Udder Certainty

Nice work tonight (well, earlier this week - it's all discombobulated without feeds) by the milkman. He's got his endgame bases mostly covered, but he's definitely sealing the deal with his actions as edited on the penultimate episode.

Nice save, milkman

Hard to say if the Jemmett tension is legitimate or being played up for editing purposes, since we can't see the feeds. But I did predict that the relationship is not long for the real world. We'll see.

Hard truths

Emmett's panicked scramble at realizing it was nearly time to evict Talla? Hilarious. Would have been even funnier on the live feeds. Alas.

The fuck, Emmett?

Jillian is finally starting to realize she should be playing her own game without Emmett. Naw, really? A little too late for that, Jillbot. The jury is locked and loaded.

The fuck, Emmett?

Emmett made a last-ditch effort to secure Talla's jury vote by gifting her one of Dan's bracelets. Talla was touched by the bracelet, but it wasn't enough to get her vote. Emmett's really going to regret giving that bracelet up.

He's still destined to win, unless Gary somehow squeaks out a final HOH win and cuts him. And he should win. Emmett's game has been nearly flawless. Early in the season, he remarked that his last ex-girlfriend called him "cold-blooded", and at the time, it was difficult to see why. Now, it's not. Emmett can be friendly and funny, which disarmed his fellow players to their detriment, but he has a ruthless, emotion-free side that served him well in this game.

In other news, guess what else is happening?

So nice to see Tom partying with all those losers he didn't want in his jury house. 

Big Brother Around the Web: #BBCAN Dance Remix

If you're still lingering around waiting for something to happen before the finale, here's a couple minutes to keep you entertained, courtesy of the Slice.ca editing team:


BBCan Remix by f100003092719386

Big Brother Around the Web: Egypt Edition

And you thought you were in denial about the way this season is ending:

Sounds delicious to me.

The Sixteenth Houseguest

"The sixteenth houseguest? Production." -Alec, 3/31/13.

The sixteenth houseguest at work

As Big Brother superfans, Alec and Peter understood this concept from day one. In the game of Big Brother, theoretically you're playing against the fifteen people cast to battle head to head in the game of Big Brother, but in reality, you're also competing for the heart of the unseen gods controlling the game. Ask Jessie Godderz in Big Brother US Season 11 about that, or Shelly Moore on Big Brother US Season 13, or Aaron Allard-Morgan from Big Brother UK Season 12. (Okay, Aaron won his series, but more in spite of Production than because of them.) 

Topaz, while topping out the fan favorite rankings at Jokers' Updates, has never been a favorite of Production. Her continued insistence on napping against their direct orders, her ignoring of alarms, her open mouthing off against their interference - all of it served to draw the battle lines, and Production struck this week in the worst way possible.

Poster Doctor Skeuss at Survivor Sucks was at last Thursday's taping and noted an extended production conference before Topaz's eventual victory in the contest. Moments later, as we know, Topaz skated to victory to cheers from her fans, only to have her game destroyed once the feeds went down.

Jokers Reacts

Production enjoyed the chaos of it all, with producer and Marsha the Moose voice Trevor Boris gleefully tweeting as the episode aired, "im guessing a lot of you have never seen a Big Brother from any of the other 46 countries except the US".

And yes, as Peter noted, Topaz didn't have to talk out loud. Or did she?

Topaz isn't a particularly vocal strategist, we saw Arisa encouraging her to talk out loud, and we don't know what else was said. I will be very interested to hear after the show if Topaz claims she was encouraged to openly voice her strategy for the fans. Certainly she had no reason to expect that this Big Brother US-style game would suddenly become a Big Brother UK-style one, and why would she?

It's one thing when BBUK messes with the houseguests by revealing secrets, because ultimately, the power rests in the hands of the audience. On this show, however, there's no way that exposing a player like that won't wreck their game, and Production certainly had to know that going in.

Would they have done the same to Peter if, god forbid, he'd managed to win an actual competition? I can't help but feel like they wouldn't. (Trevor's Marsha the Moose alter ego is a noted Peter fan, of course.) We'll never know, but after years of watching Big Brother in multiple countries, I've just come to expect that Production is manipulating the story they want to tell.

That said, the Chevrolet "Powershift" twists have been uniformly horrible so far in terms of moving the story: Sending Aneal home over the gameless Suzette was a travesty, and this twist has managed to sink the games of lead characters like Gary, Topaz, Alec and Peter, while bolstering bores like Andrew and Jillian.

At this point, I chalk it up to the fact that the Sixteenth Houseguest is a newbie, and still figuring out how to wield the monster that is Big Brother. Given the fact that the ratings aren't going anywhere, they'll have plenty of time to figure out how to manipulate in the future, but for now, we have to wait and see if they can manage to salvage the game and propel the interesting characters and gamers into the finals or not.

Diary Room Bloopers

The biggest reason I'm enjoying the season so far? The comedy.

This cast provides great one-liners and great comic timing, both on the broadcast shows and the live feeds. I can't remember the last time a BBUS cast made me laugh this much.

Slice just put out this montage of Diary Room Bloopers, and I hope it's not the last.



Classic moment:

"Sorry for being a little baby yesterday, won't happen again." -Alec, to Big Brother

Alec and Topaz: Who Plays the Players?

Overnight at Jokers Updates, posters were speculating about Alec's BBUK fandom and a report that he called Big Brother UK Season 12 one of his favorites. (I didn't hear that, but did catch him discussing Faye's secret task last week.) The reason why this is significant is that BBUK 12 winner Aaron was notorious for playing a blistering mindfuck of a game, confounding production and viewers alike for weeks*.

*For the record, in the end, Aaron was not playing the girl, he and Faye are still together a year and a half later, thank you very much.

Alec seems to be heading down that road to an extent, confusing viewers about his intentions, especially with Topaz.

His physical attraction to her seems legit - I've heard him cite BBUK's Noirin as being one of his Big Brother crushes, so it's not surprising that he cuddled up to Topaz on the first night. But what about after that? You can't exactly break up with your showmance in the Big Brother house - even if you want to.

Then there was Showergate, an incident that I thought was rather Aaron-like back when it happened. I still do think that Alec's overreaction was genuine (as were most of Aaron's), especially after hearing Aneal and Kat discussing it on a recent podcast. Aneal pointed out, and Kat agreed, that the corner where Alec went to "hide" during his Diary Room session is the natural place in that room to go to avoid the camera. The breakdown was probably legitimate.

But many skeptical viewers have pointed to Alec's own master's thesis, defended just last year. In the thesis, Alec explores the sexual attractiveness of a variety of emotions, most notably shame, and finds that with certain situations, male displays of shame can be sexually appealing.  That finding is not consistent, though - and Alec's hyper-awareness of the physical presentation of shame could have actually been what caused him to overreact and lose his cool in the situation. (That, and the slop.)

Hot or not? Alec's actual research

Alec has admitted that his social psychology scholarship was inspired by Dr. Will Kirby and his love of Big Brother. So, it opens up the question - just how far will Alec go to manipulate in the Big Brother game? 

We know he's playing Topaz, but Topaz suspects it, too. She's called him out for withholding personal information and doubted him in her private conversations with Gary. She knows she goes farther with Alec than without, so at this point, she's putting up with him as much as he's putting up with her. She seems casually attracted to him, but also annoyed by his cautious personality and reluctance to consult her on game decisions.

There's one big difference between how Alec privately discusses Topaz and how Topaz privately discusses Alec, however.

Topaz at least sees the value in keeping Alec in the game as long as possible, and is looking out for his interests. When he won Head of Household, she cautioned him to use his power to make deals with people rather than automatically guaranteeing them safety, but he brushed her off and privately told Peter that she was getting too big for her britches.

Alec openly has no qualms about cutting Topaz, even next week if it comes down to it. This wouldn't be a bad strategy if he wanted to throw suspicion away from their showmance, but he seems quite serious about it. He's much more open in his game talk with Peter and even with Andrew and Emmett at times than he is with Topaz.

The fact that Topaz is becoming a fan favorite in her own right is also hurting Alec's public popularity right now - he's plummeting in the Joker's ratings poll, and could be in danger if there's a fan vote that puts him at risk.

As a viewer, I find the Alec-Topaz dynamic fascinating. Showmances that lack tension are boring, and players that jump in the sack right away and refuse to come out until their eviction tend to clog up the feeds. Showmances are entertaining when there's tension, though. Usually that means some kind of sexual tension, as relationships build over time. Alec and Topaz are something different, something we haven't seen before.

This isn't the first strategic showmance - that prize goes to Chilltown, who invented the strategy (and claim they invented the word 'showmance'). What Alec is doing is also not at the level of a Mike Boogie/Erika game, to his credit. Topaz is sharper than the average showmance, and Alec hasn't exactly been subtle about the fact that she's not his number one. She's appropriately suspicious of his intentions, and Alec is at least respectful of her.

They just don't seem like a compatible couple outside of the game, and both seem to be consciously aware of that. So, what do you do?

The unfortunate part of all of this is that both Topaz and Alec are astute gamers, whose skills complement each other's deficits. Alec has the cool head that Topaz lacks, Topaz has the heightened perception that Alec lacks, and the two of them could really control the entire house... if they tried.

The only way that can happen now is if Peter and Gary leave before Alec and Topaz and force them to work together. It's not out of the question, but it's looking less and less likely every day. 

Big Brother Around the Web

One last, douchetastic dose of Tom mockery is happening over at ONTDBB tonight.

Tom and Liza are also figuring out how to use Twitter tonight. Any guesses on how many days before they figure out how to read the parody replies? 

Feeds are supposed to be coming back this evening, and fans are getting antsy. If you're bored, Aneal is on Rob Has a Podcast right now - should be archived later on. Aneal is a huge reality fan himself, so I don't imagine we've seen the last of his podcast appearances.

Big Brother Around the Web

While we wait for the Double Eviction, last week's evictee Aneal has a great idea.

Looking forward to this guy making the BB podcast rounds, hopefully very soon.