In past seasons, I argued w/ Alexis about if being a floater is a strategy.  I still think it can be considered one but I now have more respect for her opinion that it makes the game boring.  The last two weeks of that show was horrible.  The only reason I tuned in and probably many others was to see if Kevin or Jordan could win.  I was a huge advocate of Natalie in the early part of the game but as I saw more and more of her, I grew not to like her as much.  She wasn’t very athletic or very bright.  I thought she had the potential to be one or the other but it never really came to fruition.  She did win HoH once but look at who her competitors were, Jordan, and Michele, not exactly powerhouses.  It was good that she won but wow, she wore on me.

By the end of the season, I was rooting for the final two to be Kevin and Jordan.  Jordan selecting Natalie to go with her, I have to admit was genius and probably one of the two best moves of the entire game.  I wanted Jordan to select Kevin because I prefer Kevin to Natalie as a person but Jordan made the right move because both Jordan and Kevin are likeable.  Since they both are likeable it would have come down to who was a stronger game player, and Kevin had come into his element in the latter half of the game.  There would have been a good chance she may have lost.  Selecting Natalie was smart for one reason, Jordan was a better game player than Natalie.  The bonus reason, and the reason Jordan had no way of knowing, the jury had turned on Natalie and for good reason.  Screw the fact that she lied about her age, the real reason everyone turned on Natalie was because she was a game player who ran her mouth but contributed very little for to the game.  All the house guests are fans of the show and like you and me, they would prefer to vote for someone who makes the game interesting versus someone who runs their mouth all the time.  Jordan winning the final HoH sent a message to the house guests that Jordan is a strong competitor. Yes, it was really the only time she legitimately won an HoH competition but playoff winners are always remembered a lot longer than regular season winners.  Congratulations Jordan.

Before I sign off for the year, I do want to discuss the finale show a bit.  The first 15 minutes were boring.  Who wants to see clips unaired during the season?  It is a game and not a classic one where you want to watch it over and over again.  It was good to see all the house guests back.  It was bitter sweet to see Casey again because he left way too early.  Also, I am so happy Ronnie apologized to Michele for what he had said earlier in the season.  It was absolutely horrible and I hope we never hear from him again or have another player act the way that he did.  Also, I give props to CBS for discussing the Chima eviction.  I don’t know it for a fact but I think they did invite Chima to the finale show but she declined.  Still, when they discussed her situation, they did it in a classy way and did not smear her since everything that was said was truthful.  Jeff won the 25k prize.  That really wasn’t a shock.  I did not know how popular Jeff he was but I did make an analogy about Jeff to Roddy of a few seasons ago, so I should not be that surprised the ladies love the dude.

I hope we see some of these house guests on the Amazing Race.  I don’t watch the show but I may tune in if Jesse and Lydia or Jordan and Jeff or both pairs competed on the show.  Their relationships made the show interesting throughout the season.  I would also like to see Kevin and whomever.  The dude was honest and his honesty, especially in the diary room, made the show tolerable to watch.

Thank you everyone for reading my thoughts and a special thank you to Ms. Gentry for letting me be a part of her site all summer long. Till next year (maybe) everyone, be well.

-Dean

Personally, I will be voting for either Kevin or Jordan.  How about between the two, well, I will keep that to myself for now.  Here is the link to vote: America’s Vote!

Stay tuned for my thoughts on the show sometime next week!

Since the last time I posted, Kevin won the HoH, nominated Jeff and Michele, Michele won the veto, and Jordan and Jeff are now on the block.  I could end the post here because essentially that is all that happened in the last week.

Jeff is likely to go home tomorrow night despite objections by Jordan.  That means three of the four remaining house guests will be floaters.  I used to be a fan of floaters but I am starting to understand why most are not.  Its just a boring show when there isn’t any real competition.  I think Michele should win the game but for some reason everyone seems to hate her.  I am not becoming an internet fan of the show so that will always remain a mystery to me.  It might be interesting if Natalie won though.  For a gifted athlete, she is horrible at winning.  On top of that she isn’t really bright.  To me she is just eye candy but that got old after a week or so.  Kevin has a good chance but he is likely to be evicted next week because he has become a “strong” player as of late.  I don’t think America would feel bad if Jordan won because of her family’s situation.  In the end, I would like to see Michele win.  She has been pretty much a lone wolf for most of the game yet still remains.  Good luck Michele!

So we last left off with Chima getting evicted.  The result was last week was not a true double eviction week but rather one person expelled by the producers and another person evicted in the traditional way.  That person was….Lydia.  Lydia dared the house to evict her and guess what, they did.  I thought the more telling part of the show was that unless you follow on the internet, we really do not know these house guests.

I have made no secret that I think Lydia is unstable but apparently she isn’t as unstable as what we think.  Apparently her and Jesse had some kind of sexual relationship so the idea of being with Jesse wasn’t just in her head.  The internet fan knows that but the most of us did not.  Also, I did not know Natalie had a boyfriend.  I am not outraged because I want to date her but I am confused to why she was so protective over Jesse.  If she is in a committed relationship, why does she care if Jesse hangs around Lydia or not.  After those two revelations, I wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.  Maybe Ronnie was right about Michele.  She does seem sweet on television but maybe she is nasty off of it.  I pretty much can predict the flow of the game from week to week but no longer can I say I can judge the character of the players in the Big Brother House.

Like on every eviction show, they crowned a new head of household.  This week’s HoH is Jeff.  I can’t imagine how many single ladies over thirty went to sleep happy the night he won.  Jeff initially nominated Kevin and Natalie but the plan all along was to backdoor Russell.  The last couple of shows were pretty boring because you could see it coming from a mile away.  It just made good game sense to put him up.  Maybe the only watchable aspect of the last two shows was Russell’s vow to go nuts.  I am not on twitter as much these days (that’s pretty much where I get my pop culture news) but I haven’t heard of Russell being kicked out of the house.  Honestly, I don’t think he will take it to the level that Chima did because I do believe he will appear on another reality show on Spike called The Ultimate Fighter.  Spike is a sister network of CBS so expect Russell to play nice until eviction and even through it.  He will raise some hell but not the way Chima did.

My prediction for who will go home tomorrow is Russell.  He can try to swing Kevin or Jordan to vote for him to stay but the paranoia of Russell has been magnified ten fold now that there are only six house guests remaining in the house.  Sure Jeff is a bigger target and has been a better player as of late but people get worried around people who are paranoid.  Part of this game is to predict what other players will do and since Russell is unstable, how is that possible for them to do?

We knew Chima was going home.  Combine that with Sunday’s tease that someone has a breakdown, you would think it was her?  What we did not consider was it would be difficult to tell if Chima breaks down because she has a bad attitude in the first place.  Maybe, just maybe, if we had considered that we might have guessed who really had the breakdown.  I won’t tell you who it is right now but hint, it was not Chima.

It turns out Chima was not kicked out for being abusive physically or sabotaging the veto competition.  Rather she was kicked out for constantly breaking the rules.  This might be the first season in quite sometime that the internet fans really got their money/time’s worth because those like myself who had only been following on television did not know Chima had been violating Big Brother rules since the very first week.  Chima ultimately got sent home because she destroyed a microphone and after repeated warnings refused to go to the diary room or wear her microphone when asked.  Average viewer would think she should just get a warning but the producers made sure we saw this was not her first time violating rules.  I liked how they sent her home as well.  The producers asked her to come to the diary room and told her not to sit down but just continue walking.  Wow.  It was great to have Chima out of the game.  Because she is a rape victim I won’t join in on the bashing of her but she just had a bad attitude.  I will leave it at that.

The producers decided to end Michele’s HoH and have a new HoH competition crowned.  I would feel sorry for Michele but she was on record saying she wanted Chima out so she got what she wanted.  Its unfortunate she didn’t have her own room for a week but it could have been a lot worse.k

Jordan eventually won the HoH competition.  Jeff actually helped her out a bit but she won and that is all that will be remembered.  Three things of note that occurred during the HoH competition:

1.  Lydia went bat shit.  We have seen Lydia go off the deep end or at least we thought we did because apparently there is a much deeper end we were not aware of.  Between Natalie, Lydia, and Chima reacting the way they have in the past 72-96 hours, Jesse has the male equivalent of what is called the “ill nana.” I am not describing that here but check out the urban dictionary for a definition.  I have not seen a group of people take someone’s exit so bad.  As Jeff said it best, ‘Jesse isn’t dead.’  Don’t tell that to these ladies or they might stab you.

2.  My thing for Natalie is back again but its not as aggressive as it was earlier in the game.  She appeared to have calmed down and in my opinion really cherished getting a call from home.  Her attitude is nothing to be desired but she does have her moments of goodness like Jesse did.

3.  In order for her to get the phone call, Russell took her trip to Hawaii.  Natalie wanted the phone call more but Russell said he didn’t do it to appease her.  Talk about classless.  It is hard to find any redeeming qualities from this guy.  Right now, he is like what Ronnie was to Jesse, a necessary evil who is just biding his time before his allies turn on him.

One other thing that came out of the HoH competition but also throughout the entire show.  I understand now why America prefers Jeff to Michele.  First, Jeff is just a stand-up guy.  At least on television, it appeared he was the first and only person who wanted to make peace with the “opposing team.”  The bickering was just getting ridiculous and he wanted to settle.  You have to respect his initiative.  Second, he let Jordan win the HoH competition.  He did not have to do that but he did and I think it was genuine.  It also happens to be smart game play because even though the nominees after this competition was obvious, it wasn’t him doing the nomination.

We get to the part of the show where we find out who had the breakdown and it was…… Lydia.  Wow, she really just lost it and went after Michele and Jeff.   Even Natalie had calmed down about Jesse leaving.  By the way, did you know Natalie is also a Latina?  I only mention this because I discussed earlier this season that Lydia’s behavior is not an example of the stereotypical “latin heat.”  Natalie was upset about Jesse leaving but she contained herself.  Also, she contained herself over Chima’s exit as well.  Like Lydia she had a lot of animosity for Jeff, Russell, and Natalie and she even did vent at them but she didn’t go on and on and on, like Lydia did.  Lydia just has issues and seriously, I do think she is bipolar.  Anyway, Lydia dared the house guests to evict her this week and she might get her wish because she was nominated along with Natalie.

Interesting twist though, Jordan’s ultimate target is Natalie and not Lydia.  It has nothing to do with attitude but she considers Natalie a better game player and should go home first.  Very nice Jordan.  It could backfire though and Lydia win the HoH.  I don’t even think Kevin will bail Lydia out this time because as we have seen this past week, he continues to distance himself more from her.

The only other thing worth noting (well one more after this) is Jordan really comes from a humble background.  I don’t know what her family situation is like but she lived with her mother in the same room for two years.  Jordan is an a adult and to have to do that, I can’t imagine she is living it up like some might think she was.  Right now she is the heart-warming story of the season.

The last thing I did want to mention was the vagueness about Thursday’s show.  Its not clear if one or two evictions will take place.  I guess we will have to tune in to find out.  I won’t…not until Friday night .

Rather they used the episode to demonstrate why she would be kicked out of the house.  Apparently, Jesse’s eviction devastated Chima, Natalie, and Lydia.  They were literally brought to tears, and not just for a couple of moments, over Jesse’s departure.  I thought Kevin made the best point about the ridiculousness of the situation.  Jesse nominated Chima to be evicted week one, he nominated Lydia to be evicted during his second HoH, and Jesse shunned Kevin on last week’s eviction show because Kevin chose to keep Natalie over him.  Ladies, this is just another example of why guys, straight or gay, do not understand you all sometimes.  The rest of the house was amazed they were taking this so hard because it was just a game but to them, in Chima’s words, it was a death in the family.

Jesse’s eviction also proved to form two new teams.  I think we knew Natalie and Chima were a team but apparently Lydia and Kevin have joined them.  That really surprised me.  Also what surprised me was Chima’s lack of motivation to woo Michele to her side.  Instead she was focused squarely on Russell still being in the game.  I don’t know if its because she was raped but when she has hate for a man, she is not content until he feels her full wrath and with Russell still in the house, Chima is not content.  At no point did she lobby for herself or her other teammates to be safe but rather just push for a Russell exit.  It was unbelievable.

I was way off on the nominations and it turned out the conjecture I thought would not happen, happened.  Chima was nominated and Natalie was nominated as a pawn.  Chima simply retreated and said she does not give a fuck about the nominations (seriously she did) and Natalie said what we all were thinking, that without Jesse she is going to have to really work for the first time in the game.  Chima’s reaction is not completely genuine.  She cares, the mood she was in after the nomination was what you would call the calm before the storm.  Even though CBS did not show us why Chima was evicted they did say one of the house guests would be evicted because of a meltdown and we would find out on Tuesday.

I still think it had to be something physical but there are other possibilities.  I really do not think its because of her language.  Language and verbal abuse in this house has been tolerated way too long for the producers to draw a line in the sand.  Maybe she does attack Russell or even Michele.  There is another possibility though.  I am wondering if she sabotaged or refused to play in the veto ceremony.   The producers laid the ground work of Chima’s apathy (or rather increased apathy) to playing in competitions during this week’s have or have not competition.  Maybe tonight we see the culmination of that by Chima making it clear she wasn’t going to actively be involved in the game.  This is a possibility but I think it has to be something related to sabotage if anything.  If she refused to play the game, her fate is sealed anyway.  Maybe it was a combination of things but we will find out tonight (or for me, later in the week).

Other notes from the game I thought were interesting:

1.  Michele finally comes clean that she lied to Russell about Chima wanting to backdoor him.  She told him that she did not like him telling the house their secrets.  I kind of got the impression that she might have mentioned this to him earlier in the game but the producers failed to air that she did.  My disappointment in Michele has waned a bit after she admitted this but I don’t know if she is my favorite player once again.

2.  Kevin is beginning to appreciate the craziness in Lydia and even though he hasn’t said it, he was insinuated that maybe its time he distance himself from her.  She might be a good friend but just is not a good teammate.

That is it for now.  Check out tonight’s show as it will be pretty pivotal.  We see why Chima was evicted, the veto ceremony, and we find out (maybe) if for the first time in Big Brother history we will have three evictions in one week.  I am kinda leaning to no for that last one only because it would force CBS to move up their fall scheduling by a week.  I am sure they can run reruns but I don’t think reruns will bring in as many ad dollars.  We will see!!!

Honestly, I probably was not going to write a new post about Big Brother 11 until Sunday at the earliest but as I was eating dinner and reading over some tweets, I come across this tweet from @tvguide:

“Big Brother 11’s Chima kicked out of the house by producers for “violating the rules,” according to CBS #bb11“

Why?  well, you can read about it at TV Guide or you can read my recap in the next couple of days when I am sure they will go over the reasons why Chima was kicked out tomorrow on Big Brother.  Why I will not discuss it now is because I limit my following of Big Brother to what I see on television so to find out the reasons why now would just spoil the episodes for me this week.  Don’t fret though, I am not done with this topic or this post just yet.

So if you have been following thus far, you will notice that I am on a bit of a hot streak.  Last week was no different.  I predicted Jeff would use the power of coup d’etat and remove both Lydia and Russell from the block and replace them with Natalie and Jesse.  You have to respect Jesse for calling that this was a possibility all week long.  The reason for putting both of them on the block was simple: they had been controlling the house up to this point.  Of the original cliques, only the athletes had not lost a team member so even though the cliques were disbanded officially, the cliques continued to exist in an unofficial manner.  The producers tried to convince the viewers at home that Russell might remain on the block because of his actions so far in the game but even though Russell has spoken ill of Jeff behind his back, he wasn’t as big of a threat as Jesse and Natalie.  Also, Jeff (and probably most of the viewing audience) felt that a message needed to be sent to Natalie and Jesse that everyone is vulnerable in this game.  Within 10 minutes of the new nominations Jesse was evicted from the Big Brother house.

Jesse took his eviction well and gave kudos to Jeff for making the best move he has made so far in the game which is absolutely true.  Jesse was visibly upset but he respected Jeff’s game play and as of right now, if Jeff were to make it to the finals, I do believe Jesse would give Jeff his vote to win the $500,000.  With Russell safe in the house Chima had words for the producers and Jeff.  She said she would speak to the producers lately and then called Jeff a liar.  I will continue not to say how I feel about Chima because she was raped but if you read what I said about her earlier in the game, that is how I felt about her at that moment and she was not giving me any reason to think otherwise.

I predicted before the eviction show that Chima was likely to be the next house guest evicted but I had second thoughts after Michele won the HoH competition.  Obviously I turned out to be right but let me explain why I thought Chima might have been safe this week.  I thought the only way Chima would be safe this week was if Natalie won the Head of Household competition but Michele winning is very interesting because while Michele has won a couple of competitions she is still a floater.  She will move to the side of the house that she feels is in control of the game.  Now she is control of the game and I am not completely sure who she would nominate.  This past week she got really close with Chima it appeared but up until Chima won the HoH, Chima was on Michele’s least favorite house guests list.  In fact, she voted to evict Chima week one even though Chima was a member of her own team.  We are six weeks and I am not sure if a truce for one week can make up for the previous five weeks.

Some will retort that this is just a game but this season, especially this season, personal feelings have seaped into the house time after time.  People aren’t letting go of what other house guests have said to them and are even taking it to the next level by targetting those who insulted them regardless of if its smart game play or not.  I know it might sound like I still think Chima was going to be nominated even with Michele in the house but Michele and Russell failing to make-up over the lie Michele told made me think Russell once again would be targeted this week.  After the HoH ceremony I was starting to think Chima would be safe and Michele might take the safe route and nominate Lydia and Russell again.  Russell and Lydia are two of the three most disliked people in the house.  Russell because of his instability and Lydia pretty much for the same reason.  Sure Michele could nominate Russell and Chima but Chima would have a serious chance of staying and all that would end up happening is Chima getting in Michele’s face because she nominated her.  Russell and Lydia are two safe choices because Russell is unstable and Lydia is useless in the game.  No matter who of those two went home, Michele would likely be safe next week.  In fact, since I am blogging this now, assuming there isn’t an emergency HoH ceremony, I think Russell and Lydia will be nominated tomorrow.

One might make the conjecture that Chima was kicked out because she blew up at Michele for nominating her (nominations take place on Saturday in the Big Brother house) but I don’t think that was the case.  Chima only verbally abuses women and so far the producers have let that go.  If they warned her in the past to stop and she did indeed go off on Michele for nominating her I can only wonder why they didn’t tell us that on television?  That is a seirous warning and because Chima has blown up at someone nearly weekly, they had to expect this could happen.  What I think happened instead was Chima attacked Russell.  No way she hurt him but likely slapped him because he got in her face about her failing to evict him this week.  I hope we find out tomorrow.  I think we will but Chima isn’t the first house guest to be evicted by the producers.  In a past season, one male house guest was evicted for threatening someone with a knife and the producers just said he was kicked out and did not go into the details why.  I am hoping they do things differently tomorrow.

Whoa, ‘Brother’: Coup d’Awesome!

This episode really focused on every player in the house to varying degrees so I thought I would take the same approach with this recap.

Chima – I do not like Chima at all and after what we learned last week I can’t insult her either.  The truth isn’t an insult though and Chima has a real problem with men.  Yes, its understandable why because of her past but her short temper has kept her a target in this game since week one.  She has HoH this week but I don’t see her making it all the way to the end.  If she does she will not win the game.

Chima did call Russell a terrorist last night and if Russell is of Middle Eastern descent, Russell was correct in calling it a racist statement.  We all understand what Chima was trying to say but in this day and age you have to be politically correct.  Her sentiment was spot on but she could have used a better word.

Michele – Michele no longer is my favorite in the house, I don’t have any favorites in the house anymore.  She knows she lied to Russell and Chima about their conversation where she admitted to Russell that Chima wanted to backdoor him.  She admitted in the diary room that she thought the conversation was private.  I was hoping she would finally cop to it and explain why she lied to him but she did not, instead she completely denied it and bad mouthed Russell some more to Chima.  Right now Michele is literally the definition of a floater.  She cozies up to whoever is the HoH each particular week.  I wonder when the other house guests will pick up on that fact?

Jordan – She still contributes nothing but a vote to the game.  The producers only continue to feature her every episode because she is blond and pretty.  I dare you to give me another reason why we should hear from her on a weekly basis.

Jeff – He was one of my early season favorites but he isn’t that bright.  He is head over heels for Jordan and its clouding his judgment.  I understand he wants to protect her but I fear he might jeporadize his chances of winning.  I am hoping Jeff uses the Coup D’Etat but he has to do it right and pull down Russell as well.  If Jeff wants to send a point home to Chima he needs to put up both Natalie and Jesse in order to make sure one of them goes home.  Russell has endeared himself to no one so whoever goes up against him this week is likely safe.

Russell – His paranoia and temper are getting the best of him.  He really has no one to blame for the position he is in right now but himself.  I don’t want to see Chima get her way but not as much as I want to see Russell go home.  He has been a bully in the house and intimidates people.  Some people enjoy watching that kind of conflict, and I do too occasionally but not on a regular basis.

Natalie – I think I overestimated Natalie’s ability.  She isn’t a floater but she doesn’t seem to be able to be competitive in competitions.  Also, remember when she said she was 24 but will pretend to be 18?  It doesn’t seem to be that much of a stretch for her since her attitude has progressively gotten worse.  I don’t know if its the slop or arrogance but she has few friends in the house and isn’t really making a concerted effort to obtain more.

Jesse – I like Jesse this season and I hope America does as well.  He has learned a lot from last season and has been more humble and focusses more on the game.  He still can act like an ass at times but he is always thinking about the game.  The way he kicked out Casey and his alliance with Chima and Natalie may come back to bite him but of his alliance, I think the other house guests are most receptive to him.

Lydia – Just annoying and means little to the game.

Kevin – He played it smart by not using the veto.  He could have saved Lydia but why?  What has she done in the game to prove that she is a valuable asset? If the nominations remain the same she is likely safe and Kevin didn’t have to stick out his neck to make sure of that.  It was a smart game play.

Who will get evicted?

I think Jesse will be going home this week.  I think Jeff will remove both nominees and put up Natalie and Jesse.  Natalie is the more annoying of the two but Jesse has been the better gamer so far.  Unless Natalie wins the HoH this week, expect Natalie and Chima to be on the block next week with Chima likely to go home.