Who Will Win ‘The Circle’ Season 6?

[Warning: This post contains MAJOR spoilers for The Circle Season 6, Episodes 1-8.]

For its newest season, Netflix‘s original reality competition series took drastic measures to shake things up. The Circle Season 6, which premiered with its first four episodes on April 17, featured an artificial intelligence contender in addition to multiple catfishing contestants. Things were looking dour for the humans in the crew, since they were completely convinced by Max’s computerized persona… Could the AI win it all?

However, when Netflix dropped its second round of episodes on April 24, Max withdrew himself (itself?) from the competition, revealing that Max was not a dog dad but a CPU no bigger than a purse.

That left Brandon aka “Olivia,” Cassie, Carress aka “Paul,” Kyle, Lauren, Steffi, and Quori Tyler aka QT. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kyle ultimately decided to take out Steffi and was surprised to find out she really was just a yoga- and zodiac-loving little weirdo with a plastic skeleton bestie.

After a divisive round of anonymous portrait painting (that caused a bit of a row between Cassie and Myles, who ditched their blondes-have-more-fun connection for trading painted jabs), two more contestants joined the circle: Jordan, a photographer from Texas who concealed his current visage with some throwback pics to his pre-weight loss look, and Autumn, a rancher from Tennessee who owns being called a “redneck.”

Their entrance sparked some surprising new kinships (like Paul sharing a lot of tea with Autumn), and as the game continued on, and another person had to be sacrificed on the alter of the Circle,. Soon, Cassie and Olivia found themselves on the botom of the barrel, and the influencer of the game (this time, Kyle and Quori-Tyler) had to chooes someone and decided to oust harmless ole’ Cassie.

That loss returned the Circle to a size 8, with Autumn, Brandon aka “Olivia,” Carress aka “Paul,” Jordan, Kyle, Lauren, Myles, and QT still in the game. To shake things up a bit, the Circle decided to turn a little “Would You Rather” game into a personality quiz that paired them all up with their so-called “ride or dies.” The matchings were… unexpected in some cases. Kyle and Paul (who were costumed as peas and carrots) was the most expectable pairing, while Autumn and Lauren (dressed as eggs and bacon) weren’t that far-fetched either. Jordan and QT (ketchup and mustard-garbed) were a bit random together, and weirdest of all was the union of Myles and Olivia (Cookies and Milk).

As odd as the coupling of Myles and Olivia was, though, the two managed to come to an understanding and formed a pretty ironclad bond, sticking to their promises to one another to prioritize each other’s safety. Because the Circle duly warned that the ride or die’s fates would be intertwined, so even you weren’t allied before, you are now.

Still, Mami and Papi Fuego (QT and Myles) made their love dovey situation a threesome by inviting Kyle to make it a Tres Fuegos alliance, and they honored that when asked to rank other players in the game. Problem was, no one else knew who each other’s partners were (and apparently DMing someone to find out was off-limits, ’cause no one tried it), so they were flying blind when it came to ranking people outside of their alliances.

So while it seemed like Autumn was inches from being ousted by the group, thanks to her being basically ambushed in the game of the day, it was actually Kyle and Paul who found themselves at the bottom. Ahead of the dun dun dun cliffhanger credits, the two were given an opportunity to sacrifice themselves for one another or both go home (and they wouldn’t know what the other would choose). So who’ll go home, and who currently stands the best chance of winning?

Here’s a breakdown of where each of the contestants stand after week two’s episodes.

• Autumn: Unless something really changes and quick, Autumn is in big trouble. Her own ride or die even voted against her in the daily group game. Don’t be surprised if she’s the next to go.
• Brandon aka Olivia: Winning over Myles in the ride-or-dies challenge was essential. Olivia already has an alliance with Lauren and is on friendly terms with QT. If Kyle or Paul or both go home, Olivia has a lot of pals still in the game, even if Autumn isn’t quite ready to forgive yet.
• Carress aka Paul: Given the choice whether to let Paul and Kyle both go down, Carress seems the likeliest to budge, but we’ll have to wait and see. Kyle seems highly unlikely to sacrifice himself for Paul, so chances are, Paul’s time is up.
• Jordan: Jordan’s middle-of-the-road approach is only going to get him so far. His alliances are shaky at best, and he’s way outnumbered by the Kyle-Myles-QT corner. Chances are, he’ll be an easy target when the decision get tougher.
• Kyle: There’s a slight chance Paul will fall on the sword, in which case Kyle is probably going to come back stronger. His alliance with Myles and QT is solid, and he had a ~ moment ~ with Olivia that gives them a backstreet bond as well.
• Lauren: Again, she’s slipping through mostly unnoticed here these days.
• Myles: He might seem like a bit of a lightning rod, but he’s made some sincere alliances with Kyle and QT and even made nice with Olivia, so he’s in good shape for now. At this point, he’s probably the one to beat.
• QT: So far, she has played an emotional game, but it’s worked out for her. Is she setting herself up for heartbreak in the coming days? Well, Myles did cop to being kind of a jerk in the daily game, but there again, he did make the grand gesture of sending her heart-shaped pancakes. Could she ride his coattails to the end? We’ll see.

For last week’s analysis, keep reading.

PREVIOUSLY (April 24): In all, there are currently eight human players in the game, two of whom are pretending to be someone else: There’s Brandon Baker (who’s competing as “Olivia”), Caress Russell (who’s posing as her real-life brother Paul), Cassie Saylor, Kyle Fuller, Lauren LaChant, Myles Reed, Stephanie “Steffi” Hill, and Quori-Tyler “QT” Bullock.

Throughout the first batch of episodes, the contestants all got to know each other through hashtag-riddled group chats and direct messages, and they played a few group games that brought out the more creative sides, including everything from engaging in rap battles to telling on-the-spot jokes to one another.

Right away, despite a few errant suspicions thrown their way, there are a couple of people who emerged as frontrunners and were thus chosen as “influencers”: Lauren and Olivia. They ushered in the addition of QT and Max, a robot who’s fronting as a dog-loving, outdoorsy, and totally relaxed guy with shades.

Max the A.I. (which gets its own apartment for some reason?) kindly explains its approach to joining The Circle like so: “My aim is to become the most popular player in this game, and I know exactly how to do that.” By studying previous seasons, this machine has created what it predicts will be an unassailable profile; after all, statistically, profile pictures with dogs get more engagement. Lo, the faux selfie does seem to put the other contestants at ease, as does almost everything the chatbot strategically says. Yikes!

All nine contestants are tasked with ferreting out the electronic one among them, first by designating someone as the most human of the group, who is then responsible for kicking another person out. Chosen is Kyle, who already has alliances with his #BroCode group as well as a flirty e-situationship with QT. It’s up to him to choose the first person to eliminate from the game, and at the end of Episode 4, we see him knocking on someone’s door to deliver the bad news in person.

So who is Kyle going to choose? Let’s take a look at where things stand for each of the contestants right about now.

• Brandon aka Olivia: There’ve been a few side-eyes going “Olivia’s” way, including from Myles, who is curious about her very basic appearance and demeanor. The blandness of Olivia’s fake personality has raised question marks the whole time, in fact. So Brandon might want to tighten up his presentation if he wants to stick around. But for now, there’s almost no chance of Olivia being eliminated first.
• Cassie: This Southern belle hasn’t rubbed anyone the wrong way … at least, not yet. However, she’s also just kinda there. No one seems to have strong feelings about her one way or the other so for now, she’s middle of the roading it like a champ.
• Caress aka Paul: Things are not looking good for “Paul” right about now. So many people have (correctly) determined that something is amiss with this person, and Caress did her alter ego no favors during a group chat with Myles where he was desperately looking for a reason not to throw him in. The chances that this’ll be the first ouster of the season are really high right about now.
• Kyle: The fact that Kyle’s name was brought up by some of the girls in the 11th hour during the accusatory group chat, particularly since it was QT aka Myles’ number one, puts him in a bit of jeopardy. Why would he hide those abs with long-lens shots? One thing we know (that Myles might not) is that he’s neither artificial intelligence nor a catfish. But watch this space.
• Lauren: Lauren seems to be in almost no danger right about now. In fact, it looked like she came this close to beating Myles in the most-human tally.
• Max: Myles happens to be a coder, so sussing out the AI in the chat should be right up his alley. And while he still seems to be swayed by what others say (particularly about Kyle, Paul, and Steffi), he does seem to be confused about Max’s unenthusiastic photo choices and decision to peace out of a group chat Myles needed him in early. Hmmm.
• Myles: Myles is completely golden… unless he picks the wrong person to send home, of course.
• Steffi: Cue the Ghost “You in Danger, Girl” GIF because Steffi has one foot and her toy skeleton out the door. Most everyone thinks her eccentricities, like talking about zodiac signs and crystals without fail, mean she’s faking it. And though the girls in her alliance try their best to dissuade Myles from choosing her, it’s TBD whether the effort will pay off.
• QT: There’s less than zero percent chance Myles sends her home, but by taking a shot at Kyle during the rap battle, she may have put a target on her back.

All told, Myles is the only person who’s got a surefire path to continuing on, but unless he figures out Max is the AI right away, that computer is just going to continue fooling them all to the victory lane. Or will it? Hit the comments with your predictions about who’ll win The Circle Season 6 based on what you’ve seen so far.

The Circle, Episodes 5-8, Wednesday, April 24, Netflix