#sophia out here like pleeeease take this man off my hands i'm soooo gay guys so gay

[kinetic-elaboration]

February 24: The Circle S3

Very tough day at work. Spent most of it doing search committee stuff (hurts my brain) and then we had a bit of an emergency in the afternoon. So I was wiped out intellectually and emotionally by the time I got home. And it’s dark and rainy and blah out.

So I spent the evening in bed, resting, and finally watching the last eps of The Circle S3. I’ve been binging it but took a little break because even though the ends of their seasons are better than most reality shows, they’re still comparatively boring: everyone suddenly being nice to each other, long sections devoted to people talking about their families and their feelings, drawn out countdowns to the winners, etc. But, it was the only thing I was really up for engaging with today.

Thoughts on this season’s players:

Ava and Chanel: I found them pretty annoying! They grew on me a little but I didn’t miss them when they were gone.

Michelle: I loved Michelle and I was so upset not only by her blocking but by the whole cloning story line that I kind of wanted to quit watching because I hated everyone involved in it on principle. Like I felt that as a twist or a conceit, the cloning concept was too far--gaslighting a person about her own identity is a mild form of psychological torture, and totally unwarranted. Also everyone else proved they had either no brains, or no spines, when they kicked her out: either they didn’t know (even though they should have! the wedding dress stories? CLEMSON?) or they knew better but they followed the herd (Daniel). It was interesting to me that people gravitated toward the fake Michelle and said it was because she seemed more “real” when what they were actually responding to was her fakeness. She conformed more to their idea of the person based on her profile. They WANTED to believe in her. They wanted to believe “my grandma made me this dress” over “I was a single parent marrying a single parent and I bought this ugly-ass dress from the Goodwill because it was all I could afford.” The second is more detailed, and it’s way too bold for a fake, but it doesn’t fit the nice little ‘southern mama’ box and so they rejected it. So “realness” really just becomes a stand in word for “quality I like, quality I feel comfortable with.” All of it was really disheartening honestly. Anyway, Michelle had way more to offer than she was allowed to reveal and I am so bitter that she got the boot so unfairly and so quickly.

Calvin: Smooth like a shark. I liked Calvin a lot and I legit thought his very obvious crush on Kai was adorable. Like when they met and he was trying SO HARD to keep it cool. And I mean it was definitely mutual (her cute little clicky nails at the finale!) and I hope they hung out post-Circle.

Ruksana: A little mild. Her alliances were interesting and I liked her as a person but tbh I wish we’d seen more of the fire she displayed when she went to see Daniel after being blocked. She went OFF. I want to see more of that!

Jackson: Could not believe Jackson lasted as long as “he” did lol. Boring. Usually I find the personas behind the catfish more interesting than the catfish but Rachel was pretty boring too. Most interesting thing she ever said was in her intro, the bit about her type being men with “face tattoos” and “dad bods.” I feel like that’s... a really small demographic?

Daniel: Ngl, when Daniel was first introduced, I hated him, and I was hoping he would swiftly be gone. He was just a little too over the top for me, a little too childish. But after the first ep or so I came to like him more and more and ultimately I think he was one of my favorites for the season. He actually wasn’t a bad strategist ultimately but he took too long to really play the game (dude, you can’t say ‘now I’ll show my strategic side’ for the first time 2/3 of the way through the game?) and he built his alliances too much on the concept of an alliance and not enough on actual friendships. Like, I think James is just not the alpha he thought he was, versus Nick, and he definitely got PLAYED in the Daniel-blocking. But it’s also true that he didn’t really fight to save Daniel because he only cared about him through an alliance. He had more of a real friendship with a member of the other team! Or, maybe, his real mistake was in allying himself with Kai, since all of her friends fell down like dominoes in a row lmao. At any rate, I wish we’d kept Daniel and lost James or even Ashley because the show was less interesting without him.

Oh also eta: he had the BEST outro message I’ve seen on the show yet. It didn’t have the effect I (or probably he) was hoping it would have but he threw some good shade and he actually had the balls to lie! Good on him.

Jacki: I don’t know why they introduced players this late honestly. This season clearly did a better job of spacing out intros, using fake players, and front-ending their new arrivals, so that even people outside the ‘Miranda spot’ (Isabella/Sophia in this instance) had a chance at the final. But Jacki came in waaaaaay too late. I knew immediately she’d be cut when she was; there wasn’t even suspense around it. First, Nick was obviously going to snow James yet again, but more importantly, there’s basically no scenario where someone coming in that late isn’t going to be immediately sacrificed for having a ‘weaker’ connection. And all of this is a SHAME because Jacki is beautiful and I love her. I really don’t have strong opinions on her as a player because she barely got a chance to play (well--I actually do think she was a little too credulous, and I found the ‘evenly divided tribes fighting over her’ to be a little...dumb) but I liked looking at her, which is shallow, but true. Mostly it just seemed unfair to use her as nothing else but a drama pawn. The only difference between her and Vince is that she’s a real person who really thought she could win 100k.

Vince: Obviously the real MVP.

The finalists:

Nick: Look, every single person comes into the Circle and declares they’re going to win (lol you’re not though?) and specifically that they will win by pretending to be harmless and then lying, conniving, back stabbing, and drama-rama-ing their way to the top, but no one actually does this because they all wimp out and make real friends. But Nick said he was going to be brutally strategic and then he WAS and honestly--good for him. He absolutely manipulated people, he lied, he formed strategic alliances, he kept some promises and hid that he had broken others, and he played James like an absolute fiddle TWICE. Yeah, he had Vince’s help, but he still played an exceptional game. Nick isn’t usually the type of player I like but honestly his game was SO good that I had to respect it. The only other player I think was at all similar was Maxime--and he was able to hide a lot of his strategizing through Romain. A lot of strategy players get kicked out early because people see the strategy and recoil from it. Maxime and Nick are the rare ones who make it to the end--but neither of them made it past 5th place.

Nick was my brain-favorite, honestly. If I really thought of The Circle as a game and that the best PLAYER should thus win the GAME, that the prize money was a reward for strategy itself, then the rightful winner was Nick. Plus, he entertained me and, on top of that, he honestly didn’t seem like a bad guy either. Less sentimental about making friends--but his Achilles heel was his horniness/complete lack of gaydar, and so he gained some sympathy for being the screwed over party in a catfish relationship.

Also he reminds me of someone, like, physically, his face looks familiar, but I cannot figure out who it is??? That really bugs me.

Isabella/Sophia: Oh, my adorable little lesbian. I loved her from the moment she announced just how gay she was. Her attempts at taking down Queen Kai were not her most shining ones, but she made up for a lot of that by admitting later it was just because she wanted to be friends so bad and felt snubbed. Poor, jealous Sophia. She obviously had a bit of a girl crush--I don’t mean that in a gay way, but in a, like, non-romantic/non-sexual adoration of a woman you admire way. She also got points with me for coming in after Michelle was eliminated, thus remaining untainted by that whole mess. And I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed every time she’d flirt with Nick because her tone of voice dictating her messages was so far removed from the content of the messages. Adorable. She was my guilty-pleasure fave. I felt like she was always hanging on by a bit of a thread and I didn’t ever think she’d win, but I had the softest spot in my heart for her. (Also Rucksana’s face in the finale...lmao this was the biggest surprise to her?) (Also also...too many queer players were catfishing. What kind of alliance could we have had between Sophia, Matthew, Daniel, and ally James?)

Kai: You know what’s hilarious about Kai, as a player? She was strategic (CCCF!), but she was also pretty genuinely just a kind person who gave people the benefit of the doubt, had pleasant conversations with them, showed her interest in them, and developed friendships. And she became increasingly genuine and decreasingly strategic as time went on. But because of her early popularity and her number of friendships, she was seen as not only a big threat, but such a big threat that she couldn’t even be taken out! Like guys what do you think will happen if you block her? Her ghost will come back to haunt you? I mean maybe but like probably under a different name lol. So instead people went for her closest friends one by one: Calvin, Ruksana, Daniel. If James weren’t consistently an influencer he probably would have gone next. So ironically, being friends with the ‘biggest threat.’ ‘most powerful’ player was essentially the kiss of death. In some ways she reminded me of Elea--a person so legitimately sweet that people assumed her sweetness itself a tactic. Kai was my heart-favorite. By all the standards I usually use to judge Players--not their ability to play the game, but their human qualities, their warmth, their good-heartedness--she was the MVP and deserved the crown. It hurt more than I expected seeing Nick in 5th, and I probably should have suspected from that that Kai would be 4th--but it hurt even more to see her there. Everyone thought those two would be at the top so they rated them lower to keep them from winning, and thus, they sunk to the bottom.

James: I wanted to like James more than I did. Idk... maybe it was that I felt that he was helping to knock out players I liked more, or maybe it’s because he talked a big game about being the alpha or w/e but then let himself get efficiently stomped on by Nick (twice!!), or maybe it’s just a personalities-not-gelling thing but I never really... got James. I appreciate that he was able to make quick, effective decisions early on that got him to the finale even though he was such a late edition. I also appreciate his reactions to Vince. And, even if he missed Matthew/Ashley, he was still the best catfish hunter that the game has ever seen. Bonus points: picking Daniel up and rocking him like a baby in the finale. I guess that’s one way to do an apology--which he SURELY DID owe him. Again, I feel bad for disliking him without a reason but I think he’s the most disappointing winner, and I’m kind of bummed the game shook out that way.

Matthew/Ashley: Sort of shocked he made it to the finale tbh. I didn’t have anything against Ashley, but toward the middle of the game, I sensed maybe his time had come? Like most catfish, his real self was so much more endearing than the profile. I’d often kind of forget what Ashley’s personality was supposed to be because I was so caught up in Matthew. Ultimately, I really do think he was a sweetheart. Everyone’s reactions to his reveal were pretty hilarious though--my favorites being Rucksana’s “Charlie’s Angels my ass!” and James straight up forgetting he was sitting next to “Ashley” on the couch. Also, I got a big kick out of Matthew’s crush on “Daddy Nick” and, I know I shouldn’t, but I found it funny when he just magically turned lesbian Ashley into bisexual Ashley specifically so he--a gay man--could flirt with a straight man. Stuff like that is why I watch the show. I hope real Ashley wasn’t too mad about that lol.

Anyway, it was a good season.. Nothing beats S1 though and I think France is my second fave. I’ll see how well I remember it in the future. (Will it disappear from my brain like S2?) I hope Calvin and Kai got to “see what’s happening” and I hope Nick and “Jackson” hook up, even though Nick doesn’t have a face tattoo OR a dad bod, because Jackson seems into it, and he’s already been burned by one gay gentleman and one gay lady and I think the dude needs to catch a romantic break.