ellie's pr manager

The premise for this conversation is that in the last challenge, Chris broke the campers down into teams of three, two of which had a sabotage option and MK had an ultimately unhelpful advantage that a teammate chose. After being set back by the third team, Julia opted to use her sabotage on MK, who had a huge lead. Julia and her team ultimately won the challenge and immunity in part because of the sabotage.

The editing here is strange because Julia had an unrelated confessional, followed by a scene from Zee and confessional from him but the scene opens presumingly right after her confessional. It’s early morning and MK is right outside the confessional, claiming to have been looking for Julia all morning. From what we know of MK, she would not care to expend the energy looking for anything unless she thought it would give her an advantage. But no, she says she was looking for Julia specifically because she was anxious that Julia was avoiding her. Look at her face, she’s genuinely concerned when she says this; MK usually has some kind of sarcastic/snide remark when she’s not being serious.

Julia tries at first to laugh off the notion as if it’s no big deal, but she’s doing an unusually bad job at doing it. This is unusual for Julia because we know she knows how to act and play people, that’s all she did for the first half of the last season. But consider thematically that MK is the *reason* Julia got to be her authentic self after being ousted as a fraud and how Julia said it felt right to just be herself. It has to feel particularly wrong to lie to MK when the premise of their relationship is appreciating each other for their real selves.

Look at how quick Julia’s facade drops and MK’s face knowing it’s a lie:

MK, who again, has a tendency to make sarcastic remarks, just says “So, yes,” when Julia tries to deny avoiding her. Then she glances away like this before trying to reassure Julia that she’s not mad:

She actually looks uncomfortable, like she’s not used to having to reassure people like this and she’s generally awkward trying to get the words out. If MK didn’t care, if she was lying about actively looking for Julia, she easily could’ve scripted this out and throw in her signature snarking humor. We know from her audition tape that she’s also good at being sneaky and we know from past episodes that she enjoys seeing people squirm, but there’s no indication she’s enjoying this conversation.

What her assurance essentially breaks down to is saying she’s not mad at Julia for using her sabotage on her. After she says this she pauses because she spots Zee shenanigans behind Julia but tries to refocus but we see Julia give MK this look:

It’s a very subtle detail but Julia slightly lifts her head and raises her eyebrows. She looks like she can’t believe someone is actually forgiving her despite doing what any other person on the island would perceive as a backstabbing. Considering the ruthless way she played last season and her strategy to just keep winning immediately, it could be argued that she was just worried she burned a bridge and would have to do it again. But if that was the case, she wouldn’t just be silently listening to what MK had to say, she’d just go back to being The Mean Girl.

But she doesn’t and MK begins to elaborate that she thinks they make a great team and she begins to say “All I want is for—” before total drama does what it does and undercuts the moment with Zee’s shenanigans. It being these two though, I can’t imagine MK saying something too sentimental though and it’s clearly water under the bridge as they immediately agree to mess with Zee and are back to doing confessionals together.

I could go on and on about different scenes that reinforced this one. I just totally refute the idea that they aren’t genuine with each other because they have what feels like the most planned out dynamic of the new generation. It’s not out of character for these two to have gotten along so quickly or for them to care about each other like this.