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Game Changer<\/a><\/p>\n Earwigs<\/p>\n \n Season 8<\/p>\n Episode 7\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 4 stars<\/p>\n ****\n <\/p>\n \n The contestants put on their best Marie Antoinette wigs to play a game that riffs on social deduction games. Dropout\u2019s weekly \u201cbehind the scenes on last week\u2019s Game Changer\u201d featurettes offer a lot of insight on a given episode\u2019s origins, development, and production, but they usually gloss over one of the more fascinating issues: how the creators decide what the audience should know, and when. That dynamic varies considerably from installment to installment. In episodes like \u201cYes or No\u201d or \u201cTell Us About Yourself,\u201d viewers are completely in the dark, and get to play alongside the contestants, trying to deduce the game\u2019s secrets. Hidden-information episodes like \u201cLie Detector,\u201d \u201cBingo,\u201d or this season\u2019s \u201cNight Shift\u201d<\/a> are cleverly constructed around doling out secret information to the audience to put them ahead of the players and heighten the drama.<\/p>\n \u201cEarwigs\u201d splits the difference in a smart, often startling way. Most of its challenges are built around two secrets, and the audience learns only one of those ahead of time. That means we get to have our Game Changer cake and eat it too: With each mini-game, we simultaneously get the opportunity to play the game and to sit outside it, judging how well the players hide hidden agendas or ferret them out.<\/p>\n The contestants: Zach Reino, Ross Bryant, Oscar Montoya, Jessica McKenna, Becca Scott, Erika Ishii, Persephone Valentine, Isabella Roland<\/p>\n The game: In each round, most of the players get instructions for a mini-game via the earbuds they\u2019re all wearing. But one or more \u201cimposters\u201d don\u2019t get instructions, and have to convincingly play along anyway. Players get points for correctly calling out imposters, or remaining undetected as impostors. Also, after the first round, each mini-game has a separate metagame, where one or more players have a secret goal to meet without getting caught.<\/p>\n The inspiration: The initial mechanics resemble a previous hidden-role Game Changer episode, \u201cThe Drinking Game\u201d (season seven, episode five). There\u2019s a little Mafia\/Werewolf DNA in there too, both in the simultaneously-point-to-accuse voting system and the \u201cwake up at night\u201d mechanism that lets players with secret assignments identify each other. But the overall structure much more closely resembles the social card game Spyfall<\/a>, where a group of players is assigned a secret location to discuss, while a spy who didn\u2019t get the briefing tries to convincingly participate, stay unnoticed, and deduce the location.<\/p>\n \u201cEarwigs\u201d starts in classic Game Changer fashion, with the contestants pushed into action before getting any game briefing. It also features a more idiosyncratic kind of fashion: The players are decked out in brightly colored, jewel-bedecked Marie Antoinette wigs and era-appropriate stylized makeup. (Notably, the guys get women\u2019s wigs rather than the period\u2019s radically different equivalents for men.) Most of the players immediately adopt exaggerated foppish courtier characters, complete with hoity-toity accents and hyperbolic graciousness. \u201cWe basically have decided we\u2019re roleplaying for the whole episode,\u201d Dropout CEO and show host\/producer Sam Reich says, sounding torn between regret and admiration.<\/p>\n The contestants are also all wearing hidden in-ear speakers, a.k.a. \u201cearwigs.\u201d In Challenge 1, the players dance to an earwig-transmitted ditty called \u201cDance Like It\u2019s a Bit and You\u2019re Mr. Bit Guy,\u201d a hooky song full of rhythmic instructions from Sam, like \u201cBe spaghetti! Whatever that means to you! More al dente! Whatever that means to you!\u201d and \u201cFlick off your friends!\u201d<\/p>\n At this point, neither the players nor the audience knows one player isn\u2019t getting the music or instructions at all, and is just imitating everyone else. When Sam asks the contestants to pick out the impostor, they turn on Izzy, who the camera caught several times during the dance looking baffled and frozen. Six players choose Izzy as the impostor, and not for the last time in this episode.<\/p>\n For most of the challenges, the votes are all over the place. But Izzy is a frequent and consistent target, because she so often seems to be playing a different game from everyone else. She affects a rough lower-class British accent instead of a fop character, performs challenges outside the circle of chairs everyone else sticks to, and brings in the kind of wingnut scofflaw play I usually associate with Vic Michaelis<\/a>.<\/p>\n Oscar is the actual imposter, though, and he gets to stand and take a bow \u2014 after an extended Traitors-style pause, where the players peer suspiciously at each other, backed by thunderous music. (Sam must have coached the players on post-vote-reveal dramatic delivery.) No one pegged Oscar as the imposter, so he gets three points, delivered via a digital scorecard and a voiceover by Taskmaster creator and co-host Alex Horne. Alex serves as an ersatz sports announcer presiding over this game, though I wish he\u2019d been given more room for color commentary and to explain the points system, which changes from round to round without explanation.<\/p>\n Another scoring mechanic is similarly never spelled out for the audience, but it\u2019s a wonderful visual detail: Players get a butterfly decoration clipped into their pouffe-style wigs for every point they earn. \u201cSprinkle me with butterflies!\u201d Becca cries at one point after scoring. But mostly, the butterfly system goes silently unheralded.<\/p>\n For Challenge 2 and beyond, the players get masquerade-ball half-masks on sticks, sans eyeholes, to use as blindfolds during challenge setups. When the imposters are working together, they get to lower their masks during the setup phase and identify each other. Challenge 2, labeled \u201cArchetypo,\u201d has Sam secretly telling most of the players to deliver lines in the voice of an archetypal noir detective, then a \u201cfairytale witch,\u201d then a used car salesman. Zach is the imposter who isn\u2019t given instructions, but the archetypes are broad enough that he catches on quickly and fakes it well, and only Persephone calls him out during the vote phase.<\/p>\n But Sam introduces a new wrinkle, a \u201csecret second game.\u201d Players have to deduce what it was and vote on who was playing it. This is a hellish quadruple-barreled challenge: The contestants have to simultaneously (a) play the minigame of the moment well, (b) be funny, (c) suss out the imposters, and (d) watch for absolutely any kind of deviating behavior whatsoever. No wonder Izzy gets pilloried so many times just for having the driest sense of humor. And no wonder so few imposters get caught.<\/p>\n The player theories about the secret metagame are quite observant, but no one actually guesses it: Ross and Izzy were ordered to insert the names of as many Sandra Bullock movies as possible into their answers. Between them, they manage to tag The Blind Side, Miss Congeniality, Practical Magic, Speed 2, The Lake House, Heat, The Net, and Bird Box while still successfully playing the archetype challenge.<\/p>\n The editing in \u201cEarwigs\u201d is particularly on point when it comes to hidden information. The flashbacks to secret instruction phases are fun times. (\u201cLower your mask and find your competition,\u201d Sam tells Izzy and Ross in \u201cArchetypo\u201d\u2019s setup phase. \u201cNow nod to each other menacingly. Gooooood.\u201d) But the episode is sprinkled with other kinds of terrific little stylized inserts. Usually, we\u2019re in on whatever the players are hearing in their earbuds. But sometimes, the editing steps outside that space \u2013 for instance, showing us all the players dancing, but omitting the music they\u2019re being fed via earwig. It\u2019s like a large-scale version of watching someone bop to headphone music only they can hear. (Major shoutout here to the YouTuber who created Zac Oyama\u2019s version of that experience<\/a> from the previous <\/a>Game Changer<\/a> episode, \u201cNoise Some Makes.\u201d<\/a>)<\/p>\n Challenge 3 has the players being given three themes \u2014 \u201cjoy,\u201d \u201cspace,\u201d and \u201csilence\u201d \u2014 and ordered to draw pictures on the theme, using their motorized, vibrating \u201csquiggle pens\u201d in their non-dominant hands. That combination makes it impossible to even draw a simple line, giving this round\u2019s fakers, Jess and Becca, the option of drawing gobbledegook and passing it off as something more specific. They seem to out themselves when Becca draws \u201ca pet rock with a palm tree in the mouth\u201d for \u201cspace,\u201d and Jess draws four suns \u201cin a sense of balance and giving\u201d for \u201csilence.\u201d Becca does get five accusations. But Jess slips by unsuspected as the metagamer, successfully asking all seven other players \u201cWhat you thinking?\u201d without anyone realizing it isn\u2019t just a jokey comedy-repetition bit.<\/p>\n Challenge 4, \u201cBop the Mark\u201d is tag, with the \u201cIt\u201d player trying to tap a specific player with a lily, while all the other players play zone defense to block them. The imposters, Zach and Erika, don\u2019t know the game, though it\u2019s easy to deduce. This one\u2019s mostly fun because it\u2019s so physical, yet so decorous. As Ross immediately calls out, this mixture of a child\u2019s game with a sense of politesse, set to a stately, period-appropriate Vivaldi concerto, absolutely does feel like a game that might have been played in an 18th-century court.<\/p>\n Sam drops two swerves after Challenge 4, first asking who was or still is playing a metagame, then asking both the players and the metagamers to \u201clock in their votes.\u201d Ross, Oscar, and Persephone were all metagamers who weren\u2019t introduced to each other, and who had to make silly faces throughout the game, then point each other out based on the face-pulling, which Oscar and Sephi both successfully do.<\/p>\n Challenge 5 is a rough one: It\u2019s \u201cNever Have I Ever\u201d without alcohol. Players hold up ten fingers, and lower one every time Sam, via earwig, mentions something they\u2019ve actually done. Izzy and Sephi are imposters. When the first never-have-I is \u201cdone background work,\u201d and only Erika, Becca, and Sephi cop to this actor rite of passage, Erika calls out all the other players as impostors. \u201cI don\u2019t believe any of you,\u201d Sephi similarly announces, with no information, but impressive confidence and authority. Other prompts ask players to lower a finger if they\u2019ve used a fake ID, milked an animal (\u201cI\u2019m from Colombia,\u201d Oscar says matter-of-factly), had a paranormal experience (\u201cI think I\u2019ll give context after. I don\u2019t wanna give it away,\u201d Sephi says, again with authority), or snooped through a medical cabinet. \u201cI\u2019ve been through all those, but I\u2019ve never been in there just gobbling,\u201d Ross says, in what must have been the weirdest line for Izzy and Sephi to hear out of context.<\/p>\n The final prompt is \u201chad sex in a public place,\u201d which sets off a round of tittering and innuendo, and Sephi\u2019s masterstroke as an impostor: \u201cI bet you would love for us to give you some details, you nasty, nasty pig,\u201d she tells Sam, responding to the group\u2019s overall blush-and-titter while still not actually knowing the prompt or revealing any actual information. She fully slips past everyone\u2019s radar, while Izzy, who\u2019s been quiet the whole round, gets her second six-accusation round. Even Sephi votes for her. (Scorekeeper Alex Horne, in a rare bit of editorializing, calls this pile-up \u201cbrutal but fair,\u201d comparing Izzy\u2019s silence to Sephi\u2019s \u201cincredible amounts of absolute bullshit.\u201d)<\/p>\n It turns out there are four metagamers this round: Sephi and Oscar are partners, and so are Erika and Becca. The teams are competing to talk over each other the most, saying \u201capproximately the same thing at approximately the same time,\u201d which involves a lot of anticipation and echoing. Erika and Becca win this one.<\/p>\n The game ends with Challenge 6, \u201cFrog, Fish, Crab,\u201d an improv game somewhat echoing the mutable rules of the venerable theater warmup exercise Zip Zap Zop. Players \u201csend\u201d frog, fish, or crab to each other by saying the word to another player, usually adding gestures and silly voices. Then it\u2019s the other player\u2019s turn to pass frog, fish, or crab to someone else. The players can also make up new rules or events, whole cloth: The only point is to catch out the impostors, who are meant to think they\u2019re playing a real game with actual rules. If anyone appears to botch the gameplay, everyone\u2019s supposed to join in on a big accusatory \u201cOhhhhhhh!\u201d<\/p>\n Izzy, Oscar, and Zach are the impostors. The first time someone departs from the frog-fish-crab pattern \u2014 Jess announces \u201cUnder the ocean!\u201d, leaping up to crouch in the middle of the stage \u2014 you can see all three impostors hesitate before getting up to join the others. But Zach catches on fast, and takes a risky gambit by making up \u201cVolcano mode!\u201d, where all the players meet at center stage to hold up their arms and yell \u201cBoom!\u201d Oscar emulates him with another round of Volcano Mode a minute later. Surprisingly, though, Oscar\u2019s the one who gets off scot-free, while Zach and Izzy draw three accusations apiece. Then Sam reveals that Izzy, Oscar, and Zach were all playing a metagame as well, getting points for everyone who voted for them as imposters. This is fairly confusing, since Izzy and Zach tie with four points apiece and Oscar gets two points \u2013 which doesn\u2019t reflect either the imposter voting that round or the voting throughout the game. I\u2019m still not sure where those numbers came from.<\/p>\n But it winds up not mattering, because of the metagame vote.\u00a0 When Becca says she doesn\u2019t think there was a metagame, and casually suggests voting for Sam instead, the players go for the gag. All eight of them point at Sam, in the game\u2019s only unanimous vote. It turns out that during the opening dance number, Becca was assigned a third-level metagame that ran throughout the entire episode: She gets a point whenever someone votes for Sam.<\/p>\n Hilariously, the players figure out that they were manipulated on the unanimous Sam vote, and collectively decide that was the top-level metagame. But no one suspects Becca, who walks away with an additional seven points, leaping from a tie for last place (with Izzy and Erika) to a clean win, and the fanciest, courtliest, most butterfly-est wig of them all.<\/p>\n The winner: Becca Scott<\/p>\n The prize: \u201cA collection of Sandra Bullock movies on DVD.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n Photo: Kate Elliott\n <\/p>\n