Who Will Win ‘The Circle’ Season 6?

[Warning: This post contains MAJOR spoilers for The Circle Season 6, Episodes 1-4.]

For its newest season, Netflix‘s original reality competition series has taken drastic measures to shake things up. The Circle Season 6, which premiered with its first four episodes Wednesday, now features an artificial intelligence contender in addition to multiple catfishing contestants.

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.

• 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.
• 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 person 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.
• 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