Editorial – Strolling Through Big Brother by Mell

We haven’t been breaking down the game play of the individual houseguests this season very much because there isn’t any but as I’ve said before, I quit my job to be here so I may as well give it a go. It’s frustrating or “fustrating” as Jordan says. I joked and said I was going to write about production procedures just to have something to talk about. (I may have to contact Kryssie and get her help with the rules book stuff.) I said it as a joke but I actually think I’m going to do that next, especially if the game stays so predictable.

Let’s break down the stellar gameplay and strategies of the amazing cast of BB19 left in the house. Derrick tweeted that before he left the house last week, he pointed at the money sign and told the hg’s to remember why they were there and not to be a follower. He said he wished he could have shared his true thoughts. I suppose that comment was as close to saying what he wanted as he could get. (most people already know this but in case you didn’t, Derrick was wearing an earpiece. You could see it in some of the video footage and his dialogue was scripted while he was in the house.) Derrick, like most past hg’s who are on social media have been highly critical of the players this season. He, along with many past players have broken the tradition of cheering for the returning player. (If past hg’s and their many twitter followers get the results they want, Jessica will be AFP) Ok, let’s assess where these Mensa members are with their games at the moment.

MARK: He’s as good as gone so it doesn’t matter.  He did well in comps and if he had chased money instead of boobs, his game may have looked a lot better. He’d have still cried in the DR but it would’ve been nice if he was upset because he was getting ready to backstab someone and he felt a little guilty about it instead of over a one sided relationship? He really likes BB, fought hard to win comps and seems to be a really nice guy. He’s the kind of guy people could have gotten behind this year but he threw it away so I don’t care. Moving on….

JOSH: Josh is probably the most interesting person remaining in the house as it pertains to playing the game. I said interesting, not great. He has been both loved and hated as well as insightful and delusional. My opinion of him can change by the hour. After his melt down the first week, he’s been playing BB. It may resemble someone on the highway trying to play with traffic at times but he IS playing. He went from being the most disliked person in the house to being close to almost everyone. He’s probably done too much of Pauls dirty work to have jury votes but you never know. He may be the only person in the house who isn’t crazy to beleive Paul about a final 3. He could have a 2nd place finish in his future. If the jury doesn’t like him, he’ll lose to many people so it doesn’t matter if he goes with Paul. He needs to work it so he can sit next to Matt at the end. That’s his best chance of winning imo.

CHRISTMAS: She’s a BB first because she’s spent the summer high as a kite. I was fine with her staying in the house if she had needed one or two trips out for a medical service because that’s happened in the past. She’s been in and out as much as the person who takes the HOH laundry to the cleaners and brings it back. It’s completely ridiculous at this point. She thought for a brief time that Paul would be her #1 and unlike some of the others, she started realizing it may not be true. Latching onto Josh was smart and the way she did it was smarter. She not only killed him with kindness, she went out of her way to give him respect. Paul hooked Josh with his friendship and made him feel a part of the group but Christmas is the one who made him feel he had a voice in that group. She’s impressive as hell as a tough woman but her game…not so much. The DR loves portraying her as this bad ass chick who’s going to rip through the house but she won her hoh by forfeit and she’s simply going with the house. Big deal. I’m not saying it’s a mistake or it’s bad for her game. (It isn’t like the week Jessica got rid of Ramses.) There’s nothing wrong with her decision this week and despite her lack of doing anything creative, she has a really good shot at the final 3. She went after Cody, Elena and Mark unnecessarily when it wasn’t even her fight. Those could have been jury votes and since we don’t know how Kevin, Jason and Alex will be evicted or who will be blamed, maybe they could be too if its a bitter jury. If she manages to get to the end, her need to join in with the mob will probably cost her any chance. She may have been the only person who could’ve sit beside Paul and made a good argument because she really did have to overcome something to keep playing.  She would’ve had to embellish her role in some of the game moves but she could do that (they all do) along with saying she did it as a first time player and with 10 broken bones in her foot. (She had the potential to steal Ravens strategy) It’s not a bad story and if she had good relationships and friends in the jury, it’s a story that possibly could’ve worked. She used to be close to Mark, Elena and Kevin but she tossed it aside to get into pettiness. She’s the only female who Alex has became sort of friends with and Josh would vote for hear in a hearth beat. She actually had a chance.

KEVIN: I still really like Kevin. I didn’t like when he trashed Cody behind his back about the military and being a father. I think he did it because he was being questioned too much about Cody and it was a warped way of showing his loyalty to his group. It doesn’t make it okay but unlike some of the others, I do think he did it out of necessity to prove he hated Cody as much as everyone else. The others seem to get a twisted pleasure from just being mean.  I could be wrong because I’m a bit biased when it comes to Kevin. He’s been my favorite person since the beginning. That doesn’t mean I think he has a chance in hell of winning. Kevin has done better than many of the token older players in the past at becoming a part of the group while laying low. Unfortunately, he’s laying way too low. I will give him credit for recognizing a shift in the house and knowing he has a problem.  He also started realizing it before Alex was openly hostile towards him. His biggest problem has been Alex. Paul screwed him this week by telling Alex and Jason that Kevin was targeting them and planting seeds last week that he was “shady” but Alex started that long before Paul did. Jason never really buys into what Paul is selling 100% until Alex pushes him to it. Alex started telling Jason that she didn’t feel right about Kevin before Paul and Jason ever talked game. Kevin was trying to protect his group when he tried to make a deal with Cody.  He shouldn’t have done it without the group saying yes to it first but he had good intentions. He’s also pushed the Matt and Raven agenda too much but he’s 55 and doesn’t want to play follow the leader. He wants Matt & Raven out damn it!!  (Think about how annoyed we are watching it from the outside. Can you imagine being 55 years old and living with these idiots?) Unless Kevin turns into a comp beast, he will be leaving in the next few weeks. Kevin knows Paul is full of shit on a personal level but he may still beleive Paul’s on his side. Regardless, Jason wouldnt be turning on him were it not for Alex. I would have loved seeing Kevin and Jason play this game together till the end and they were on the path to do that but an angry, caffeinated chipmunk messed that up for me.

MATT: He has 1 annoying laugh, 2 shirts, 100’s of bowls of cereal eaten and I don’t know the exact number of sexual encounters….that’s Matt’s game. I keep forgetting he’s in his 30’s because he’s so immature. We will remember him as “that guy who got more BJ’s than comp wins” but we probably won’t remember his name. He did get a key to the house so I’ll try to devote a few sentences to his game. Other than not playing, his biggest mistakes have been Raven and paint-by-numbers BB.  No one sees Matt & Raven as threats and it almost helps him because he’s so willing to throw his game away for her and is open about it. The area where Raven has hurt his game the most is (shocker) her lying. Matt may have played this game like an ottoman even if he had never met Raven but one of her lies is definitely a reason he’s doing that. We all know Raven met Paul at one of his shows in Little Rock back in the spring. Raven turned this into a real friendship and almost a twist. She has Matt convinced that Paul’s main role this summer is to assist her in winning the game so naturally he thinks he has a free ride to the final 3. Matt has only seen BB16 and because he doesn’t understand the game, he really thinks that doing nothing is playing like Derrek. Derrick avoided being a target by doing everything, not by doing nothing. A sofa is never going to understand that.

RAVEN: Do we really need to discuss anything? #RavenSTFU

JASON: He’s another one that grew on me quickly.  His funny stories and personality are probably why he hasn’t taken the same amount of heat Cody did for making the same kind of derogatory comments. I don’t approve of the comments either of them made and I wish they would both get out of their corner of the world more often (I’m not speaking geographically) and become more enlightened as people. I also think almost everyone in that house has said some very uneducated and cruel things so if that is the deciding factor for everything, they need to cancel the show because there would be no one left to play the game. As far as his game, he’s pretty good in competitions like we thought he would be but he has no clue what’s going on in the house. He admitted to knowing nothing about BB and I thought it was going to be fun to watch him figure it out. I mentioned earlier that I loved the dynamic between Jason and Kevin and sometimes they had good insight and gut feelings during their morning talks. Do you remember way back in the beginning when Jason constantly argued with Alex about her opinions on Paul? Yeah, those were the good old days and they’re long gone. He may be almost 40 and brave enough to ride bulls but he isn’t immune to being called stupid and an idiot. He didn’t trust his own instincts because he didn’t know the game so it didn’t take too many insults over his game intelligence from Alex to get him to fall in line. He defers to her because he feels she knows the game more. I don’t care if you know the game or not, you should be able to pick up on red flags. Alex practicing the days with Jason in private because she said that she wasn’t sure if Paul wanted Jason to know them should be a huge flag slapping him in his rodeo clown face. Paul wants Jason gone because he sees Jason as a threat in comps, a final 2 person for Alex and he knows Jason isn’t a full blown Armenian Kool-Aid addict like Alex. The rest of the house wants him gone because they see Jason and Alex as a strong physical duo. As an added bonus we found out along with Jason that there’s a baby Dent on the way. That makes for a very sweet TV moment but you can bet your ass no one is going to run the risk of ending up in a final two with a guy who’s getting ready to be a daddy again. (That didn’t help him Holly although it was a great moment to watch)

(I’m still wondering when the pregnancy news occurred since letters from home are supposed to be written preseason. Did she know she was pregnant before he left and just didn’t tell him? Maybe she found out after he left but before the show started . Supposedly, the letter setup was changed after season 8 when Dick admitted to getting coded messages from his son in his letter. I’ve heard quite a few houseguest discuss how the letters are actually written in the very beginning of the season. I’ll try to find out more about that and included it in my production post)

ALEX: I can’t stand Alex. She’s a mean, hyper, violent, mumbling fast talker who insults everyone, has tantrums, has barely gotten any BB history facts correct but claims to know everything about everything and is in desperate need of hair conditioner!  I suppose none of that is about her game but she annoys the hell out of me. Who would have thought the girl who hung in the longest the first week in a comp, told Cody to eat shit and talked about going after couples like a dog after a bone would end up the most pathetic of the Paul puppets. Her days may be numbered but if I’m being completely honest, one of the things that irritates me about her is her results.  She’s doing everything in a stupid way but so far, it’s still working. She mentioned going after Paul but once she won HOH she decided to work with him. She told Jason they were going to infiltrate the large group, break them up from the inside, break up the couples and become the closest to Paul. She’s accomplished everything she set out to do so far and that drives me crazy! (Maybe I’m petty too) The only way she’s getting to the final 3 with Paul is if she wins her way there and my season has turned into waiting for Alex to be evicted, proving she was wrong and proving she steered Jason off a BB cliff. (Small victories) The idea of anyone thinking they can trust someone because their brand is friendship and they can’t lie because of it is insane! She’s also making the same mistake the Christmas is making with jury management. She didn’t need to go off on Cody or Mark. She had a legit beef with Elena but her jury vote would be worth more than the 5K she was mad over and the punishment. She said she’s planning on going off on Mark again before he leaves to ask him why he doesn’t like her. This all stems from her finding out he mentioned her name as a target when he was trying to save himself this week. Who cares? He’s gone! Above everyone else in the house, (except for Raven, that’s a given) I need her to be evicted to reinforce that this is a stupid way to play the game. I can’t handle her making it to the final 2 playing this way. The world as I know it will cease to exist!

PAUL: I saved Paul for last because I’m sick of him and of talking about him but he’s playing the best game and he’s doing a fantastic job. Whether these people are idiots or not, he knows what drives each one of them and he gives it to them. He’s ran the show from the beginning. He speaks over people, is pushy and shoves what he wants down people’s throats. However, he hasn’t water boarded them or beaten them with anything so they don’t have to do it. He’s worked his butt off since the beginning and he’s constantly in motion. He lays targets out weeks ahead possibly better than most players I can remember. (I’m not calling him the best player but am referring to one specific thing- lining up targets far in advance) You’re doing something right if you can have three couples thinking they’re in your final three. He’s showing DaVonne why being a 5th or a 7th wheel to pairs doesn’t have to be a bad thing. They’re brainwashed. Anyone who hasn’t fallen in line has been targeted and removed. There’s the Paul praise. However, I think that’s why the mob method this season seems even more sleazy. It hasn’t been necessary. I believe Paul does it as much for sport as he does for game. The game is to keep everyone under his thumb, have a level of intimidation and make everyone see that they don’t want to become that person. It’s sport because he did the same thing last year. I think it’s his personality. “Calling someone out” is the old version of “putting them in check” but it’s the same. I don’t think Paul knows another way to play BB. It was odd listening to him talk to the feed watchers and saying that he was doing everything differently the season because well…. he isn’t.  Last year he instigated fights, ran between groups, spewed insane amounts of insults behind people’s backs, said unnecessary things on a personal level, talked tough then backed down when confronted and backstabbed his closest allies in the house. He’s not saying “pissed,” “friendship” and “never cared” every 5 minutes but otherwise, it’s the same. It’s just “pivot” and “check.” It’s more pitiful that these people are falling for it because they’ve seen his game. I’m sure it’s different when you’re in it rather than watching it but come on! I can acknowledge he’s playing a very good game after his advantages ended. Can Paul fans admit he had huge advantages and not discount their value?  He is playing the best game by far but shouldn’t he be? It would be an epic failure if he wasn’t. Paul had 3 weeks of safety but when it’s mentioned, many leave off the part about it being secret. That’s never happened and it’s huge! It set the player up who went after him for failure. Cody had his own game issues but that shouldn’t have been one of them. Nominating Paul gave the house huge drama right from the start. Don’t underestimate the value of the bracelets either. It was safety for only one week but it set the “kiss Paul’s ass” tone for the season. They were already starstruck because he’d just played AND came in 2nd and were immediately expected to try to please him. His early comps involved rolling a ball to a target which he won last summer, the weather comp which he won last summer and he hosted a form of the candy crush comp during OTT. He’s with a cast who mostly want LA fame and doesn’t want to alienate America. They also cast a big fan of his with Raven.  He is hands down the best player but how impressed should we be? The path was paved, he just has to go for a stroll.