Claim to Fame 2 spoilers: Did the players have a clue in episode three?

Claim to Fame season 2, episode 3 began with Jane’s laugh echoing as the logo appeared. I wondered: Would she be having the last laugh—or her last laugh this season? Or was just reading way too much into a sound choice?

The editing on Claim to Fame contributes a lot to making ABC’s show such a fun watch: It may not always give balance to all the players (Karsyn?! Who?!) but it’s often playful and clever as it unfolds the episode’s events.

Episode three also began with Gabriel in some red underwear or shorts that need to make future appearances, thank you, editors.

Monay needed help with her Chris clue, and asked Shayne for help, but as Shayne said, “there’s nothing happening in my brain.” Monay did get the first part of the clue: “Puppy Love,” though I don’t know if she knows she got it.

Meanwhile, Hugo and Gabriel formed an alliance, with Hugo saying he’s positive Chris is related to Nicholas Cage.

Monay told Jane about Chris’s clue, saying it started with “Puppy Love,” which Jane said “made me want to vomit.” Jane told us that song “was my celebrity’s first single on the charts,” and insists that means Monay pulled her clue bottle. Which is amazing: Are there two singer celebrities who performed the same song?!

Monay told Jane that the clue was not Jane’s, but refusing to identify whose clue she pulled made Jane convinced Monay was lying. Monay some advantage of this, telling us, “I love stirring the pot as long as I’m not involved,” and then telling everyone about how Jane reacted to “Puppy Love.”

Those two words made Chris realize Monay actually had his clue. What an incredible series of events!

Then we were on to the challenge, where the players found balls with their faces printed on them. “I look like Lord Farquaad,” Karsyn said. There is a similarity: Lord Farquaad isn’t on this season of Claim to Fame, and I don’t think Karsyn is either.

For the challenge, they split into two teams of five. Those were selected by team captains who were chosen based on Jeff Probst’s favorite method of drawing balls.

Each team had two people with slingshots aiming for the face balls, and then other players acting as defense. Yes, they were going to take shots at the heads, i.e. headshots, the photograph kind.

The stakes were pretty big: all five losers would have clues revealed. The captain of the winning team would be the one person with immunity, and get the bottle clue. The captain of the losing team would in the bottom two and have to choose the other Guess-Off participant from their own team.

Shayne and Gabriel were selected as captains—which the editing basically gave away, because we only saw them talking about wanting/not wanting to be captain—and chose these teams:

• Jane, J.R., Gabriel, Olivia, Monay
• Cole, Chris, Karsyn, Hugo, and Shayne

The game went quickly, as Gabriel’s team got picked off quickly, and soon Jane was the only person left. She fumbled with the slingshot and looked confused, but then told us in an interview later, “I’m a target shooter,” she told us. But she also later told us “I truly did the best I could for my team.” Wait what? Was the bad slingshotting an act or not? Or is this all justification?

Gabriel chose Jane to be in the Guess-Off with him, and then clues were revealed via illustrations/emoji added to headshots of each of the players:

• Gabriel: beanie and drum sticks with a star
• Monay: fedora, cloud with lightning, and a necklace with a pink lock on it
• J.R.: chef’s hat and pacifier
• Olivia: alien headband, Happy New Year glasses, and a red cross
• Jane: a parrot, a white flower in her ear, and a blue collar around her neck

As the winner, Shayne picked Karsyn’s clue, because she thinks the house has “the least idea about who she might be related to.”

The clue was something like: Trophy, Eraser, Minus, E, Question mark in a head, Two hard drives/record players, 4, beer.

So I get: Win a race [something] to drive for beer. So I have no idea.

Karsyn, meanwhile, told Chris she thinks Jane is related to Dolly Parton, with the blue collar representing the film 9 to 5 and the orchid the Orchid Lounge. This made no sense to me: The characters in 9 to 5 work in an office. They’re white-collar workers!

Jane thinks Hugo is related to President Jimmy Carter. She said she’s “80 percent sure Jimmy Carter does have a Nobel prize,” though expressed doubt that Jimmy Carter, age 98, would have a grandson who’s 23.

But then Jane got better information: a look at Monay’s actual clue. She started that by telling Monay, “I feel like garbage. I got scared. And I’m sorry, Monay.”

Monay pulled out the clue and showed Jane, and they worked on it. Later, in a flashback, we saw her read the dog and heart as “a little hound dog,” not “Puppy Love.” They were basically not just decoding the rebus incorrectly, but reading it inconsistently, and making parts fit their ideas. That culminated in an interview, when Jane was thinking about it, and suddenly gasped and said, “Fools Rush In.”

Jane was voted as the guesser, and called out Chris, who was convinced he’d be finished if Jane called him out. “I’m only trying to stay,” she told him. “I’m so sorry.”

Jane guessed that Chris was related to Elvis Presley. More entertaining than that guess was Hugo’s stunned and shocked face, which remained frozen.

They looked at the screen, and at the end of the countdown, there was an effect as if the celluloid was burning or melting.

“What does that mean?” Jane asked, then repeated it. “What does that mean?”

It meant she was wrong. Jane admitted that “Monay showed me Chris’s clue,” and told everyone, “you can be sure and you can still be wrong.” I appreciate her admitting her overconfidence; she was so convinced!

Then Jane’s celebrity relative was revealed: Dolly Parton. Well I’ll be: Karsyn was right!

Dolly recorded a message, making it two for three celebrities who’ve done so so far; no shade to Tom Hanks, who should be glad he was left out of this mess.

Dolly introduced Jane as “my niece, Jada Star.” Jada is part of a singing/songwriting duo, and co-wrote a song Dolly performed, “Christmas Where We Are.”

Jane—er, Jada—was emotional, telling everyone, “I wanted a chance to tell the whole world that she is exactly what you hope she is.” So who is she? Jada didn’t say more.

Karsyn, however, did say more: she thinks Shayne and Monay set Jane—er, Jada—up, even though it was really just the three of them not reading the clue correctly. The distrust is brewing on Claim to Fame, even among players who I’ve never seen before.