Speaking as a half-breed godless Northern social liberal who works in the unholy industry of adult entertainment specifically in order to destabilize the moral fabric of America? I have known women from Danielle's rough area who think and act in the way I've described above. I've known ones who don't. To me, she comes across as the former. It's my impression of her based on available evidence. I can be wrong -- but I'll need some evidence going the other way. Your mileage may and has varied.

So it goes.

(And the same personality types show up around here as natives. But for the South, it's almost a character trope -- one which the show would be happy to cast for -- and frequently an encouraged lifestyle, especially for some faiths. If you don't know anyone like that personally, way to beat the odds.)

If you're waiting for Danielle to strike out her own, I'd advise against breath-holding. From all indications, the plan to backdoor Janelle pretty much began and ended with Dan, right down to the rehearsed excuses given out after the Veto ceremony ended. Danielle has already said she basically sees Dan as a father figure, and given the nightmare she keeps describing of her family life, she may have been looking for one since roughly the age of five seconds: she's not going to take an immediate chance on offending this version. She will listen and she will follow.

The question almost becomes 'Who does she emotionally need more: the comfort of a substitute parent or the protection of a loving man?' That's a rough call. Shane is reluctant to lead her on romantically -- most of the time: that kiss after she won HoH may have had a little too much plan in it. (Then again, that may be the least offensive and most public-airwave kiss delivered to an HoH all season.) But if he went all-out Drew on her and led her down the garden path with promises of rings and vows and Happily Ever After? I feel he'd win her away from Dan in the time it took her to jump on top of him again.

Is it possible that Danielle's playing the emotionally needy submissive in order to be viewed as a non-threat and make it deeper into the game? Wouldn't that be a tactic to behold. Lots of people have deliberately undercut their challenge efforts in order to move down the cage's elimination schedule -- but to carefully hollow out your entire personality? It's a rare hamster who could make that one work. I won't call the odds on it as zero -- just very close to it. You'd think that by now, we would have seen some form of wink-wink nudge-nudge see-how-I-just-fooled-them in the DR, or at least a knowing side glance towards the feed cameras. So either she's the greatest actress in genre history who added in a million sad stories to keep the audience more-or-less enthralled, a full-out case of Disassociative Personality Disorder, or this is her. Place your bets carefully -- but personally, I'll go with 'This is the real Danielle'. And that may make independence the narrowest space on the Wheel Of No $500K Fortune.

I think the best chance of having Danielle go independent is if the majority of the cage utterly rejects her -- with special emphasis on the two men in her current life. Should Shane get through with any version of 'The only interests I have in you are your vote and beating you in front of the jury' and Dan's fifty billion alliance variations finally reach one that openly includes her out plus the rest of the cast breaks down laughing at the sight of her betrayed expression, then she might grab the whip and start flailing in all directions. Shane might do his part there: he's got the lack of long-term thinking to blurt something out in a really bad moment. Dan -- more guarded, more careful, completed a tour of this minefield once before without being blown up, and that was right after his army buddy hit the biggest charge on his first step. He's gotten to know Danielle. Carefully. At this point, he has to have a really good idea where most of the buttons are and how not to push the bad ones. He could get caught in a lie -- but I don't feel he'll ever infuriate her in direct conversation. Not until close to the end, when it's too late to do anything about it. And even then, he might have her vote.

So someone has to get her mad. Multiple someones. And then she could take revenge as only a good southern Christian woman can: with maximum damage to all parties involved --

-- but again, how do you like your chances?

As for the show pretty much svcking this year...

...well, yeah.