Cierra has left the Villa due to a personal situation. No further explanation.
There were multiple ways to handle that. There is no winning.
Contra Bachelor Clues, I think this was an entirely honest statement. Yes, she absolutely left due to a personal situation. Does that typically mean something else? Sure, but it is still true, and the whole point of this phrasing is that you don’t highlight the details.
Nor do I think that high a percentage of the audience will go figure out what happened, nor do I think that would quiet things down. I think that most ways of going further would inflame opinions on all sides of the question, including those demanding Nic (and that previously demanded that Austin) also be ejected, but also those who are going to get upset from the other direction. It forces you to keep explaining and justifying all your decisions, and it also would have caused a lot of hateful and potentially dangerous behavior on the outside. They’ve already had to make several statements to try and protect players this season, there have been past really bad incidents after players get home, and these are real people. We have enough of that already.
So I understand this course of action.
Given that, the rest of what we did see is straightforward. We desperately needed to recouple, and we didn’t really have any time or thematic space left for anything else. Nicolandria is the only play left and they covered it well. It’s funny that some people are 100% convinced it is fake and others ship them so hard they might win the show. I definitely think it’s right to lean into that storyline as the silver lining of what happened.
And there were a bunch of really funny skits tonight, which I appreciated, and which is a great thing to encourage. I’d also note that we’ve seen that a 4TRR (for the right reasons) strategy can be very effective with this audience, even if it doesn’t create the best TV. See Jalen, now Pepe and Iris. Trying to force the action for such players is a mistake, I think you instead try to present the person you want America to see, and don’t worry so much about screen time. Of course, producers don’t have to like this, but you have enough action anyway so it’s fine to have some people in the background.
The order of the recoupling was mostly forced to setup the final three and go in increasing suspense order. I would have swapped Huda with Clarke but it is close.
I do think that they overproduced, especially when it came to Amaya’s choice. There was zero dramatic tension and I feel like they tried too hard to pretend otherwise. In general recoupling gets dragged out more than necessary, assuming we had scenes that didn’t make the cut that we could have included.
The job now is to land the plane, to build up four of these six couples for the finale. I think production should be basically fine with whatever voting outcome happens. At this point, if a couple does land in the bottom two on the vote, that means they weren’t essential to the final week. I’d try somewhat to protect Huda, but at 2M followers on Instagram it’s hard to believe she’s in any danger.
I expect Amaya and Bryan to win the 100k, and that they should be bigger favorites than they are given credit for being, but it really is still anyone’s game.
Cierra has left the Villa due to a personal situation. No further explanation.
There were multiple ways to handle that. There is no winning.
Contra Bachelor Clues, I think this was an entirely honest statement. Yes, she absolutely left due to a personal situation. Does that typically mean something else? Sure, but it is still true, and the whole point of this phrasing is that you don’t highlight the details.
Nor do I think that high a percentage of the audience will go figure out what happened, nor do I think that would quiet things down. I think that most ways of going further would inflame opinions on all sides of the question, including those demanding Nic (and that previously demanded that Austin) also be ejected, but also those who are going to get upset from the other direction. It forces you to keep explaining and justifying all your decisions, and it also would have caused a lot of hateful and potentially dangerous behavior on the outside. They’ve already had to make several statements to try and protect players this season, there have been past really bad incidents after players get home, and these are real people. We have enough of that already.
So I understand this course of action.
Given that, the rest of what we did see is straightforward. We desperately needed to recouple, and we didn’t really have any time or thematic space left for anything else. Nicolandria is the only play left and they covered it well. It’s funny that some people are 100% convinced it is fake and others ship them so hard they might win the show. I definitely think it’s right to lean into that storyline as the silver lining of what happened.
And there were a bunch of really funny skits tonight, which I appreciated, and which is a great thing to encourage. I’d also note that we’ve seen that a 4TRR (for the right reasons) strategy can be very effective with this audience, even if it doesn’t create the best TV. See Jalen, now Pepe and Iris. Trying to force the action for such players is a mistake, I think you instead try to present the person you want America to see, and don’t worry so much about screen time. Of course, producers don’t have to like this, but you have enough action anyway so it’s fine to have some people in the background.
The order of the recoupling was mostly forced to setup the final three and go in increasing suspense order. I would have swapped Huda with Clarke but it is close.
I do think that they overproduced, especially when it came to Amaya’s choice. There was zero dramatic tension and I feel like they tried too hard to pretend otherwise. In general recoupling gets dragged out more than necessary, assuming we had scenes that didn’t make the cut that we could have included.
The job now is to land the plane, to build up four of these six couples for the finale. I think production should be basically fine with whatever voting outcome happens. At this point, if a couple does land in the bottom two on the vote, that means they weren’t essential to the final week. I’d try somewhat to protect Huda, but at 2M followers on Instagram it’s hard to believe she’s in any danger.
I expect Amaya and Bryan to win the 100k, and that they should be bigger favorites than they are given credit for being, but it really is still anyone’s game.