Ground Control to Major Tom: It's Solitary Confinement Time on #BB15!

Today's Power of Veto competition involved punishments, always a fun change of pace this early in the season. We don't seem to have any crazy costumes, although Aaryn will be enjoying a change of hair, and Helen has a curfew.

More interestingly, Judd will be in solitary confinement for 24 hours in the cockpit lounge.

"How do I flush this toilet?" -actual Judd quote

Judd's game is starting to change up, as in the last twenty-four hours we've seen him moving away from the Goof Troop alliance (McRae/Amanda/Andy) and towards a possible new affiliation with Kaitlin/Spencer/GinaMarie in the wee hours of the morning. He's also contemplating the fact that this is the first-ever Big Brother season to boot three guys in a row right out of the gate, and wants a girl out this week. Judd has a lot to think about, and now he'll have time to think it over.

Solitary confinement is historically a game changer in Big Brother. Players in the house are constantly bombarded with social simulation, sleeping in rooms full of activity while gaming their days away. Cutting off human contact for a day has had interesting results in the past.

Let's review:

Big Brother 7: Danielle's Decline

Big Brother 7's Danielle Reyes took the first solitary confinement punishment that I can recall in the game, trying to solidify her Legion of Doom alliance during her Head of Household reign. Unfortunately for her, the alliance lost the competition, with Chilltown famously gobbling up prizes and hanging her out to dry.

This marked the start of Danielle's downfall in the game. For 24 hours she paced and muttered, and after she emerged, she was never the same. A legend in her own right during Season 3, Danielle crashed and burned after her solitary confinement in Season 7, culminating in her crazed doorbell-ringing meltdown on the Head of Household landing (earning her the nickname "Ding Dong Dani").

Big Brother 12: Hayden's Rise

In the first few weeks of Big Brother 12, future winner Hayden Moss seemed to be in a pickle, bouncing between his secret showmance with Kristen, a secret alliance with Kristen and Andrew, and his role as "The Animal" in The Brigade. It wasn't clear initially which direction he would go, especially because he hid each secret alliance from the other side, wisely waiting to see which would triumph.

All of this threatened to destroy his game when his alliance with Kristen and Andrew blew up noisily the night of Andrew's eviction, as Andrew called out the secret showmance, and Rachel played right into the chaos in the wake of her HOH win, targeting Kristen and Hayden to split up the showmance. Hayden initially seemed shaken and visibly upset for the first time in the game.

After Britney won the Veto competition, it became clear that he had no future with Kristen in the game. But at the same time, Hayden's strong position in the house was clear that night for maybe the first time, as the house rallied around him to keep him entertained, constantly keeping vigil at his door in alternate shifts. Kristen spent hours crying quietly in front of his door, but Hayden was more interested in his short visits with the Brigade, and in shoring up his allegiance to them. He was rarely alone, and during that time seemed to be most concerned with rattling off his resume to the live feed cameras, pleading for a job.

By the time Hayden emerged from solitary confinement, he was all-Brigade, all the time, and ready to start on the path that would lead him to one of the most solid and predictable victories in Big Brother history. 

Big Brother 13: Shelly's Flip

Shelly Moore didn't seem to be in much trouble when she landed in solitary confinement. She was in a dominant alliance with Jeff, Jordan, Rachel, Brendon and Adam, and while Head of Household Dani Donato had nominated her alongside Adam and Adam won the Veto, Brendon was clearly the target, leaving Shelly in little danger. Shelly even voluntarily took the punishment, since it was combined with a phone call home to her daughter, adorable game analyst Josie. 

 So it was no wonder that few of the houseguests felt the need to keep Shelly company - her punishment was really a reward, after all. But in the late hours of the evening, HOH Dani came to sit by the door, keeping Shelly company for a long stretch of time and reassuring her, despite having nominated her for eviction.

When Shelly chose to flip shortly after this and join Dani's team to help oust Jeff, the night of solitary confinement was cited as one of the things that convinced her that she could trust Dani. The fact that Dani chose to reach out and comfort Shelly in her isolation wound up playing a huge role in shifting the power in the game in the final stretch, leading to some of the most memorable eviction night drama ever in the history of Big Brother.

Big Brother 14: Dan's Resurrection

Do I even need to cover this one? Dan Gheesling's day in solitary confinement last year allowed him to create one of the most amazing and complex manipulations in Big Brother history, as he lay silently for hours in the hypnotic Have Not room listening to horrid music and gobbling a sheet cake, while plotting how to get out of what seemed to be the certain demise of his game.

Dan later went on to detail his thinking process in depth. Dan's Funeral was a virtuoso performance, transforming Dan from imminent game death to one of the most amazing and unexpected veto saves we've ever seen in this game. He would never have been able to come up with such a complex strategy out in the house, where his thoughts would have constantly been interrupted with the conversations and drama of the house.

Of all the solitary confinement sagas, Dan's remains the most striking achievement. 

Big Brother 15: Judd's ?

So what do the next 24 hours hold for quiet, anxiety-ridden, quippy HOH Judd? He's sitting fine in the game, but now is the time to start thinking ahead for the long stretch. Will his paranoia get the best of him, or will the lack of social interaction allow him to focus on what he needs to do next in the game?

One interesting thing to note - Hayden, Shelly and Dan were all confined to the various Have Not rooms in their respective seasons, while only Dani Reyes was confined in the lounge by the bathroom, which will be Judd's prison for the next day. (This is because there are already Have Nots assigned to the room for the week - there were no Have Nots the weeks that Hayden, Shelly and Dan all were confined.) Doesn't bode well for our Tennesseean Head of Household, since only Dani's game was negatively rather than positively affected by solitary confinement. 

Stay tuned - the one thing we know is that this has the potential to be an intense psychological game changer for Judd, one way or another. 

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.