Badlands

They kept talking about what a great battle it was between Kellyanne and Cara. Too bad they had just spoiled the results during a commercial break preview when they showed a Cara scene that hasn't been shown yet. Idiots! Kellyanne and Leroy are two of my favorites, so I was sad to see both of them go, although I preferred Cara stay just to stick it to the insufferable Laurel and Bananas. How is Derrick so good at pole wrestling? Mark is not only far bigger than him, he's apparently an actual professional wrestler. I realize pole wrestling is far different (and real), but I though Mark would have the advantage. I was surprised how badly Paulie got wrecked by Theo. I was glad to see him go, though. Katie was really impressive, but she really didn't have much of a chance.

So Cara finished second of everyone and isn't safe, but 7 people who finished after her (including Bananas from the same era) are safe? The season has started at a glacial pace with two episodes and no eliminations, but I guess we'll get eight in the next episode.

Hannah Einbinder should win an Emmy for this episode (yes, over Meryl Streep). She was incredible, particularly in the confrontation with Deborah. I think Deborah really did mean it when she offered Ava the job, but her conversation with Barney Miller made her think she couldn't take any risks. The blackmail at the end was out of character for Ava, but she just did what Deborah had been espousing about being a shark. In the moment, Deborah is probably both pretty mad and also respectful of the move.

Laurel sure talks a tough game, yet was too afraid of losing to Cara Maria to try to get her star. I hope she doesn't get another chance. It was such a poor game move as well to vote Cara in and let her get a star again. I would suspect that Leroy isn't the only one who will be upset with Laurel going forward. Hopefully, they block her from getting a star. It was amusing that Flora talked about Cara being like a child and a cry baby and then she ran to tattle on Cara for calling Nicole an idiot and then literally cried during the challenge. BTW, is calling someone an "idiot" on the Challenge a terrible insult now?

Would it be weird if I got teary eyed when Deborah got the show? If so, then that definitely didn't happen. Yes, there are 9 episodes this season, so one more. Like txhorns97, I was afraid Ava would say someone to the reporter that would end up hurting Deborah. It was hilarious when Ava asked if she had spoken to the elves and we got a "What?" "What?"

Laurel and Nicole are ruining this season. There are some unlikable Challenge people who are at least somewhat entertaining. Those two are anything but. They are just grating and toxic. I have started forwarding through any scene with just the two of them. Laurel has often been a mean girl and bully, but now she has completely lost her mind. She confides in Cara, Cara comforts her and gives her good advice and then Laurel turns vitriolic on Cara. I don't know if Nicole's hatred for Cara is because she sees her for who she is or just that she rejected her advances on a previous season. I've always like Kam, but she has lost me this season. Her entitlement is out of control. I don't care about her taking Cara's star. It was the smart thing to do. However, her fake reasoning is just nonsense. It's weird that almost the whole house just went along with it. The challenge wasn't every interesting to start with and it was even less interesting since the outcome was almost predetermined.

Though I wonder how old the writers are who wrote that piece of dialog. Carol Leifer was one of the writers of this episode. She is 67, so I would bet she wrote that speech. For those who aren't familiar with Carol Leifer, she started out as a stand-up comic (she was dating Paul Reiser, who was just starting out in stand-up and decided to try it herself) and appeared on Letterman many times. Then she mostly pivoted to writing. She wrote for a lot of shows, including SNL and Seinfeld. The character of Elaine was partially based on her. I guess this could be considered a filler episode since it didn't really advance the storyline, but I loved it. Ava has really softened Deborah and their relationship has really deepened.

I'm shocked Rob made such a stupid mistake. I don't know if he really wasn't paying attention to the rules or what. On Survivor and most similar shows, that's not against the rules, but people generally don't leave their puzzle/answer up after they move to the next portion of the challenge. "Kids I hate to tell you, mom doesn't care" was hilarious. If you don't want to wait until next week, the promo monkeys seem to have given away who comes out of the maze last at the end of the very first episode (when they had a preview for "This season on Deal or No Deal Island"). Tonight's preview seemed spoilery too.

I get that Cara acted entitled, but it doesn't hold a candle to Cam. She is still complaining that Cara didn't vote in the person Cam personally wanted last week, despite it not even mattering. Now, she is equating that terrible "betrayal" with someone Cara thought was an ally voting her into elimination?? Are people really getting upset over silly puns? "Stara Maria" and "Starget" might be cringey, but they're completely benign plays on words. Otherwise, I find this to be an extremely boring season. There is too much of the Tina/Veronica/Rachel trio (now duo) and Laurel/Nicole, neither of which I could care much less about.

If I remember correctly, the offer on the original show was usually somewhere in the range of the average dollar value of the cases. In this case, that would have been around $90,000, so the $49,000 offer was actually kind of weak. For the purpose of this game, any offer between $751 and $99,999 gave Rob the same chance of winning. On the original, it was bad opening up big dollar cases because your final offer would be much less. However, on this show, opening up the high cases is actually a big advantage for the player's survival in the game. Rob's ended up with a 75% chance of having a lower dollar case. Of course, eliminating the high dollar values is bad for adding to the final case, but that's of minimal concern for the player just trying to survive.

They didn't preview one of the West brackets. I paused it and it was Darnell Ferguson vs Amanda Freitag. If they were lucky, Amanda won. I wonder if they will even show that match. If Darnell won, I have no idea what they will do.

Springsteen taped his part in December of 2022, so it's been quite awhile. The Giuliani hair dye incident was about two years before that, though.

What... was that?? I think this Asher line from episode 9 was important: "Because I know you, baby. If you didn’t want to be with me and I actually truly felt that, I’d be gone. I’d disappear. You wouldn’t have to say it. I would feel it and I would disappear.” There was also a line in the last episode where he said something about her having a "little me inside you." I guess it was some kind of rebirth. Asher was stuck in the house, like a baby in a womb, was released by the doula, and then was set free by cutting the tree branch, like the baby was via the C-section. Or something. 😄

Michelle played Survivor twice. She won the first season and made it to the end in her second season, finishing third. I don't see her two statements as contradictory at all. You don't have to win Daily Challenges to win. It's also true that Zara would be a huge threat in the final because she's good at everything. One thing I really like about Michelle is that she's way more self-aware than most challengers. She admits when she screws up, is being too emotional or being hypocritical.

That's the way to do it! The non-vets had a plan and stuck to it. I love how they listened to Wes and then just disregarded what he was trying to sell them. Most villains are at least somewhat funny or entertaining on occasion. Amanda is not one of those people. I don't know why they give her so much air time. It's just really boring mean girl nonsense.