Chicago Redshirt

I am pretty sure both Q and J came to the challenge with shirts on and took them off at some point because it was hot work. They definitely could have used shirts to slow the leaking or, if need be, pulled a Richard Hatch and gone nude to do it. Another possibility: Use the two buckets together, lined up so that the holes from each are covered. I think that everyone had to look to determine if they had the torch. Even if you could get away with not looking, I'm not sure it would be optimal. Who would seem more convincing in a vacuum: the guy who says, "I definitely looked and I have the vote" or the guy who says, "I didn't look, so I may or may not have the vote, and that other guy is probably lying?" I think most people would choose the guy who looked over the one who didn't in such a scenario in a vacuum. It was an interesting little challenge, undermined by J being so bad at it. Getting to assess how good someone is at lying about something basic is an interesting skill. I don't think you needed to be Phil Hellmuth to catch that J was bluffing, though.

You know, for previous episodes, I had blamed Jimmy for Chelsea's insecurities. And he still does IMO hold a lot of the responsibility. He should have been honest and been like, "Um, you're no Megan Fox...so I'm out." But this latest couple, Chelsea went beyond the normal sort of insecurity that I think one could/should be able to deal with. And despite getting multiple off-ramps, Jimmy still is sticking around. Which makes me wonder: is it a sign that we are actually dealing with true love, or fear of LIB's legal team if he tries to bounce before the altar, or is he afraid of looking like a heel on TV or what? Especially when it is obvious that he wants nothing more than to hook up with Jessica.

I was concerned that Jelinsky was somehow going to be a long-term contestant given that he got the last-name treatment of such Peachy pets as Cochran and Penner. Thankfully, his subpar performance got him the dishonor of being the first boot. On the water challenge, I would have lined the bucket with my shirt and rung it out at each stop. So far, no one has super-annoyed me. The one guy who was like "Let's go after a woman!" seems a little paranoid. It continues to seems strange to me that alliances along gender lines happen almost immediately but almost never on racial, sexual orientation or other lines.

The ex had one drink with friends and that was all she wrote. :)

I don't know how you could possibly overlook that your potential spouse tried lying to you about his whereabouts and activities when a) there was an app that said exactly where he was, and it wasn't where he claimed to be b) there was (presumably) a camera crew and other cast members that presumably had some knowledge of where he was c) common sense would have to tell you that no one stays out till 5 a.m. just innocently talking with an old flame in a parking lot. If he can brazenly lie like that when it's easy to catch him, that's got to leave you wondering what he might do when there aren't obvious checks in place. Even if you were for some reason willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that it was just innocent and nothing happened and the reason he lied about his whereabouts was for some non-nefarious reason, that is still a couple of huge red flags that can't/shouldn't be easily talked through. But with him being revealed as a gaslighter when he claimed to have never left the parking lot when in reality he ended up in the part of town where Sarah lives...well, bye boy is the only reaction I think the typical person could have and retain any shred of self-respect.

He was/is the full-fledged principal. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/24/26-year-old-got-middle-school-principal-job-by-using-these-soft-skills.html#:~:text=When Gorham ultimately landed the,National Center for Education Statistics. FWIW, both he and Brittany gave their takes on the breakup below, which still seems incomplete: https://people.com/love-is-blind-kenneth-gorham-why-he-brittany-mills-split-exclusive-8597657

I mean, if your potential spouse says at the onset that they don't have desire for you, then that isn't seizing on an out. That is, or should be, a dealbreaker. Kenneth seemed much happier to be reunited with his cellphone than he was to hang out with Brittany. And it seemed to me that Kenneth was trying to meet Brittany's needs (when he wasn't doing whatever on his phone) and she was like "that's not good enough, and I'm going to critique anything that is not good enough AND I'm going to chalk it up as more than a one-time stumble but a DEFCON 2 situation." I'm pretty firmly on Kenneth's side that it was right to peace out, at least for now. Now if in a future episode they realize that the Good Lord did in fact want them together, then so be it. But again, up through now, I don't think they had much in common but their religious faith. It sounds like Brittany had dated Black men in the past, while Kenneth had not dated White women. I don't know how much that was a factor in their breakup. But I'll be curious to hear from them both at the reunion show.

I will give Clay credit that he may not be due. As the son of a father who was a longtime cheater, I appreciate how that can mess with your head and views on marriage. So it may not be that Clay is saying "I want/plan to cheat on you." I believe him to be saying, "I'm terrified I'm a cheater like my dad." Even after nearly 20 years of faithful marriage, that is something I worry about. So I think it is only normal for it to be at the forefront of Clay's mind when he's only 24 and when he was basically a first-hand witness to his dad's infidelity. Now, I still haven't seen much sign that he truly loves AD beyond that rockin' bod. But I do think that he is honestly trying to make this relationship work. Which is more than can be said for anyone other than Johnny.

So I will give Jimmy credit...he did say the right things to address Chelsea's concerns at the end of that fight. I still am dubious as to their longterm potential, but he seemed less trapped-animal than previously. Maybe it was because he actually got to have fun. Maybe it was because they finally got to have s-e-x.

I tend to think that Jimmy doesn't love Chelsea or come close to it. Again, I'm not sure what about her he loved other than her being giddy, her looking like Megan Fox allegedly, and the possibility of travel with her for free because of her flight attendant gig. (It turns out that at least one of the other women this time around was also a flight attendant, but she was in the half the cohort who got basically no coverage.) Of course, I could be giving him short shrift, and maybe he has deep feelings for her that he just doesn't really know how to express. But in general actions speak louder than words, and I agree that so far his actions so far have a pretty heavy trapped-animal, attempt-at-self-hypnosis vibe to them. I keep waiting for them to cast someone who is actively ugly. But the most they've done is cast someone like Chelsea who is reasonably cute IMO, but plus-size-adjacent.

Questions for LIB vets who might have better memories than me: If we are to take the women at their word, none of the couples have yet had sex. Is this the first time that has happened? My sense was that previously almost all got it on except in the cases of obviously incompatible couples. Is Chelsea the first woman to effectively have two men who were willing to propose to her?

https://www.today.com/popculture/tv/love-is-blind-chelsea-blackwell-megan-fox-comparison-rcna138408 It's not as bad as Irina comparing herself to Megan Fox. I wish the producers would police people from asking about looks more tightly.

I found it telling when Trevor was like, "If I asked you first, would you have said yes?" and she didn't have an answer for him. It seemed to me that she was guarded about her feelings until she could be sure that she had a proposal in hand. She decided she rather take the bird in the hand of Jimmy's proposal, and if Trevor proposed first, she would have taken that proposal.

I dunno. You all are coming down hard on Chelsea, but I think Jimmy is the problem here. Jimmy got sold (IMO) on Chelsea by her saying that people have said she is reminiscent of Megan Fox. Which...is not exactly in the same ballpark in my mind, but I could at least see some people making the comparison sincerely or as flattery. At least, if I were to come up with a celebrity who she resembles, I can't come up with an obviously better fit. Of their times in the pods that we were shown, Jimmy said he enjoyed laughing with Chelsea and said he enjoyed the idea of travelling with her. Not much, if anything, about what about her character attracted him. I think that Jimmy is a good-looking superficial dude. He chose her over Jessica because the notion of a Megan Fox lookalike who he can travel around the world with was more exciting than a single mom (who he probably envisioned as having a body more like Chelsea's). I think unlike all the other guys on the reveal, Jimmy didn't seem at all enthusiastic once he actually saw her. The others did the ring-giving almost immediately, and he slow-walked it. I think Chelsea has started to sense Jimmy's got some regrets. And Jimmy was much more excited about seeing AD and talking to her than he's shown in hanging with Chelsea in person. Now, I don't know if Chelsea was imagining Jimmy twirling AD completely, if she mistook AD deciding to twirl for him, or what went on there. Same with whether Jimmy spent much of the evening leaving her alone. So it could be that her complaints about being abandoned by Jimmy are true. If they are true, obviously Chelsea's got a legitimate gripe. But even assuming it's largely in her head, Jimmy didn't do himself any favors. It's easier as an older third-party to say that the answer she was clearly looking for was an easy one: listen to what she's saying and let her know she was being heard. "Babe, I'm sorry I made you feel alone. I'm sorry that I didn't spend more time hanging out with you. You're my choice and I'll do what I can each and every day to make you know how much I love you." There was some of that, but there was also a bunch of cutting her off when she was explaining how she was feeling, and no taking accountability for his role in that. As a LIB veteran, I expect that there is going to be some pre-wedding reunion of the cast where Jimmy will see what Jessica looks like and will react like a cartoon wolf. I feel bad for Chelsea not only because of that, but she is one of the few borderline plus-sized women who has gotten cast and a proposal. I think she's still attractive bodywise, but I can see how many people might disagree. As for the rest of the case, I think this is a first for us to have gotten to the mid-point of the season without any participants to have revealed themselves as obviously having psychological problems, ill intentions, or the like. I think Clay is too much of a jerk for the marriage to work. The "Get your ass to the gym" hopefully is a big enough red flag. I think Amy/Johnny and Brittany/Kenneth are going to make it and the rest are going to crash and burn.

I will also say: while I can imagine doing this experiment as a 20-30something guy and proposing to a woman sight unseen, I don't think I would consider proposing to a single mother without knowing substantially more about the child than it is possible to find out here. In this case, all your info comes from a biased source who has every incentive to portray her as the greatest kid in a few millennia. You can't know whether the kid will be too clingy, has developmental issues, psychological scars or straight up won't like you. The pods allow you to test your chemistry with a possible spouse. There's no way to test your chemistry with the child, or to know how the baby daddy fits in. In the Real World, I would tend to think most mothers would not even introduce a date to their child in the first few weeks of dating. In this show, you're supposed to get married in that time.. That would just be too soon to test whether there's a potential bond there. And for those cases where the relationship results in "walking away forever," I think it would be extra harsh on a kid. At least with the adult heartbreak that happens, you can say that the participants agreed to take that risk. A kid can't.

100 percent agree. But that is easy from my perspective. May not be as easy in the midst of a streak of jerks who bailed at the first mention of a kid, or even a single seemingly nice guy where that became an issue or a long time solo, etc etc, In general in the middle of dating, it is hard to have perspective that many more times when things didn't work out it was a blessing.

I think single moms are in somewhat of a catch-22 situation. I can appreciate a woman thinking that a man will jump to conclusions based on the single motherhood status (desperate to get married, easy lay, or whatever) and not fairly give the compatibility and potential of the relationship a fair shake. I think honesty is the best policy but I wouldn't want to be ruled out from the jump because I had a kid, or to have a date think that he is has a path to get some by doing X or doing Y. Now coming on a show where you're dating 15 guys, drinking a lot, and everyone's cursing...I think that it's probably a weird thing for singles, but it's probably a particularly poor idea for someone who already has a kid. I imagine that in 5-10 years her kiddo will be embarrassed as hell when people have seen her mom laying out a thirst trap for a dude on Netflix.

I don't remember him mentioning his wife prior to this episode. By contrast, Johnathan name-dropped Saxon a bunch. BTW, am I right to be a little weirded out by that choice of name?

But he's apparently spoken for!!!

There are a few non-cynical ways to potentially reconcile those two facts: 1. The judge liked the concept of Sammi's dish and most of the execution but thought that she could execute the concept even better to make the dish a 10 out of 10, while there were no flaws in Johnathan's concept or execution. 2. The judge recognizes from a food-cost perspective or some other perspective Sammi's dish would be very popular/profitable and therefore worth stealing more than Johnathan's. 3. The judge may not have vocalized it (or she did and it made the cutting room floor), but she is also going to steal Johnathan's dish too. 4. Johnathan's dish, while better, is a different type of cuisine than that served at her restaurant, or involves styles, components etc. that she isn't in love with and therefore would not be a good fit for her to steal. Of course, it's hard to not have the more cynical perspective: 1. The producers wanted the storyline of cooking bros battling it out, and implicitly or explicitly suggested to the judges how they may want to vote 2. A smattering of sexism, even internalized, has Sammi seeming less Chef-y than the boys 3. Knowing or suspecting that Sammi was going to lose or just being sympathetic, the judge wanted to cushion the blow by giving her an insincere compliment. I have already blanked out on the name of the judge, the dish, and much else...speeding through two hours of an episode relatively late will do that. But I'd not be surprised if in the year or more since this was filmed, the judge actually did not steal whatever the dish was. Anyone have the bandwidth to check?

They knew A.M. was the middleman who dangled enough money in front of Langston such that Langston was fully willing to arrange for their friends to be killed, and for Langston to have made like a half-dozen attempts on their lives, to have killed Russo, and to have threatened to kill the kid and her mom. They knew that A.M. was there to get the Little Wing chips to terrorists who planned to use them on innocent civilians. That seems like plenty of reason to make it personal. Also, it was pretty funny, him acting all superior and such, and them just having none of it. Reminded me of Indy killing the swordsman in Raiders.

I do wish we had a shot of Langston falling from the helicopter like Hans Gruber in Die Hard, but oh well. Glad the there-must-be-a-traitor-to-the-cause component was fulfilled by the bodyguards to the senator rather than any of the special investigators, and that none of the four surviving special investigators got killed. I am surprised Dixon did not die because that seems like the most plausible explanation why she doesn't up her life to roam the country at Reacher's side. But oh well.

I think it sucks to eliminate someone for not being experienced enough for the job if their performance doesn't show that inexperience. And Carmen's performance didn't seemingly reflect her inexperience. Don't cast someone who effectively has no chance of winning! Ryan IMO probably deserved to go this time around based on actual performance -- not only did he botch two lobsters, he talked smack to Carmen for calling him on it. If I were Ramsay, I wouldn't want someone who would give lip when he's wrong as my head chef. I would love it if the Ryan vs. Jonathan finale that they've been foreshadowing at least two or three episodes gets derailed and Sammi competes with and preferably beats one of these arrogant jerks. Sadly, I think we are going to be stuck with Jonathan vs. Ryan, with Ryan taking the win so he can talk about how his American dream came true.

I figured that was an example of Reacher bluffing the dude, that pumping air there would be uncomfortable and the guy who's probably loopy from pain meds and faced with a gigantic psycho would probably not know or process enough about anatomy to be like "I don't think this will actually kill me, so f--- off."

I had said in a previous thread that this season seemed like it was Dahmere's to lose and...well in my opinion, he lost it. I like him as a chef and a person a great deal. But as part of his great character even he admitted he deserved to go up for elimination. Whether Carmen screwed him over by ignoring him or calling out unrealistic times, it's still on him to not serve food that's RAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWRR, burnt, or otherwise problematic. And he didn't live up to that. It sucks that various chefs sucked way more and got multiple chances to bounce back, and he just got the one. But that is the nature of the game. I do think there's a decent chance that Ramsay will find a place for Dahmere somewhere. As much as I like him, I do hope that they don't do a surprise twist where they bring back an eliminated chef to have a shot at winning the big prize. I think it just undermines the game too much to do that. To me, Leigh's elimination seems more BS. Maybe I'm half-blind but was the way she cut the Wellington really that disastrous? Did she really do anything else wrong other than have less experience? If you're familiar with Stanley Kubrick's movies, you may remember shots in pics like The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, A Clockwork Orange where Kubrick films a character a certain way to emphasize that he's gone over the edge ETA: turns out that TV Tropes has a page on it: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KubrickStare Well, there was at least one time where it seemed like they filmed Jonathan like that. If that was deliberate, bravo. If I'm just imagining it, that's on me. But he seemed very psycho. Ryan had said at least once before this episode he considered Jonathan his biggest competition. I don't think Sammi or Carmen are good enough to disprove that statement. Maybe I missed it before, but now that Carmen is in the black jacket range, they seemingly are emphasizing her Latin roots. I wonder if this means that she makes it to the finals somehow, though I hate to be all diversity-conspiracy-theoryish.