They went with option two, except they didn’t differentiate between bombshells and original islanders. Everyone wrote down their choice. And then they had the saves.
Having seen it play out, the producers were clearly right not to make the distinction. And I think this was clearly the correct way to do the recoupling once you bring everyone back from Casa Amor, and you’ve already reintroduced Nic and Taylor.
I had two worries at the time.
You did not want desperado pairings between bombshells.
You wanted to tempt the OGs to switch, so you de-risk the bombshell route. In particular, you want to let the OGs cross bombshells, choose someone unexpected.
Indeed, the reason I like this approach of bringing everyone back is that it creates pressure to not revert. The bombshell choice is safe, trying to reunite could get you in big trouble, and you presumably want to lean into this.
I needn’t have worried. No one dared. My guess is the producers locked everyone in early to avoid the risk that people would talk or signal, or warned them not to try anything, or at least banned any attempts at communication, which makes it prohibitively unlikely to work. You almost have to. But even without that, it either didn’t occur to anyone, or everyone chose not to look too 4TWR and desperate.
But I mean, my lord, if I’m Elan and I see how Cierra reacted to Nic, and I haven’t been explicitly told I can’t do it? I am 100% following up ‘no shot’ with standing up and saying ‘all right, anyone else want to explore a new connection?’ Just straight up. The pick just got made in front of you, it’s no shame to admit it, and they are the ones who opened the ‘show our hand to everyone’ door. Hell, for all we know he did say it, the producers said ‘don’t you dare’ and cut it out of the edit.
Never assume you know all the actual rules of the game. Certainly there were various communication bans in place throughout.
What about saving two people, which presumably was a decision made once they saw the results? The cast is a little big, but if you’re fine with that, then yes, I concur, you do want Olandria around for movie night and to see how she otherwise reacts, and you do want some singles. And I loved the way they had that choice get made, since it gives the new bombshells at least some chance.
I mostly liked the execution. There were three issues.
The speeches were in many cases dumb, because the answer to ‘why did you choose [X]?’ was usually ‘to stay in the game,’ but you can think of this as ‘why did you choose to pursue them in general’ and as serving several purposes: Giving everyone a chance to play and set up their couple, letting everyone tell their story, and introducing new people to everyone involved. Some of the speeches mattered, you don’t want to not give everyone a chance, so I think it is fine.
In general the whole thing was way too long and we could have sped it up in various places. Here I strongly agree that things are out of hand. It’s fine to linger on shots in some places, but they could have given us a lot more credit for realizing which decisions were inevitable.
The way it played out and was edited, there was very little uncertainty. Ace, Chelley and also Cierra and Nic all showed fully their hands. Not only did we not have the tension, they then played it like we did have it. The actual surprise prior to Taylor was TJ and Iris dared to match and they didn’t edit to make anyone care.
The big surprise was of course at the end, with Taylor choosing Clarke. The music gave it away if you pay attention, but I think this is fine, that too is the reveal. Taylor doing this is an obviously gigantic error from a gameplay and career standpoint, so hats off to Clarke, and also hats off to the producers for getting maximum value out of this by having Olandria right there the whole time and realizing they didn’t need any more time in Casa Amor. Presumably they knew Taylor was still going to be, as Huda called it, this easy to flip.
The problem is, the producers paid a predictably heavy price in public perception and trust to set up Nic and Olandria, and didn’t get much else out of the whole premise. They had various ways to milk this situation a lot more, and they did not go for them. Essentially all we have left is a movie night showing of that Soul Ties kiss?
Overall, yes, I do think you have to judge the experiment a failure. But I do think it was reasonable to try it, I do think you want to keep everyone on their toes, and I do think doing something similar with Casa Amor in the future again is not crazy if the right circumstances happen. This is a game and a sport, but as the producers you need to retain flexibility and keep the players somewhat guessing, and to have tools in your pocket if players are being too exploitative or boring in a way that is not good TV.
Episode 22 Update
They went with option two, except they didn’t differentiate between bombshells and original islanders. Everyone wrote down their choice. And then they had the saves.
Having seen it play out, the producers were clearly right not to make the distinction. And I think this was clearly the correct way to do the recoupling once you bring everyone back from Casa Amor, and you’ve already reintroduced Nic and Taylor.
I had two worries at the time.
You did not want desperado pairings between bombshells.
You wanted to tempt the OGs to switch, so you de-risk the bombshell route. In particular, you want to let the OGs cross bombshells, choose someone unexpected.
Indeed, the reason I like this approach of bringing everyone back is that it creates pressure to not revert. The bombshell choice is safe, trying to reunite could get you in big trouble, and you presumably want to lean into this.
I needn’t have worried. No one dared. My guess is the producers locked everyone in early to avoid the risk that people would talk or signal, or warned them not to try anything, or at least banned any attempts at communication, which makes it prohibitively unlikely to work. You almost have to. But even without that, it either didn’t occur to anyone, or everyone chose not to look too 4TWR and desperate.
But I mean, my lord, if I’m Elan and I see how Cierra reacted to Nic, and I haven’t been explicitly told I can’t do it? I am 100% following up ‘no shot’ with standing up and saying ‘all right, anyone else want to explore a new connection?’ Just straight up. The pick just got made in front of you, it’s no shame to admit it, and they are the ones who opened the ‘show our hand to everyone’ door. Hell, for all we know he did say it, the producers said ‘don’t you dare’ and cut it out of the edit.
Never assume you know all the actual rules of the game. Certainly there were various communication bans in place throughout.
What about saving two people, which presumably was a decision made once they saw the results? The cast is a little big, but if you’re fine with that, then yes, I concur, you do want Olandria around for movie night and to see how she otherwise reacts, and you do want some singles. And I loved the way they had that choice get made, since it gives the new bombshells at least some chance.
I mostly liked the execution. There were three issues.
The speeches were in many cases dumb, because the answer to ‘why did you choose [X]?’ was usually ‘to stay in the game,’ but you can think of this as ‘why did you choose to pursue them in general’ and as serving several purposes: Giving everyone a chance to play and set up their couple, letting everyone tell their story, and introducing new people to everyone involved. Some of the speeches mattered, you don’t want to not give everyone a chance, so I think it is fine.
In general the whole thing was way too long and we could have sped it up in various places. Here I strongly agree that things are out of hand. It’s fine to linger on shots in some places, but they could have given us a lot more credit for realizing which decisions were inevitable.
The way it played out and was edited, there was very little uncertainty. Ace, Chelley and also Cierra and Nic all showed fully their hands. Not only did we not have the tension, they then played it like we did have it. The actual surprise prior to Taylor was TJ and Iris dared to match and they didn’t edit to make anyone care.
The big surprise was of course at the end, with Taylor choosing Clarke. The music gave it away if you pay attention, but I think this is fine, that too is the reveal. Taylor doing this is an obviously gigantic error from a gameplay and career standpoint, so hats off to Clarke, and also hats off to the producers for getting maximum value out of this by having Olandria right there the whole time and realizing they didn’t need any more time in Casa Amor. Presumably they knew Taylor was still going to be, as Huda called it, this easy to flip.
The problem is, the producers paid a predictably heavy price in public perception and trust to set up Nic and Olandria, and didn’t get much else out of the whole premise. They had various ways to milk this situation a lot more, and they did not go for them. Essentially all we have left is a movie night showing of that Soul Ties kiss?
Overall, yes, I do think you have to judge the experiment a failure. But I do think it was reasonable to try it, I do think you want to keep everyone on their toes, and I do think doing something similar with Casa Amor in the future again is not crazy if the right circumstances happen. This is a game and a sport, but as the producers you need to retain flexibility and keep the players somewhat guessing, and to have tools in your pocket if players are being too exploitative or boring in a way that is not good TV.