While they are in the house though, the mood is for sure purgatorial. (The seeming off-the-grid location in Karuizawa, population around 20,000, enhances that energy.) “Terrace House” is clearly a liminal space, but between what and what? It differs. I think the way in which each cast member gives a specific meaning to the “Terrace House” experience is its strongest feature — for Shion and Tsubasa, it was a place to be jolted by unexpected love; for Shohei, it was a source of creative energy (and a path to Spotify streams); for Yui, it was an opportunity to define herself as an adult, living away from home for the first time; for Ami, it was a reminder that she hates guys who express any interest in her.

The Worst Thing About the Show Is …

CHOW While I’m grateful for how un-American the show is, I wish they’d take one page from “The Bachelor” and actually show the cast members getting sloppy drunk. It seems disingenuous when the show pretends to be chaste while still reveling in every scandal. And the producers are stifling some of their best material when they decline to show Noah at the club or the infamous moment derisively referred to by Yui as the “vomit kiss.”

CARAMANICA Something felt wrong about the cast’s treatment of Mayu, and I think it might have to do with some unspoken class dynamics at play. Mayu is clearly a striver, someone who has made her looks her business, but in a blunter way than, say, Seina or Shion. I think something about that rankled her castmates. They criticized how she cleaned up after herself, and how direct a conversationalist she was, but I always felt what they were really telling her was that she wasn’t quite like them, and should therefore keep her distance.

HESS For me, it’s this: As the season wears on, the show’s thirst for matchmaking starts to feel programmatic. It begins to flatten into a more typical hetero dating show. It gets a little too “Bachelor.” The drama increases, but the emotion drains. That’s why, in the latest episode, the arrival of Shunsuke — a 21-year-old makeup artist who says that he’s come to the house to explore his sexuality — is such an exciting turn for the show. Help us Shunsuke! You’re our only hope!