I get that it's highly clipped and talked about but the show should not be deliberately pushing people to that level. That's playing with fire and they are lucky it was relatively inconsequential for Abi. That said, I think what they saw was how clipped it was and walked away thinking they need more of that without considering potential negatives.
It wasn't even a lack of coddling, Jet/Ben just didn't do the basic task of preventing him from blowing up as he was on a short fuse due to dogpiling. You have to balance things and clearly wiggers can't.
Yeah one of the things Jet talked about regarding Frank is that they can let the fish get physical with him because he's a friend of the show and not a "legal eagle."
Metaphorically, they yanked all the anal beads out of the show like a ripcord with that one. The only reason Abi hasn't tried to squeeze Jimmy for money is she must know he's not good for it. You couldn't reasonably make Jet take legal responsibility for Jimmy, but I could easily see her being able to pester him into a settlement anyway. Being safe from that kind of risk should be a deterrent. Even Sam was smart enough to say that Jet and everyone shouldn't take their eyes off Jimmy, but not smart enough to say, let's leave him the fuck alone and let him regroup, or abruptly eliminate him again and cut our losses before things get dangerous. It's not possible to claim that Jimmy's reaction to what they were doing to him came as a surprise or that they weren't waiting for it.
They skinned the sheep by having an assault just barely after the halfway point. When Damiel threw Letty's clothes out it was pretty fucked up but there was still lots of room to explore how much worse it could get. It's a lot like how Sam kept saying they should have waited to have TJ box the Judge at the end, because by doing it early they weren't pacing themselves. The whole show sprinted way too fast in the first half and I wouldn't even say I recommend coddling Jimmy, I just wouldn't have made a mad dash to having four finalists like that. They cut Jimmy before the timing was ripe and every event that came after looked wan and pale.
If you really think that Betty wouldn't have tried to burn down Sam's house if Mauro had gotten physical with her you're nuts. Really there's a button they could push on anyone that would be "too far," maybe not to the point of assault but to the point where a contestant would be equipped to break the show. If they pushed Vance x Letty too far, or if they were less careful about filtering Jeremy stuff, or if they had damaged Sylvia's whole wardrobe, or shaved Trisha without consent, or had Fatty do to Josie what he did to Trisha on Christmas, or let Frank keep getting physical with Tayleigh, or if Fatty makes physical contact with one of the girls, or if Brian and CK took an uglier turn etc etc etc
Everyone has a line and people can leave for stupid reasons (Frank kicking in the door to the bathroom while Mauro is pooping, Jon and Cole quiet quitting) but there's a point where it's not "coddling" to stop pushing someone, it's just pulling the emergency brake.
Frank is a magic exception for violence, but even he isn't a blank check, and if they get addicted to this kind of extreme footage, or if the audience comes to expect it, it's going to fuck them. 30 days of Jimmy being medium angry and leaving in a way that isn't a major legal liability is a better long-term plan than having a content blowout worse than
the 2012 San Diego Fireworks, almost getting sued, and ending up with 21 days of near-nontent in a 42 day show.
