User blog comment:BradP27/Why RR was the Best Season Since the Original TDI--if not better/@comment-2091662-20151013215952/@comment-1734566-20151015001318

@Stryzzar: Agreed entirely. It's almost like they threw in the partners - both conveniently their respective love interests - in order to FURTHER avoid having Shawn and Sky interact...for God-knows-what-reason.

@Phoenix: I'm pretty sure EVERYBODY could predict Sierra and Alejandro going far, just by the fact that they were the ONLY two newbies in an overall cast of 17. Like, it was painfully obvious that they'd all hit the Final Five at the LEAST. And they returned for TDAS for the same reason - being TDWT's only two newbies. On TDR, yeah, I thought for SURE Mike would be a finalist because he was obviously being built up as a fan favorite AND a protagonist...yet he got sixth? And again, Zoey was thought to be a lock from the MOMENT Jo left...which is when they threw the curveball at us of finally having a same-gender final two. Gotta at least give them props for such an unexpected twist that defied previous cliches. Yeah, even I thought Cameron would be among the first five boots; and once it became clear he was the new protagonist after Mike fell, I thought it'd be more like Cameron vs. Jo, or maybe Cameron vs. Zoey. Lightning was like their attempt at avoiding having both the main antagonist (Scott) and the secondary antagonist (Jo) both going to the finale, so they made him, like, a third-rate "antagonist" in literally the last two episodes. And in TDPI, yeah, I thought for sure Dave was gonna go far - but he was just another Mike in that sense. But even then, when it came down to so few obvious choices for a male finalist, I thought at that point it'd be a female-female finale to even out the gap thrown off by TDR's guy-guy finale: Like, Jasmine vs. Sugar, Sugar vs. Sky, Sky vs. Jasmine, IDK...I NEVER thought Shawn would make it, ever.