MKL122788

I have a lot of thoughts on what happened here... Karla threatening to poison the jury against Cassidy was an interesting plot twist considering Karla was the one who turned on Cassidy first. It is often interesting to see how a players behavior changes when in control versus when fighting for survival. It brought an uglier side out of Karla. Second, I have massive respect for Jesse as a player. His fatal flaw is his physical game, though. It felt like when he was doing the goodbye hugs that he was more salty towards Cassidy than Gabler despite being beaten by Gabler in fire. The fallen hero music and spending 3-4 minutes talking to him after was a bit much along with all the confessionals about his family. After he was gone, I was pretty sure Cassidy was going to have the advantage, but then the final 3 montage landed. All of them claiming to be open books in the final 3 montage was strange. Especially followed by a few of their statements. Noelle mentioning cheering for Owen over someone "who was in the majority most of the time" was clearly a shot as Cassidy, despite the claim that she was open. I cringed a bit when Ryan described Cassidy as a sweet girl. I really don't like when people minimize women like that. You hear things like "sweet girl" exponentially more than you hear "sweet boy". And you hear it from men more. Those two things set of the alarm bells in my head. Lets get to the actual FTC: This honestly felt like a bitter jury, but not in the way that we traditionally angry way we see it. This cast has generally been too perceptive of fallout to be openly bitter. One of the problems with a lot of the game-bots getting that far and not winning is how their desire to control bleeds into wanting to shape the outcome of the game and continue to control the narrative. It seemed pretty obvious relatively early into the FTC that Ryan, Karla, Cody, and Jesse had absolutely zero intention of letting Cassidy win the game. Noelle also seemed to be leaning towards outsiders coming in. Sami and Jeanine also spent significantly more time with Gabler/Owen than Cassidy. The pathway to winning for Cassidy seemed non-existent from the beginning of questioning. I even get the sense that if Gabler was removed, Owen would've actually gotten more votes than Cassidy between those two. Getting outplayed(primarily physically/socially) by Cassidy is not fun and they had no intention of validating that. Gabler had a good tribal council and after Jesse's emotional exit the night before, he at least gave the jury permission to feel good about effectively voting for the jester of the season. Because let's be honest, the main thing he did at the FTC was make them laugh. He claimed to have multiple pathways at different steps of the game, but he never got fact checked in any way. Cassidy was right though. The reason people used Gabler and Owen for votes was because they would be easy to beat. It is revisionist history to claim otherwise. Somehow, they rewarded Gabler for being part of the Ride or Die alliance when in reality, he was pulled in as a third wheel that they didn't even need for that vote(with Ryan and Cassidy targeting each other, 2 was enough). He even admitted he would've gone all the way with them! He would've lost in a landslide. That is not good gameplay. His credit for getting rid of Elie is somewhat iffy in my book. Yes, he threw her name out, but this was at 13. At the time, Baka had 5 when the others had 4, so it made sense to target her as well. Cassidy didn't have a good FTC. I don't think it was Amanda bad where she fumbled it, but I think some of the lines of questioning were intentionally set up to expose her. None more obvious than the last one. Cassidy was targeted early and often so obviously she was perceived as more of a threat. The edit never fully fleshed out why, but given the way the ladies were generally targeted this season, I think we can maybe figure out why. Before that last question, she did talk about her physical prowess, her going after people who threw out her name, and her ability to read where the votes were going socially. Her choices this episode were also correct. She correctly told Owen at the F5 reward that they needed to get Karla out now and Jesse couldn't win challenges, so they could get him at 4. She also chose the right person to guarantee Jesse left the game. One thing that I did gather from watching her speak is that she is pretty honest, but she lacks charisma in some way. Her answer to the last question was pretty bad, but what if she had said Noelle? She was the first one who threw Noelle's name out, but I get the feeling the guys would've taken that credit away from her as well. Why? Because despite throwing the name out, targeting Noelle made sense. Much like Elie for Gabler. Owen had an okay FTC. He owned his curmudgeon-ness. He was always going to be a longshot, but like I said above, if this was a Cassidy/Owen F2, I actually think he would've gotten more votes than Cassidy. He owned his highs and lows, he apologized for some of his outbursts, and he talked about being the resilient underdog. He owned his lack of control and generally knowledge of tribal goings-on in the game. I was pretty sure Gabler ran away with it after the tribal council, but even before that, when they showed the short clip of the announcement happening before commercial and how happy Ryan was on the jury, it kind of spoiled that Gabler was going to win. Thanks to champagne, I thought Cassidy handled her loss in stride. I really feel she got shafted pretty badly by the jury. The reunion shows normally feel rushed, but this one was simply just meh. And my goodness did it drag. Overall, it was a good season. Some weird editing choices that I am starting to think were more about protecting characters they intend to bring back due to entertainment value more than to showcase the finalists. I'm not sure I will think much about this season or watch it again, as I'd probably be clueing in on some of sexist undertones.

Wow. Leaving the likability threat in. Lets see.

I don't think so. He has a F2 with Enzo and F3 with Enzo/Cody and Enzo/Christmas...my guess is he would put up Nicole and Tyler. Though I suppose he might use Cody or Enzo as a pawn to try to make sure Nicole goes home.

Is it wrong that I actually *want* Christmas to win this next HoH and nominate Cody/Nicole? My only fear if that happens is that this is the maximum pathway to the dreaded Memphis/Christmas final two that embodies 2020 perfectly.

But the last one can't be completed by Thursday, so I didn't count it. It would take another 7 days to complete, right?

So, does that mean by next week, we could potentially have 3 completed Memphis HoHs in the span of 8 days? End of current HoH, HoH again this coming week, and HoH again in second live eviction? That would be wild.

I STAN a good triple eviction. Bonus points if Nicole and Dani both leave.

I think Tyler's was: What do you call someone who says getting the girl is better than getting the 500k? A Liar!

So, who is rooting for Memphis HoH part 2? It would be poetic if Dani uses the power on Memphis, he proceeds to win, and then he gets her voted out.

So, if the guys in the committee are over Dani and Nicole, what is everyone's plan if the rest are the Final 5? I know Enzo and Cody would be a pair as would Tyler and Christmas...would that put Memphis in the middle? I think we both know that Memphis is making alliances(F2s) with Enzo, but I really think he needs to get over his "single mom" think with Christmas and realize she is his ticket to the end. The moment Dani and Nicole get evicted, they probably realize that Cody becomes too dangerous to keep around. He would have 2 dickmetized votes for him on the jury...and potentially cutting others in the alliance with little time to emotionally process means he could just straight up win easily...even without the outsiders. He is also an incredible comp beast and the best plans can go awry if you can't beat someone at an HoH. I also am consistently impressed with how Tyler manages to go from the bottom of this alliance to not the bottom over time. We can never go back in time, but if he hadn't pulled the attempted self-evict stunt, he could probably be very high up in everyone's view.

Where are the feeds >.>

So since we are about half an hour away from coming back to live, who do we think won? I was leaning towards Tyler/Cody from what I saw...but you never know if either one could have had a Kaitlyn moment on the puzzle.

That conversation between Day and Kevin was actually really good and on point. That said, they shouldn't be trying to save Ian. They think that Tyler is too tight with the other side when in reality it is the opposite. In fact, what they really should do is all vote with the house and keep Tyler unanimously to watch Ratcole squirm as Ian exits.

Did she though? I guess she could've put up Day instead of Tyler and they wouldn't be in this position. On the other hand, if Ian is going home, then they didn't lose anyone from their alliance. They lost someone who was just...there. If anything, the only one making it complicated this week is Nicole. If they give into her so she can keep the jury vote of a friend, they are complete idiots. The caucacity of this group is too much for me.

Not really, but since giving up, he is trying. I think it was actually the episode itself that made him look like a martyr last week that is propping him up. But, to be clear, it isn't like there is much competition for being liked this season.