From CBS.com:

Oh my god, I was so hoping they were going to feed Taylor to Mr. Wu's pigs!!

I'm not sure exactly why these kids have to get up at the crack of dawn? It's not like their day is filled with classes and activities. They pretty much screw around for most of the day and every 3 days have a challenge.

Why do I suspect those trash rats were magically transported to Bonanza City by the oh-so-clever execs? I find it hard to believe that rats would just so happen to be in the middle of the desert, which is usually typically deserted.

OMG!! What a coincidence. The journal spoke of the increasing stench of garbage!! Wow!!! Who would have thunk it?!?!! And a garbage themed showdown? I never would have guessed!!! I wonder if they're allowed to take hold of the pigs for a nice rib dinner? I bet Greg knows how to slaughter the porker. I love Laurel throwing Taylor to the wolves! "Deal with it Taylor!" LMAO

The kids should have compromised with Guylan and instead of watching him unsuccessfully go at it, just tell him he can have the shift to pile the loose dirt back on top of the garbage. That would have been the smart thing to do. I'm surprised Laurel or Zach didn't suggest that. I realize Guylan wanted to show off being a council member, but he seemed smart enough to have realized where his weakness lies.
I was surprised the journal didn't bring up the punishment system the kids instituted. It sounds like they were actually allowed to make a couple of decisions on their own without the help of the ominous journal.Taylor is such a brat. I'm glad the majority of the kids agree with that sentiment. I loved Greg's "shaking head" when Taylor tried to weasel out of trash hauling.

As much as I enjoyed their use of discipline, I DID NOT like Zach grabbing Taylor's arm when she tried to leave nor did I think Anjay barricading the door any better. Taylor is not a prisoner and they should not treat her as such. Even though a "jail" sounds like an interesting idea, what Taylor did is not a prisonable offense and thought it was awful of them to trap her in the room. Both kids lost major points for that stunt. Zach started to bug me big time with his inflated ego. I think he's smart for his age and always willing to help, but he's letting his council member status get to his head. Even if he personally dislikes Taylor, he shouldn't let his own feelings get in the way of being a leader. His whole "You won't see a dime from me or from anyone else in town...forever!" spiel really pissed me off. I thought Zach would have been better than that. Now, it wasn't what Zach said, but how he presented himself. He should have taken a neutral stance when handing out the so-called punishment.

Greg must be getting the good guy edit now, since he's not this tough guy anymore. He's quite the enthusiastic leaders, always encouraging his team members during showdowns and willing to step it up a notch wherever help is needed. I'd like to see him on the council if they have a re-re-election down the line.

Taylor looked downright evil when she told Zach she was going to hate him for the rest of her life. Her eyes were all kinds of twisted. I'm glad they went for the fruits and veggies since really, 2 dune buggies and 38 kids? That would never work. It would cause more problems than any fun they might have. I don't know why one of them didn't bring that up in their group meeting.

Week 2 of the Taylor lynching. Does she not see how her pageant-queen attitude turned the rest of the group against her? "Go Home!" says Sophia, who I thought would try to reason with the crowd, but it still gave me a chuckle.

That was surprising that DK wanted to leave. I didn’t think he would have given up so easily over some of these really petty arguments. I wonder if Guylan happened to whisper (off-camera) that he should stay since he was going to be $20K richer in 2 minutes? Either Guylan or some of the CBS folks behind the barn doors.

They still have about 25 other kids they need to start focusing on and they don't have many episodes left, I think just about 7. We did see some random kids for the first time, although they were just shown in the blink of an eye. Enough with the same kids already.

"Pageant Queens Don't Do Dishes" need to be a t-shirt, stat.

Dear Taylor, I know two lovely girls. They were pageant queens. They were on a reality show. Their names are Dustin and Kandice. Please meet them. And now since I made my PSA, I can say this without shame...

"Damn, she's a vindictive bitch, isn't she?" Because...yeah. She's a loose cannon. Though watch Anjay protecting his nuts against her kicks was hilarious.

Meanwhile, D.K. looks like Tracy Morgan's long lost son. I laughed when his mom didn't believe him about the gold star.

I think DK was told about the gold star. His conversation with Guylan was oddly edited and his reaction afterwards did not seem natural. Not that he didn't deserve it, but the whole thing was very strange. His wanting to leave seemed to come out of nowhere.

I loved it when Greg was standing behind Leila and Taylor and shaking his head mouthing “no” when Taylor and Leila making up an excuse not to work again.

Was that Sophia saying, “Anjay, the girls are doing all the work.” And Anjay said, “Shut up.” Funny stuff. Good for you, Lelia, deciding to work instead of being lazy like Taylor.

Taylor calling the council dictators? Hypocrite! What a whiny baby!

Olivia. Still the bitch.

I called DK getting the gold star five minutes into the show. He was getting more airtime tonight since Kid Nation started. I have to admit, my mouth did fall open when DK raised his hand to leave. I felt so bad for him when he made his speech. I wanted to give him a hug. Everyone was in tears over DK leaving. I bet DK is glad he decided to stay now that he got that gold star. His call home was cool. That was sweet. Guylan won points with me for talking DK into staying.

Why was Emily chosen first for the red team to jump in the pig pool? Why didn’t Guylan picked DK or someone more athletic first like the blue, yellow and green team did? I guess it doesn’t matter since they won Upper Class. Was it required for everyone to go in the pig pool? If not, Alex shouldn’t have went in.

Wow. Go Greg! I couldn’t believed he dived in the pig pool like that. That was so funny!

Whoa. Blaine actually spoke.

At least Green is moving up. Yellow are cooks again. I wonder if the kids will get a decent meal.

Finally, the council chooses right and picked the food! But they went at it with dirty hands. Eww!! Now this time more than ever they should choose the food. It was a no brainer more so than the other times. I thought one of the choices would be a dumpster since the whole theme was garbage.

I’m loving Zach! Yes, he impose the no work, no pay and not the book! Finally Michael get some screen time too. Love the attack on Taylor. She deserves it. I don’t think she’ll listen.


Looks like Jared is getting an attitude next week.

What the hell kind of show is this? How dare they play with my emotions and make me cry!

I don't even remember what happened other then Taylor is a certifiable twit and Zach is made of awesome and damn DK made me cry little a little bitch... Damn this show! Damn this show to hell!

Gee, I bet the kids really learned a lot about "recycling" with that showdown! WTF?

I felt so sorry for little Alex. His voice was pitiful when he was all covered in the beans with his can and the host wouldn't let him put it toward the blue team's total. Poor Alex!

I have to admit I was totally cracking up at Mike's delivery with the "We were wading through sixteen-hundred gallons of baked beans" speech, though.

If Taylor is this much of a bitch now, imagine how she'll be as she gets older. I hope her parents are embarassed she's their daughter.

I hate this show.

Oh, we picked the fruit. People will be surprised. Shut up, all you kids.

They've been conditioned over and over by the choices.

The host dropping obvious hints, evil pollution device.

I hate politically correct eco-friendly messages. I was waiting for fucking Capt. Planet to show up and say, "The Power is your's!"

These kids have become pod people. No free will, no fun, no nothing. Just making the pre-determined right choices.

Zach grabbing Taylor? Nice strong arm tactics there, slimeball. Anjay blocking the door? Reduced to a goon for the council. Neither of these guys are leaders. They're both bullies in their own ways.

The leadership is still lacking. DK had to step up and solved a problem the council is supposed to be solving. Nice to see the council is as dumb as ever, even with the supposed new improved leaders.

We need water. Lets punish Taylor. All those roads lead no where. DK had a much reasonable solution. Get everyone to gather water together. Taylor probably wasn't physically capable of filling it anyway, so the council was more interested in revenge than actually solving the problem. It also shows a lack of leadership by whichever district was the laborers during that cycle anyway. They let the water situation get bad.

Taylor is lazy, but she's a scapgoat for the council's own continued failures.

This was an interesting episode. I'm surprised Taylor didn't leave since she sounded as though she was going to. Of course I'm glad she didn't since while I don't particularly like her and think she's a brat she is very entertaining.
This episode really showed off how wonderful DK was for the town but I felt that we must have missed his wonderfulness before since it sounds as though he's been a hard worker since the start.
The new council is showing that Laurel and Zach are the ones that deal with issues. I like the no work no pay thing but they kind of left the affects of that unexplored. I did think they were trying to egg on Taylor to give them trouble. I don't know why her punishment couldn't have been something enforceable like nobody will sell you anything for the next two days or something. Since its obvious they can't force her to work so the water thing was doomed to failure if she didn't want to pitch in.
Olivia was barely in this episode except the little blip about Anjay taking forever in the challenge. I kind of think that the blue cans must have been more on the bottom (perhaps they were added first) since it sounded like all the blue members had trouble finding their cans.
I thought the fruit was a great choice. And was happy to see so many kids excited about fresh fruits and veggies. Their diets really needed some help and I hope next week they give them some meat or something. I thought after the chicken they would have been just given meat since some reality shows do that where if they manage to do something on their own then its provided for them for the rest of the season. I wonder if the poor diet is causing some of the laziness.

So many quotable lines this week - "that's not kosher, Jonathan!" And Anjay's whining about his still-forming bones. You're just a wimp, Anjay, it's okay, I sympathize. But I woulda got down in it. Poor kid, he is such an easy target.

DK: The power behind the throne. Whattaguy. I do hope they let him know he doesn't have to take it all on himself anymore. When he said he handles other people's problems better than his own, I totally understood because I am exactly the same way. I hope they're letting him know the whole town is not just his burden. If they do institute a "sheriff" he would do fine with Michael, Greg and whatserface - the older girl who won the star a few weeks back? - on his side. And I hope Guylan mans up a bit. I felt bad for him on the dig because that's just his strength, not his fault, but there's more he could be doing.

Layla(sp?) has some mind of her own and I hope they keep trying to bring her out of Taylor's field of influence, since it is now obvious Taylor cannot be shamed to change in any way. She seemed to only latch onto DK because he roundaboutly defended her - and really, he is pissed at her as the rest, he was just sick of the chaos. Taylor seems to have no concept of how she comes off, or just doesn't care.

That brownhaired kid, "Nathan", in the challenge, and the darkhaired older girl they kept showing - who the heck are they?

It was so sad when little Alex was crying b/c he couldn't make it to put his can in the trash during the challenge.

I didn't have a problem with how Zach handled Layla and Taylor in the mess hall. It was Yellow's domain, Yellow's job and Yellow's business. It wasn't like the entire town was there, just him and Laurel. I felt he wisely kept his mouth shut and let the rest of the Council whale on Taylor for most of the episode. I also don't think Taylor can take another episode of this and might leave next time, especially if Layla continues to feel chagrined and abandons her.

Mike has quickly disintegrated..he's more spastic than ever before and now takes to YELLING when he's being filmed. He looks taller to me, maybe a growth spurt kicked in.

Taylor knocking over the water was one thing, I thought for sure she would have thrown the water at them.

My guess is DK said he wanted to go home and CBS intervened. I'm not complaining though, he seems like a great kid.

The stance he took was about as neutral as you're gonna get from an angry 10 year old.

I feel bad for Cody and Jimmy, since when they announced they wanted to leave, nobody tried as hard to persuade them. I kind of wish that DK had some more airtime beforehand, since although he's been around, he really seemed to have an impact on all of the kids.

Taylor bugged me more than usual, but I think Leila is more obnoxious. Everything she says is in a high pitched squeal. I'm glad she decided to help out, but ugh.

I felt bad laughing at Alex during the end of the challenge. "I got one!" "It's over!" *sad slump and dejection*

My Dad, whose been watching the series with me since it started, just realized for the first time tonight that Guylan wasn't a girl. His whole "kick butt!" approach was too heavily edited in. I like the kid, but I feel like there was too much of him on screen tonight.

I was actively dry-heaving during the pork-n-beans section, although "This is NOT KOSHER!" made me howl laughing.

I want to give DK the biggest, longest hug ever. He is the epitome of awesome.

I've seen Zach rationalize calmly before but he let his anger get the best of him this time. Maybe it was the heat of the moment, but I thought he could handle it better. I was excited to see him on the council and hope he continues to do a good job, just go about handling his disicplinary skills a little less personally.

DK: He emphasizes a lot on working as one, and I can see where he's going. He seems to be an encourager in my eyes.

Guylan gets props for persuading DK to stay.

Am I the only one that realizes that the council picks necessities over things used to have fun?

As little airtime as he gets, I think little Alex is my favorite. He's so cute and pitiful.

I could tell DK would try to go home once there was no "back-up" in the gold-star discussion. There's always been a toss-up between two for the councils, then this episode it was wrapped up in 10 seconds.

I was bummed at the end of the ep about this aspect also. But the previews for next week make me think it will be (at least tangentially) explored there.

I was SO GLAD that DK didn't leave. I actually had my hand over my gaping mouth when they went to commercial and I realized I was mirroring quite a few of the kids! I really think he deserved it and I'm glad he wasn't at home tonight kicking himself for screwing himself out of $20K. His college speech wasn't as tear-jerking as Greg's, but with 6 brothers and sisters, the financial reality is, like, WAY more tearjerking. So, go DK! ("I love the positivity!" ~ Vincent Chase)

Exactly. It's not like these kids have any sort of leadership training... how many of them have ever disciplined someone before?

And I cried during the DK phone conversation. That one seemed almost uncontrived. His mom seemed so proud!

There was also a huge lapse in time between when Guylan left to talk to DK and coming back. DK's face was dry of tears so he probably was able to rinse it with some cold water so he'd be all ready when he won the gold star. I also thought Guylan's speech wasn't very convincing.



Emily loves animals remember from the chicken episode? The other kids were probably not as eager as she was to slop around with some pigs. It didn't matter in the end because it seemed like every kid just about jumped in or dived in if your talking about Greg.

I was happy that for once food was the "better" choice.

DK had me in tears. I loved how he looked like a clone of his mom in "boy" form. That was cute. He's a sweet kid and should have ran for council over Guylan. Guylans not that bad although he is a pouter. I'm a big Greg fan and even thought he was being a little too mean to Guylan during the big food dig.

I'm glad Olivia got minimum air time this week, the big eye roll she gave was enough. She just cant back off of Anjays case can she?

Man, if I were Greg's age and had to deal with Taylor it'd take all I had not to shove her face in the dirt so no, I don't think Anjay and Zack were that out of line, of course Taylor's momma is probably thinking of way to sue them for manhandling her daughter right now.

So who will break it to him that 20K isn't going to put seven (assuming he wants to go too) kids through college?

Nothing seems to work with Taylor. They tried reasoning, being logical, yelling straight at her, now strongarming her......I think they are frustrated to finding a way to "deal" with her.....

God, she must be a joy to raise. Glad she's not my child. I probably would have eaten her by now. ;o)

I bet if they picked the BBQ last week, they would have went for the buggies this week. I guess it's better in the long run to get nourishment in the forms of F&V's instead of burgers and dogs.

This show is thawing my old frozen heart. A dozen seasons of Survivor and TAR have given me a thick reality TV skin. But the poor kids! With the crying! If I had ovaries, they would be aching.

Man oh man how much do I loathe Taylor. It's not healthy to dislike a ten year old this much! I'm going to modify my earlier statement: I loathe Taylor's parents for screwing the poor girl up so damn much. I mean seriously... I don't think I was ever that horrible when I was a kid. I'll have to check with the senior Mr. and Mrs. Junky on that one.

DK was really impressing me... As much as Taylor's immaturity and brattishness shocked me, DK's maturity and level headdedness... He should be really proud. I loved when he caught the younger kids acting out and was all "What's all this foolishness?" Love. And his family seemed really down to earth and cool.

DK might be the person that can set her straight.

Well, of course not! But every little bit helps and this bit was more than a little...

I don't think I would have minded Anjay blocking the door if he hadn't had a huge shit-eating grin on his face at the same time. It seemed like he was getting a kick out of imprisoning her. Yeah, Taylor's a brat, but that just put me off the guy.

Liked DK telling off everybody during the meeting. It was getting to be a mob scene.

For the first time tonight, the production standards started to squick me out a little bit. Seeing the kids screaming at Taylor (no matter how much she deserved it); Anjay slamming the door and apparently coming very close to injuring her; DK with tears streaming down his face about the stress getting to him; and the thing that really squicked me out? Children jumping blindly into a vat of baked beans with cans rolling around unseen? Seriously? Seriously??? How is that safe and appropriate? I would have even had reservations about that on Big Brother, the leading source of network OSHA violations. I'm relieved that none of them rolled an ankle or cut themselves - as far as we could see, anyway.

On the other hand, did I really have tears streaming down my face when DK won the gold star? I'm quite sure I was imagining that. Um, yeah.

I would like to believe DK could get through to Taylor, but I think she just takes him as a life preserver for people being "too mean" to her. He's come out against her publicly in the past, in the town meetings, and she never batted an eye. She'll only change if her girls abandon her.

Taylor to Zach: "I'll hate you for the rest of my life!"

Zach-- and everyone else-- to Taylor: "So now you know how WE felt when YOU chose things we needed over things we wanted."

Spoiled whiny little Peach State brat. She is the explanation of the punchline to an old joke: "Why do all of the trees in Alabama lean to the east? Because Georgia sucks."

That's the impression I got also and why I described him as a goon for the council. Anjay wasn't offering anything constructive (then or at any point, as far as I can remember). No ideas. No solutions. Just there to intimidate. He enjoyed being powerful as a member of the pack, lording over Taylor. He seems pretty weak willed. I thought that was part of the reason he got reelected actually. The Blue district already has strong personalities running their district behind the scenes. Anjay is a puppet leader, which is why he never seems as important as the other council members, its because he's not.

Best line of the night: "What do you expect me to do? Not make a fruit salad!?"

God I hate Taylor so much. This episode was pretty lame. I'm sick of that bitch, and I'm of people yelling at her.

Oh, I do dearly love puppet leaders.
But I don't think all of this criticism is fair to Anjay. I mean, how do you expect 12 year old boy to react to an extremely bratty, uncontrollable 10 year old girl? I'll admit, his "leadership" skills have been lacking, but what exactly are we expect him to "lead" the blue team into?

Kudos to Leila for finally breaking free from Taylor and at least showing up to help. Also, when Taylor was whining about going home, Leila said "Fine then, go home." Excellent.

I enjoyed Michael's spazz reaction during the town meeting...he and Sophia really want Taylor gone.

Brett got some screen time! And all it took was him nearly breaking his leg and having trouble putting on his sweatshirt. Weird editing.

And I'm with y'all who liked Mike's line about 1600 gallons of baked beans.

I felt so bad for poor Alex when he was stuck in the beans. He normally sounds like an adult trapped in a kids body, but when he whinned about having his can and the host shot him down he sounded so sad. It wasn't not his fault he couldn't jump out of the beans fast enough.

Don't be too hard on Zach. He was frustrated and Taylor was driving me nuts. Not cool that he put her hands on her, but she did it first and they wanted to keep her so that they could talk to her.

Taylor is thick-skinned, I give her that. Scary, screaming little devil, but that hate session would have broken 10 year old Hotspur. Heck, currently, it would break me.

Emilie: He started it!
DK: I don't care who started it!

Ahahahahahaha!

Anjay has steadily been losing points with me since the first episode. He doesn't show any leadership ability, and I think that his win over Olivia has the stench of "the lesser of two evils." We rarely see shots of him working (though that doesn't necessarily mean he isn't), and he seems to be easily steamrolled by other members of the council.

Most of all, he needs to open his mouth when he speaks, because DAMN THAT IS ANNOYING.

Yeah, but the goal is to find the cans. What does her being an animal lover have to do with it? The pigs aren't gonna help her find the cans. The other red team members didn't seem to mind going in that pool. About Greg, he did dive in to get completely soak in that slop. I thought that was funny.


Who else wanted to push Taylor face first in that bean pool?

I don't think Anjay and Zach were rough on Taylor. Taylor wanted to run from her problems and laziness as usual and Zach and Anjay were trying to get Taylor to face it. Taylor was safe from injury from Anjay with the door and Zach wasn't rough when he grabbed Taylor's arm otherwise Taylor would've whined Zach hurt her and use that as another excuse not to work. It's not like they smacked her around and what Taylor kicking Anjay? No outrage on that.

Why wasn't Colton's, "You guys are dull minded as hell," (when the leaders voted for the fruits and veggies) captioned like Taylor's "I'm gonna hate you for the rest of your life."

I'll admit I was wrong. During the whole episode I was SURE that DK was playing up for the Gold Star. But when he was going to leave it was clear he had no idea he was in the running. That grin he had clutching the star was cleary "Whew...I nearly screwed myself out of $20 K.

However tonight is probably the last we will see of DK...as I noticed that winning the Gold Star is the Kiss of Death in terms of any further storyline or screen time....Greg and Michael got one line each while Morgan (the nicest kid out there) and the others have become less than wall paper.

I'll defend Taylor. I like her just for the fact that she made the Council appear to be a toothless paper tiger. And I DID NOT like when all those bigger kids were ganging up on her in that room, especially that little shit Anjay who by the way does not deserve a seat on the council because he had yet to show ANY leadership abilities. I'm glad others here are seeing him for what he is.

So did the production have to pull any of the children that were muslim aside and feel them out about messing around with the pork or maybe the challenge was explained to the parents ahead of time.

I'm glad that they showed that Taylor really isn't a heartless monster as she was clearly upset over losing DK.

Zach=Power Trip

and lastly Kudos to Leila for realizing the punishment might be worse and pitching in...she shoveled better than Gurly or whatever his name is.

I loved that part! I could totally see him flashing back to his brothers and sisters. It's probably not the first time he's heard that or had to use it himself. He does seem to be a pretty awesome kid, and I was impressed that it worked. It would have been nice to see a little background on how he got to be such a respected and well-liked member of the group over time.



Not my proudest moment, since the girl is a child and all, but I was kind of hoping that someone would scare some pigs her way when she was in there. And something about the way it was shot made me think that she was going to be tripped on her way out of the tank, so I was a little surprised that she made it out of there relatively clean.

I thought he looked terrified and kinda "Holy moley, what have I just done?" kinda smile, the smile I have before I jumped off the high board. I doubt he wanted to imprison her, he just wanted to do his duty.

You know, I would have been bothered by all the kids ganging up on Taylor if I thought for a second it affected her at all...but I don't. Seriously, she's amused me at times and I've tried to give her the benefit of the doubt but tonight was the last straw. She's just plain and simply a brash, rude, obnoxious little brat and being nice to her, stern, etc. nothing seems to work. So yeah everyone snapped and finally got fed up...I don't blame them.

I also didn't find Anjay and Zach bullying her in the room so much as they were clearly thinking if we can just get her to stop...just MAYBE, MAYBE they would get her to listen and have some kind of decent change of heart. I mean for crying out loud, her number one sycophant Leila started to feel guilty and bad and went to help and STILL, Taylor was just unphased, relentless in her stubborness.

Even Greg who seems to like her and Leila just fine was behind them shaking his head to get the council to not buy the crap they were trying to sell to get out of working. I mean she is the ONLY one who seems to be like that...she just does nothing. Natasha and Migle have had no camera time but going by their CBS profiles and videos, they seem to be "girly-girly" types and at 13/14 probably care about their looks a lot but damn, even they were working no complaints tonight.

Taylor is just a brat...plain and simple. Then the dumping the water and stomping off...again it's not just that she's lazy it's how obnoxious she is about it. You could see the kids all just staring in shock by the trash heap when she absolutely would not do anything and then ran off to hide.

So yeah was it mean for the kids to gang up on her...sure but seriously I doubt it affected her one bit. As far as I can tell her tears were for DK possibly leaving not by anything anyone was saying. Hell she gave Sophia a pretty rigid and stone-faced "no" when Sophia yelled at her to just go home.



What did he do...other than stand by and yes look a bit impatient and say to the cameras that Guylan sucked but he didn't say it to his face which has to count for something. Oh unless you're referring to when Guylan walked away and he said give a hand for their new council leader...yeah for a second I wasn't sure if he was being serious but then promptly realized it was Greg so chances her he was being sarcastic and thus yes, a little bit assy. I did laugh at how everyone jumped on him and quickly told him to shut it...guess somethings never change.

That said, Guylan kind of bugged me there. I get that he wanted to prove himself, but he clearly could not do it and rather than waste time, try to find something else you're more useful at. Then when he finally accepts that he did suck rather than simply giving the shovel to someone else and try to find something else to do, he plays the victim and makes a big production of going in a corner to sulk. Then again he is only 11, home-schooled and was trying desperately to be impressive and failed so I guess I should cut him some slack.

Good god, Taylor {snip} I don't think that child has any redeeming qualities at all. (To quote from the more recent Willy Wonka movie... "What a beastly girl.") I mean... kicking Anjay? Really? Granted, Anjay is a worthless dolt, but come on. They weren't trying to imprison her, because they would've been stuck in the bunkhouse with her--instead I think they were trying to get her to listen (though it was rather poorly explained).

I would've liked to have seen some sort of followup to Zach's threat about not paying Laila and Taylor, but that was just sort of left hanging.

I have a feeling that, come the next election, Guylan will bow out and DK will replace him. I also don't think Anjay can survive another round of voting though I'm uncertain who will replace him--hopefully not Olivia. (shudder)

I wonder if at some point the districts will be switched up a bit. That might make things interesting.

When the council members tried to stop Taylor from leaving, they went too far. But otherwise, I find their actions understandable and reasonable. That's not to say they took the best possible path. Taylor is so dedicated to being disruptive that they're better off letting her get away with free-loading so they don't waste time arguing with her.

DK deserved the Gold Star for many of the things he did during the episode, but I found his holier-than-thou attitude a little off-putting. DK tried to get the kids off Taylor's back by saying that she was trying. But that's bullshit. It's nice that DK wants to avoid conflict, but he's also being willfully blind to Taylor's actual attitude. She isn't trying very hard, so why pretend that she is? It's ironic that DK is a lot tougher on Brett and Emilie than he is on the most destructive force in town.

I can't stand Taylor but I really did not like it when they were all trying to trap her in that room; they were pretty much harrassing her and it must have felt pretty threatening to her. I also noticed that the boys had really lost their cool and were getting agressive (I'm not saying "sexually agressive", but definitely agressive) and that Laurel was the one to show empathy and to realize that Taylor was starting to flip out, and insisted that they needed to let her leave if she wanted to. Interesting.

I really was proud of Leila when she finally got the cajones to walk away from Taylor; I don't underestimate the power of peer pressure on a girl that young, and she has definitely been dominated by Taylor, so good for her.

Michael cracks me up, he is such a spazzy middle-manager in the making; just, his facial expressions and gestures and everything remind me of some adults I've worked with....some very annoying adults.

I was all with the tears streaming down my face during the council, and DK's wanting to leave, and how pretty much every single kid in the room was crying--that was a real testament to how much of an impact he's had on the group and how valued he is. It wasn't just his best buddies, it was everyone. That was really nice to see, and I'm glad he stayed. It seems likely that he was told about the gold star before agreeing to come back, but I have to say, the expression on his face when it was announced looked pretty convincing to me.

My eight-year-old son literally cried, not at the dramatic final act, but when the council turned down the buggies. He freaked with disappointment. Needless to say, he does not like veggies.

Is Taylor really Brittany Spears?

That would definitely be a great twist. I think one of the next showdowns should be one that splits up the group. I don't know if it would be an "all for one" challenge or they manage to have the teams split in half, with one half of one team swapping with the other. Maybe if they re-elect new council members again, this would coincide with the switch up.