered though, so far she's probably coming out of this with the most dignity out of all the contestants. Speaking of which, who in the world are they going to choose to be the next Bachelorette?? Surely it can't be anyone from this group, right?

Ahh sorry I meant Sydney!

Really surprising/weird episode once again, I definitely thought Blonde Victoria and *EDIT*: Sydney were both in Peter's top tier so seeing them leave so unceremoniously and early was wild. I think Black Haired Victoria was clearly manipulating him during that nonsensical breakdown, and has been a classic Wrong Reasons Reality Professional this whole season. She's trying to stay on for as long as possible without "winning" so that she can get IG followers and continue in the franchise but not have to fake a relationship with Peter after the season because she has zero interest in him. Luckily for her, Peter is aloof enough to fall for her awful acting. Seriously, it seemed like she forgot what angle she was trying to take halfway through that date. Victoria: "Ugh I don't even know if I want to be here anymore... but like... um... I'm just scared! PETER you don't even like me.... wait... I don't know if I like YOU... but I'm just scared?...." *fake tears, runs away to the producers in a panic, they tell her she's blowing her big moment* Peter: "You make me feel like a puppy being led around on a leash. I like that. Will you accept this rose?" Victoria, suddenly beaming: "Peter, of course!"

I kinda felt the same way, it wasn't BAD and JJ did pretty well, but you could really feel a sense of "hell yeah tonight you're hangin with the brother in law's side of the family and we're stocked up on Busch Light and country tunes!" It was all good fun and I like when the host seems to be having a blast, but the comedy just seemed to be coming from slightly different angles than my sweet spot.

As a straight guy I can usually put myself in the shoes of the men on this show to some extent, even if they don't have the same "type" you can still sort of project who you think would make a legitimately good partner in the best case scenario. This season I have no idea. I think Peter maybe wants a girl to lead him around like a puppy, but I'm not exactly sure? He is clearly VERY gullible and susceptible to drama, and incapable of having actual deep conversations that go beyond "furrowing brow while waiting for sob story to finish." So I guess I won't be surprised at all if he ends up with someone like Sydney or Kelsey and leaves the more "normal" contestants more or less baffled by him rather than heartbroken.

We're 5 episodes in and STILL not a single person is having fun or enjoying this "journey." At all.

I finally realized who Peter reminds me of. Paul Rudd's character from Parks and Recreation, Bobby Newport:

Oh yeah definitely agree with that interpretation, I guess my point was that if he was feeling those things then he wasn't truly at that point of full inner peace and nirvana and ready to go through the door to become one with the universe because he was so fulfilled, he was ready to go through the door because he was more or less just tired of that existence. Which maybe that counts as the same thing to some people and I could see that. But to me it just felt more sad than they probably intended, even though the struggle of two people devoted to each other trying to decide when to go through the door would be incredibly sad no matter what.

As for Chidi, that one did feel a little off to me. And I guess it's kind of a catch-22 for someone in a relationship. If he's truly, fully at peace living this existence with Eleanor, then why would he WANT to leave? Especially knowing how painful it will be for Eleanor. And if he wants to leave that fully peaceful existence with Eleanor, then doesn't that mean something within him ISN'T at peace? He was apparently grappling with the idea of leaving for quite awhile before bringing it up to Eleanor. Maybe I'm just too much of an OG Chidi to understand making a decision like this haha

I'll probably be thinking this one over for awhile, and might take a full rewatch at a later date to come to any sort of conclusion haha. The end game was definitely less mind-bending than I expected or hoped for during the first few seasons, but it WAS still thought provoking and philosophical. Just from a different angle. So I find myself nodding along with almost every post and considering it from every point of view, which is pretty cool. And I definitely enjoyed watching the finale. But I can't help but wonder why we spent so much time with the new humans/test subjects. Over half of the final season was spent on something that ultimately wasn't nearly as fun/funny/thought provoking as the rest of the series. It pushed the end game into motion, but then sped up that endgame so much that I feel somewhat cheated out of a full resolution. It might not have been AS jarring to just watch them all go through the door if we had spent more time with the characters in their newly-improved afterlife "lives" or tinkering with the formula to get it right in the end. There's that old writing advice, "show, don't tell" and unfortunately we ended up getting a lot of "telling" in the last stretch of the season.

Honestly at this point with one episode left it's incredible that they detoured off so hard on that experiment at all, it feels like such a waste of time and episodes in the end. I can barely remember who was involved or how it ended, I feel like Patty over here.

One more thought on this episode - NOBODY on this show seems to be having any fun this season. Not the lead, the rude attention seekers, or even the frontrunners. It's not quite a slog though, I'm totally entertained by how badly it's going so far for everyone involved! Haha. As fun as it is to watch a trainwreck, I do hope the season gets its shit together one way or another. I won't be able to take this for another several months.

I just realized something so I'm quoting my own post, forgive me haha. But isn't it possible that Victoria's "lie of omission" about the Vegas trip was to somewhat HELP Alayah? - Alayah asks her not to tell anyone they knew each other - Peter asks Victoria if there's anything weird about Alayah - Victoria says 'yeah there's this one thing, she asked me not to tell anyone we knew each other and that kind of rubbed me the wrong way, but we don't know each other well we have only talked for a total of 3 hours' So in that moment isn't it possible she was trying to protect Alayah from seeming even weirder? As in "I'm going to tell Peter the truth but if I tell him we were on a group trip to Vegas as part of Miss America, then Alayah will seem like a total liar, so I'll just give him this vague answer because I don't know why he's asking about her" And now Alayah is throwing it back in Victoria's face as if she was the one who wanted to pretend they didn't know each other in the first place. Anyway, my point still stands: If these people could articulate their thoughts at all this wouldn't have blown up the way it did.

I usually don't notice people saying "like" but this season it has become a true problem haha. It's absurd.

In general this episode was by far the most consistently bizarre two hours I've ever seen on this show. Every second was completely insane. I only saw the last couple eps of last season and I came away thinking Peter would be a nice lead, maybe a little wholesome and corny but a good guy to follow on this "magical journey." Basically Ben Higgins 2.0 I was so hilariously wrong about that haha he is the least equipped Bachelor I've ever seen, even Juan Pablo was a douche in a way that made the show funny because you actually ended up rooting against him. Peter just gets steamrolled in every situation, tries and fails to speak Bachelorese to get him out of every conversation including when the women are staging a mutiny against him, and is just so aloof and clueless that he can't pretend to have even the spark of a connection with more than 2-3 of them and leaves the others sitting around by themselves for hours at a time. It's incredible really.

Regarding blonde Victoria vs. Alayah, I think they are both just absolutely terrible at articulating anything and they both are probably describing the same thing from their own perspectives. I'm pretty sure Victoria's original story was that she didn't understand why Alayah asked her not to tell anyone they knew each other, but it wasn't a huge deal because they didn't know each other very well in the first place and had probably only spoken to each other for a total of 3 hours. Now it turns out they both went on some type of Miss America group trip to Vegas, but that still doesn't mean they actually spent a lot of time together, and it's very possible they went on the same trip as acquaintances but didn't spend a lot of time one on one. But in a complete reversal from her original stance, now Alayah WANTS it to seem like they were close friends before the show because all that matters is who spoke to Peter most recently because he's got the mind of a goldfish. Anyway, since people don't know how to express their thoughts on this show we're left with Peter's little brain is trying to figure out whether they either didn't know each other at all or were lifelong best friends.