Is Paul Playing Too Hard By Pretending To Not Play?
A few days ago, Paul had his ‘friendship talk’ with the camera where he explained what was going on in the house, his strategy, and more. Part of his strategy consisted of hanging back and letting people come to him for advice while he acted as kind of a father figure in the house. Show people the ropes, give them game advice, etc. His plan was to keep doing that to build up trust until he can start giving them poor advice which sabotages their own games.
Not a bad plan. The problem is that he doesn’t appear to be sticking to it.
While Paul is not actively playing the game very hard, what he is doing is putting a pretty big target on his back by trying to be Mr. Popular in the house. Multiple times yesterday he had his group sitting around a campfire while he told horror stories about BB18 and how he should have won, but he was still happy with the pretty big prize of $50k. In addition to reminding people how much money he won, he kind of shit on everyone he played with, even if it wasn’t obvious. I mean he only mentioned what we thought was his bff in the house – Victor – only in passing here and there. He didn’t trash Victor, but he did make it clear that outside of the house they’re clearly two different people and were more ‘inside the house friends’.
Why is this important? Because his entire schtick is ‘friendship’, getting along, and so on. What he basically did yesterday was spend a few hours telling everyone in the house that they’ll probably mean nothing to him once he leaves so long as he leaves with a decent chunk of cash again. I know people don’t go into the house to make friends, but they always end up doing just that, and those friends help get each other further in the game. Shelby, Alex, and Morgan were peas in a pod and Morgan ended up winning and still hangs out with Shelby. Nicole and Corey were obviously close. Derrick and Cody were tight as hell and remain really close to this day. Rachel and Brendon are obviously still close. Boogie and Dr. Will. Boogie and Frank. Jeff and Jordan. The list goes on and on.
Paul essentially put himself out there as a mercenary who has one goal in mind, and that is to win. Yes, that is Paul just being honest, but his honesty is also a big reason why he lost $450k last season. He was never able to make the connections to the jury that Nicole and James were able to make, and he even admits he probably would have lost to James because of that. To basically tell people he’s not really about friendship this early in the game already unveils the mask to a bunch of people who looked up to him. Yes he has 3 weeks of safety due to the temptation reward, but that’s it. If Cody decides to put Paul up and flushes out the safety he earned, he will lose all the trust of his housemates and also remind people that he is a huge fan favorite.
He may be sitting pretty in the house right now, but he has 3 weeks to correct his pretty subpar social game to this point.
(note – Paul won the temptation but doesn’t have to tell anyone. He earned 3 weeks of safety which can remain private unless he is nominated and forced to show it. Kind of like a 3 week imminuty idol in Survivor)
Veto meeting today. It should be interesting to see what happens if Cody decides to put Paul up as the renom. Check back later for results!