How The Circle season 6 is going to be different, from new twists to villainous rumors and more

After five seasons of "Alert!" jump scares, catfishing, and hashtags, you may think you know everything about The Circle. But when Netflix's social media competition series finally returns for season 6, the game is getting turned upside down — in more ways than one.

"We wanted to hit some Circle firsts that never happened before," showrunner Susan House tells Entertainment Weekly while on the new Atlanta-based set in October. "We wanted to feel really fresh and entertaining because it has been on five seasons, and we wanted to feel like we paid off the long wait."

House and the production team began with intentionally filling the cast with new "archetypes" of players. "There's never been a Circle superfan like one of our cast members who's on this season, and she's really good," she says. "There's a new type of catfish we haven't seen before, of a guy who catfishes as his fatter self, since he's lost over 100 pounds since the pictures were taken, because he thinks people will react better to his fat pictures."

There's another new type of catfish entering the game this season, and it's one that the players won't see coming at all: an artificial intelligence bot named Max. "Listen, it's a hit show for a reason, and going into this season, no one was trying to reinvent the wheel," House explains. "We wanted to keep The Circle as The Circle, but how can it evolve? What's different about our culture in 2023 [when we filmed season 6] that relates to The Circle? We're always trying to give it a real-world correlation and bring it into the most current time possible. There's no surprise celebrities this season — there is going to be this other big twist instead."

The hard work put into creating the perfect cast paid off. While House can't spoil how season 6 turns out, she does tease that it's "more competitive" than ever. "There is a lot more strategy that's come into play, and even as late as episode 12 of this season, there's a huge strategic move by one player that I don't think we're used to seeing," she says. "It's a little bit more edgy, but then there's still those moments of one player opening up to another player about a death of a parent and that player relating and tears flowing. But someone comes in a little bit later and really shakes things up, because sometimes the later people come in and you feel like they can't do much or don't have a super strong strategy, but this person does, and he really shakes things up."

House won't go as far as saying that the latecomer is The Circle's first villain, but she warns that this player is certainly making moves that are undeniably villainous. "There's one player who we haven't really seen before, who is just ready to stir up s--- and drop the bomb," House says. "Someone tries to spread rumors that aren't true, which we haven't seen that before."

How far this one player goes to make sure they win at others' expenses shocked even the showrunner. "I don't think it was specifically like, 'We need a villain on The Circle,' but we did want to bring some players with good strategy into the game, because it's been five seasons and we want to see what people can really do in this scenario," she says. "And they really brought it this season. To be honest, even the winner was a surprise for me. It was really competitive and close."

There are also some new twists thrown into the game that complicates how potential alliances can work together. "We're going to see this one twist called Ride or Die, where the players take a compatibility test and they pair up with another player, and if someone gets blocked, their Ride or Die could get blocked with them," House says. "And after the Ride or Die twist ends, there's a breakup party, so they all wear like Snuggies and get giant tissue boxes, and we play sad music, and they have pints of ice cream. That's a really fun one."

But some twists aren't planned at all. A lot of the season 6 cast members found ways to make the game their own in ways that producers never predicted, either in small ways — like sending someone they're flirting with breakfast in bed — or in larger, game-altering ways.

"Someone leaves the Influencer chat for the first time, which we never even thought of," House says. "I don't know whether that's reckless or whether they're super smart or whether they're just extremely good at reading people over text, but you're just like, 'Holy crap, I can't believe they just did that.' A lot of the players this year came in The Circle ready to play, and they have a lot of self-confidence, and they jump right into the deep end."

And House doesn't hesitate to name her favorite season 6 cast member: Deuce, a.k.a. the dog of one of the players. "Deuce has his own private producer," House says with a laugh. "Deuce would go on walks, Deuce had his dog bed. Deuce was treated like a king. Everyone loved Deuce. He's not a player — the player, Kyle, is his 'dog dad.' It's really cute."

The first four episodes of The Circle season 6 premiere April 17 on Netflix, with new episodes rolling out every Wednesday leading up to the finale on May 8.

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