From what I remember reading, there were three specials filmed last season: women’s championship, family ninja warrior, and couples ninja warrior. As EllisDee mentioned, the women’s one aired earlier this month, so I bet this weekend will be the family and couples editions.
The second Women’s Championship is concluded, and you’ll be happy to know that it was every bit as exciting, meaningful, and non-irritating as the first one! 
All right, serious talk. I was watching for exactly three things: Who’s toast, who’s going to be toast, and who’s going to replace them.
#1 was settled in very short order as Michelle Warnky Burma survived all of one obstacle before splashing. As much as I admired her first quallies triumph all those years ago, I never considered her a truly elite competitor. She’s never had the crushing power of Jessie Graff, the iron determination of Meagan Martin, or the icy coolness and consummate course sense of Jesse Labreck. Now age has hit her hard, and with the team events dead, she has absolutely nowhere to go. However her career ends, it’s going to be tough.
#2 belongs to Tiana Webberley, or “Tdium” as I not-so-affectionately call her. She can still rock hot pants like nobody’s business, but her physical abilities have regressed. The clearest indicator was going out on Warped Wall, an obstacle she used to handle with little trouble.
As for #3, well, that’s going to take some time, but there are two very intriguing candidates in Casey Rothschild and Megan Rowe. Rothschild is a track star and showed excellent footspeed in the first round. Unfortunately she’s not an upper-body maestro, as she displayed by completely mishandling Salmon Ladder and falling out of the running. In an armocentric contest like this, that could relegate her to permanent second-tier status. We’ll see if it does. Megan Rowe, on the other hand, was a phenom, powering through 10 obstacles with seeming ease and actually making the final. Even though she made some rookie mistakes and never seriously challenged Meagan Martin, it was a thoroughly impressive first outing. Don’t be surprised if she leads the wave of the future.
Oh, and you’ll never guess who Martin’s opponent was in the final! 
Getting a serious Warriors-Cavs vibe here. At least Clubhouse won this time (and without any bizarre lucky flukes in the previous rounds). Now that NvN appears to be permanently deep-sixed, this is now pretty much her only chance to prove who the real queen of specialty ninja events is. Good on her. 
And tonight was the All-Star thingamaheezah. (Unusual to kick off the season with two special events, but I suppose that’s just the way things are now.)
All I really got to add from last year’s event is that apparently NBC, having successfully achieved homogeneity with their other contest-style reality shows, are now trying to make like all their other reality shows. Hence the cornball personal wagers, ribbing that you desperately hope really is playful, and lots of outright bizarre moments like Nick Hanson putting on a Santa costume in fricking May. Along with all the bright flashing colors, treacly puff pieces, and near-constant shouting, of course. Not a fun show to watch, but if you have a lot of stamina you can pick out some fun moments.
The springy bar circle-chase thing was pretty thrilling, and I definitely hope it returns. RJ Roman did what could be considered dirty play, but I’m sure it’ll be properly addressed (off camera, completely in secret, and never publicized, per usual). The zigzagging jump climb was a straightforward contest. If you wanted to see a few young faces from ANWJ again, here’s your chance. Then the goofy slide dive, which took flipping forever, but at least Albatross finally got his medal after three second places (gods, that must’ve been torture). And finally Striding Steps, where we learned that Chris Digangi and Clubhouse are in for a rocky marriage and Michelle Warnky Burma really needs to hang it up.
Well, that’s that. Season proper starts next Monday.
No kidding. If they’d devoted 1/3 the time to it and added in two of the kind of thing they used to do… super high warped wall or super high salmon ladder, the show would have been three times as good. One goofy exhibition: fine. One goofy exhibition which is the centerpiece of the whole show: less fine.
Well, the first episode of the new season is in the books and all I got to report is…I got nothing to report. It’s literally exactly the same as it was the previous season. Same sappy leitmotifs, same screaming into the camera, same glurgy profiles, same crowd-egging, same you-got-this-es, same annoying nicknames. I was going to say that because there are so many quality contestants now, NBC can make it wall-to-wall Acceptability, or that the course is so difficult that finishing means absolutely nothing, or that Split Decision is a mountain range of sound and fury signifying jumping jack squat…except I realized that I already did. Every syllable of it. So mission accomplished for NBC, I suppose, leaving aside whether they should’ve had a “mission” to begin with.
I would like to emphasize just how little this resembles any kind of competition, even by reality show standards. It honestly comes across more like a publicity or promotional video for a reality show. The tiny sampling…even tinier now given how long the runs take…of carefully-picked actors (and make no mistake, the word “casting” wasn’t chosen frivolously) on-screen bears no resemblance to the strange list of actually-made-it names at the end of the show. Furthermore, no matter how stupid things get in the early stage, the one rule you can count on is that when it’s down to the real contestants, every performance gets shown. Sure, it’ll cut to a goddam judge or a goddam peanut gallerist every five goddam seconds, but at minimum you’ll get to hear the performance in full. Not so for ANW, which doesn’t show everyone until literally the very end. Which means that if you don’t have an Acceptable Story and aren’t super-exuberant, too bad. I honestly doubt someone like Brian Arnold or the Wilczewski brothers would be able to get a second of airtime today.
So all there is to really do is go through the show and pick out stuff you like. Or, failing that, stuff that’s noteworthy. Or, failing that, stuff that you think other people would like to talk about it. Or, failing that, stuff to ogle. I’ll just give my list and let you make the call:
0:01 Jessie Graff, who we’ll see later, is coming back from a serious injury. Wow, I sure hope that doesn’t hurt her movie career.
0:02 It’s five nights in one city, then four in another city, then Vegas. As the Covid pandemic is over in the inevitable “officially stop caring” stage, there doesn’t seem to any point of small-balling except to save costs. That NBC feels the need to save costs on a show that pays out about two hundred grand a year is a troubling sign.
0:04 David “Enabler” Wright.
0:14 Jeff Loftus and his “Loony Bunch”, which are much more worthy of attention than the roughly 600,000 other loonies, weirdos, and crazies we’ve had on this show. 
0:24 Friendly reminder that bringing your own microphone to scream into is not any more tolerable than using the one on the camera. 
0:25 Christopher “Wide Load” Harding Jones. He got the Acceptable Story and sappy leitmotif, definitely marking him as someone to watch in a blink-and-you-missed-it waiweewuwwawei in semis.
0:48 Eric Middleton. 
Followed by some geezer, which is a completely new idea and will not crash and burn in half a minute. 
0:59 James “The Beast” McGrath. Ooh, a comeback trail! That’s always inspiring! And a romance! That’s sometimes tolerable!
1:34 Vance “Jackpot” Walker picks up right where he…
** SPLOOOOSHH **
Oh my. 
That means that unless he claims the lance…and there will be a lot of stiff competition for it…this will mark the first year and event that where he takes home nothing. Comparisons to the Las Vegas Golden Knights growing more ominous by the day.
1:44 Jordan Carr. [checks notes] ANWJ2, was on track to dominate Group C, make it to the final day, and win money (in inverse order of importance) when she crashed to oblivion on Block Run, of all things. Here we see a clip of ANWJ3 where she hits the water near the end of the course…and…NBC, guys, if you can’t be bothered to provide any context, maybe make the season available on free TV so we can get it ourselves? Anyway, strong girl, finished, top female competitor, one to watch, thrall of Flip “David” Rodriguez for some reason.
I thought he went far enough fast enough to advance to city finals.
Or am I misunderstanding you? I think I am. Has he won money on every season he did on ANWJ show plus $10k on the mega wall last year? And so now the only way he can win any money this season is to be the last person standing? If so, gotcha.
Uh, yeah. “Lance” = Last Ninja Standing/LaNS. Went down on #5 so he didn’t get a crack at the Mega Wall. Finished 18th overall of 30; will be in semis but it’s a big uphill climb from here.
A little something to chew on as you go over this week’s offering. I mentioned something in the last Dancing With The Stars thread how the move to streaming-only may have been an effort to get an audience more amenable to the show the producers wanted. I’m feeling kind of the same way about ANWJ. See, you’ve no doubt notice the big sea change over the past few years to take the emphasis completely off of the actual competition in favor of established narratives. I mean, look at the recent all-star event (if you can ); the medals were practically an afterthought. Sport bad, scream-hug-chant good; that’s just how it is at NBC. The problem is that the head-to-head competitions are a much different beast. Every match is shown (even for the ones that get 3WA treatment, we get to see something), every matchup, every competitor. Furthermore, even the weakest, most inept runners (and there have been plenty) get a minimum of two matches, no exceptions. This is completely at odds with the smiles-and-hugs new order. So the obstacles are going to be more limited; don’t want another debacle at Little Dipper. There are going to be far fewer rookies and wannabes and far more established names, who will provide a good contest and not screw up. There’s going to be lots of “They BOTH hit the buzzer!” booshwah. The product as a whole is going to be more contrived, more confined, more structured, more…plastic. There’s a good chance mainstream audiences aren’t going to go for it, so NBC wants a more…accepting viewership, the kind that wouldn’t mind paying to see suspiciously adept child jocks run a course and get put on pretty much continuously.
As good a business move it is, however, it sadly does not prepare these young athletes for the unforgiving grind of the regular contest, which was put into stark relief tonight.
0:02 The opening cannon fodder, who’s Totally Ripped and has some armed forces thing so we should Thank Him For His Service, plus he Screams A Lot and Makes A Huge Show of Crippling Indecisiveness at Split Decision. It’s important for NBC to bunch the cliches up so nobody thinks to turn them into a drinking game, which the network is against.
0:05 A Nerd Who Is Ripped Which You Totally Would Not Expect From A Nerd Except For All The Ripped Nerds This Show Has Already Had. (And of course, obligatory name drop of one of the most offensive movies ever. 
)
0:12 Mary Leighton, whose thing is blathering into a microphone, which is definitely something this show needs more of. Hey, remember when referring to oneself in the third person was considered a bad thing?
0:24 He should’ve run the course completely blasted just to say that he did it. I’m dead serious. And a glimpse of Sophia Lavallee, who had that outstanding run at ANWJ2. She’s beautiful and had a really good run, for which I’m praying like hell she doesn’t end up like Taylor Amann.
0:36 Okay, here’s another philosophical question. If you went out at Split Decision last year, a place where making the “wrong” choice is apparently supposed to drive you to damn suicide, and you’re there again and the obstacle you didn’t choose is back, do you 1. Don’t chose it, so when you fail on the other again Eyes paints you as a hardheaded moron who can’t breathe without written instructions, or 2. Choose it, so when you fail on it Eyes paints you as a hopeless pathetic doomed schmuck who should just lie in the sofa all night? Take as much time as you need.
And then the “Doctor Ninja” oh gods they really are pretending Noah Kaufman didn’t exist travesty.
0:40 Sandy Zimmerman. I’m kinda with Primetimer on flogging the whole “first mother ever” thing, but the thing you have to understand is that there are very few milestones left to conquer, so they have to run the old ones into the ground.
(How could athletes who make next to nothing afford to rebuild her house? As always, ANW misses the real story.)
0:49 Man, Bodge spent incredibly little time flogging that Michael Buffer knockoff bit. A few years ago he would’ve been at it until he’d blown out five speakers. Did I mention that how blazingly fast this season’s been going?
0:50 Steve Donnelly big daddy oh did we already forget blah blah blah I’m gonna skip these from now on because I don’t have all week.
1:00 Jay “Ooh” Lewis. Unnoteworthy effort, but I bring him up because the announcers said “Jay Lache” roughly 900,000,000 times during the all-star event, and I am emphatically announcing that I will never, ever use anything with n “a”, “l”, or “sh” sound when saying his name. That left just that one vowel sound, so there it is.
And Josiah Pippel, an ANWJ stalwart who kicked butt tonight.
1:05 They need to bring back the swimsuit/leotard contestants. I’m dead serious.
1:09 Home state whatever. I’m pretty sure that’s the first contestant who got the #2 item on Carnival.
1:13 And speaking of blathering into a microphone… Here’s yet another random nobody who does 1grossly overrated poetry recitation and expects to get paid for it. No points for guessing his nickname.
1:21 Uh oh, an actual good one! And Albatross is on deck! Time to start pretending to give a crap about times!
1:44 Jessie Graff. Three serious injuries in the past year. Out on Split Decision 
She’s too old for this. It becomes more painfully obvious every year. She’s 38, for crying out loud. Unfortunately with all the times they’ve trumpeted Age Being Just A Number That Doesn’t Matter, no one’s going to actually admit this, meaning the slow decline will continue for a long time yet. Cruelty.
Also, given that superhero movies are completely mainstream now, can we offer some damn alternatives to Wonder Woman? I hear Captain Marvel did pretty good.
1:56 Joe Moravsky picks up another payday. No one deserves it more than him. If he gets the next four damn lances, fine by me.
No women’s bracket because five women finished in the top 30. Impressive.
Does anyone know why this show is so damn vanilla now? That seriously is a bigger turnoff for me than all the camera screaming and chanting. No weird costumes, no weird profiles, heck, no Acceptable Stories that don’t fall into a very narrow spectrum of innocent and non-icky (no recovering drug addicts or reformed gang members need apply). “Crazy” antics that are about as wild as a Thanksgiving Day parade. No mention at all of race; the fact that it has still never comes up regarding Meagan Martin is bizarre. And of course, even a whiff of the LGBTQ spectrum. If you’re not cishet and either married, about to get married, or thinking of getting married (and you’d damn well better pop the question in front of the entire crowd. 
), buzz off. I don’t remember who it was, but it was blindingly obvious that she was a lesbian, and no one was allowed to even suggest it for the entire show.
And yes, I’ll say it. If you’re a lawyer, nurse, custodian, plumber, accountant, surveyor, governor, or IT specialist, you can dress modestly. If you’re a cheerleader, I want to see legs, dammit!
Oh, and another thing! Why not just not put on a goddam shirt in the first place, you useless time-wasting…mumble grumble don’t even have a fricking lawn…
0:03 Oh, the gym burned down, such a tragedy, but the community came together etc. Question: Who the hell builds a gym out of wood? I mean, it’s a place where lots of people run and jump and swing through the air, and you have to expect a certain number of accidents…wouldn’t it just be natural to make it out of something durable? Are bricks just that expensive?
0:11 I…I’m sorry, I try to be open-minded, but I just cannot wrap my head around the concept of “professional Etch A Sketch artist”.
0:23 Addy Herman. Refer to post #721. She was good tonight. Nice to know that Kaden Lebsack being around doesn’t bother her.
0:46 Ethan “Lemming” Swanson. Yeesh. Being forced to endlessly do the same moronic thing at the start of the run is bad enough, but now he has to backflip at the end too? Yeah, I bet he’s going to be thrilled to have that burden when he’s in his 40’s.
And a glimpse of Jamie Rahn, who’s still got it despite the fact that the wedding was a gazillion weeks ago and the keeyoot widdle baby isn’t born yet. That has to be absolutely killing NBC. 
0:49 “Only child”. Another thing you will never never ever hear on this show because there’s absolutely nothing interesting about them.
0:58 Kaden Lebsack. 
Not much to say about his almost laughable crushing dominance of the course. Given that he’s already a superstar and is going to be a fixture here for years to come, I will do my part in providing a substitute nickname right now. “Hundred”. As in 100K-den. And there are almost certainly more such prizes for him in the future. Rock and roll, champ.
1:08 Andrew East, the ++HUSBAND!!!++ of Shawn Johnson, who’s in the booth right now. She’s here to cheer on her ++HUSBAND!!!++ and watch her ++HUSBAND!!!++ waste time taking his shirt off, whereupon her ++HUSBAND!!!++…sweet Chang’e, when did this episode become a horrible Cathy cartoon?
1:15 A couple of nobodies manage to both grossly overcelebrate a completely meaningless accomplishment and, at the same time, take a massive steaming dump on participation trophies, which is exactly what I wanted from my good clean wholesome family show. Here, allow me to rate your little pissing contest on a scale of 1 to 10!
1:31 KC Boutiette, a…count with me!..1. 51 year old 2. former Olympian 3. with three children, 4. one of whom has a rare disease! Oh, wait, no, sorry, you need at least five children to get full credit. But a trisemifecta is still pretty impressive!
1:41 Andrew “Actually Managed To Make Bodge Shut Up For A Few Seconds” Stoinski. I’m not kidding when I say that is the greatest accomplishment he will ever have on this show.
1:52 If Jesse Labreck is “Clubhouse”, then Chris Digangi should be “Doghouse”. Because…you know. It matters little, however, as the level of animosity they’re displaying makes them both just plain depressing. (I again must stress how much it completely, royally sucks that Labreck can never, ever be her own person. She always has to be Friend of X, Caregiver to Y, Daughter of R, Mentor to B, Wife of V. But of course, celebrating her own achievements would be feminism, and we can’t have that, now, can we? ) And as always, when they’re acting this badly, it makes no difference whether it’s a work or shoot. Either they have what looks to be a pretty lousy marriage or they want us to think that they have a pretty lousy marriage. It’s friggin’ depressing either way.
Was going to say something about the stupid “overcoming bullying” profiles, but I’m too tired. Next time. In closing, Lebsack rules.
Watching the show last night I was struck by the remarkably high incidence of birth defects in the population. On the one hand, I’m happy / proud of humanity that we have evolved both socially and medically so that these children can have lives. But on the other hand, it’s so goddamn depressing, and the flip side is that of course the parents don’t get to have lives. And watching ANW makes it seem alarmingly prevalent in the American population.
I guess what I’m saying is I wish they would adjust their internal ranking system for biographies so that instead of having / befriending a disabled child being the #1 most interesting thing about someone, maybe kick that story arc down to the 4th most interesting thing. Focus on jobs or connections or fandom or anything else, really, please.
Then again, I also get annoyed by all the disabled animals in the wholesome animal subreddits. I think it just comes down to the fact that I’m a callous asshole. But seriously, when I’m checking out r/zoomies, the last thing I want to see is a dog with only two front legs dragging its little body behind on a little wheelchair cart. I go to those subreddits to feel better, not depressed.
One of the 2nd-level female ninjas (ie, not Flex or Meagan, but not a nobody… someone who has beat a wall) is the creator/head of a queer ninja group, which they discussed when she was doing her run. Might have been on the women’s special?
And she was definitely wearing a rainbow flag/outfit while competing, and they were quite open about it. (I certainly wouldn’t have heard of it otherwise.)
(Casey Rothschild, the organization is Queer Ninjas Unite)
EllisDee - Hey, someone else has been paying attention, awesome! Unfortunately, NBC has never shown much interest in actually humanizing these athletes. (Pop quiz! What is Austin Gray’s thing? Take all the time you want to find the answer, as it’s never changing.) Having different things in the profile, much giving the treacle lower priority, is completely out of the question. Even if they wanted to, there are just so many names to cover in every episode that “expanded” profiles just aren’t going to work.
Max - That’s nice…sorta. Still, it’s just one fleeting moment in a sea of mainstreamity (which is all there’s going to be this season as she didn’t make the top 5). Also, call me cynical, but I have my doubts that an organization devoted to queer contestants of one highly unique reality show will ever be very influential. Best of luck to all, though!
She completed the course. She was absolutely in the top five.
And in any case, we got a nice long backstory this time for Barclay Stockett, who is now very happily in a same-sex relationship (which is, of course, adorable).
Also, she’s good at ninja again! Hurray!
Is there another week of prelims? Because a TON of big name ninjas have not yet shown up. I know Daniel Gil isn’t competing due (presumably) to being an anti-vax idiot, but what about:
Jake Murray
Grant McCartney
Adam Rayl
Sean Bryan
David Campbell
The Eskimo Ninja
Have I just forgotten that we saw them already? Or has there been a big turnover?
I forget her fiancee’s name, but as soon as the piece started I thought to myself “She’s looking at Barclay with love in her eyes, not in a friendly way.”
Huh. So. 
That happened.
All right, I’ll get right to the point: Barclay Stockett came out on a primetime reality show. She just flat out said she had a female lover. And…holy…is she BLACK?? They tried to distract from it with the usual Acceptable Story (dead mother) thing, but…they bought a house and got engaged.
Wow. I cannot overstate how bold a move this is. Sure, America is less overtly religiously fanatical and more open to non-lily straight relationships than it was than at the time of the Pilgrims, much like Russia is a slightly nicer place now than when Josef Stalin had it in perpetual Smash TV Mode. It is still, in many, many places, not a nice place to be non-“normal”. And with the Supreme Court currently on the rampage to bring America back to the Absolutely Sucks For Anyone Not A Rich Straight White Landowning Man Era, and the Democratic response being “Sing harder!” (I am certain a Democrat is in charge of programming on ANW ), there’s an excellent chance that openly being in a same-sex relationship is going to get very dangerous for a great many people very fast. So kudos for Bars for taking what is, no exaggeration, a truly brave stand. I hope the two of them have a long, happy life together. Or, failing that, a long, happy life. That’s plenty good enough.
Might I add, this is a huge turn for NBC. First Casey Rothschild and now this. There was a time when they could barely acknowledge the existence of the spectrum, and now here we are. The cynic in me says that NBC is only doing this because they finally realized how harmful right-wingers are to a reality TV brand and they’re pushing back, but I’ll take my small victories wherever I can. 
On a completely unrelated note…who else finds Eyes’ “That could be enough to make it to the next round!” or “We’ll have to wait and see if that’s good enough for the farthest the fastest!” really pointless? I mean, it made a bit of sense when there were timers on the screen and they showed the bubble and we could track their placements to some extent, but now that NBC has excised practically everything with a number, what is Eyes even saying now? There’s the edited-to-death Best Of According To Us action in the show proper, then thirty random names with zero information tacked to them at the end. Basically, it amounts to “He’ll make it unless he doesn’t.” That…I’m not sure that even rises to the level of a tautology, that’s just a bunch of aimless blather. “The lights are bright and flashy! There is a lot of red! Water bad!” Good lord.
Oh, ah, question. Am I supposed to be offended, annoyed, or otherwise upset that NBC turned the entire episode into a brazen plug for an upcoming cartoon movie? Because…I wasn’t. Not even close. At this point, that’s maybe the 800th worst thing to happen on this show. Barely even registered.
0:01 Mmmmmm…I question putting Despicaballs on Split Decision along with the much more familiar Log Runner. When an entertainment company ponies up for a cross-promotion, they want to get some value out of it. Remember how one of the actors for that Mission Impossible movie introduced a movie-themed siffies obstacle, and it was #9 and like three people got to it all night? For the record, Despicaballs is similar to the old Spinning Bridge but the balls are staggered (left, right, left right) and are mounted on swivels; if the contestant is even a little off center, it’s a lost cause. I remember how hardly anyone gave the technically simpler Burn Rubber the time of day.
And man, just looking through the rundown, it really strikes me how hard quallies is now. Final Frontier would’ve easily been a Stage 3 task in earlier years.
0:06 Hey, anyone else think it’s really weird that Isaiah Thomas has been around since ANWJ2 and in all this time no one has mentioned that he has the same name as a famous NBA player? Okay, I guess the Pistons weren’t that great, but seriously, not once? Am I that old?
0:12 I don’t care how low reality TV has sunk, “potty” puns should be an automatic HELL NO.
0:13 Bleeargh. A town where Christmas never goes away sounds like an absolute living hell. I cannot believe that Eyes is trying to pitch this as a good thing. I mean, just imagine something that happens during any other annual observance…extremely loud noises going off at random intervals, sitting at the door and giving candy to random strangers for three hours, cooking an elaborate feast (and cleaning up afterwards), giving an expensive gift to your father, pretending to give a damn about veterans…and imagine having to do it ALL THE FREAKING TIME. Doesn’t sound so hot now, does it?
0:36 I just looked up the results of ANWJ3 on the Wiki. It looked like there actually was some good competition. I don’t know why NBC isn’t bothering to re-release the season on a normal network; it’s been long enough. Anyway, I didn’t find Katie Bone, so zapping past that boring Type 1 diabetes glurge.
0:49 They gotta show at least one no-result each episode so they can say that the field isn’t packed with serious athletes who are suspiciously dedicated to a show that pays next to nothing, which it of course totally is.
1:00 Question. Is there really a subset of not completely moronic or cut off from the world Americans above the age of, oh, 3 who had no idea what bananas were until they learned about it in a mid-10’s cartoon movie? 
1:02 Gary Weiland, amputee. Man, it’s incredible that he’s running the course! I can’t even IMAGINE an amputee doing the stuff he…oh, wait, yes I can, his name was Artis Thompson III, from six years ago. Look, if you want to cheer an Acceptable cause, fine, but the announcers really need to stop gasping and swooning about how we’ve never seen anything like it before. We’re 14 seasons in. Whatever happens, there is a fantastic chance that it’s been done. So just enjoy it for what it is. If you can.
1:14 Jonathan Godbout. They are riding the ANWJ alumni hard this season.
1:15 And another video about fighting bullying which conveniently 100% avoids any kind of discussion of what the contestant or anyone else is actually freaking doing about these bullies. This is getting completely out of control.
1:24 Aaaaaaand, Anabella Heinrichs. 
1:34 Austin Gray. Cruelty, abject cruelty. Hell, both Eyes and Hall point out how KAAAHHLLOOOOHHHSSSSS he was to winning it all. Finishing second in a reality show…go the distance, work harder than almost everyone else, get the same reward as the klutz who went down in one second, and has this sunk in for anyone yet? …is like getting stomped in the groin by Meilin Lee during one of her, ah, moments, and NO ONE should have to experience it twice. Oh, look, Hall adds “Only 25 years old, but already considered a veteran”, and you remember what “veteran” means, here, right? Then there’s the profile which says “2-time runner up” and “won Safety Pass” last season…y’know, the protective measure which allowed him to finish second.
Yeah. That’s most definitely his thing now. Apparently they finally got tired of that one time he saved someone’s life, so they’re throwing “Share Your Spare” on the screen with limited commentary, and that’s all they’re going to pretend to give a crap until he gets Total Victory. Goddammit.
Seven women making it to semis is unprecedented, but I’ll see how many make it to naffies before calling it a breakthrough. It’s possible NBC just stacked this week. Given their shameless finagling of ANWJ, wouldn’t put it past them.
I was extra happy that seven women qualified when I saw at the end that Barclay was the seventh woman. Glad she went through.
I’m fairly sure that Megan Rowe (the axe thrower) was the seventh woman, 30th overall. (Could be wrong).