I think a lot of people are missing the mark of this post. I think it’s just the desire for Fishtank to remain good. Every season besides 2.5 has had the same problem. Once the pretence of the show being a proper game show is over, every season being with Frank hassling; the house no longer being cleaned up, and food becoming nothing but gurel. It just stops being a good watch.
Arguments shouldn’t be that it’s actually okay and fine for MDE to be bad people. That the contestants“ should have just read the contract better”. But the simple fact that keeping people stressed out and drunk for weeks isn’t a very fun viewing experience, and actually if Jet, Ben and Sam try to host an online reality show without relaying on puke, and people fighting they actually could make a 6 week work.
I think the problem with Frank Hassle this season (I didn't watch any other seasons much besides season 1 and this season extensively) is that after they revealed he was a production plant they should've used him a bit more sparingly and had some breaks every now and then. Seeing him going nuts for like 8 hours straight on a single person is just overkill and it seems like they didn't plan for much outside of him. That basically means he has become their one trick pony.
There were plenty of entertaining non-hassle moments like the rugpull, screwing with the contracts, Burt's various adventures and the hell cell or whatever it is called - the cell makes sense because the contestants don't majorly lose if they leave and everyone is participating. I mean even the parts where production gaslights people in the confession booths and all of that is entertaining to watch.
But Frank at his extremes obviously gets the most views - or does he? I wasn't keeping track but I think the "Jerry Springer"-style shitshow of Alex's personal life (his ogre wife coming on the show etc) probably got way more views and interest than Frank did (if you ignore that one clip of Frank getting beaten up that got like 20 million views). It's a lot easier to get a conga line going of total walking disasters like Alex than it is to find more Frank Hassles and its a lot more entertaining in a very different way. And the thing with Jerry Springer is you only get to see those crazy ass people for like 20 minutes, but on fishthank they are there for days or weeks.
The other thing is that when Frank isn't at his most hardcore extreme he's actually a pretty interesting person to hear talk to the fish and he starts interesting conversations and gets interesting and retarded shit out of people when his guard is down at least a little bit - he is just as effective verbally as he is at physically provoking people and they should've tried to incorporate that a lot more. They really should've made an effort to balance his presence (but that may be a personal opinion of him, maybe others don't find him talking to be very interesting). I mean the entire way he lovebombed burt and betrayed him basically involved very minimal physical provocation and Frank was also able to make a point of making sure that there was some sort of lesson that Burt learned out of it (which he probably didn't learn, but still, its a lot more compelling)
Inviting on a bunch of Jeff's homeless friends would've also been entertaining, or at least them giving him an ally or some other way to get back at Frank for catharsis or to level the playing field, but instead "production" let it be a completely one sided battle with not only Frank but also Jobe joining in to fuck with Jeff for basically an entire day until he was literally on the floor crying.
I don't know about everyone else, but this season feels especially gross to me. I really hate that they tricked the fish into paying for Frank to leave when he obviously wanted off after getting more physical abuse than all the other seasons combined.
I'm not so sure if Frank left after getting too much physical abuse (his tweets seem to show that he fully expects it to happen considering he is antagonizing people) but I get the sense he may have been sunsetted because the fish were about to gang up on him and/or someone was going to get seriously hurt. In the span of like 10 minutes right before they moved to get him off, he slipped and fell down the stairs, hitting his head pretty hard and then only moments later got a cut to his hand after making Jeff so mad that he smashed a glass on the table (Frank presumably got a cut from glass flying into him). Jobe also could've almost gotten injured with the glass flying (he got milk in his face) and the cameraman was also there and also could've gotten injured,
From the way Sam Hyde spoke to Frank in the confession booth just before he departed, it really sounded like there wasn't any actual Frank Hassle plan or that they even have that much control of him and they just got him on with very little guidance and let him go nuts - I say this because Sam Hyde asked him "is there anything more you want to do first?"
Why or how exactly they have glass on a set like that when they have Frank Hassle around and a homeless guy they are pushing to the edge who is saying "I'm going to murder someone tonight, I'm going to go home in handcuffs" and someone else already broke a ceramic cup and threatened to shank Frank is totally beyond me - that seems extremely incompetent.
I mean the answer for why is pretty evident from what Jet was saying in his appeal for investors - they simply don't have enough wiggers to keep things going at max-hardcore-frank-hassle-extreme pace for a long period of time and that's how pretty bad mistakes end up happening.
