u/PyroFirefly

Besides giving "partner in crime" vibes, both add potential layers to the other, and their little alliance could be quite interesting in the mid/long run (depending on whether Rosa leaves to push Lake's arc or not during the merge).

Spencer is one of my favourite characters with Benji, but some episodes have shown that he's not really willing to improve his social game, to the point that, after a solid start, he can't contain his big ego anymore. Thankfully, Rosa is a big mouth that isn't afraid to confront people, so she could make Spencer open up a bit about a side of himself that is hiding behind his logical pride and arrogance. Considering many of us have Spencer as endgame material for this season, every nuance that shifts him a bit from just being a gamebot is welcomed in my book.

As for Rosa, being close to Spencer could make her gameplay far more interesting, considering her social game was her biggest strength in DC2 Remake. I don't mind the idea of Rosa being burnt by Riya's betrayal to the point of "corrupting" herself a bit and becoming more ruthless in her approach to the game - similar to how Natalia is starting to become a reflection of DC4 Anastasia. Not to mention that Rosa labelled Spencer as the Devil: the Devil never gives you something without anything in return that benefits himself, or without tempting/corrupting you.

Talking about Spencer and Rosa makes me reflect on how this season has been following a very unique approach with the Favs, albeit a bit hollowed behind a few details: most of the Favourites are somehow confronting their demons and challenging their self-versions. I could name Alec, Ally, and Benji as prime names: the first has to face his stagnancy and motivations to win the money, the second her DC2 and DC3 "versions" throughout the feedback audience, and the third how his DC4 experience affected his self-esteem. Thus, it makes me a bit sad when people are too busy fighting over who's in the right between Ara and Natalia, with details like these that are meant for us fans of the show.

DC4 had an 18-cast, and the merge started in EP14 with 10 characters (EP13 was Rescue Island). The comeback challenge happened in EP16, with 8 players left, returning the number of competitors to 10.

The biggest question marks are:

• Number of merge competitors (typically a bit above half, so 14 maybe?);
• Number of returning competitors (very likely to be 2, probably 1 Fav and 1 Fan);
• When the comeback challenge happens: after how many merge eliminations?
• Is the comeback challenge a pairing one like in DC3 and DC4?

So far, 6 characters are on Rescue Island (Aubrey, Ernesto, Manu, Finn, Anastasia, and Aiden). Ruling out Alec and Evie, we have 22 - 6 = 16 characters left. Maybe 4 eliminations would occur before the comeback challenge? EP10, EP11, EP12, EP13... then EP14 would feature the comeback challenge, but it would be too soon, at least compared to DC4, which had a smaller cast, so I don't know.

If they make it another pair challenge, we should have 11 competitors left with 11 returning picks (but still, DC4 had Lynda and Ted competing without help, while DC3 was perfectly split).

What do you think?

...Instantly, the most epic and most memeable Active Skill in the game.

Since Alec left, Fiore's screentime has mainly revolved around Spencer and Natalia, leaving her "becoming social" deal as an extra. The audience has always considered Fiore as a mastermind capable of being ahead of anyone else. However, does Fiore have what it takes to make it further this time around, despite her reputation?

One thing I noticed from Fiore this season is that she has barely changed at all, and she's gambling a lot on the tensions from other players to go undetected until the merge, where she thinks nobody will target her because she isn't a comp threat. However, that requires people to forget that she's kinda untrustworthy and manipulative... and it's the exact opposite in her interactions with Spencer and Natalia, where you can't tell Fiore is exactly the mastermind behind everything like she was in DC1: Natalia knows that trusting Fiore could backfire on her, and Spencer is keeping an eye on Fiore's actions. If anything, since the season began, Fiore has hardly gotten any control over the game, and she has to rely on other masterminds doing things for her.

Her current situation, where she's still navigating the game with high awareness but without having full control, makes her two biggest weaknesses more apparent (but entertaining): ego and social game. And look at the irony: in that department, she's not kinda different from Spencer!

She fully believes herself to be this big mastermind that nobody can trick, but this time around, she's finding her competition: if Fiore flipped on Natalia, would this be the result of Spencer's manipulation or something that she'd claim to be just his plan? And if Fiore weren't flipping on Natalia, does that mean Fiore is admitting that Natalia is smarter than her?

One funny thing is how Fiore complained about Alec in EP3: "Spencer is as if Alec took the substance", and then she complained about his people skills. However, it's not like Fiore is trying her best to socialise with the rest of the team. Has Fiore actually tried to have conversations with Ally, Benji, Gabby, Lake, Rosa, and Tom? Besides Alec, Natalia, and Spencer, all Fiore had were her comedic moments with Benji in EP4 and her talk with Ren in EP8.

At this point, I start to believe her "becoming a social player" is more of a plot device that benefits Natalia and Spencer's run, like a way to get Fiore closer to Natalia while constantly clashing with Spencer. However, even if I can see Fiore going out mid-merge, I still can't see how this plotline would benefit her game in the merge, as she's not really trying to reach out to others, and I can't see the current Fans wanting to work with her (maybe besides Sam, but I doubt Ara would). All Fiore is doing now is being Natalia's lackey while analysing the Favs' battlelines. However, one of Natalia or Fiore is probably going out BEFORE the merge.

From a narrative point of view, both scenarios can happen: Fiore flipping over Natalia and Natalia throwing Fiore under the bus: Natalia being punished because of her pettiness and Fiore being punished because of her ego. Since her "being a social player" isn't moving her that much from the Fiore we already know, this last scenario still has a chance of happening in EP10 or EP11, especially if they want to avoid the predictable route where a Favourite has been set out for elimination in previous episodes by the narrative (see Alec and Anastasia).

So, is Fiore beating Spencer and Natalia, or will she fail?

...and then, Ren just wanted to create some tarots for Dunia.

Come get your boot if you're liking the current direction of the game!

Even if I absolutely don't get why Spencer has been portrayed as a way bigger asshole than he actually is, I don't think the narrative is making Lake look like your weekly good moral hero. If anything, there's an interesting (albeit, so far, only in potential) dualism between how they're using different shields to hide their lack of emotional control: Lake with her morals, Spencer with his logical attitude. They both take a lot of pride in how they behave, by the way, so they have something in common that could be interesting to see in a heart-to-heart.

At this point, I think the problem lies in Bruno: it's his presence that heated this sort of beef between Spencer and Lake, which hasn't gone anywhere so far and could end up being like Ally VS Jake in DC3, as the risk of their interactions being wasted and even chopped by something like Lake orchestrating Spencer's elimination, or Spencer having had enough of Lake to the point of targeting her, is real.

However, I think there's a chance they're building them up to have a troublesome friendship/conflict in the long run. Lake is corroding herself because her emotions are incompatible with her morals (that infamous comparison about her parents is too exaggerated to come from a perfect girl), and Spencer still has trouble handling his emotions, which results in him being universally despised (even if, sometimes, they're taking that too far). They could actually learn a thing or two from each other.

To see what they could do between Spencer and Lake, asking what they'll do with Rosa and Bruno is also mandatory: is Rosa's biggest role in this season to eliminate Natalia and then pass the torch to Lake and Spencer, after helping them find a common point? Is Bruno's biggest role in this season to blindside Spencer, or is Bruno just a big super fan who can't really play the game?

Also, is Ally's paranoia about the idol and the game leading her to shake things up more between the alliances? Now that Benji is back in the game and wants to bond with Gabby, these two are also the wildcards that can even make Natalia's elimination less predictable in the near future.

These are just some random thoughts I have about what we've seen from the Favs during this episode. Personally, I'm enjoying what they're doing with them since Anastasia left because it feels like we're seeing them more unpredictable. However, what do you think might happen between Spencer and Lake?

Don't get me wrong: I love Aiden, and I enjoyed Evie's comedic moments. But what happened to the whole "Evie got an (imaginary) advantage" plotline?

They've crafted an ironic scenario in which Alec's lie indirectly impacts Aiden's whole game, significantly shaping the dynamics in the Fans team, pushing Ernesto and Manu's eliminations in the process.

But then, once Evie and Aiden started to develop a small friendship, a "We" turned into "I", and so Evie backstabbed Aiden. Afterwards, in this episode, Evie went down like a TDesque character, as if the whole "advantage" thing didn't even matter.

What's kinda strange is that Aiden still has to get a resolution; he didn't crash out by learning that Evie doesn't even have an advantage, and now he won't find it until the Motel/Finale episode (unless he gets to rejoin, which I still believe can happen). It's also worth noting that Aiden and Evie's eliminations were both obvious and rushed. Like, yeah, Aiden's downfall has been hinted at, but the whole reason he went down was like a one-quick-minute motivation to pull it off. And Evie followed right afterwards.

However, while I've found Evie funny in EP9 for how she fails to play the game without getting supported by a veteran (albeit we know Aiden kinda fumbles with his moves), at the end of the day, with how she was eliminated for the same reason she would've been targeted in EP3 hadn't Aiden stepped in, all of this kinda felt... without an actual weight? Like, did they need a way to make the Fans' team worse to prepare the whole Favs plotlines? Did they want to pull out some comedy from this one, or was this supposed to hold more weight in the narrative?

He's lock-in... While still having his goofy side!

And he's attempting to bond with Gabby, noticing Ara's words hurt her.

Yep, the build-up was worth it! Now, Benji is ready for his second portion of his run, and things might get very interesting with his character! He's a total wildcard now.