The Circle - who’s watching?

[Standrewsschool]

The first three are wannabes.

Hunter - trying to revive his career.

Haha yes, have to admit I loved that bit and was also watching through my hands. So happy they didn’t block each other!

@Maves

This is exactly what happened last series...two blocked....they stayed with a new profile surely everyone will guess and a prehistoric? Really a bit obvious. Mmmm don't like femi at all and pippa is boring. Still loving syed though I think he's blind sighted with manrika. Was also thinking manrika is a hypocrite her whole sob story about her dad being an alcoholic...yet her usp is being a geezer gal loving a pint?...

I don’t think it’s hypocritical for Manrika to enjoy a pint because her father is an alcoholic and I think that’s a really unfair thing to say. By all means hate Manrika for her game-play, for saying one thing and doing another or using players to advance her position etc but it’s unfair to hate her because you don’t think she’s acting the way you think she should be considering her past. Besides the fact that I don’t think Manrika has said her ‘USP’ is liking a pint’ (in fact in her VT she said she liked pink gin) even if it was, that’s completely reasonable. Just because you’ve lived through the effects of alcoholism doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy alcohol responsibly without being a hypocrite. You have no idea what her or her family went through and it’s so unfair to hold it against her, lots of the contestants have shared their ‘sob stories’ such as Andy losing his bowel, Sayed being an immigrant and so poor his son slept in a drawer, Vithun being bullied, Gemma being a nurse through the pandemic, Dot losing her husband etc. At least Manrika’s story is genuine, obviously it had a huge impact on her childhood and a lasting effect on her life currently and it’s not anybody else’s place to judge the way she is reacting to it now or judge her because she’s not acting the way you think she should be.

It feels like a lot of people are forgetting that this is a game, that we only see edited versions of the things the producers want us to see and that the characters we are seeing on screen are at best heavily edited caricatures of the real people in The Circle. It seems deeply unkind to start trying to judge the players on aspects of their real personal lives we know so little about - have people already forgotten what happened to Caroline Flack and the concept of #bekind?

“BillyIsMyBunny“

Well said!

I do t object to the game playing either.

(all my comments come with the caveat "if the edit is to be believed" )

Quite enjoyed last night.

Femi - bit of a personality vacuum, hope he gets a chance to shine with Pippa who showed a bit of fire in the twist last night. I hope they go all-out to win. I don't think they will, but be interesting to see who and how they start taking people down. Will Femi convince her that Andy is public enemy number 1 or will they both drop the Manrika'ship and vote tactically?

I also don't believe for a second that the others will believe the priest to be real and will suspect it's Femi and Pippa.

As an aside : I've been reading around neuro diversity lately (specifically ADHD in women as am awaiting assessment). In amongst the reading the subject of alcoholism came up. Being the child of an alcoholic you are statistically more likely to develop an addiction yourself. This is of further interest to me as the stepmother to 2 children who lost their mother to alcoholism. One child is vehemently anti-alcohol and the other appears intent on trying all the alcohol and drugs available!

#laymanunderstanding
#notanexpert

The Daily Drop has just been released; 2 new players come in tonight, one is obviously Pippa& Femi as Priest Tom and the other is a guy playing a 23-year-old teacher called Alice. There’s also a game where players get to share photos and a brief clip which seems to show the new guy ‘Alice’ rolling his eyes and seeming annoyed when everyone backs Andy, but obviously unclear at this point as to why and whether that’s a conclusion he’s come to on his own or whether someone else has planted the seed!

*Was also thinking manrika is a hypocrite her whole sob story about her dad being an alcoholic...yet her usp is being a geezer gal loving a pint?...
*
Totally unnecessary and in bad taste.

And I say that as someone who has been affected by alcoholism in the family.

Not at all surprised about Femi being seemingly blocked, he hasn't come across as the most genial character. Maybe I'll find a good heart underneath eventually, but struggling atm.

RE the mini backlash to Andy. You don't get to be CEO of anything without a ruthless streak.

Bold fail obvs 🙄**

Something has definitely gone wrong with this series. I deliberately waited till today to watch last night's - but still found myself nodding off, despite all the screeching.

But I did find myself loving Natalya and Scott for not blocking each other when they had the opportunity. They've both gone up in my estimation.

Will be interesting to see how the two blockees get on now they're sharing a flat. (Well, it would be interesting but I doubt we'll get to see anything but tiny snippets of edited screen conversations..)

Surely there will be video messages from Femi and Pippa to the rest of the circle, otherwise that would be really odd. Putting two new players in will have people wondering - I'd automatically assume each is playing a new person.

Do think it's funny that Manrika in her intro video was like "hey I'm here as an Asian person and Asian people don't do stuff like this, I'm such a trailblazer me" and as an Asian person I did roll my eyes. She must have had a a shock seeing Vithun and Syed. And now we've got Shabaz too.

Not sure that's how she worded it though bonfire.

@BillyIsMyBunny

So disappointed that Andy & Manrika weren’t blocked just because I would have loved to see the two of them having to catfish a priest together!!

Now THAT would be brilliant tv!!

Well I stand by what I said, if that had had such a massive affect on her life surely she wouldn't publicise her love of drinking etc my point was not that she can't drink just that she shouldn't have been over the top about it if her dads drinking wrecked thier lives and that's why she's there.

I think you’re being incredibly harsh; it’s possible to go through something which has a negative effect on your life without turning away from anything to do with it forever. Are you saying somebody who has gone through the pain of losing a pregnancy or child should never conceive agsin because if the pain was that bad they wouldn’t risk it it that a rape victim should never enter a relationship again because obviously they would never want consensual sex if the rape wrecked their lives? Just because her father’s alcoholism had a negative impact on her life doesn’t mean she can’t enjoy alcohol herself, lots of people go through awful, negative things but they don’t always abstain from anything related to that part of their past forever. I also don’t think she has massively publicised her love of drinking, saying you like a pint down the pub is fairly normal for a 24-year-old, she’s hardly said her whole personality is drinking. I can’t actually recall any conversations in which her love of drinking was mentioned? I think in her profile saying she loves a pint was more her trying to show she likes typical British things like going to the pub rather than being what she thinks is stereotypically Asian rather than her publicising alcohol.

I’m really not sure she’s been ‘over the top’ about her past, as far as I can tell it’s come up naturally in games/ conversations and as pointed out, other players have also shared their own ‘sob stories’ in those games and conversations as well. I think you are being far too harsh to judge her on this, obviously life-changing events and adverse experiences such as living with an alcoholic parent, losing your bowel, having ADHD or being bullied will have a major effect on your outlook and it’s not surprising that over the course of several weeks in The Circle they are going to come to light. The players then gave no control over how those stories are edited into the show but it’s certainly not like Manrika has been the only one sharing aspects of her real life.

I'm so confused re Andy- what on earth has he done that has caused such a massive fall from grace?

Nothing - as far as we can see.
Femi’s beef was over absolutely nothing. (The bingo game where Andy said he was strategic and Femi / Joey got the hump).

Manrika’s was clearly over-engineered by either her (/ and the editing) to get Femi and Pippa on side for her little gang to oust Andy, as he was her main rival. Plus she could use her faux-outrage to drop snippets into convos with Felix and Syed, to hope they’d rate him a bit lower too.

Losing Vithun and Gemma who tended to rank Andy highly dropped his ranking.
Plus being shown how popular he was, the group seemed to decide he shouldn't be number one anymore.
And Manrika having him next target on her list.

I think to a large extent it has just been a case of Andy losing his allies. He blocked Gemma even though she was consistently rating him top and then Manrika blocked Vithun who always voted Andy #1. Losing those two players took Andy off top spot and now the game is getting nearer the end which means players are voting a bit more tactically and he is seen as the biggest competition so most players have been voting him lower down than they may have in previous ratings. After losing Gemma and Vithun he also lost Manrika as an ally, partly because she was playing tactically in her ratings and partly because he didn’t stick up for her after she blocked Vithun (even though she stuck up for him after he blocked Tally) and she then managed to get the new players on side and convince them against him. Andy then upset Femi which gave him and Pippa further cause to vote him low and so suddenly he found himself at the bottom.

That said despite being the lowest rated he didn’t end up getting blocked and I think he probably won’t, although he is being rated low I still think the players are too scared to actually vote him off. I feel like tactically Dot and Felix definitely made a mistake in blocking Pippa and Femi, the new players will likely be immune from the next blocking and I think out of Manrika, Andy, Syed, Felix and Dot it’s more likely that Felix or Dot will go than one of the OGs.

Wow

Well at least we know Manrika won't get away with turning newbie Tom against Andy...

Manrika's feet are full of holes from all
The times she shot herself in that conversation.

Well, she’s just lost their support.