KerleyQ

They did go to no alternating once back to bloodlines, but, from what I remember of the start of the season, they were doing the switchoff when the bloodlines were teamed up. It was just that, if you were a male/female team, you were basically up for elimination every week, because the guy could be sent in on guys' day, and the girl could be sent in on girls' day. Those eliminations were always just one on one, so if it was girls' day, Cara Maria would have competed against a girl from another blood line. I believe this was the only time we've had both team members compete in the pit instead of a one on one competition.

That's how I remember it, too. She was perfectly willing to do whatever it took to get through, but, if Jay was going to just wimp out and not do his part, she wasn't going to eat or drink something completely gross just to have him go "nah, I'm not doing that," and drop out on her anyway. I remember TJ's disgust was pretty much aimed at Jay, because it was clear that Jenna was game, and Jay was the one willing to walk away from the money to avoid eating something gross. Not that I have room to judge Jay. I know, 100%, I would never be able to eat or drink some of the gross shit they have on these things. But, then again, I would never sign on to do one of these shows, and the "you'll almost certainly have to eat or drink something gross" factor is, alongside my complete aversion to famewhore-ing, one of the chief reasons. I would have loved the physical stuff, trivia day, and the (too infrequent) puzzles as a late teen/early 20's kid, but the gross stuff and having to deal with all the drama would have always been a deal breaker. I feel like tweeting a link to this tanagram puzzle app I have to Cara Maria and encouraging her to practice daily. There is almost always a tanagram puzzle at some point. They should all know that by now. It would really suck to spend the amount of time most of them spend on staying in shape for these things and have it fall apart because you can't do a simple puzzle. And now to the good stuff - John is gone! I had seen spoilers that he would be gone, but I was starting to fear they were wrong after last week's show. Since the eliminations had been going boy/girl/boy/girl, and last week was the boys, I feared we were stuck with his ass, since this would be a girl's elimination. And then we had Cory and Mitch seeming to agree with John that they needed to get rid of either Cara Maria or Jenna. Which brought so many questions. First, Cory's "everyone wants Cara Maria out," statement. Um, why is that, exactly? I mean, yeah, she and Jamie have done well this season, but it's a pretty ridiculous thing to say you want her out so badly as you're sitting there conspiring with the guy who will proudly tell you he's the "king" of the challenges, who almost always wins. Second, how dumb would you have to be to even for a moment entertain the idea that it would be better for you to ensure John sticks around while you get rid of either two girls or a guy/girl team, neither of which have remotely John's record? Although I would have died laughing if John's pitch to Cory/Mitch was "let's face it, I'm stuck with Vince. He's almost definitely going to crap out on me in any kind of final," to downplay the level of threat he poses. I will give John credit for not being a total asshole at being thrown in and in losing. It had to bug him that the person he's been trying to get rid of all along got his ass out of there. Although his response to the loss makes me wonder, once again, how much of the onscreen antagonism is genuine in a lot of the cast members. He seemed oddly proud of Cara Maria for someone who dislikes her so much. As for the pit itself, I know they put in the puzzle as kind of an equalizer, to balance out any gender mismatches, but how unfair would that pit have been if it had ended up being, say, John/Vince vs. Jenna/Breanna? Yes, the puzzle isn't gender biased, but either one of the girls having to smash the wall with a sledge hammer would have been at a huge disadvantage against the two guys. It kind of makes you wonder if they decide which pit to use once they know who will be going in, or if they're planned from the start.

She's the Liam this time around. I'm surprised she didn't gift Wyatt with all of her and Liam's stupid plastic parachute men.

Whether it's because of the baby thing or any other numerous reasons, I don't think Carly has the right to go off on anyone. Lightning should strike her down regularly.

I don't think we have to worry about MB winning. If anyone from GH takes it, it will be because the voters couldn't resist sending TG off into the sunset with one last Emmy.

He must have about six lives left anyway. Just put out some catnip and warm laundry on the back porch, and he'll show up eventually, Sonny.

That bugged the hell out of me.

"OK, son, first, make sure you have the proper size tarp..."

I think LeBron probably figured that, since Riley did it once, he'd do it again. And I don't buy the "LeBron was so surprised they fired Blatt" thing for even a second. He wanted Lue from the start, and he led the team's freezing out of Blatt to focus on Lue. If this surprised him, I assume he's also surprised when he goes out to dinner and the waiter brings him the exact entree he ordered. Everyone is just going out of their way to protect his reputation.

Unless I've blacked out on something, LeBron never won a ring with a mid-season coaching switch or with Pat Riley coaching. Spoelstra was the coach for LeBron's entire tenure in Miami, which is the only place LeBron's won a ring. I believe Riley took over the reigns for Wade's earlier win (I think the '05-'06 season), getting rid of Stan Van Gundy at some point during the regular season.

I'm with you on the visual charms of GV. Even when I was pissed at his Lucky, I couldn't totally hate him, especially when we had scenes of him with the kids.

If I'm remembering the timing right, I think they were actually headed to really doing a Jason/Liz pairing, but then they trashed that when Frons got his hard on for Jason/Courtney.

Is Jason reading to her from a gun magazine? I can't.

That last picture, between BH and GV, it's almost an unfair level of pretty. Which reminds me, I uber-loathed that scene of Liz saying that Nik was the first time she actually enjoyed sex (or some such shit). Please. We all saw how hot the Liz/Lucky honeymoon scenes were between BH and GV. And, honestly, before I eventually stabbed my eyes with a fork to stop seeing the Niz sex, Liz mostly looked like she was completely disgusted with herself and Nik. It was one of the reasons I just could not understand that story line. Also, GV's Lucky was always so ovary-achingly cute with those kids.

AJ and Courtney started out for the wrong reasons, on AJ's part, but he absolutely genuinely loved her by the end. They could have been really good (and I might not have grown to hate the character so much) if Frons hadn't caught sight of a 10 second interaction between Courtney and Jason and decreed that they were to be the network's new "it couple." Gag.

I think the dirtying everyone up is more about making Sonny look good than Franco. (And, look, it's working on ulkis. First they broke her with Dante's shitty behavior, now they're reeling her in with Sonny's surprisingly non-asshole response to it.) On a side note, I hadn't heard they named the blizzard Jonas, and the first time I saw a mention on here of them breaking into the show for Jonas coverage, my thought was "what the hell did one of the Jonas brothers do that warrants breaking into programming??"

Or he could always mount it on the dashboard of his newest car.

All this dialogue is making me sad for what's happened. I can vividly remember every one of these scenes, the facial expressions and interaction. And now we have the crapfest that is the Dante/Lulu scenes these days.

You just know he went home right after filming and made sure he had a nice clean shelf in his bathroom to put his future Emmy on.

Why would the show ever want someone who isn't Jason?

Misdirection, most likely. I assume we'll either get Liz starting to wonder if she's losing it and doing this stuff without remembering it, or we'll have someone else be reminded of her mental health issues in the past and assume she's breaking down again and doing this. But it's about 99.999999% Jake.

I was thinking the opposite - since there are mixed gender teams, it would be hard to make a "top male" and "top female" team designation. As a two girl team, I'd want to get rid of the two guy teams as much as possible.

Whoever they put Det. Hardon with, can that woman do us all a favor and have him out of his shirt regularly? Work with us here, show.

Jenna and Breanna are so catastrophically dumb. So, you know for certain that John has screwed over two close female friends already. You haven't seen Cara Maria screw over anyone. Last episode, the two of you were ranting and raving about what an unmitigated asshole Vince is (and you were right). So, all of that adds up to "we'll side with John"? How??? Did a producer offer them some kind of bonus to ensure John and Vince lived to douche another day? I'm not getting what their thought process was. Or am I giving them too much credit to say that, between the two of them, they could generate a single thought process? It's just John talked to them most recently, so his was the only conversation they remembered? So disappointed that we didn't get another Johnny Bananas Backpack moment. Vince would have made an excellent second edition. I loved Abe talking about how he'd be close enough to drown John "a little." I'm going to miss his psycho ass. Since they're going back to their bloodlines now, I hope Cara Maria and Jamie take the mission in two weeks so they can happily send John and his mutant asshole cousin into the Pit. Any chance we can get CT and Zach back for one more go at it? ETA: Since we know they'll consider the bloodlines legit Challenge cast members now, I really hope they bring Mike back some time. I think he was my favorite this season. I just hope he gives up the notion of volunteering for elimination matches.

OK, Paige? Is kind of a bitch. So she accepts a proposal she doesn't want. Then she spends a while bitching to her friends (and a camera crew) about how much she doesn't want to marry the guy. Eventually, she blows up at him and acts like it's somehow his fault that she isn't mature enough to either refuse the proposal in the first place or tell him at any time after that she's not ready for that step. And he's a doormat for just taking that and reassuring her that it's all fine. And I laughed and laughed at John's "well, if you want to pursue that, I wouldn't stop you," along with his refusal to "fight for her." I mean, I can get why she wanted him to be mad and all, but that just made it more hilarious. And Bryan. OK. I know it has to suck to be told that you're likely to be unable to continue on in the job you love. I get that. But that's his reality. Even if he can finally convince the WWE's doctors to let him back in the ring, does he really want to risk what could happen to him if he re-injures himself? Brie's trying to help him stay busy so he doesn't obsess over it, but he's kind of being an ass about it to her. If her ideas aren't appealing to him, then come up with some of his own. He can't just spend the rest of his life pouting that he can't wrestle. And he wants to have kids? (Side note: Is he in some mourning period where he refuses to cut his hair or trim his beard until he gets back in the ring? Because it's looking extremely scraggly and unkempt. I know it's his "look," but clean it up a little, dude.) I miss Trinity. *Since it's a new season, I feel like I should add my normal caveat that all comments I make on this show are under the "pretending that what happens on this show is real and not completely fabricated." If I make a comment on the reality of it all, I'd say that the Dolph story line is almost entirely because they can't get John to play ball on their story lines, and Dolph is enough of a famewhore to do whatever they want, so John's just going to play the bemused straight man to whatever antics they write for Nikki.