Misty79

I agree. I don’t think there would have been any dramatic tension in an apology/explanation scene between Dot and Wayne. Of course he would forgive her, he would clearly forgive her anything. And her behavior — in particular the compartmentalising — was totally understandable given the extreme trauma she’d experienced as Roy’s wife. Any loving partner would forgive withholding that history IMO.

Common advice in creative writing is to cut out anything that could be classified as superfluous. This show feels like it's deliberately 70% superfluous. Long cuts, conversations that go nowhere etc. And yet I'm finding it mildly compelling. It's different, I'll give it that.

I can see her miscarrying or suffering a stillbirth through malnutrition/starvation. Maybe it’s the thing that pushes her over the edge and towards cannibalism.

Jackie’s nihilistic turn made a lot of sense to me, actually. From the very first episode she’s seemed dissatisfied, restless, a little dead inside. Going through the motions with a boyfriend she seemed disinterested in, captain of the soccer team but disinclined to put energy into uniting the others when there was conflict, etc. She just seemed so bored with everything, probably because it all came so easy. Seems like she was past ready for the brighter lights of college but having that ripped away has left her empty. And now she’s lost her social status out there, and she’s jealous of how well Shauna’s coping and her rise in status. I find her an interesting study. She seems capable of genuine kindness (e.g. her scene doing Misty’s makeup) but she has a seriously malicious streak (outing Shauna’s pregnancy, sleeping with Travis).

Danny was my favorite this season, I think. I appreciate how respectful he was of players like Heather and Erika, who had different strengths to his. A very eloquent speaker too. I was happy with the outcome. It was such a relief to see a woman win again. It’s been a dry spell. I am disappointed with the lack of camera time given to Erika pre-merge. She was clearly considered a strategic threat, hence the early target on her back, but we were never really shown any of her pre-merge manoeuvring. This show has a habit of ignoring/minimising the subtle play of women thus inevitably generating the “unworthy winner” talk.

Well that was an underwhelming finale. I think one of the key themes was that rich white people go on vacations expecting (demanding?) transformational experiences and that rarely pans out — ‘wherever you go, there you are’ and all that — and so as viewers we shouldn’t expect character growth/transformation. But even knowing that, I was still frustrated to see everybody basically back where they started at the end. Especially Rachel, who I can relate to a little too hard. Quinn had growth, I guess, but I found him entitled and whiny and his ending was just unbelievable. Some great observational detail in this show but ultimately the highlights for me were the music and Alexandra Daddario’s performance.

I wasn’t expecting it, so I appreciated it. TV rarely surprises me these days. It would have felt a bit anticlimactic to me if they’d just ended with Jeanette doing the TV show, that scene didn’t do much for me. I like that they played with us, made us feel like “oh okay they’re both in the grey zone, their wrongs cancel each other out” but then hit us with Jeanette being a full-on creep. Having said that, after that reveal I’m disappointed to hear there’s a S2, because this is where I’d like the show to end unless they’re going the anthology route.

What a wonderful use of the song “Creep” and one of the best endings to a series I’ve seen in a very long time. Tight writing.

I’m wondering if this email business is so the Survivor producers can vet the responses, check they’re okay with their legal team?

I've just finished the final episode at last too. I'm not sure I've seen a finer depiction of friendship. You're so right paramitch that friendships are their own sort of romance and this show captured that so well, especially in this last season. It's a punch to the gut to let these characters go. I feel a sense of grief I'm not used to about a TV show winding up, like I'm saying goodbye to something or somebody real. Thank you to the writers and actors (and everyone involved) for delivering some of the most realistic characters and friendships I've seen on my television.

I don't think Betty is going to flip to Archie in a hurry, if ever. I think they're going to show us Archie falling a bit for Betty and getting confused in his feelings between the two female leads. Where they take that in the long term may depend on fan reaction.

Yes, I really agree with this too. There's plenty of potential to develop the friendships in the core group more, and that will only help the show going forward to have those dynamics fleshed out. I think one of the weaknesses of this season is that we've seen too little interaction between the core four outside of their couplings. I want to see more B+V and more B+A . For that matter I'd like to see Cheryl brought into interact with the core four on a more regular basis too. I do feel sorry for the Bughead shippers, because although B+J have had all these scenes together they haven't evolved the romance between the two much at all. It's just been angst. That must be disappointing if you're invested in that ship.

Ha, I would sign up for that show! I'm pretty sure I used to fan fiction some of that. Obviously the biggest issue with a B/A hookup at this point is the impact it has on the core friendships, for that reason I can see the argument for bringing in outside love interests rather than initiating the triangle. Having said that I actually do think the B/A actors have chemistry. More than B/J this season IMO. Last season I agree the Bughead thing had some wings but I'm not feeling it at all this season. Unfortunately that's likely a deliberate move by the writers to open the door for B/A. At the end of the day this is a CW show aimed at teens, it was always going to be hard for the writers to resist the siren call of the triangle. Particularly given how canon it is in the comics. I personally don't mind a well done triangle. It feels almost heretical to admit that on here though.

I think so too, and props to Lili Reinhart for half-saving this storyline. I was just reading the AV Club recap for this episode and I think the author identified the main issue with this scene for me - we're used to Betty being a total badass, the show's hero really, so seeing her reduced to playing Sandy to Jughead's Danny was disappointing. Yet I get that it's the sort of thing a teenage girl might do. And I thought the earlier shot of Betty looking in her mirror, trying to mentally prepare, looking for the girl who could strip and do a pole dance was well acted, because what I saw was someone with an enormous amount of self doubt.

My money is one of them being Hal, he's the right age. All season I've thought Hal is the BH. He's a pretty zealous dude after all (see his reaction to Polly and Jason). I liked the end of this episode. I'm ready for Betty and Archie and I hope they go there rather than it being yet another tease. I grew up reading Archie comics and shipping those two so I have a strong underlying bias. It pleases my comic book shipper heart. Beyond the very beginning the Bughead thing has never really appealed. So they're going there with Cheryl having a crush on Josie. Possessive much? My guess is that all blows up really soon and it's a lead in to an eventual Cheryl and Toni hookup, which I'm down for. I agree that the Betty dance scene was really awkward to watch. I think it was meant to be awkward, but still. I actually looked away for most of it!

This cast is pretty awful. It says something that I'm rooting for Lauren at this point, someone who's neither playing that well or a sparkling personality.

I'm done with this season. It's felt tilted in favour of the guys from the get go. I really don't want to watch another season with such an unequal gender balance. I appreciate the social game above all else and we don't get a lot of that with so many beefcakes.

I finally finished season 2 on the weekend. I enjoyed season 1 but found this harder going for some reason. I felt really good about Emma standing the other two up at the end, though I suspect I'm not supposed to. I hope she takes the job and spends most of the next season working out her sexuality properly (with other people!). Jack comes across as so smug. I'm not sure I find it believable that Izzy would be into him, which is a big problem for me. Into Emma maybe, but not Jack. He's just so beige and annoying. As for having a baby. Whoa. Way too soon. They celebrate the idea by getting drunk, high and having wild sex. Yeah they sound like they're in the right mental space to raise kids! Nina and Izzy's friendship is the best thing about the show. The actors have great chemistry.

Very well said. One of the issues I've had recently with Malcolm is that in various interviews I've heard with him (pre-game) he's spoken very negatively of the so-called "witches" from Cambodia. And yet here he is in Fiji trying to establish an all male brolliance to go deep into the game with. I hate that those women were given that label in the first place. Women align and dare to attempt to actually play the game and get smacked with that? That sort of pejorative labelling never happens in reverse. All male alliances tend to be revered in Survivor history, and certainly by Jeff and co.

Of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with him hitting it off with JT. I'm sure that's a dream alliance for many fans. It's just exactly what I did not want to watch. I'm not a fan of alpha male alliances, to be honest I find them deathly dull. Even worse if you listen to that podcast he was apparently attempting to model his run this time on Arras - play it really chilled out and zen and get rid of anyone who was attempting to play the game. So can you imagine - Malcolm, JT, Brad, Caleb sitting around at the end having voted off all the women and strategic players. Maybe that's good TV to you (and fair enough if it is) but not for me. As for Malcolm and his attitude towards stronger women we will have to agree to disagree on that one. I've seen a long standing pattern. He's not anti-female by any stretch (obviously from his Denise alliance), but if a woman is super competitive in the way a guy would be that's something he seems to dislike.

Just listened to Malcolm's exit interview on RHAP and I remain glad he was booted. He was apparently having a bromance for the ages with J.T. ("the minute we got swapped together, like we're holding hands and skipping down the beach in love with each", ha!) and wanted to go into deep into the game with Culpepper, Tony and Caleb. So yeah he was clearly planning an all male ending. He also had it out for Michaela. Dude definitely doesn't like strong women. And he had wanted Varner out. Disaster averted. ;-)

In a millennial sense, I think you can argue it. 5 of the last 6 were male (6 of the last 8 even) including traditional alphas like Ken and Jay. Hannah was a total non entity. Whatever, it was a sausage fest. Which a lot of people like, just not me. I'm certainly not keen on it twice in a row. No Malcolm/JT alliance increases the chance of a diverse final group IMO.

RHAP. I recall a recap he did with Rob a while back where he was scathing about her game. I think he's not a fan of strong female alliances for some reason. I never had much of an opinion either way about him until I listened to that particular podcast, he came across as very chauvenistic and arrogant, which surprised me. Also via RHAP (in some of the build up material) it was mentioned that Malcolm was likely to target Ciera early on due to her association with Kelley. And he did, as it turned out. I'm just glad we didn't end up with a dull JT/Malcolm bromance to the end, Fishbach style. I 100% get that there are many who would love that, but it's not my cup of tea.

I must be the only one on the planet who dislikes Malcolm. He's a solid player but I find him smug and something of a closet misogynist. His Kelley Wentworth hate is well known. I think his departure likely saves us back to back seasons of alpha males dominating the final six.

Sandra really is a unicorn. This season should have been called Survivor: Biggest Egos rather than Game Changers (seriously, how many of these people actually changed the game?).