User blog comment:MATT DB/Mauritius Q & A/@comment-26485526-20191024125748/@comment-24526522-20191024195428

1) In terms of personality, honestly, Gus. As in, he shifted from having this hero edit as an underdog while also being more than a little goofy and aloof, to just being Elaine's partner in crime. It was a shame that I scaled Gus's personality down for the final, but he just ended up not being as relevant to the overall storyline in the new draft, and I think it was for the best to not have such an obvious hero edit on this season (Winter and Kurtis had big hero edits, but not in the traditional "I'm in the minority" kind of way). Also, Gus's original name being Austin was actually a lot more important to the story. Originally, after Naomi's elimination, Elaine was supposed to get frustrated and call him Austin instead of Gus, causing him to freak the fuck out (understandably). However, I thought this would be too negative on Elaine's part to include, and she was already disliked by the viewers regardless, so I took it out.

2) My favorite rivalry was between Leilani and Sadie, since they ended up working around it to their own benefit throughout the season, and they even learned to respect one another despite not really liking each other that much. For storylines, I loved Calvin's growth as a player and as a person throughout the experience, and his relationship with Nigel, I thought, was interesting and complex. Nigel's jury speech was a perfect way to conclude that, and it was something I loved to write from start to finish.

3) I was surprised at first that Heather was getting so much love during the swap phase, since she was originally planned as a somewhat uninteresting merge boot, but with her snarky and voice of reason confessionals, I saw her potential more and developed her further, turning her into a fan favorite and legitimate winner contender. I'm glad that I decided to give her some of those confessionals early on, since she was more interesting than Isaiah by far (who she ended up replacing).