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. 

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. 

Revenge of Slop Brain

When feeds finally came back on at around 1:30 AM early Saturday morning, we found our Peter-evicting, HOH-throwing Alec holding court from the Head of Household bed and picking through his HOH crate. (In Canada, they are crates, not baskets.)

Freshly fed on a diet of trail mix and muffins (as shown on After Dark) Alec began contemplating his options, and promptly revealed himself to have a case of the famous HOH-itis. 

As the room cleared out, he and Peter reviewed their options, and things started off just fine. Using another classic Brigade gameplay strategy, they ran through the house, both allies and potential enemies, trying to ascertain who would target others on their behalf. Alec even happily speculated about Topaz's eviction, showing once again that the lack of trust in the cuddlemance is mutual. (Or was it for Peter's benefit? Probably not - Alec seems to be more honest with Peter than with Topaz, and honesty is always the best way to suss out true alliances.)

Unknown to Alec, however, a storm was growing downstairs. After Alec's blatant HOH throw during the Double Eviction, Andrew held Head of Household for one night, and didn't get a basket (crate). Alec then proceeded to win basically his second competition in a row, securing food and power for a full week, along with a bonus $10,000 prize. Despite his attempts to befriend Andrew and rope him in as a side ally, Andrew wasn't having any of that from Alec, and vented throughout the night to his own allies, AJ and Talla.

A la volonté du peuple

Later in the night, having settled on his nominations of Suzette as target and AJ as pawn, Alec decided to execute a strategy to make AJ feel comfortable with going up as a pawn. Despite the fact that no one should feel comfortable as a pawn in the wake of Danielle's eviction, he still thought he could pull it off with some social validation, and a dance ensued to get the right people in the room before assuring AJ that he had the votes.

Not use the veto? Yeah, right! 

Alec's strategy was risky to begin with, and riskier when he asked AJ for permission and got a flat no. But he went off the rails when he tried to persuade AJ to consider not using the veto on himself if he won. Too much, too soon, and Alec also had no idea that AJ's ear was already filled with anti-Alec whispers from Andrew. This went over like a lead balloon.

Alec's real strategy at this point is to nominate AJ and Suzette, and the replacement nominee will be Talla, who will go home if Suzette is off the block. However, Alec and Peter suspect (rightly so) that Talla would flip if she knew this, so they're telling AJ and the others that Gary would be the backdoor option. As of right now, this would not actually happen.

Private pawn

I wouldn't say it's a given that Suzette is out the door Thursday, but I'm okay if she is. The game is finally starting to shape up for the critical mid-stretch, and an easy week with fermenting tension is not a bad thing at this stage. There may not be much drama in the eviction, but the next weeks will depend heavily on the suspicions that are stoked from this week.

Alec and Peter have some elements of a good strategy, but their ability to read people is failing this week. Will they pick up on the dissension in the ranks and adjust their strategy accordingly, or will Alec's ego start to send him in the direction he sent Tom just this past week?

Alec and Peter are also playing a critical piece of Brigade strategy entirely wrong. Alec seems to be expecting the house to put him on the block with his public cuddlemance Topaz, and knows that he has the alliances to stay over her. But Topaz wasn't the one holding court all night with Alec last night, and everyone in the house is aware of Alec's close relationship with Peter, mentioning them in the same breath. If Alec goes up as a target, it will very likely be Pete on the block next to him, yet neither one of the superfans seems to have grasped this obvious concept in their scenarios.

The eviction may not contain much drama this week, but that doesn't mean it's going to be a quiet week.