The Circle season 6 episodes 5-8 recap: Finally, the blockings begin as the AI twist flops

After, let’s be honest, an incredibly slow start to the season, The Circle season 6 finally brings the action in the latest episodes with players finally starting to be given the boot! 

Picking up where episode 4 left off, we finally find out who Myles chose to block and it’s poor Steffi who gets sent home as Myles isn’t convinced she’s the real deal. Unfortunately, Steffi is a real player and the rest of the players soon find this out as she leaves a video for her fellow players in the Circle Chat. But wait, here’s where things get downright stupid. 

Rather than leaving Max, our AI player, in the game, our favorite robot player crashes Steffi’s goodbye message and reveals himself as Max before leaving the game. That’s right, Max walks away from the game immediately after Steffi’s elimination bringing a swift and unexpected end to the AI twist. I’m not going to lie, I was totally disappointed with the decision to eliminate Max right after Steffi was eliminated as it made the whole AI player twist such a waste. 

With Steffi revealing herself to be real, The Circle had the chance to create so much drama as the players scrambled to figure out who the AI player among them was. Just think of the paranoia that would have set in as the players tried to figure out who among them was AI after they all incorrectly guessed Steffi. It would have created so much drama and made the players second-guess every conversation which would have made for amazing TV. It’s a shame the show squandered away that potential by kicking Max out of the game. 

As the dust settles after Steffi and Max’s elimination, the players play Poor-traits in which each player is given 30 minutes to make an anonymous painting pointing out a poor trait of each player in the group. Here’s how that goes: 

• Kyle draws Olivia and says she wouldn’t be there for other players
• Cassie draws Myles and uses #NoGame to say he uses too many pickup lines to QT
• Paul draws Lauren and calls her two-face
• Myles draws Cassie as a snake in the grass 
• Olivia draws Paul as having a big mouth and a big ego
• Lauren draws QT and basically says why wear sunglasses in her photo as a way to make it seem like she could be a catfish 
• QT draws Kyle and says he’s the king of boring, calls muscles fake

Chaos ensues after the photos are shared and lots of feelings are hurt – okay, Circle, it’s about time you stirred the pot! Speaking of stirring the pot, episode 6 sees two new players enter The Circle with the arrival of Jordan (24) who is playing as himself before his weight loss, and Autumn (21) who is playing as herself. Each player gets the chance to send a DM to one of the new players, the new players then choose which player they want to continue chatting with. Jordan chats with Myles, while Autumn chats with Paul. 

Shortly after, Jordan quickly develops a personal vendetta with Myles and immediately becomes one of the most annoying players in the game – sorry, not sorry. 

When the ratings come through Kyle and QT are named influencers and have to block someone together. After a cliffhanger in episode 6, we find out they block Cassie at the top of episode 7. She goes to see Olivia and basically throws QT and Myles right under the bus. She then leaves a heated goodbye video in the chat which creates a lot of tension. Yay, drama! 

Later in the episode, the players participate in another game that presents them with two options and asks them to answer honestly. What the players and we don’t know until after is that the game was actually a compatibility test! Based on their answers, the players are paired up and their fates become connected meaning that if one of them is blocked the other is blocked as well. So how do the pairs shake out? 

Jordan is matched with QT, Kyle is matched with Paul, Myles is matched with Olivia, and Lauren is matched with Autumn. 

As episode 8 rolls around, there is a game that doesn’t really bring about anything too major before it’s time for the ratings. In a twist, there will be no influencer. Instead, the lowest-rated player will be blocked as will their ride-or-die match. We don’t get to see the actual rankings but find out that Kyle or Paul were rated last as the pair are blocked… or so we thought! 

In the final twist of the episode, we find out that they have both been blocked but they have the chance to save their ride-or-die by sacrificing themselves! Paul and Kyle are both given the option of staying or leaving The Circle, the twist being that if they both choose to stay they’ll each be blocked while if they both choose to sacrifice themselves they’ll both be blocked!