Ranking the TD 2023 Characters Day 9: Noah's Villain Arc

8th: MK

Premergers are an interesting set of characters each season. They by nature usually don’t have that much in the way of characterization and oftentimes can fall into being one dimensional gimmicks. But this season does things a little differently. Much like ROTI they take strides to make sure that even the premergers have hooks in their characters, from Nichelle’s crisis of confidence to Caleb getting shock eliminated despite his strengths, to a certain arc of another character I’ll get to. And in this wave of actual well written pre mergers we come to MK.

MK is introduced as a sort of con artist character, similar to Duncan. She's a sneaky former criminal and hacker who’s more than happy to play a little dirty to win. She’s placed on the Frogs of Death and doesn’t make a great first impression with her dry attitude, heavy use of sarcasm and endless taunting of everyone including her own teammates. In spite of this she comes into the game with a pretty sound strategy, choosing the lay low not to draw too much attention to herself but more importantly she does what has to be the single smartest move any contestant in Total Drama ever made she actually downloads the confessional videos onto her phone. Not only does this actually make the confessionals mean something for the first time in forever, but it gives MK a complete view into what everyone's thinking and what their plans are. On top of this her keeping her phone means she can actually help in challenges by hacking some of the systems most notably the barriers in the Skull challenge although none of her team actually sees this and thinks she did nothing so no good deed I guess. However for all her good planning and inside knowledge from the confessionals she just can’t keep her mouth shut and unintentionally gives away that she was watching the confessionals to Julia who then realizes she's the one stealing stuff from the team and subsequently turns the team against her. This gets MK the boot but even after she’s gone her impact is actually still felt for the rest of the season as her phone with the confessionals is still on the island and comes into play in the seasons second half but that’s a discussion for posts down the road.

MK is a pretty pitch perfect example of a good premerger. She makes an immediate impression on people with her sardonic attitude and taunting initially which is very funny watching her poke fun at all the characters failing like an asshole is amusing even if she’s being a jerk. Particular highlights are her mocking Julia’s initial peace and love gimmick even making up words to annoy her to Nichelle when she’s having her breakdown or messing with Wayne and Raj She at first seems like a Noah style snarky asshole character maybe with a meaner bent then him so she feels more antagonistic and considering how much I like Noah this made me an immediate fan of her character. She could’ve just kept that simple character archetype she is a premerger after all and didn’t need all that much depth just seeming like a simple scammer kind of character she was introduced as but she then shows she’s more than that by making arguably the most important gameplay move of the season, downloading the confessionals. This was a completely new kind of plot strategy that kind of blows my mind cause it's so obvious yet it's shocking none of the smarter characters from before(Noah,Alejandro, Scarlett especially) ever tried it. But it also adds some layers to her character showing that she is using her intelligence but is smart enough to not flaunt it so she becomes a threat to the others just sitting in the background gaining the upper hand on everyone and finding out their secrets and strategies. By the end she actually lives up to Noah’s original title of the Schemer very well using her wits to get the confessionals, exposing Julia to both her team and the entire world and she very nearly would’ve continued on and most likely gotten far if she could’ve just resisted the urge to brag and not given away her scheme to the Julia who in turn out schemed her out of the game. But for a character who gets booted in the 6th episode she gets a lot done making the most of her screen time in terms of entertainment value and her impact is felt for the rest of the season through the confessional phone, not bad for a premerger character.

Sadly MK doesn’t have much in the way of specific interactions due to her more limited screen time. There is some stuff here mainly her having a sort of rivalry with Julia who she seems to dislike the most out of anyone possibly because she is the only one able to see through Julia’s kind facade to the real person inside, she is actually pretty perceptive in general catching onto to Emma subtly changing her vow to donate the prize money as well. But nothing major this season as she said in her elimination she didn’t make any friends but she didn’t really make any enemies either just a general dislike from everyone time will tell if this will change next season.

MK is just a really solid character all around and probably the first character in this ranking I have no real problem with. She’s funny with her just being a little shit to everyone, she proves to be one of the more intelligent characters of the season surprisingly and she has her impact on the story and leaves in a pretty shocking elimination which keeps viewers on their toes. She could easily be expanded in future seasons into a full on season antagonist using her wits and crafty underhanded manipulation to get ahead and maybe become MK Ultra. But as it stands she's a fun character who provides a nice new twist on a TD archetype good character but not the best premerger(You all know who that is by now) and not good enough to beat the other mergers ahead of her.

\"Man Awkwafina really is in everything these days huh?\"