Assume away. Antonia and Blais deserve to be in the finale, hands-down, and Blais deserves to win. Hearing him talk today about what he chooses to cook — new dishes only, not stuff he's seen done before — and then figuring out a way to make it work (restraint is an excellent word in the kitchen) . . . it's impressive…

Spartacus is pretty damn depressing. And the whole "family slaughtered before their very eyes" is much more literal there than "Rescue Me."

Yeah, the leader tends to get voted off early.

Come on, people. Make the obvious joke. He's a "special" agent.

At the same time, sending Matt to Redemption Island now sort of ensures he *won't* still be around — hard to keep winning challenge after challenge. At the same time, if the other tribe starts losing, it sort of ensures that Matt will make sure that the other tribe members will go home. And that's assuming the…

Or…
I think Jesus was "the source of causes."

Color Me Mine, Scott
Yes, add this to the rotation. However, one caveat about other people's claims that this is the best reality game show: there's too much luck and far too many choke-points. I'm sincerely hoping that, since these are all veterans, they do several "The Princess Is At Another Pit Stop" legs like this…

A Well Earned A-
Difficult to be caught off-guard in a prequel, but man, if there's one thing this show has always had going for it, it's its execution.

BNL?
I'm thinking about tuning in to BBT again simply because Community keeps mocking it, and I want to make sure I get all the digs and references the much better Community makes to it. But do I need to? These recaps just remind me that the show hasn't changed a bit since the first season, and man, I can't stand a…

That's why I'm glad we can at least give him $100,000 by voting him our favorite player, which is incidentally how Rupert won his unjust million. The game is Outwit, Outlast, Outplay, but unfortunately, it's *more* about Outlast and Outfriend these days, which we viewers don't want to see. One of the few people to win…

He only sabotaged his tribe the first time (with the sock burning) — I don't remember him actually doing that the second time out. And of course in a three-way game, both people that are brought along won't win. But you're right: Parvati didn't win — but that's because she played exactly LIKE Russell, if not a little…

Still not sure why the guys would want to get rid of Russell. If the show's proven anything, it's that as long as you stay loyal to Russell — give him no reason to question that, and don't pose a leadership threat, and stroke his ego — he'll find a way to strategically bring you to the end, doing all the dirty work in…

Would've been hilarious, by the way, if Rob had simultaneously been on that all-star version of The Amazing Race.

I hope it's a weekly thing; and I hope this year's All-Star "The Amazing Race" gets up there, too. They're fun to talk about, especially on all-star shows like this season's Top Chef, where you don't have to wait for the crowd to dwindle before seeing some crazy entertaining stuff.

Seeing Double
I like what you did there with the metaphor, but I don't fully agree with your assessment of Barry and the race relations — his implication there seemed to be that Lights was the hero because he (a) *wasn't* coming out of prison, (b) had retired for five years after a very controversial split decision,…

Oh, also, I just hit a question where they made fun of the fact that Paul Reubens hosted their show: "Imagine if we could get Pee-Wee Herman to host a live version of our show. Yeah, that'd be awesome, right?!"

Competitor Thread
So yeah, since I went on record before as saying that YDKJ was appropriate for the A.V. Club's "pop culture meets high-culture" crowd, I'd like to invite anyone else who owns the PS3 version of this to play me; my PSN is IllogicalJoker, so feel free to friend/challenge me. Preferably on an episode…

Yeah, I'd love to see Watson compete on YDKJ. Better than Trebek, at any rate.

Bear in mind, A+ would be a perfect score, and while I'm not sure if any *game* has ever earned one, any time the A.V. Club gives a television episode an A+, as they did for Undeclared, I instantly rush out and check out the series — that's how much I trust the integrity of their rarely used A+. But I understand your…

Also, the tag-line of this game used to be "Where high culture and pop culture collide," and if that doesn't sum up the AV Club (with a dollop of low culture on the message boards, from time to time), I don't know what does. Fact is, the interface for YDKJ has always been stellar, the multiplayer (screws included) has…