Good news for residents of the Big Brother 19 house: Their shortage of fresh cereal is now over. Matt, the living black hole of cereal bowls, has walked out of the house by blindside. It’s not surprising to see the low key background player get the boot – pawns do eventually go home. But, it’s the buildup to his eviction that actually offered an interesting week for the viewers. In fact, it’s something we haven’t seen in a while: strategic gameplay.
Paul’s alliance finally turned on each other and broke up the third showmance in a row. The Big Brother 19 house is littered with pairs, each with their own “ride or die” partner. Raven and Matt is simply the latest pair to be broken apart due to the majority alliance’s scheming. However, this blindside stems all the way back to, of course, Paul. As much as this is really frustrating to say, we have to applaud Paul’s game. He strategically plotted his alliance to turn on each other to the point where he not only was on great footing with every member, but he placed the blame for Matt’s blindside on the only outlier houseguests (Kevin) not in the alliance.
Sure, the attention was on Jason and Alex for a while (they both were the flip votes in Week #8), but soon everyone let out their frustrations on Kevin. I couldn’t believe that these houseguests are taking it out on him. Kevin, while arguably dismissive and distant, has been civil and gentlemanly to everyone in the house – he’s one of the only nice people left. He didn’t deserve a lot of the mud being thrown his way by Josh. And why is working for jury votes a bad thing? That’s how you win Big Brother! (I’m shaking my head at these houseguests…)
Christmas was right about Josh; even though it was a lucky move, it was smart of him to bring up the $25,000 from premiere night. Kevin couldn’t back out of swearing on kids when he’s set precedent about doing it in the past – Josh trapped him. They caught him in a lie and now they have more ammunition to get him out at a future eviction; when you’re so close to the end like this, any smoking gun counts. Josh may have been acting like a child with starting a fight (again) with a houseguest, but he’s discovered an advantage here – this is strategic knowledge that he should use for the right moment.
The Tree of Temptation has failed in its second week. (I called it.) These houseguests are too afraid to pull an apple and face the repercussions that come from it. Getting the punishment from the apple is one thing, but the target from the rest of the house is worse! Everyone is a little too comfortable to side with the house majority; they don’t need the apples. It’s a shame the twist has blown up this quickly. At least the Saboteur from Big Brother 12 had more fight in its one week than this lackluster tree.
Between the two challenges of the week, the hide and seek Power of Veto offered the most fun. There’s nothing like seeing these houseguests hide the vetos throughout the house, and then destroy the place to find them. Paranoia and desperation always set in when searching for the cards. This is one of my favorite Big Brother standards! Plus, it forces these houseguests to actually clean up the house properly once the challenge is done. That’s a miracle unto itself.
Raven’s tall tales have been a point of contention in the house and in the online Big Brother fan community. She likes to brag a lot and one-up people most of the time, but she also claims many different diseases and health concerns. Don’t get me wrong, it’s proven that Raven does have a serious health concern and without proper ongoing care, it could get worse. However, a lot of what she says is just not true. This is the first time Big Brother has called out the shadiness in the viewer episodes and the others have started to notice her sympathetic strategic moves. Could it actually get her votes in the end? I’m not so sure yet. She does need to win some challenges and make moves to get the prize.
The jury segments are some of my favorite scenes in the latter half of Big Brother. I miss Cody, Elena and Mark – they were nice and offered some drama to the game. Elena calling this show “Big Paul” was hilarious, but a bit surprising as, for a while, she was on the Paul bandwagon. Hindsight comes in waves when the players enter the jury house. I hope we get more scenes of the evicted players.
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Speaking of evicted players, Matt did leave the game with a penalty vote – he broke the Have-Not rules once he realized he was going to be evicted. He essentially gave up his game to Raven, a woman he’s only known for seventy two days. Big Brother is such a special and unique experience; I would never give up my chance for anyone, and there are many fans who would kill for the spot.
Matt wasted his summer. He didn’t do anything and now he will continue to do as much in the jury house. Maybe he’ll finish his cereal goal in the jury house? You know…goals, I guess. Though, at least we got a rise out of him after Jason blindsided him – it’s the first time he actually showed like he cared about the game. Matt’s incredulous attitude, and the way he reacted to Jason making a smart move to get him out, ended the ninth week off on a high week.
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