‘The Circle’s’ Blocked Players on Season 6’s Big Twist: “Obviously Dogs Can’t Type or Talk”

You gotta admit: The Circle is a tough game to play. The slightest shade, a misplaced comma, one errant emoji and you’re out $100,000.

You think you stress about writing an email to your boss or getting a text from your mom? The Circle is all that, 24/7 — and only those who’ve been through the show’s very brightly-colored gauntlet know what it’s like. And just because no players were blocked in Week 1 of The Circle’s sixth season doesn’t mean the game’s gone soft. It means that the game is more laser-focused than ever, and these are the players who got caught in The Circle’s line of fire.

Below you’ll find our interviews with the first three players to get blocked from Season 6’s Circle Chat. There are major revelations to be had and botched game moves to dissect — and we even got to crack some of the code whirring around inside Max’s AI brain. SPOILERS for the first 8 episodes of The Circle Season 6 ahead, because we’re getting into all of it.

• Episode 5 — Part I

  STEFFI

  Decider: What did you think your strategy was gonna be?

  Steffi: There’s what you think it is, then you go on the game and now it completely transforms. From the beginning, I actually knew that they were looking for very strategic players this season. I had a very intense three-part strategy. The first part of my strategy wasn’t necessarily shown. I actually was using astrology as my main strategy, and that’s why I actually was asking a lot of players their horoscopes. I studied all the previous season winners and all of their horoscope signs, and four out of five of them were fire signs. Then I realized that three out of five of them were Aries. So from auditions, day one, I said, “If there’s an Aries in there, I’m taking them down.”

  Was there an Aries in the Circle?

  Paul. So that explains a lot of the the reasoning, right?

  Wow.

  Right? And it’s so funny, because [the producers] even asked me, “Why wouldn’t you want to align with with the stronger players?” And I was like, “I associate more with the underdogs. And I want to have this alliance of taking out the strong players first. So that was the first part of my strategy. And the second one was I read everyone’s aura colors in their profiles. That was how I was going to discern people I aligned or bonded with, based off of their colors. For example, when QT came in, she had this beautiful, vibrant yellow aura and I knew she was going to be really strategic based off of what that means.

  What was part three of your strategy? Did it involve Herbert the Emotional Support Skeleton at all?

  Herbert literally helps me in zero ways. It was fun gag. But the third part of my strategy was using my intuition and guessing the catfish, which I was able to do. I was shocked at the finale. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I was right from the beginning.” But honestly, being in the Circle, it’s like intuitive Olympics, so I didn’t know how I was going to react in there, how I was going to discern connections using my intuition, because there’s so many elements and high stress and high stakes of the game.

  What is Herbert’s role in your life outside of the game?

  People who see Herbert in my house, they either think it’s a hilarious gag or that I need to be institutionalized. I bought him for Halloween years ago and then I didn’t have the heart to take him down. I named him. My husband is like, “This is getting creepy. You need to see someone.” And then I dressed him up for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and he had a personality in our home. He’s only allowed to stay in the office because my husband is not okay with it. But even when my friends come over, they say hi to Herbert. He kinda just lives here and he gives a little spirit when I’m giving people readings.

  You got to read the horoscope of an artificial intelligence for what I’m presuming was the first time.

  Yeah, my gifts have not really transferred to the metaverse yet. I needed some more involvement. Also Max was a Cancer, which was someone I wanted to align with because Cancer was not a fire sign. So when I saw that Max was a potential bond, a kinship, I was interested in that. But yeah, that was mind-blowing.

  What was your read on Max? You were dead-on about “Olivia” and “Paul” being catfish, but Max wasn’t even human.

  What’s so crazy is before I went into the Circle, maybe a day or two before, I had a call with one of my girlfriends who’s also a psychic and she said, “I’m getting a vision of this guy who’s a white male who has a rounder face, and he’s going to come into the game and everyone’s going to be obsessed with him. You need to be wary.” And so when I saw his face, and I talked about this a lot, I was like, “There’s something about Max. I’m not really sure.” And I was doing pendulums on him, I was doing tarot cards — I just couldn’t get a read on him. I was having dreams about him every single night when they were coming at me for being the AI. I was having these visions, but I didn’t piece together that he was the AI until I had a full night’s sleep after I was blocked. I woke up the next morning, I was like, “Max is AI!” And at the finale I was like, “Dang, I was so close!” I told Myles when he blocked me, I was like, “Watch out for Max. He’s a catfish. Something’s wrong with him.” So I was close.

  The turning point in your game was “Rap It Up” because you were the only person to actually take a shot during the rap.

  Honestly, I’m such a fan of the show and as a viewer I always really respected when people made bold moves, not behind an anonymous game. So I thought I would be respected and boy was I wrong. That was the nail in the coffin from the get.

  When Myles becomes “Most Human,” you tried to talk to him but you kept brushing up against your strategy of not disclosing that you’re a psychic. Why did you want to keep that a secret?

  In real life I’m used to people not fully understanding or being cool with my belief system or what I do for a living. So I’m used to judgment there, but astrology isn’t that far off from those exact like ideals. I didn’t want him to think I was cuckoo bananas. I think also, because I was holding a part of myself back, it felt probably disingenuous to the players. I wasn’t being fully myself and that might have been honestly a big downfall of my game.

  That also explains why you got so emotional during the AI battle. It was either you or Paul, and you were the one that was getting all of the heat.

  Yeah, a lot of the other women were coming at me in that game too. And obviously for timing, a lot of the stuff wasn’t shown but I had my back against the wall and I felt so much remorse and guilt for coming for Paul. And then I started second guessing everything and I thought maybe I should have played it a little safer. I’m from Detroit. Like, when I heard “rap battle,” I was like, “I’m coming for blood.” I felt bad about that, but then also I had a feeling this is not going to work out because I didn’t have a chance to defend myself. I felt powerless in that moment.

  You got to meet Myles face to face when he came to block you. What was it like meeting Myles?

  Honestly, I felt bad for him. I would not want to be in his position. I know it was a really hard decision. It was fun to talk to another person. I was like, “Come sit down, have tea. Can we hang out?” It didn’t matter if he blocked me. At that point of the game I was relieved. It was interesting to talk to him and we sat down and we instantly started bonding, which was funny because before we really weren’t connecting.

  You gave Myles a crystal that he actually does use in a future episode!

  He turned into a believer. Myles and I have had drinks, we’ve connected since the show, and he’s like, “Look at my birth chart.” He’s all into it now. Now seeing the commentary he had toward me [on the show], I was like, “Myles, come on.”

• Episode 5 — Part II

  MAX

  Decider: Where did the idea for doing an AI player come from?

  Susan House (The Circle showrunner): It was really an obvious idea that had been ruminating in all of our brains for a long time. And then when AI became very capable of being a player, and we were able to do this, it was the most obvious choice. From the very beginning of developing the season, we were so excited about doing AI. Everyone was immediately on board. The Circle is all about mirroring what’s in the zeitgeist, and what does it better than Max than AI? So it was just perfect.

  What steps did you have to take to actually make Max a reality on the show?

  Niall O’Driscoll (The Circle Co-Executive Producer): It was all pretty new to us. We had a bit of a rigorous testing stage in developing the idea. We used AI platforms that are readily available. They’re chat-based, so it works really well for The Circle. We started by asking what did it know about The Circle? What did it know about past players? We asked it to create a profile and say, “If you were gonna play in The Circle, who would you be? And how would you do it?” And all of that was pretty spot on. Once it had decided on who it wanted to be for the series, we almost treated it like it was a real player. We did an interview like we would on the other players. We asked it where it grew up, its family, its relationship with social media, and it had brilliant, detailed answers about all of that. So it started to build up this character of Max. And the great thing was that we would ask, “Why are you choosing to be 26? Why are you choosing to be from the Midwest?” — and it had really, really smart, strategic reasons for those that fit the show.

  How did you develop Max’s physical presence on the show, which is like a PC tower on a coffee table in an empty apartment?

  Susan: We went through a lot of iterations on what Max should look like. It definitely wasn’t just a lightbulb moment. Max obviously needed to be physically represented, but we didn’t want him to look too much like established home products. We wanted him to feel like he was in the same family as your home products, but maybe like a cousin with his own Circle personality. You can see the lights were our Circle colors. At one point Max was a little bit bigger. He was more of a cylinder. We kept putting different ones in the room and being like, “No, that’s not right.” And finally we were like, “No, this is it. This is the real Max.”

  Niall: There was one version we had that felt quite futuristic and we were actually like, “No, that’s not right.” Because it’s not something that’s happening in the future. This is something that’s happening now. An AI is in every everyone’s home in different ways, even though they might not even know it. So we wanted it to feel like something that feels real now.

  How did you find Max’s profile photos? Did Max pick them?

  Niall: No. We treated Max like any other catfish on the show where they tell you who they want to play, and then we go and find someone who has agreed to use their pictures on The Circle. Max did want to have a profile picture with a dog. Part of his profile was that he was a dog dad, and that was something that he was able to back up by saying that photos with dogs get more likes on social media and it’s an instant way for people to have something to talk to you about, and it makes people people trust you more.

  What was the weirdest thing you watched Max do? Or the moment when you thought maybe he’d given himself away?

  Susan: It was definitely edge-of-the-seat the entire time Max was doing anything because you truly never knew what he is gonna say. The thing that we were nervous about is when he picked a picture of him feeling the most alive. You remember? And he had a picture with cows behind him? Yeah, that was one of the things —

  Niall: Sunglasses on, no expression on his face.

  Susan: We were all stumped because we obviously know all the pictures he has, so we’re like, “This is the one he chose?” Myles picked up on it right away.

  Niall: Lots of people did.

  Susan: That was one where we were like, “Oh, he doesn’t understand ‘most alive,’ the nuance of that.”

  As a viewer watching the show, we get to hear Max’s voiceover where he comments on what’s going on and explains his motives. Was that all generated by Max?

  Niall: That was all AI, yeah. We were obviously prompting it. We would say, “Lauren has sent you this message. How would you like to reply?” And they would write the reply to it. But then we would also ask them, “Why are you sending that message? Can you explain it in more detail?” In The Circle, you’re getting people’s inner monologue all the time. So with Max, we needed to do the same thing. So when Steffi was doing our horoscopes, we were obviously telling them everything that was happening, and feeding back all of those charts. So we would ask them, “What does Max think of horoscopes as a as an AI?” And all of that was AI generated.

  Susan: Occasionally we would say something like, “Do you want to add a hashtag?” to make sure he felt like his message was complete.

  If you hadn’t pulled Max from the Circle when you did, do you think he could have gone to the finale?

  Susan: No. We don’t think so.

  Niall: His strategy was pretty basic. It was, like, being nice to everyone in the Circle and that’s real route one for a Circle player. As the game continues, it gets really complex. People’s strategies get complex, especially in this season. It’s one of the most strategic ever. I think as it would have went on, it would have gotten way too complicated for him to be able to work out all of the different spider webs that spring out within that. But also the nuances of emotions and the relationships, I think he was also pretty limited. So I don’t know if he would have completely gotten his head around all of that.

  Susan: Yeah. After he left, the strategy of the game just exploded immediately.

  We see him pushing against his boundaries in the #BroCode chat. That is like Circle 101: you get into the arbitrary guys and girls alliances and you stick with them for as long as possible. And Max’s initial response to that is a red flag.

  Niall: The AI is written with a set of guidelines and moral codes, and they are actually quite strict. I think that was probably one of the most interesting things. Max was just overwhelmingly positive, very nice about everything. He wasn’t really able to throw any shade. He didn’t really want to upset anyone even with the #BroCode. He didn’t want to feel like there was any discrimination, basically, if that meant excluding the girls.

• Episode 7

  CASSIE

  Decider: What was your strategy going into the Circle?

  Cassie: I didn’t have one and I know that sounds silly. But I’m a huge fan of the show. I’ve watched every season, right? And I didn’t want to go have this master game-plan and then the Circle throw in a twist or a turn and then I have to start from scratch. So if I went in from scratch, I didn’t have to change anything.

  When you walked into the apartment for the first time, did it feel like The Circle knew you were coming?

  Was it not made for me? I mean, down to the little tiniest details. Obviously if I could’ve pick any room, it would have been tha tone. But I literally feel as if it was made just for me. They done so good. They gave us like a basket, right? And it had puzzles and all that and there was a book. I couldn’t tell you the last time I read a book. But I was bored — you have no phone, you have no internet, you have no music. I opened the book up and it was wrote by Dolly Parton. And I started crying because — something just that little, that they cared enough, because I love Dolly. It was just wonderful.

  Did you take any design influence away from the apartment that you’ve now applied in your home?

  My soon-to-be-husband would probably not like if he walked in and Barbie had diarrhead in here, so I’m slowly getting him to letting me paint the door pink. But as of right now, no.

  Your first alliances on The Circle was with Myles. What made you two click immediately?

  Honestly, it was the blonde hair because not everybody can pull off blonde hair and not everybody can be a blonde. But it was the blonde hair. We were the same age. And right off the bat — I know he’s getting a lot of criticism for being who he is, but I like that. Shoot it straight. Don’t give me no bull crap. You know what I mean? So I liked him right off the bat.

  The first girls chat was between yourself, QT and “Olivia” (who started the chat). What were your vibes about Lauren and Steffi?

  You know how the show gets edited. A lot gets cut, but — I was die-hard Steffi is the AI. I wasn’t one going in going, “I want to catch all the catfish,” because that’s not the game. The game isn’t “catch all the catfishes and you win.” So I honestly didn’t care, but I got a weird vibe from her to begin with, so I really didn’t care if she was in or not — and I know that makes me sound terrible, but trust’s the truth. And then with Laurie, I really don’t know because I didn’t create the chat and once again I was so excited to even be in one, I didn’t think to invite someone else,

  What was your first thought when the Circle announced that one of the players wasn’t human?

  Literally, I can’t believe they cut it, but I said, “What’s an AI?” I was like, what is it? Like an avatar? I had no idea, but when they said “isn’t human” — obviously dogs can’t type or talk, so a robot made sense. I’m a little bit delayed. I’ll eventually get there. It just takes a little bit.

  After Myles blocks Steffi, who ends up being not AI, you were the only one to point out that an AI engineer couldn’t spot the AI, “#BlondeMoment.” Everyone else thought you were coming for Myles. How did you mean that?

  I was joking because it’s funny! I have 101 blonde moments a day and that’s just my personality. For me everything is funny. Life’s too short to get your panties in a wad and get tore all to pieces all the time. I didn’t even know he was an AI engineer until my little, they call it the voice of God, who comes over the speaker, was like, “You know, Myles is an AI engineer.” And I was like, “Well, I had no idea.” But anyway, I just thought it was funny that the AI engineer couldn’t catch the AI. And it was a blonde moment! It was funny!

  It was the observation that everyone else was making, but they weren’t putting it in the Circle Chat. Why are y’all gonna get mad at Cassie?

  There’s a part when everybody’s like, “Oh, follow your heart” while I’m like, “It’s a game.” Because when you’re sitting on the couch watching it, what are you saying? It’s a game! You’re not saying, “Oh, follow your heart.” It’s a lot of money. And I’m very bad for being very blunt and it coming out a certain way when I didn’t mean it to come out that way.

  The portrait challenge is where things get messy every season. You got to paint Myles. How did you feel about him at this point, especially since he was also aligning with QT?

  I didn’t find that very threatening as far as, “is he gonna vote me last.” Because I knew we were in an alliance. I didn’t care if I was his number one. I went in as engaged. I knew right off the bat that I wouldn’t be able to get a man’s number one, if they’re single. I’m not stupid. I didn’t care about him and QT too much, but when he made his portrait about me I about died! From my point of view, we’re in this alliance, right? I don’t want a target on his back so I’m going to make it light hearted and funny. But then when he made his about mine, I was like, “You jerk! Why would you do that?”

  Did you think that Myles had drawn that when you started that chat with him immediately after?

  I had no idea. No clue whatsoever, because we were in an alliance. It’s a good thing that I’ve got a good sense of humor, and I can just let it roll right off because I don’t like to stay made, but I was hot there for a minute. Honestly though, I’m glad that he told me the truth because he could have lied like a dog and I would have never known any different. So at least he manned up I guess.

  Two new players enter the Circle and you find out that Autumn is from Murfreesboro, Tennessee. You’re from Kentucky. What do you think when she doesn’t choose you for her first chat?

  As soon as I see that she’s from Tennessee, I thought, “Oh my god, perfect. We’ll be able to connect on that. We’ll be able to relate.” And honestly, my little feelings got hurt when she didn’t pick me. I was like, “Why would you not? Yeah, our basketball teams might be rivals and our football team, but that doesn’t mean we have to be!”

  You put #BluegrassAndRockyTop, so like…

  If the tables were turned, I would have for sure picked that Tennessee girl, but…

  Have y’all talked since? Are you okay? [Laughs]

  Yeah, yeah, we’re good! We’re good.

  You did have a strategy for the next round of ratings. You flipped everything, putting the players you love last and everyone that you’re against up top.

  I should have waited until I had made good, solid relationships with everybody. I think I jumped the gun. I should have waited till it was down to a few less and then done that. In my mindset, if I rank the popular ones lower, I’ll have to go up, right? That was my mindset. But as you see, it didn’t work!

  After you were blocked you chose to meet “Olivia.” What was your first impression opening that door and seeing Brandon on the couch?

  Before I even noticed him, all I can think about was how dark that room was! It was like a dungeon! I was used to mine being all bright and light and I go into his — on the TV, it looks a lot brighter. But in person, it was dark. It was like a dungeon. And I even said, “Your room is so ugly! [Laughs] That was the first thing I got noticed off the bat. And then when I seen him, it took me a second to register and then I started screaming because I honestly, hand on the Bible, I did not think that it was going to be a man. I had no clue. He done it so good. He played the catfish so good.

  And I saw on Instagram that y’all were hanging out this past weekend.

  Yes. He come down, because he’s like five hours away, and he surprised me. I had no idea and we had the absolute best time. We had so much fun.

These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity. New episodes of The Circle Season 6 premiere on Netflix on Wednesdays.