The Circle has seen its fair share of catfish, but Parker Abbott may have been the worst so far. Parker entered The Circle season 4 as her father Paul, thinking that the other players would trust a family man over her, a 22-year-old party girl. Unfortunately for Parker, her castmates didn’t buy the act and Paul was the first player voted out by the influencers.
Playing as a catfish doesn’t always mean certain doom in The Circle. Some players do quite well pretending to be someone they’re not, especially when they know the person they’re playing. In season 1, Seaburn Williams made it to the finals playing as his girlfriend Rebecca. Then, in The Circle season 2, a catfish won. Deleesa St. Agathe took home the prize by impersonating her husband, Trevor. So, what allowed these previous players to succeed as catfish but sent Parker home first? It likely comes down to how prepared they were.
Parker seemed completely out of her depth from the get-go, relying fully on the image she created instead of any substance in conversations. In the very first Circle Chat, Parker gave herself away after revealing that she didn’t know what a memoir was. While the other players didn’t bat an eye that professional athlete Crissa Jackson had no idea what it was, none of them could believe that a middle-aged marriage counselor had never heard of a memoir. Considering Crissa had already said in the chat she didn’t know what a memoir was, Parker should have sat back and waited for an answer or at the least taken her best guess based on everyone else’s responses. But jumping behind someone admitting they didn’t know what the others were talking about was not the best starting move.
Besides not seeming prepared to play someone older than herself, Parker also didn’t seem to relate well to the other players. When playing one of The Circle’s mini-games “Been There Done That,” Parker didn’t give the answers that other players were expecting more often than not. Though some tried to give Paul the benefit of the doubt, most players were even more suspicious of Paul after his responses during the game. And since the Ratings were done right after, it wasn’t a surprise that Paul ranked last.
Though Parker did end up in some constructive chats with other players, it wasn’t enough for them to overlook the doubts they already had about Paul. In the end, Paul was the first to get Blocked. If Parker had gone into The Circle season 4 as herself, there’s a good chance she would have had a better shot at making it further in the game. Now, fans will have to wait and see if any of the other catfish are more successful than Parker was.