aghst

Again, they should have had a list. If not a physical one, a plan in their head, to pick off the vets, as they are doing to the rookies, first weakening the Survivor cast members and then thinning the rookie numbers enough. Everyone just jumped on Michaela like she was the gazelle which couldn't keep up with the pack and the hyenas all pounced on the straggler. The vets probably agreed until they eliminated all the rookies since rookies got pretty far, much further than many vets, in the previous season. Rookies are always at a disadvantage since they come in cold and the only people they know are the vets or maybe one or two others from their other show. So they don't have a chance to organize or come up with a pact like the vets have done. Vets probably have a good idea of which ones are cast so they're probably on some group chat saying I got invited. The rookies have no way of communicating with each other before they arrive. But again, I think a lot of rookies are just happy to be there, hoping this could become a regular gig. They may not have high expectations of contending for the prize, just want to get on the gravy train, maybe make ties so they become vets themselves.

Or maybe Shane, Kitty and Nicole all gaslit her, for their own reasons. It's not unheard of, men and older women gaslighting younger women, to make them compliant to their will. Nicole telling her she isn't a good journalist? How does she know, beyond not liking the story Rachel did for her? Have we not heard this complaint before, from some executive or celebrity complaining of bad journalism? I bet they didn't go to J school either so how would they know? Alexandra Daddario is actually 37. They could have cast her to play a twenty something character but Rachel could just as well be in her early 30s. Anyways, she's not seen huge professional success. Doesn't mean she's not good at it. Shane and Kitty were essentially mocking her for wanting to continue, since she's not making much money at it. For them it's transactional not about independence or a hedge.

So they're going to add a stew instead of firing Lexi, at least at first? Lexi better understand that the next time she gets belligerent, she's gone. She toned down her act this episode, though she did a shit job, got the interior dept. called out by that drunk guest -- just had to have an adult beverage the first thing in the morning, before getting any food, so he raided the bar himself. Mat is getting raves for the food, probably got them the biggest tip. But the previews for rest of the season shows the replacement chef showing up, so either he relapses or they try to amp up the firing plot lines again. He's actually very chill when working with Kate or Courtney. Rest of the crew was civil to Lexi but Courtney is getting resentful and they're probably going to figure out they can get bigger tips if Lexi leaves. Surprised they didn't go out again, just chilling on the boat. They didn't make them have drinking party this time with the women twerking. What's going on, the producers were taking a break?

See if a detective found out that there was beef between Armand and Shane throughout the time Shane was there, he or she might want to dig more, just to make sure it was an accident. But the police know that tourism is the goose that lays the golden eggs. They're not going to give the resort or prized guests too much scrutiny.

They get paychecks from Bravo. They're not going to dump too much on the show and that includes the main cast members. They need days to write the snark.

Paula never rejected privilege. She still let the Mossbachers pay for her meals and other expenses, after she tried to rip them off. She didn't care about Kai. It was a summer fling for her and she told him she won't see him again when he asked her to stay. Did she really believe the stolen jewelry would help Kai or did she think of it to stick it to the Mossbachers? Armand said Kai was a good employee, surprised he would do such a thing. Paula corrupted him.

I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case. They're the best known of the cast, been around the longest. More specifically, Bravo probably believes the show does best when those two are butting heads. Bravo shows all have feuds so it's a familiar and proven formula. They're both wiling to ham it up for the cameras -- I can't imagine either really behaves like what is shown in their real day to day business. So why wouldn't they agree to have some melodrama between each other for "good TV."

I think they showed her in one scene in her own room, talking to someone? I think it was rushed so they really didn't show how she came to change her mind. After the things they said to each other, why would she go back and why would he take her back? Mike White had to deliver a show which could be shot in one location over the winter months. There were no typical revisions to the script. I guess they wanted to settle on 6 episodes and they didn't supersize the finale or any of the other episodes. So the Shane and Rachel plot, they showed all the ways she would become alienated from him through most of the season but in the finale, she says she doesn't want to continue in the marriage, then they have a big argument, then she gets her own room, apparently talks to someone on the phone about what she did and then in the final or penultimate scene, she grovels back to him? Yeah she'd be poor if she divorced him. But she conveyed how creeped out and uncomfortable she was to be in bed with him, had to make a reason to jump out of bed and get away from him. Hell instead of confronting him and telling him why she can't be with him, she could have sent him a text to say she was leaving him, which would be typical of this age.

How much drugs could have been in that bag? Armand goes on a bender at least a couple of times along with those other employees. He has no right to be mad that he was going to lose his job. When he was caught in the office eating ass, did he really expect he was going to be able to keep his job, after deliberately antagonizing a guest? So I don't buy him seeking to get revenge, even though it fits with the monkey theme I suppose. But why a monkey theme in Hawaii? one tropical place is like all other exotic, tropical places to the white writer of the script? Or just blame it on the drugs. How can Shane, going around holding a knife out and causing a man be exonerated so quickly? There would have to be involuntary manslaughter charges cleared? Forget about bad reviews, once they find that a guest stabbed and killed a previous hotel manager, because there was a big beef between them, that place is gong to be destroyed. Not to mention a big attempted robbery involving a physical altercation of hotel guests. Why didn't they show the aftermath of Kai? Probably has something to do with the rushed shooting schedule. Mike White is going to have to put some more thought into next season, polish it up more. Maybe hire some other writers so that they could check each other. There doesn't have to be another death or a burglary with physical confrontation but how much can happen to people staying at a hotel or resort during a short vacation and still make it interesting to watch?

Snookie was only going to stay overnight but she drinks herself into a stupor. why come out only for overnight? Her hubby has her on a short leash? Yet she’s doing some other MTV show? but she’s not bringing much if she gets sleepy drunk, which isn’t even entertaining-drunk, though looks like she may be picking fights. Or she and Angelina still have beef, with Chris mocking her toast. but Angelina still wants to confront Lauren’s for prying into her business. WTF was that boat race. My guess was over the winter, there was slim pickings on venues. Maybe the covid cases hadn’t taken off but I don’t know if winter venues like ski resorts were operating normally. so they only had the Poconos and they must have strained to come up with activities to film. is Mike stress-eating or he’s just given up?

The other thing is, if and when Kai is busted, is she going to turn herself in? Or will she try to get Kai to shut up about it being her idea and her giving him the safe code? OTOH, once Kai is apprehended, they're going to know, especially Olivia, that it had to have been Paula who gave him the safe code. Or if Paula tries to deny her involvement, throws Kai under the bus, maybe Nicole will see it as leaning in and women's empowerment. Probably write her recommendations for jobs, if not give her a scholarship or hire her outright.

In the Sunshine Coast ep, the Hinterlands is about 10 kms inland? That shouldn't' take that long to drive unless the road winds rather than go straight perpendicular to the coast. In any event, she wanted to be close to the water and stay on budget so makes sense. If we ever get to travel to Australia again, Noosa seems like an interesting place. Two hours drive from Brisbane so maybe a good way to see both.

Maybe but in some closeups, she’s visibly older, more wrinkled.

I suspect the Ryan trying to steal business from Frederick is more manufactured drama for the show. Fred was involved in the building from the start of development and sold all but the last units to be built, the penthouses, which determine the overall profitability of the project. Doubtful that a developer who’s been working with Fred for years on the project would dump him for the last two units. But for TV? Sure let’s go with it! I know they’re trying to make the West Side a thing, with Hudson Yards. But there’s nothing out there and no subway lines, are there? So they’d have to build up restaurants and stores at Hudson Yards, to be a magnet for people. But so much of it seem desolate out there. I guess they’re going to feature water views as a big attraction, to vie with Central Park or skyline views in other parts of Manhattan. But Ryan’s listing, with the huge outdoor space, has furniture bolted down because of the winds? Um, doesn’t sound like a pleasant place to be if it gets that windy. Who wants to be in that pool with high winds? The mask theater they have on this show is ridiculous. They’re wearing masks BEFORE they meet and then take it off so they can be filmed for the cameras? Well them wearing masks as they meet is for the cameras too. Ryan and Steve meet face to face across that small table maskless. Then Steve goes outside to call but puts his gaiter on and Ryan also masks up to go outside. I don’t think they understand how masks work with covid. Or they do but they wanted to pretend they do. Yeah kind of sleazy for Ryan to demand higher commission, essentially taking money from Steve. That isn’t a condition from the buyer, that’s assuming this wasn’t again done for the show.

Dang they rushed this out and only produced 6 episodes. But if it got the ratings, they probably want to do more. I'm not sure any of the cast is particularly a big ratings draw, which is different than a star like Kate Winslet on Mare of Easttown or the stars of Big Little Lies, which HBO needed to do a second season.

So this description from the article captures it: I don't think flutes and percussions are things one would associate with Hawaiian music, which is more lilting and doesn't have the driving beat. Also if you look at the opening montage, there are monkeys and cheetahs or leopards, so there are definitely African elements. So he is really going for a jungle theme but the Hawaiian woods is not like an African jungle, unless what White is going for is to satirize the characters acting like animals. I think Mark says something like "we're just animals" in one of the earlier episodes. Like I said, I think it would be problematic if they played this music over scenes of black characters on screen.

How are they going to handle things like Hall Brawl which is one on one? It would be cool if they designed eliminations with 2 on 2 games.

Kyle joins the "I got to feed my kids" brigade. 🙄 Like he wouldn't be back on the show even if he didn't have a kid. In a year or two, Corey's going to be talking about "I got to pay for my kids' college."

Paula is vying for the worst POS character on the show with Shane. She actually had to talk Kai into doing the robbery, stealing from a family which was kind to her. She really, really likes Kai but she will never see him again and she isn't going to live with him in his modest home. Thanks for the hot sex but you're the hired help. I'm going to college to become rich and come back so you can serve me again. I understand Kai feels grievance but it seems like he was content to work at the resort, even if his brothers tried to keep the resentment going. I don't know if local Hawaiians have career opportunities at resorts, to move up to better jobs. Maybe they generally don't get to advance so maybe losing the job wouldn't be a big deal. But going to jail for grand theft and then assault during the theft would be a big deal. Kai seemed like he had a good attitude, was making the best of the situation, didn't feel like he was being taken advantage of working at the resort, performing in those shows. Then he met Paula who eggs him on, tells him that his situation is shitty, tells him essentially that he couldn't really have a serious thing with someone like her unless he had more money. Maybe it's just me but the soundtrack with the drums and the howling is really jarring. Is that what Hawaiian music sounds like? When they play that soundtrack while Nicole and Mark are about to get it on, it makes it seem like some mating ritual. If the characters who are about to have sex were black and that soundtrack was playing, it might come across as racist. Or would Mike White say that's just authentic Hawaiian music, which you'd hear at luaus and such? It's kind of hilarious that Mark takes a couple of punches when Kai was about to leave, not having harmed Nicole at all, and now she and the kids see him as heroic. These characters are meant to be ridiculous, maybe this is all a satire on the rich. For sure, Kitty is meant to be a cartoon character, telling Rachel to be happy being a trophy wife, that her purpose in life now is to make Shane happy, since she didn't have family money like she did. Maybe Rachel didn't see it because they're close in age whereas usual trophy wives are much younger than their rich husbands. Turns out this show was put together fast. HBO needed something for the summer and the goal was to get something on the air out of basically a first draft of the script, something they could shoot right away. So I think a lot of the events and the characters weren't really thought through that much.

The rookies should be conspiring, if nothing else for self preservation. The first 4 in elimination were all rookies. The vets plan to whittle down rookie numbers until they have numerical advantage. It’s so obvious since that happens every season. But what does Emy do narc on Michaela. Who likes a narc? Not to mention self defeating to be fighting other rookies when they’re all prey. However I think many of these rookies aren’t doing the Challenge to win the game so much as get exposure on their first season, to become a regular and then try to join the vet alliance and then really compete for the money. After they did these other reality shows, they just want to keep their TV appearances going. Once again, the daily challenge is way more interesting than the elimination. Really, just pushing your opponent off the ramp? Mainly comes down to mass and strength, it wasn’t even visually interesting. At least hall brawl, you see the collision and it’s over quick. Season previews show a lot of cool looking daily challenges so maybe they’re trying to save money for the Lair. While it’s more atmospheric to do it at night with the fancy stage, I’d rather see eliminations more along the daily challenge vein. Hell they could have had the two teams repeat the daily challenge with the safes and breaking the bricks and it would be more interesting to watch, more suspenseful.

Weird that they’d show this beautiful imagery of Croatia but wouldn’t say where the are. I would think these countries which let them film there would want it publicized, to promote tourism. I actually visited Alesund, Norway, which was featured a few season ago as the base for where they did this epic final challenge where they raced through a fiord terrain. I didn’t even know about the plac until I saw it on the show. Not a fan of BB, Survivor or these other shows so kind of rolled my eyes that they do these shows in Eastern Europe, Africa, etc. I guess MTV, Paramount, Viacom are all part of one large media conglomerate so they’re cross promoting all these reality shows all over the world by using them as feeders for The Challenge? But is there Challenge versions in other countries as well? From the clips they kept showing of the season it looks like there will be daily challenges which cost more to set up, with vehicles including air and water craft so lot of challenges in the water, which wasn’t the case in Iceland. But seems like spending more money on the dailies. Also saw clips of hall brawl so the old standards as well, even though some of them are unimaginative and unbalanced.

She also volunteered at that dog shelter. Probably wanted to strike out on her own so she went all the way to Spain, which had a program to recruit native English speakers to teach English. She said she got randomly placed in Malaga. Obviously not as glamorous or well known as Madrid or Barcelona but probably a lot more affordable and great if you want sun and beach. probably good fortune for a Canadian to have a big change in scenery.

What unappealing guests. Physically unappealing and they just want to chug booze all charter long. What possesses people to come back on BD and act like drunkards? And really, water sports and unlimited booze are a big draw or these repeat "guests" just want to probably get cheap vacation or go on a TV show or both? One of them just drained her glass of some alcoholic drink into the hot tub and ordered more so maybe they were encouraged to really be high maintenance and keep ordering drink after drink, to stress out the stews. Really, water slides and jet skis have that much appeal for these middle aged party animals? Or do they emphasize it because they can get a lot of footage of people in the water or going down a slide? They could do that in the US, don't have to fly out all the way to Croatia. Maybe that's why they have repeat guests, because they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get people to look the fool on a TV show. Lexi has a bad attitude of course and we get the firing plot back on again, a staple which no BD can do without. Courtney gets so drunk she doesn't remember what happened, other than the smell and mess from puking on the bed. Yes this is entertainment, watching people binge drink, either get angry drunk or silly drunk, slurring speech, doing things they later regret. Seriously they could have filmed this off the coast of FL but that would be encroaching on some other BD show territory. Not like these charter guests know they're in Croatia or really care.

From the season finale and reunion, looks like MTV will keep this thing going. Cara was rolling her eyes and couldn’t keep from smiling, suppressing laughter, at the spiritual expert or psychic. Funny The Hills featured some Indian spiritual expert and Jersey Shore also has had psychics and old Italian curses. are the young audiences which MTV targets into this stuff? or are we suppose to snark on this stuff though they keep it short and vague. Even the cast was mocking the psychic calling Chloe intellectual. Juliette talks about quitting the show at the reunion but she wants her JMP brand to get exposure. still don’t understand why “billionaire” Sam and his folks would appear on the show. even the uber rich can be fame whores? cara was suppose to be rich too, jetting all over the world. But now she’s going nursing school and making jewelry? they can’t seem to keep these faked back stories straight. strange that they didn’t show The Slap at the reunion.

All the brokers except Ryan were on WWHL. Kind of good chemistry among them, ribbing each other.