Netflix’s The Circle has been one of the surprise hits of the year. The reality show, which eerily feels like something straight out of Black Mirror, follows a group of contestants as they compete for popularity and a grand prize of $100k based solely on their interactions on a social media app, specifically designed for the show, called The Circle.
Like all good reality shows, the series had a variety of moments that made viewers completely cringe in secondhand embarrassment and others that completely melted their hearts. Here are five of the cringiest and five of the sweetest moments on the show.
Cringe: The Entirety Of Adam And Rebecca’s “Relationship”
One of the biggest twists of The Circle was that the players could be whoever they wanted to be. Two of the contestants, Seaburn and Alex, really took this to heart. Seaburn became the sweet and shy Rebecca, while Alex became the handsome and suave Adam. When Adam joined the show, he had to take someone on a virtual date. After a bunch of awkwardly flirtatious and borderline inappropriate questions, he settled on Rebecca and their fake relationship blossomed.
Throughout the show, Rebecca pretended to be completely crazy over Adam, while Adam awkwardly tried to keep their relationship going. In the end, Adam was blocked and used his visit to see Rebecca. They were both initially shocked to find that they were both catfishing but spent the evening gleefully bonding over their fake personas.
Sweet: Joey And Shubham’s Friendship
The last place anyone expects people to make good friends are on reality shows. However, Joey and Shubham (or Shooby as he is often called) were able to build a strong friendship. Although the two had very different personalities, they were able to bond over their authenticity and became deeply loyal to each other.
Their bond was even so strong that Joey after realizing that Shubham had a very good chance of winning the show, decided to not rank Shubham lower even if it meant that he would lose the competition. A true testament to their friendship, it didn’t end with the show and according to Joey’s Instagram, the two are closer than ever.
Cringe: Miranda And Sammie’s Side Bet
As the players were mostly confined to their rooms and had hours of free time, it was pretty obvious that the cast had to find ways to entertain themselves. At the height of their boredom, Miranda and Sammie set up a bet to see if they could get Joey to send a “flirty” emoji to either of them.
Sammie went first and shamelessly tried her best but Joey didn’t budge. Miranda, after some insistence, finally pulled through and Joey sent a red hot chili pepper and claimed to have no idea what an eggplant emoji was. In the end, although still a bit confused by the whole ordeal, Miranda won the bet.
Sweet: Shubham’s Loyalty to Rebecca
One of the most beautiful friendships that developed over the show was that of Rebecca (Seaburn) and Shubham. Right from the beginning, Rebecca and Shubham hit it off and protected each other throughout the rankings. Shubham even went as far as saving Adam (Alex) from elimination because of Rebecca.
More importantly, Shubham refused to believe that Rebecca was a catfish even when other contestants like Ed insisted that she was. Instead, Shubham supported her throughout the show and even when he met the real Seaburn, still didn’t treat him differently.
Cringe: The Push-Up Challenge
Throughout the show, Joey and Adam (Alex) had a bit of a rivalry and in order to mess with Adam, Joey decided to have a friendly workout challenge with the rest of the boys.
However, no one did a single push-up, well, except for Shubham. Joey was relaxing and gleefully hoping that Alex would be breaking a sweat. However, Adam was having a nice and cozy bubble bath and had no intention of lifting a finger. Chris decided that snacking was a far more appealing idea, so the only person who ended up doing the challenge was poor Shooby.
Sweet: Sean Telling The Truth
In real life, social media can be a very horrible place full of trolls and hateful people. Therefore, Sean, although a body-positive plus-sized woman, decided to use the photos of her thinner friend. However, Sean soon realized that she would prefer to be herself and decided that she was going to tell everyone the truth.
Sean first went to Chris, then the rest of the girls and eventually changed all her photos on the app. Sean was very worried that people would react negatively towards her but to her great surprise, everybody reacted wonderfully towards her and many commended her bravery.
Cringe: Tammy And The “Emojo’s”
Ed was the last contestant to join the show and he decided to be himself but with a little twist - he brought his mom with him. Tammy became Ed’s voice in The Circle, although he often chose to ignore her advice anyway.
Like most moms, Tammy became a little confused with all the social media lingo and to the hilarity of the audience and her own son, could not stop referring to emoji’s as “emojo’s”.
Sweet: The Videos From Home
During the run of the show, the contestants were kept isolated from the outside world. However, each of the players received a private message from home. Some of the contestants received the messages after winning a game will the others had to wait until later. Nonetheless, there was not a single dry-eye among the contests after those messages.
Joey and Chris both received loving messages from their moms and Chris revealed that he wanted to win the show in order to afford dental surgery for his mother. Shubham got a beautiful message from his dad, while Seaburn got a supportive message from his girlfriend and Alex was left in tears after a doting a message from his wife. Sammie’s was sent by her aunt who Sammie later revealed to the rest of the group, raised her when her mom died.
Cringe: Rebecca’s Thoughts On Periods
Rebecca (Seaburn) spent most of her time in The Circle making sure that no one was able to guess her real identity and overall she did that pretty well. That was until the girls started to have a conversation about menstrual cramps and Seaburn nervously realized that this conversation was going right over his head.
Attempting to be one of the girls, Rebecca decided to complain about her cramps which were specifically on her lefthand side and as most women know, that is really weird. The rest of the girls reacted in hilarious confusion and Seaburn was forced to concede that this chat was clearly above his pay grade.
Sweet: The Final Dinner
At the end of the season, after the last rankings were made, the final players Joey, Shubham, Rebecca, Chris, and Sammie finally got to meet each other and it turned it into a warm-hearted and jovial affair.
Although everyone was shocked about Rebecca, it didn’t really hamper their festivities and they all carried on as if they knew each other for years. In the end, the dinner proved that even though The Circle was just a reality show where no one actually got to see each other, it didn’t mean that the contestants couldn’t form strong bonds with each other.
