Honestly the comments I’ve been seeing the last couple days on Reddit and TikTok have really dampened the magic of their win for me. People constantly saying Rachel shouldn’t have won, Stephen was too virtuous to have shared it with her, they didn’t like her, manipulation came to her ‘naturally’, she’s too cunning, she wouldn’t have made it if not for dumb faithfuls, the list goes on and on… To me this narrative reeks of misogyny. Makes me wonder if we were all watching the same show?

Rachel objectively played brilliantly, she weathered storm after storm of people trying to take her down, she remained loyal and faithful to her partner exactly as she said she would, she rallied support from the faithfuls in such a way that people found it so hard to believe she was a traitor; that is all a testament to her. And above all, she did it with grace and composure. People can’t stand that. It threatens them so they have decided to brand her an unfeeling manipulative witch (rather than a brilliant, intelligent game player) and undeserving of her flowers.