How, Dan, Do You Want It?

Late this morning, a letter appeared under the front door accompanied by the ring of a doorbell.

The source of the letter was revealed on Twitter minutes earlier: Dan Gheesling, 7-0 underdog winner of Big Brother 10 and 6-1 controversial runner-up of Big Brother 14 was standing just outside the entrance, waiting to make one of his own. 

The final five houseguests gathered in the living room and Talla read out the announcement: a visitor was coming who was familiar with what they were going through, and could be used as they wished. The speculation began immediately, with Peter being at the top of the list, but they quickly and correctly moved on to the stars of Big Brother US, with Will, Janelle, Dan, and even Hayden and Mike Boogie making their wishlists.

Andrew insisted that he could care less, that he wasn't interested in anyone else's strategy, and he just wanted to play Veto and get it over with. He and Gary are nominated, with Andrew possibly being the target, not that he knows that. Andrew has vocally said multiple times that he's a Jeff fan and couldn't stand Dan, something to keep in mind as we revisit the next series of events.

After a bedroom lockdown, the houseguests emerged to find a mysterious clue in ketchup. This one baffled me for a few minutes, because all I could think of was Eric and the America's Player mustard task in Big Brother 8, but then I remembered the hypothetical bottle of ketchup that Britney Haynes repeatedly said would have beaten Dan in the Big Brother 14 finale. 

Talla confirmed that yes, it was ketchup.

Finally, the doorbell rang again, and as the houseguests sprinted up the stairs, Dan Gheesling made his grand entrance.

Talla was not excited in the least. (She was the only person to name Dan as a player she wanted to meet today in all the speculation, and after over an hour of flitting around the house chanting "Oh my god!", she was more than ready to take flight for the payoff.)

Dan feigned like he hasn't been watching the show the whole time, pretending like he needed to be introduced to all of them. Once introductions were complete, Talla mentioned his funeral, and he immediately leapt up, donned a red headband, and announced that they all had to tell him why they deserved to stay in the game, because he would be selecting one of them to leave that night.

Emmett, who at this point is sick and tired of twists messing with his game, was even less impressed with this latest one. He's been complaining all week about the twists, especially Gary coming back, and how they're interfering with his otherwise perfect game. Emmett hasn't watched enough seasons of Big Brother US to understand that this is fairly typical when someone's on a dominant win streak like he and Jillian have had.

Dan finally revealed that he was just kidding, to (almost) everyone's amusement. Don't miss Andrew the Dan hater bum-rushing him there. Despite complaining about Peter playing a Dan game for weeks, for most of the time they were greeting him, Andrew was more or less the closest person to Dan. He also made a somewhat awkward remark about Dan's wife being with him for the celebrity. Andrew, that's why you're still single.

Note Andrew's proximity to Dan once more, on the house tour.

And again as the houseguests explained to Dan what's been happening in the game that he's been watching over the internet for the last two months. They were kind enough to gloat over the evicted Alec and Peter as Dan fans, which was in fact inaccurate - Peter is the Dan fan, Alec was actually a Dr. Will fan and didn't particularly care for Dan.

Eventually, the houseguests began to take Dan up on his offer to provide pre-veto advice. Talla babbled her way through her incredibly one-dimensional strategy to Dan, who gently started to alert her to the fact that she may not want to put all her eggs in the basket of a four-person alliance where two are in a showmance and three are from the same region. 

Gary similarly took Dan up on his advice, and Dan Socratic Method-ed him until he finally saw the Power Move that Peter missed last week: getting Talla to win the veto and pull one of them off the block to force Jillian up. It's a pretty weak hope for Gary, and Dan didn't push it hard, but he did make Gary really start thinking through his options and the power he has in the game. It was a fascinating conversation, since Gary has been quiet since his return, but he is thinking. Dan was able to latch on to that deeper, more complex Gary and wrest him out from under the immature, impulsive Gary. Was it enough to get him through this week? Hard to say.

The subtext of both conversations was that Dan thinks Gary and Talla should align, which is absolutely correct, but he was able to get both of them to voice why they're uncertain about doing so. With a few more hours in the house, Dan might still be able to get an underdog alliance going before he leaves.

If only he'd had a couple hours with Alec, Peter, and Topaz. Anyway.

Emmett was far more reserved, only talking Dan through his past game moves, not his future. He doesn't trust Dan, voicing later to some of the others that he's afraid info given to Dan could be leaked. 

Andrew and Jillian for their part scorned the offer, since neither one respects Dan's strategy - Andrew, despite fame-whoring it up around Dan, was later heard complaining that Dan was just lucky.

A feed leak revealed that today's Power of Veto competition may be How Bad Do You Want It, so Gary's pre-game strategy session with Dan may play to his advantage. Gary knows that winning himself is his only hope, and he feels that he owes it to Canada to try to survive in the game, since they voted him in. 

So, how, Dan, do you want it? Looks like if Dan has his way, it might be a slightly more interesting endgame than we'd been anticipating. 

Gary: What I Like About You

While we've got some time on our hands, I wanted to devote a few minutes to Gary "Glitter" Levy, one of the more interesting products so far from Big Brother Canada.

I admit, I didn't expect much from Gary in the beginning. Maybe the fact that he was neither the only minority nor the only gay cast member should have tipped me off - Big Brother Canada has been more diverse from the jump, and many of its star characters have proven to be much more complex than they seemed at the first impression, for better or for worse.

Gary defies the stereotypes - he knows his role on the show and plays into it with glee, but there's far more to him than meets the eye.

Gary and Luxury (RIP)

Gary is a complex character - one moment he's immature and selfish, the next he's surprisingly thoughtful and insightful. Part of this may be due to his age. At twenty-one, Gary is still on the cusp of childhood, and it shows. One minute he's creating a fake party task and pissing everyone off, the next he's astutely calling Alec out for his machinations with Topaz, the next he doesn't understand why the Have Nots are upset to be giving him a pedicure, the next he's standing up to the house's herd mentality to support Suzette on her way out the door.

Those glimmers of strategy and guts are what make Gary so interesting as a player. The first hours of his Head of Household reign were incredible to watch, as he subtly manipulated information out of the entire house and used it to push for what he wanted (Tom's eviction) while making everyone else think it was their idea (no, Alec and Peter, it wasn't).

In many ways, he reminds me of Daniele Donato, who I found to be extremely immature and whiny on Big Brother US Season 8, but transformed into a gutsy, self-assured rebel by Big Brother 13. Britney Haynes also showed a great deal of growth as a player between her young appearance on Big Brother 12 and her slightly older one on Big Brother 14.

Pwned

I don't think Gary is going to win this season - he can't, from the outside of the herd mindset in this house - but I could easily see him owning a future All-Stars season once he gets some more life experience under his belt and figures out how to wield his skill set to his advantage. And this guy is a shoo-in for All-Stars.

Gary is extremely confident in his own skin. That goes without saying, of course, but there's another layer to it. We've seen so many openly flamboyant men on these shows who harbor insecurity based on years of being bullied and ridiculed for their fabulousness. That kind of thing leaves bitter scars into adulthood, but if Gary wears those scars, he doesn't let them show. He loves who he is, and expects everyone else to love him until they say otherwise. He's not bitter or resentful as a result of his uniqueness, which is probably a credit to his family, who seem to be supportive of him.

Gary does possess one of the fatal flaws of big characters on reality television - he wants to be famous, and discusses it frequently on the feeds. (Seriously, we hate that shit.) When he discusses the fame he wants, though, he often frames it in terms of wanting a platform and a message, instead of wanting to just soak in attention. Obviously he wants the attention, too, but he wants to be a role model.

And he should be.

Seeing beyond the obvious

Gary has seen his closest friends go out the door, back to back - Danielle, Suzette, and now possibly Topaz, depending on the outcome of the veto(*)

(*)If you're Alec, who do you get the house to go after, between Topaz and Gary? Both probably hate you to an equal enough extent now, but Gary is the bigger competitor. At the same time, Gary isn't going to freeze you out for the next week, but that may make him more dangerous, so yeah, Gary is probably the target right now.

Despite pressure from the house last week, Gary refused to join the group that was isolating Suzette. As depressing as he found her in the last week, and as much as he knew it was risking his own game to spend time with her, he was unable to adopt Alec's strategy of forgetting that people are human, and did his best to keep her from being entirely isolated during her last days in the house. He knew better than to try and flip the game to save her, but he couldn't bring himself to mix the personal and the game and cut her out like the others, as hard as it was for him.

I've got a golden ticket

So where is Gary now? As we saw last night, he now seems to realize that the "Fourgy" alliance he thought he had with Topaz, Peter and Alec is worthless. Either Gary or Topaz will probably go home this week, and Gary has his veto replacement power to play on this week. During last night's feed leak he seemed to be trying to strategize with it, but he and Alec disagreed on its nature, so look for the interpretation of the power to be something Gary plays to his advantage. 

If Gary does succeed in rolling through this week, he's got to get over his annoyance with the other houseguests and use his house knowledge to assess the power dynamics and try to forge an alliance from what's left. Peter and Alec aren't going to do it for him, Gary and Talla don't seem to get along, and Emmett and Jillian are untrustworthy. Andrew and Gary have a very weird relationship and Andrew seems to be targeting Gary at the moment, but Andrew's flipped all over the place with Alec and might be willing to work something out. Who knows?

In the meantime, as much as I like both Gary and Topaz, I'm not sure that Topaz has much more to offer to the game once she's unleashed her fury on Alec. Her bridges will be burnt, and her options will be limited. Gary, on the other hand, has the ability to try to slip his way a little closer to the end if he thinks it over and draws on his skills.

Should Gary walk out the door on Thursday, I don't think it will be his last time on reality television. And I'm just fine with that. This world could use few more Garys in it.