Big Brother 19 Review: “Week #7”

Double eviction week has a habit of knocking out big characters. It only takes one hour for the tides to change as everything starts to crumble for someone’s game. Sometimes we’re lucky and a useless floater gets added to the boot – they’re mostly filler anyway – or a shocking left field target is thrown in to shake up everything. That didn’t happen this week on Big Brother 19. We lost Cody and Elena. The seventh week was a pretty uneventful, by-the-numbers round.

Cody was a sure-thing eviction the second he wasn’t picked to be in the Power of Veto competition. Everyone wanted him gone, especially Paul, and with people constantly bringing up his name, he was going to stay the main target. Regardless of Elena’s fighting and acts of betrayal, this wouldn’t have changed anything before the double eviction – Cody was the number one house enemy. However, I was impressed that he at least made strides to get people to consider keeping him around. Connecting with Kevin on a paternal level was nice, but using Elena’s POV performance against her was brilliant. He saw the opportunity and used it to attack.

His decision, on the other hand, to throw the Den of Temptation challenge was a poor move. Why give up a chance to stay in the game?! There’s no guarantee he would be chosen to compete in the POV competition; it’s completely random, and he’s already experienced a twist where someone took his opportunity to compete. He shouldn’t have wasted the chance. A lot of Cody’s actions this season were too-little-too-late. In hindsight, he must be regretting not building more bridges with people, throwing the competition, and isolating himself from others. He simply hated people for so long that when he actually tried to rebuild the burnt bridges, no one could take him seriously.

Whereas Cody had an overarching problem, Elena’s eviction stemmed from playing the middle too much. She tried to appease both sides of the house and not rock the boat, but by doing this, the majority side couldn’t trust her. I don’t want to blame her taking the $5,000 from the POV as her reason for being targeted/evicted; it’s not the case at all. Alex, Josh, Christmas and a lot of her former alliance members only needed justification to push her eviction sooner than later. Elena was at the bottom of the alliance totem pole regardless – she was constantly being thrown out as the “pawn” in case the real target won safety. She eventually would’ve been cut; at least now she’ll have more prize money for the future.

The major downside of Cody and Elena leaving is that we lost two big characters who, to some extent, were mainstays in the game and show. Elena was one of the few floaters who had the most screen time in the diary room; she wasn’t a challenge threat like Alex or a manipulator like Paul, but she did have personality. I think I’ll miss her sarcastic one-liners.

While Elena was a vocal personality who wanted more fame/followers, Cody was actually playing the game. He served as the enemy to Paul; the only person in the house not under his spell. With Cody getting evicted, we’ve lost our only hope of any houseguest targeting Paul. No one wants to do it. And that serves as a huge problem for Big Brother 19.

As I mentioned in last week’s review, a large majority of the houseguests are not playing to win. In fact, they’re willing to give up the game and settle for second place to Paul…or, more accurately, jury. The same mentality followed in Week #7. People looked to Paul for direction and when Jason won HOH, Paul was the one controlling the communication for whom to target. It’s sad to see not a single one of these houseguests make a move on their own. The same goes for the decisions they do make; for example, Matt.

What is Matt doing?! He is openly, and proudly, giving up his game to be the new pawn of Big Brother 19. Sure, it’s a smart strategy to throw the Den of Temptation challenge so that another player isn’t nominated and can’t automatically compete in POV. However, if Cody had been chosen for POV, his sacrifice would’ve been for nothing – you can’t predict a random move. Smart players who are familiar with Big Brother would never volunteer for this role; your chances of getting evicted go up every week. Though, who are we kidding, Matt doesn’t have a chance to win.

Matt isn’t winning the game. Raven isn’t winning the game. And Josh is definitely not winning. Josh is the one houseguest who I can safely say is the goat of Big Brother 19. Anyone who sits next to him will automatically win. His smug tactics and demeaning attitude aren’t fun or strategic – he’s just being a rude bully. Evel Dick may have perfected this strategy, but he used it for different reasons and the joke has worn out.

The challenges this week were a lot of fun. I loved the twist for the Den of Temptation competition – I didn’t expect they would flip the questions to be about the location in the house. It’s a small, clever tweak that turns a predictable challenge into something fresh. The slingshot Power of Veto and the shuffleboard HOH were just as equally enjoyable. We need to see more of these. However, will we ever see an endurance competition again? Christmas being injured may have altered the challenge selection this summer, but it would be nice to have another physically enduring round.

The seventh week of Big Brother 19 followed a predictable pattern. The house target and the house pawn said their goodbyes for the jury house, and I’m afraid this could be for the worst. Only nine players are left and the number of people who have built a resume deserving of the prize is dwindling. Every week I hope for a silent strategic mastermind, or a competition threat, to emerge from behind and shake things up. It’s not looking like that is going to happen any time soon.