Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Deserving Winner

With the inevitable demise of The Sheyld (sic), much as I try, I can't bring myself to envision a Jillian or Emmett win. Talla is playing for second at best, as is this week's returning houseguest, so barring any more major upsets, what are we left with? 

Winner winner chicken dinner?

When I analyzed the game at intermission, I said that I couldn't see a path to victory for Andrew. That perception has shifted, which is why I have to give his game a lot of credit. During the four-day feed outage, though we're not clear exactly how, Andrew wedged his way into a solid understanding with Jillian and Emmett in the wake of AJ's eviction, bringing in Talla as a fourth, ensuring that he recovered well from AJ's loss.  

With that move, Andrew blasted himself from the outside of the house to the center of power. This was an enormous move by Andrew, creating the house's east/west divide, and giving him the power he needed to do what he wanted to do.

He's been stealth at eliminating big targets by trying to turn their allies against them - successfully turning Emmett against Alec, and now trying to solidify Jillian's allegiance against Emmett. May or may not happen, but he's on it.

Andrew is playing ball

His social game allowed him to ride out potential danger, as The Sheyld (sic) had the easy opportunity to eliminate him in the fast forward, and should have, but trusted him in spite of the fact that he despised Alec at that point. The fact that Andrew was able to disguise his hate and keep Alec comfortable with him is a major part of why he's still alive in the game.

Andrew has also won critical competitions, most recently this week's Power of Veto, and has used his powers to move the game to his advantage. 

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Hell, he's so good even multiplied within the house today. (Just kidding, that's Andrew's clone identical twin brother Pete, who made a cameo on live feeds today as part of a pretty nifty task, which I would have recapped for you if I wasn't napping, but it's still worth an honorable mention.)

One pitfall to watch out for:

Andrew genuinely doesn't seem to understand that you have to split pairs by the final five in this game, or else you end up where they are now - with little room to maneuver, since Jillian and Emmett won't turn on each other, no matter how much Jillian lies to Andrew by saying she will. You don't want to go to the final three or four with an unbreakable pair, but Andrew will have to continue beating Emmett and Jillian in competitions to prevent that.

He hasn't been my favorite all along - I don't particularly care for how personally he plays and how bitterly he trash talks some of the others - but that's nothing new for Big Brother. But I can't deny that, at this point, he may be in the best position to win the game, especially if he can figure out how to split up Emmett and Jillian.

I also can't say that Andrew will be the most exciting winner for the first season of Big Brother Canada, but it's hard to argue that he hasn't played one of the best games to this point.