Who Will Win ‘The Circle’ Season 6?

[Warning: This post contains MAJOR spoilers for The Circle Season 6, Episodes 1-12.]

And then there were six! There’s just one more episode until The Circle fans find out which player will win the whole shebang.

The games for this week’s swath of Season 6 (that is, Episodes 9-12) were full of highs and lows. As somewhat anticipated, the cliffhanger of whether Caress aka “Paul” would self-sacrifice for Kyle to stay in the game was answered in the affirmative. Meeting Caress face to face, he became more impressed with her than ever and vowed to make good on that sword-falling gesture.

From there, the first group game was relatively fun, featuring all of the players submitting two photos: one of them being “naughty” and another of them being “nice.” Lauren’s spicy selfie won her the best “naughty” shot, while Olivia’s (really, Brandon’s co-worker’s) nursing scrubs pic won the day for “nice” photo. The competition didn’t matter for points, but that pic of Olivia certainly stymied any suspicion that this was a catfish, and it brought her closer to Kyle. The two became majorly flirty allies.

A series of anonymous questions and gift choices subsequently got tensions spiking around the apartment complex, but ultimately, the cast’s rankings of one another weren’t too surprising. Quori-Tyler was chosen as the secret influencer, which meant her divisive ride-or-die Jordan was the super secret influencer. Jordan tried his best to target Myles, who he believed to be running the entire house, but QT was not going to turn on her real game partner. Instead, she threw out Autumn, which was a shock to no one, and Jordan seemed more alone than ever.

In the last stretch, Olivia got some power during the cowboy fashion show, thanks to being voted in as the super secret influencer of the evening. It’s now up to Olivia to choose who to block next. So who’s in the best shape to win right about now?

• Brandon aka Olivia: As the super secret influencer, Brandon/Olivia has got a big decision to make: To turn on an ally or not to turn on an ally? Whatever decision is made could seriously impact their standing in the finale.
• Jordan: Jordan has proven to be a true gamer, and he’s fearless with his moves…. and gaining some on-the-sly alliances with Lauren and Olivia. Thus, Olivia probably won’t send him home. But nobody fully trusts him, let alone likes him enough to rank him highly enough to win.
• Kyle: Kyle has made nice with almost everyone in the house at this point, and they seem to be genuinely fond of him… even Olivia, who’s faking a flirtation situation but still has a very genuine bond over being co-members of the dead parent club. He has a very, very strong chance of running away with this thing.
• Lauren: Well, well, well, people are starting to really side-eye Lauren after she managed to catch their attention with that racy selfie. She’s still more of a middle-of-the-road player than the rest, and certainly, Olivia isn’t worried enough to send her home. But is it enough for her to win it all? Nah. She doesn’t have enough allies, and it’s probably too late to get any.
• Myles: The only person truly targeting Myles is Jordan, but will his persistence pay off and convince Olivia to send home her former ride-or-die? It’d take a pretty big power move for that to happen, and Olivia seems more worried about QT than anyone else right now.
• QT: QT could be safe since there are bigger lightning rods in the building, but Olivia did just give her a 5th-place ranking, so she may be the one sent home. Even if she stays, the likelihood that she’ll take the top spot seems highly doubtful, since she’s not really anyone’s #1 except Myles.

For the previous week’s analysis, keep reading.

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PREVIOUSLY (April 24): 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, Caress 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, another person had to be sacrificed on the altar of the Circle,. Soon, Cassie and Olivia found themselves on the bottom of the barrel, and the influencer of the game (this time, Kyle and Quori-Tyler) had to choose someone and decided to oust harmless ole’ Cassie.

That loss returned the Circle to a size 8, with Autumn, Brandon aka “Olivia,” Caress 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 the 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 if 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. The 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 quickly, 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.
• Caress aka Paul: Given the choice of whether to let Paul and Kyle both go down, Caress 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 gets 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 the previous week’s analysis, keep reading.

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PREVIOUSLY (April 17): 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