KerleyQ

He doesn't seem quite as 'roided up this season, so maybe that plays a part in him being less of an asshole, too? (I mean, I still think it's the hair, but who knows?) I'm not saying he's not still a big strong guy, but he seems a lot leaner than in the past. Maybe he realized that all that bulk can be a detriment in a final? I thought he handled himself really well with the whole Romeo thing. I think that, in seasons past, he likely would have gone full angry asshole over the whole thing, but he mostly seemed to be laughing the whole thing off, like "can you believe this guy went and brought his own damn security team over an incident in a fucking game?"

He's pretty prominent these days, and he makes movies regularly with their production studio. I doubt he'd have the ability to take off the time to host a full regular season, but the lighter commitment of doing these special seasons and hosting reunion shows probably works in his schedule.

Are Zach's asshole powers contained in his hair or something? Because this is really the only time I've ever liked him. (Shallow note, he looks better without the hair, but that's not why I actually like him this season.) I have a feeling he and Jenna are going to spend years getting together, then breaking up, then getting together again, then breaking up again, lather, rinse, repeat. She has tragic taste in men. Isn't it rumored that she hooked up with Vince (the Bananas cousin)? That alone should put her in the Tragic Taste in Men Hall of Fame.

I think she would have eventually still reached that point, because she seems like a generally socially conscious kid, but it might have taken longer, since she wouldn't have been invested in specific people she was speaking to and seeing how miserable they were.

I dislike Matt just because he took the possibility of immediately being rid of Riff Raff off the table. And is this the first time we've every seen someone get pissed at their teammates for not sending them in? I was so hoping Wes would get in Zach's ear and convince him to send in Bananas. But, of course, Zach took the easy way out and sent in Cory. MTV really and truly needs to be done with Camila. At this point, if they bring her back, they're opening themselves up to legal issues every single time she flips out (especially since they provide free-flowing booze and encourage binge levels of drinking, and they know what happens when she drinks that much). They know she has issues with alcohol, and they know she has some psychological issues and a complete inability to control her temper. I know they eventually let CT come back, but it was a decent length of time, and he had made some clear improvements in his emotional state. If they ever have Camila back, it needs to be after a lengthy absence, and it needs to be after she's had some treatment for her drinking and rage issues. Just having her sit out one season won't be anywhere near enough. Since Camila got the boot before the first elimination, are they going to bring in an alternate, or will the Champs team just be down a girl the whole season? It kind of doesn't seem fair to the rest of the team to bring that loose cannon on, only to have her, predictably, do something to get herself booted, and then leave them all down a person. Oh, and what set her off this time, anyway? Not that it ever takes much, but it was like all of a sudden, we're hearing the story of her latest bullshit second hand from the cast, just seeing the golf cart. Did I miss someone looking at her the wrong way for a fraction of a second? And if it turns out that John somehow instigated something or egged her on for his own amusement, like he often does, then they need to sit his ass out for a few years or so. It's disgusting that he tries to rile up someone he clearly knows has some mental health issues, because he thinks it's funny.

I had all kinds of second hand embarrassment watching Maryse, like to the point where I almost had to change channels. Mike was right, she made it weird, but, then, him saying that, while they were still sitting there, made it weird, too.

It counts if it becomes one of the big story lines covered at the reunion. (Of course, none of John's hookups are ever shown on camera or talked about at reunions, yet he always has a partner for Exes.)

I honestly didn't even give that any thought during the past few weeks of the show, but the very second she said she cheated on him, I said "I bet it was with Jordan!" So I must have picked up that vibe but just not really thought much of it. I'd be willing to bet Jordan hooked up with her so they could be future Exes partners, and she has zero idea. I think she still thinks there's some chance that, now that the reunion has happened, and she's publicly cleared the air about their hookup and her relationship with her ex, she and Jordan are going to have some kind of relationship. She just kept insisting that they're relationship is great way too many times, and it came off as kind of pathetic and desperate. Meanwhile, he's totally moved on. He got his hook up and his future Exes partner, so he's done. When Miz (who should host all the reunions from now on) asked Cory "fuck, marry, kill" with Kailah, Aneesa, and Camilla, I knew exactly how he was going to answer. Camilla in the "kill" slot is a gimme (if you ask any of those guys at this point), and it seems like he has some level of genuine feelings for Aneesa, although I'm not sure, exactly, what those are, but she seems to be the one he seems most intent on maintaining some level of relationship with. I can see why people think the network is protecting Camila by keeping her off the reunion, but, knowing Camila's need for drama and the spotlight, it's probably killing her that she's not there and that they're largely just pretending she doesn't exist, beyond having TJ stand in for her at the end. I think it would be awesome if, after basically ignoring her existence, right at the very end, they have a couple cast members make statements condemning her behavior, and there's a production announcement that she will no longer be allowed back in any future seasons, due, in general, to her repeated history of acting abusively towards her cast members and her racist comments, specifically. Very little of the drama she adores, no real spotlight on her, no chance for her to respond on air, and her Challenge career is over. And I just looked at her Twitter account. She's claiming she couldn't make it to the reunion because of a death in the family. My favorite response "I didn't realize your dignity was family." Someone defending her is saying something like "I hope all of you people calling her racist are perfect and have never made a mistake in your life." Mistakes? Sure. Drunken rant where I call someone who I claim is my friend the n-word and throw a whole bunch of racist crap at him and others, because I'm embarrassed that I got drunk and hooked up with a complete loser? Nope, can't say that I have. If that makes me perfect, so be it.

Here you go (it starts around the 2:30 mark, right after the opening credits): Rivals Episode 2 I think the talking head about it I'm remembering was in a reunion show, but this is the actual incident itself.

I love how they spent a decent amount of time having the cast talk about how a million dollars is life changing money. It's like "OK, you guys heard the part about getting 'your share' of the million, and know that nobody is winning a full million, right?" And I loved their crestfallen faces when he announced that the people in third would get $15,000 each. (Yeah, I'm evil.) I think this episode pretty much confirmed our "Jordan and CM are pretending to be paired as rivals" theory. Other than Jordan laughing to the camera about CM's freak out over sky diving, they were getting along pretty well this episode. TJ said they'd be running parts of the final as pairs and part as individuals. I wonder if they're all stuck with the partner they had for this first leg for any other legs that have them running with partners, or if each one will be like this one - the first person to a specific point gets to pick their partner when the members of the opposite sex start hitting that point. I think it would be more interesting to have them run with different partners for different legs. It would mix it up in terms of making it harder to determine who is winning, and it would be a little more fair to everyone to have a shot at picking their partner on any given leg. I'm always entertained when we have moments of "CT is just freaky fucking strong," like his performance carrying the rocks last night. He may have issues with running at high altitudes, but he certainly does a good job at countering that issue with his insane strength, whenever there's a chance to do so. I think my favorite in this category, aside from Johnny Bananas Backpack, which will always be my favorite Challenge moment, period, was the time, several seasons ago, when the other guys put that ceramic swan in one of the beds in the girls' room. It took like six of them, huffing and puffing to drag that thing to the room. When the girl whose bed it was in wanted it out, CT walks in there, hefts it up with one arm "where do you want it?" One of the guys' talking head was something to the effect of "you want to know why nobody wants to face him?"

I know I'm getting old when I'm sitting here drawing a blank on anything that happened in Free Agents. I remember it existing, and know it wasn't that long ago, but I cannot remember a single detail of that season.

Why am I not remembering them doing the partner switch during a final? I didn't see the last full season (the one where they brought in the champs at some point), but I'm trying to think back over previous ones, and I don't remember them switching.

I became convinced of this last night. Both seemed to be enjoying their confrontation over dinner just a little too much. And then it was odd when, as soon as the challenge was over, and she, Jordan, CT, and Tori had won, CM was saying to Jordan "now you're stuck running a final with me." CT is right there, and every time they're allowed to pick a partner, those two pair up. So shy did she think, in that moment, that she'd be running a final with Jordan instead of CT? I mean, yeah, technically, they'll both be in the final, but unless they're paired up, her performance has no influence on Jordan. I can see the show sticking them together for the drama. Or I could see some twist where the purged people get to pair up the people left running the final. We know at least one of Kailah/Jenna is going to be sent home, since only one more girl can get in. I could see them, especially Kailah, deciding to get one last shot in at CM and pair her up with the guy who she's been fighting with all along. But, CM thinking she's going to be his partner right then and there was odd, unless it's part of some master plan on their part.

That would not surprise me at all. It also wouldn't surprise me to learn he hooked up with Sarah precisely to get her as a partner for Exes.

I think drunk and talking to frogs Derrick will always be my favorite Derrick. I give Tony credit for being one of the only "expendable" parts of a Bananas alliance to figure out the deal and actually act on it. And now he and Hunter managed to shift the game big time, when the only guy who could be considered a favorite left in the competition is Derrick. All the other big guns, like John, CT, Leroy, and Jordan, are stuck in Redemption House, where they'll have to fight it out and most likely only one of them will get back in (I don't hold out hope that it will only be one, since I fully expect them to change it up on the fly when they realize all their pets are in there). So credit to him for that, although I still think he's a douchebag, and I hope he doesn't win. I've never liked Jordan. And as much as people can rightly say that CM has become entitled, so has Jordan. Remember when he was the scrappy underdog flipping all the cards so he could take on John? Now he's as firmly up John's ass as anyone, and convinced that being there (and avoiding eliminations) is his God-given right. Add in what an ass he is to women in general, and what he said to Jemmye earlier this season, and I just have zero use for him. I hope he loses in the Redemption House challenge in a big way. The whole thing with the room, while it may have seemed childish on CM's part, I was on her side over him. One, after all the shit he said to her (and he really just came in there swinging, trying to offend her), then he starts to plant his ass in the room she's been sleeping in, just to antagonize her further? Fuck that. And his talking head about how "since I'm the one who sent you here, I get to make the decisions"? What the fuck was that? That's not a thing, asshole. He's been drinking hard from the Johnny Bananas entitlement and sexism Kool Aid. On a related note, how is Jordan one of John's BFF's and inner circle when Sarah is the worst? Last time I checked, Jordan was Sarah's partner and equally responsible for "betraying" him by daring to make him fight for his place (after he'd already been eliminated once and shouldn't have even been there in the first place). Oh, right, because John's a sexist asshole. Carry on.

I was initially wondering why Tony would be stupid enough to deny it, when he knows he's on a damn reality show. But, I wonder if he was expecting the producers to give him the Bananas treatment and help hide his indiscretions. Didn't work out for you, did it, Tony?

I've never really cared about Aneesa one way or the other in past seasons. But the way the rest of the women in the cast are being such over the top assholes about it, I so want to see her take some of them out now. I usually like C-M, but I'm disgusted with her, in particular. Does she not remember being on the receiving end, in the not so distant past, of the kind of juvenile mean girl shit they're all pulling on Aneesa? But now she seems to be just so happy to be one of the veteran winners that she's happy to pile on to the latest target. Unless they're not showing us something relevant, it seems like the entirety of her issue with Aneesa is that she suspects she was exaggerating how much her ankle hurt. For that she's Satan?

I've given it some thought, and I think what was going on there was that there is a portion of society who, as soon as you call someone a racist, they just tune you out and think you're being over dramatic or taking it too far. They simply won't listen to the rest of the conversation beyond that point. Leroy may very well be used to that kind of thing. So in order to not distract from the larger point of how completely wrong her outburst was, he took that off the table. The other thought I had was that he and a lot of the other cast members have seen how insane she gets every single time she's drunk and angry. He may have truly, in that moment, considered this just another example of her being completely awful in that state of mind and lashing out to hurt whoever she's pissed at as much as possible. If he has years of knowing her and not having her say or do racist things around him, it may be hard for him to label her like that vs. labeling her as someone who has an out of control drinking problem. If that's the case, and it was a matter of him just not wanting to see that in her, I do wonder if he's changed his take on that since then, after finding out about her spewing racist shit at Nelson, after seeing her "these black motherfuckers always do this!" rant at the production staff, and after how much time has gone by and she still hasn't reached out to him about this. (Provided he didn't witness any of those moments when they happened. Camila tends to do her own brand of Tasmanian Devil whirl through the house when she's in that state, and I doubt Leroy was following her around to catch it all, so I'm guessing there was shit he missed.) To be clear, I absolutely think she's a racist. But, I'm not someone who has any length of friendship with her to counter that impression. It may be harder for Leroy to get to that belief than it is for those of us who are simply watching this from the outside. One little thing I noticed, when Camila went into the living room for deliberations, she, of course, went to sit next to Tony, since they were the winners who were sending someone into elimination. But, the person stuck sitting on her other side was John. In my mind, I'm going to tell myself that the rest of the cast was like "no, you're sitting next to her. You hooking up with her is probably a huge part of the reason she kept getting asked back in the beginning to establish herself as a regular cast member, and you're the one who has always tried to ramp up the 'Camilinator' for your own entertainment, so this is your mess, Bananas."

From what Cara Maria has said on social media, it sounds like she did have more than one conversation with Camila over the course of those two days, and she's really annoyed that MTV didn't show any of them, because she's getting a lot of "how come you didn't speak up to your friend when she was being racist" kind of blowback from people.

I said to my TV "you're seriously going to let a black man's name come out of your mouth right now??" I was thinking the same thing when she came back in the same clothes - the PA probably said "fuck that noise" and left her bags right where they were. After watching her go off on a racist tirade and then having her pull that lady of the manor verbally abusing the peasants shit on me, I would have absolutely left her shit there until the end of time. (OK, maybe I would have happily schlepped it to the van if it was taking her to the airport because she was being booted. But I wouldn't have been gentle, and I would have prayed that shit was broken when she got home.) And I think it would have been awesome if, after John threw that pillow and then Camila went and hit Leroy with it, they would have both been booted. Yeah, a pillow is hardly a blunt object, but the throwing and hitting was done in the heat of a confrontation, so fuck the two of them and send them home. Maybe John would learn a lesson about stirring people up for his own amusement. I know the producers probably love that he's a shit stirrer, but there are certain times you don't stir the shit, and this should have been one of them. Leroy was freaking amazing. I'm beyond impressed that he kept his cool the entire time. Nothing but respect for him there. And it depressed me that he just talked about it like it was just another day in this world for him. There is no reason he should ever have to put up with that hateful shit. He was a better person than me both in his in the moment reaction and the way he handled it the next day. I do wonder, though, if he's since rethought his saying that he doesn't think she's racist. The fact that she still hasn't had it in her to approach him and apologize to him, and that her only tears when talking about it were in her taped confessional, when she was trying to win over viewers, should tip him off that she firmly believes the shit she said to him. Add in that her comments were not solely addressed to him, and included a racist rant at Nelson and the generalized "that's what these black motherfuckers do all the time" statement, and it's pretty clear what she is. Some of her friends are putting forward the "what she said was inexcusable, but anyone who knows her can tell you she's not racist" line. They must have a pretty strict definition of "racist." She may not be putting on a white robe or buying out tiki torches at Walmart and marching, but she's a racist. What she did on last night's episode was the definition of racism. I sincerely hope the show doesn't invite her back any more, and I hope that she gets the psychological help she so obviously needs. (And AA wouldn't hurt, either.)

I have to say, I'm a little mad at you for keeping that one to yourself for so long. It's perfect. I remember even around 10 years or so ago, when I used to have an US Weekly subscription, they always had a feature after major awards show where they'd have like 4 or 5 actresses' looks from the night along with a guide to where to get the knockoff look. The knockoff looks were always pretty clearly knockoffs - they were the same essential style, but not exact replicas. I think that there has always been an element of similarity among different lines, especially with lower end lines incorporating a certain element from higher end lines, but making it their own version. The first example of how not to do it that comes to mind is the stories about Ivanka Trump's shoe line. There's a red shoe I remember seeing in one of the stories that is almost a carbon copy of another line's shoe. Had she simply taken one element of the shoe design, like the kind of fluffy accent over the toe strap, and then designed an entirely different shoe around it, I don't think the other company would have an argument. She could simply say that her designers identified that element as a potential upcoming trend, and they decided to do their own take on it. But, the shoe is also nearly identical in heel and ankle strap designs, so it's really hard to argue that it's not a rip off. I think it would be a better idea for the show, instead of going with outright stolen designs, to have Spectra get a peek at the FC line and merely lift certain elements into their own designs. Current day Sally is supposed to actually have some design talent, so it would make sense that she'd prefer to put her own spin on the trends the FC line is creating than to just outright copy their exact designs. Then you'd have Steffy having tantrums over them "stealing" from FC, but there would be nothing she could really do about it (beyond proving that someone was stealing their designs to provide them to Spectra). Then we could maybe have instances where the Spectra take on something is selling better than FC's version. (Which would also make Steffy's head explode.) There's no real rooting value for the Spectra gang to succeed if all they're doing is copying designs outright, and I'm not really interested in watching that. But something more gray, where Spectra's designs are truly their own designs, with trends FC has forecast incorporated into them, would be a better story. I'm fine with an 18 year old and a 16 year old dating. It happens fairly often, and there are a number of states where any physical relationship wouldn't even be illegal, either because the age of consent is 16, or because they have "Romeo & Juliet" exemptions from their statutory rape laws where a couple who is within two years of each other isn't considered a violation. From my own personal point of view, though, I would have never considered dating a 16 year old boy when I was 18. No way. I wasn't even really thrilled with boys my own age at that point, and preferred guys in the 19-22 range, but 16? They'd have to be an exceptionally mature 16 year old.

I swear, when that slap first happened, and I just saw brunette hair, I was saying "if that's that bitch Katie, lurking in the damn bushes a-fucking-gain..." Ivy slapping Quinn for having her tongue down Ridge's throat is fine with me, though. I wanted to slap a little sense into her myself, I admit. KKL and DD are just miles better together than KKL and TK. But I really want Brooke to choose to go back to Bill before she finds out about Ridge messing around with Quinn. Bill is so devoted and sure that I want that rewarded with her wanting him because she wants him, and not because he's her fallback.

Me today: "Hey, GH is on. I haven't watched in a while, but I'm sick and in bed, so let's see what's happening." A little later "Oh, hey, are they actually going to start working towards a future Liz/Griffin pairing? Interesting. OK, so, let's see what else is... Michael Easton is licking up pill crumbs from the floor and nurse's station. What the actual fuck is this?"

That's what I was thinking too. It was like "do you know your family at all?" Because you generally know if your family is one where they'd enjoy a guy like Dean or one where the introduction would be awkward. I know my extended family would enjoy the hell out of one of us bringing someone like Dean home to meet them. He'd fit right in. So, none of us would get all stressed out and worry about him "making a good impression." She seemed to not get that her family falls in the "we love this crazy guy!" camp. And, as for his appearance, if her family watched her work at all, they'd be familiar with what he looks like (and his in ring persona).

Renee was getting on my nerves, big time. It was so clear that her family liked him (and approved of his going after the guy who snatched her hat), and there she is calling him a psychopath. I want a Rusev/Ambrose buddy cop movie. They can leave Lana and Renee home. The guys are fun, but their SO's are complete wet blankets.