BitterApple

I've heard people say it before. In most cases, they've been told they have a Native American ancestor, so any features they deemed exotic are referenced back to that. It's not exactly culturally sensitive and given who the Bates are, I'm not surprised. With regards to Tiffany, I feel worse and worse for that girl. It seems like she has no one to hang around with except Lawson and her parents. I know they travel all the time which makes it hard to establish friendships, but don't they belong to a church? Surely there must be some young women and moms in her orbit?

I think she does. The E7 trailer shows a scene where Shauna says she's going to have a chat with "this woman." I'm guessing it's Swank who's blackmailing them with the tape. Assuming the show gets renewed for S4 and S5, how do you guys think the runners will pace things out? Are they going to stretch out winter over the next season? Or will they be rescued in the finale and S4 focuses on the aftermath? I just keep thinking of how much death has to occur in the last two months. The two hikers are obviously goners. Then you've got three background girls, Akilah and either Melissa or Mari. I think Mari is possibly rescued and killed when they get back. She's shown repeatedly that she can crack under pressure. I don't think she's the type who could keep her mouth shut for 25 years.

The clear tubing could've been a line that supplied water to the plane's galley or restrooms. I think cutting the tendon was a compromise of sorts to appease Shauna. In exchange for not killing him, she got to inflict torture and ensure Ben's remaining time was miserably painful.

I'm glad they gave us some sort of marker. It's a huge pet peeve of mine when shows don't let us know where we are in the timeline. So if Mari went missing in June, and now we're in early October, Ben was held prisoner for 3 1/2-ish months. His hair was noticeably longer, so it fits. Also, if they did 19 months in the wilderness, they've got about 2 months to go. IIRC, they crashed sometime in May. If the 8 survivor assumption is true, that's a lot of murder and death happening in a very short amount of time. Yikes. So what are we thinking? The girls have to be relatively close to civilization, right? The hikers looked clean and weren't dragging gear. They didn't look like they'd been trekking through the woods for weeks. They have to be within walking distance to a road or parking area. Although if they are close, how unlikely is it they've been out there over a year and have never seen anyone else? Or nobody saw the smoke from the cabin fire? This is going to drive me crazy all week. 🤔🤔🤔

The tape was made by the hikers. They were wearing the recorders around their necks. That's why Van freaked out when Tai was asking who'd have a DAT recorder. Van mentioned birders, and then realized "oh shit." The recording they listened to in the car was the events of the night the hikers found them. Trippy how the episode came full circle. For all the social media naysayers saying the show sucks now, jokes on you, because we. are. fucking. back. This episode felt like S1 in terms of the drama, tension, horror and massive plot twist at the end. For starters, poor Ben. I'm never going to get over his death. To survive what he did, only to end up like that. You could see the last shreds of sanity slipping away from the teens in the aftermath. It's scary to think it's going to get uglier than even this. I feel like the adult timeline finally has some teeth. Who would have that tape? How did they get it and what do they want? Obviously whatever happens to the hikers isn't good knowing we have another winter to go. I cannot wait for next week.

I agree. Killing Adam was impulsive. Shauna thought he was digging into the past, all her trauma bubbled up and she lashed out. Teen Shauna suggesting Ben be burned alive was vicious. I think part of the issue is the group relies on her to do the dirty work, which only fuels her rage and bloodlust. Now that she's got a useful idiot enabling her grievance complex, it's only going to get worse. I'm just curious as to what's going to be the tipping point where leadership shifts from Natalie to her? It has to be something significant.

My biggest fear is Lottie is going to push the cave thing too far and one of these times Akilah won't wake up. Now that Lottie is convinced Akilah's visions foreshadow their rescue, she's going to encourage her to keep exposing herself to the gas. I don't think it will end well. I rewatched today and circling back to my earlier comment, it definitely looked like there was a knife under the fish Misty gave Ben. If he doesn't commit suicide, I'm hoping he takes out Gen or Melissa. With regards to the adult timeline, I know there's been rampant criticism of this season and I agree much of it is warranted. I'm fine with the writers using the adult plots to bring moments of humor, but I wish they'd dial it back on the camp. Lottie's death should've been devastating for all of them, and yet I feel like I'm watching a wacky cop caper. I also agree it's crazy how they made such a big deal of casting Swank and McHale, yet we're halfway through the season and they've yet to appear.

Here's my take. The Stewarts currently have three income streams. BSB, YouTube, Influencing. When you combine them, I think they're making a pretty penny. Child exploitation is very lucrative. However, I also think they're spending everything that comes in and have next to nothing in savings and retirement. If one of those streams goes bust, they're screwed. As far as the BSB staff, they're probably paid peanuts. It also wouldn't surprise me if they're not given enough hours to be classified as full time, so Whit and Carlin don't have to give them benefits (although I'm unfamiliar with TN laws). As far as the operation itself, there's signs it's floundering. They did a mall pop up store. The constant cash and carries to dump old stock. Now they're having in-store shopping by appointment. Everything screams "desperate for cash flow." Their clothes are already ridiculously marked up as it is, and in this shaky political and economic climate, most women aren't casually dropping $85 on a cheap fast fashion dress. If BSB is around in three years, I'll eat my hat.

Damn. That was pretty ballsy of Tai to bring the new/old woman to a meet up with Simone and Sammi. I wish Van had sat this one out so we could've had more dialogue between Simone and Tai. I agree Akilah's vision doesn't mean what they think it does. There's no practical reason Ben would be the key to their rescue. Also, did anyone else notice that lingering shot of the fish when the girls brought Ben out to be executed? I wonder if there's a knife in there which leads me to my theory that The scene with Shauna and Lottie's dad was sad and sweet. Someone on Reddit had an interesting theory. They speculated that when Mr. Matthew's was making references to law enforcement classifying Lottie's death as an accident, he was talking about the plane crash, not the fall down the stairs. He kept mentioning a meeting with Bear Stearns, a company which hasn't been in existence in nearly 20 years. Even in his conversation with Shauna, he saw the teen version of his daughter, not the adult. Just some food for thought.

As screwed up as Shauna is, I definitely think there's a hint of conscience buried somewhere. Her entire marriage to Jeff feels like a penance. She could've gone on to college and had a career like Misty and Tai did, but instead she settled for the exact life she never wanted. Ditto for suffering through the annual brunch with Jackie's parents. If Shauna didn't still feel some guilt, she would've cut it off years ago. With regards to the potential bad thing the girls did when they got back, I'm hoping they left someone behind too. We've already seen them murder, so another death wouldn't be quite so shocking. Abandoning a teammate in the woods is way more diabolical and intriguing.

I'm assuming the writers know where they're going with the adult timeline, but to me, it felt like Lottie's death was a tad premature. We barely scratched the surface on why she's interested in Callie, and then boom!, she's dead. I am curious as to who Lottie was planning to meet when she was rehearsing her apology in the mirror. I wonder, are we going to get flashbacks, or is this it, the character is done? It'll be interesting to see how Shauna reacts. That's twice now that she's kicked a friend out of the house only for them to end up dead. Jeff charming the pants off the seniors was hilarious. The actor playing Ben has given two magnificent back-to-back performances. I'm trying to come up with a scenario where the girls let him live, but it's not looking good. It pissed me off that the guilty verdict came after Shauna bullied everyone into it. I also don't understand why nobody brought up the fact that Ben saved Van, Shauna and Akilah from the poison gas in the cave. It would've been a checkmark in his favor that he didn't want the girls dead.

How authentic. The fans can't see the kids' reactions until they've been properly curated and edited. I wonder how many takes were needed before Carlin thought Layla and Zade were showing an acceptable level of excitement? 🤣

Yep, here we go. Medical drama brings lots of views, comments and sympathy. Carlin is setting the stage. And as far as Evan doing Layla's hair, big whoop. It's not like he has a job or anything else to do all day.

I'm sure all Evan and Carlin are thinking about right now is clicks, sponsorships and dollars, but they're in for a rocky road. Even if everything checks out with Carlin's health, they've created a dynamic where everything revolves around a 5 year-old girl. Layla is NOT going to take well to being displaced. We've already seen vlogs of her on the verge of pitching fits in Walmart and Target, followed by them leaving with Layla getting a new toy. She does okay with Zade, but that's because Zade is second fiddle, not competition. If #3 is a girl, it's gonna get ugly.

My first thought was Walter screwed with the breaks. I don't know what his agenda is, but he seems determined to drive a wedge between Misty and the others. Mari is so freaking dumb. All she had to do was say she tripped on a tree root, bashed her knee into a rock and couldn't walk for a couple days. You could tell she didn't want to rat out Coach, but she wasn't quick enough on the draw to come up with a believable lie. I'm glad we'll get a resolution next episode, one way or the other. I know Ben is experiencing his own alternate reality but I can't imagine he'd see the camp the same way the girls do. If it's still gold-tinted and looks like an Etsy craft project, then we'll have to take it as real. I'm nervous about Ben's fate, especially after we got that bit of exposition in the beginning of the episode. Dying at the hands of the kids you used to coach, (and that job was only supposed to be a stop-gap in the first place) is going to be tough to watch. Does anyone think nobody started the cabin fire? When Van had her dream, a spark from the fireplace landed on the carpet, causing the room to go up in flames. What if it wasn't Ben or Bad Tai? Maybe it was truly an accident.

That was quite possibly one of the creepiest episodes of television that I've ever watched. What the hell just happened? Okay, for starters, major points for Team Hallucination shippers. Mari suggesting to Ben that there's "two realities," the "Land of make believe" in the ice cream ad, the trippy dream sequences, Lottie telling Shauna the necklace never meant what she thought it did. There's so much unreliable narration, I think we're being set up for a huge mind fuck in the near future. Also, maybe more evidence the supernatural didn't exist? There's poisonous gas and polluted water due to mining? I'm terrified Adult Van and Tai are going to go on a killing spree, thinking it's the only way to keep Van's cancer at bay. I know a lot of people are going to hate this episode, but I liked it. I'll add more thoughts later. Right now I'm too freaked out to do a rewatch.

It may have been a kidnapping for ransom that went wrong. They never intended to murder her, but JB fought or panicked and they whacked her to keep her quiet. They then realized they were screwed, so they strangled her and left her in the wine cellar. It's not a perfect theory, but if I had to make a case for someone other than the Ramseys, that's who I'd put money on.

One of my theories is it was someone in the housekeepers' orbit. Not saying Linda set it up, but she may have been indirectly involved. She had chronic money problems. If John's bills and paystubs were left out in the open, she would've had access to financial information. I don't think she was the mastermind, but I could see her having a rough day at work, and then venting to family or friends about how she doesn't get paid enough to deal with the Ramseys' crap, etc. I can also see her griping about Patsy giving her that 2k as a loan rather than a bonus. She might have thrown out how petty it was considering John got 118k, and that started the wheels turning in someone's head. I know BPD cleared Linda and her husband, but again you wonder if they didn't dig too deep?

I think they used the leather from the airplane seats to make the hoods, but I can't figure out where they would've gotten the white material for the capes. That wouldn't have came from the plane and it's unlikely they grabbed enough linens from the burning cabin to fashion 13 or 14 of them, not to mention enough needle and thread.

There was a shed, yes. I think they were using it for meat storage (both human and animal, lol). If worse came to worst, they could've all holed up there. It would've been tight, but it's at least shelter from the elements.

One of the questions I'm dying to have answered is the rescue. Do they actively try to make it happen or are they randomly discovered by land surveyors or government workers or something similar? Shauna wrote in her journal that they can never go back because of what they've done. In the S3 trailer, Tai says the wilderness will follow them forever. I can see it playing out where the girls are so far gone after that second winter, they actually avoid rescue crews and have to be dragged out of there kicking and screaming.

Gen is a recast, yes.

I don't recall seeing either her or the new African American girl in the background prior to this season, but I could be wrong. They've recast redshirts multiple times. From what I've counted, the total in the camp is 13 (Nat, Tai, Van, Shauna, Lottie, Misty, Travis, Akilah, Mari, Gen, Melissa, random new girls).

I think Lottie wants to get close to Callie and that was her excuse to crash at Shauna's. She definitely has money. She was wearing a Rolex in S2, and her clothes look pricey. Walter is definitely right about how the group treats Misty. Tai forgot to call her about Nat's memorial, ffs. Letting her drive home when she was barely conscious was highly irresponsible of Jeff and Shauna.

If it proves to be true, that's my thinking as well.