We're BAAAaaaaack!

Hello again loyal followers,

After a much deserved 9 month hibernation, we are back and ready to roll! I'd say it's safe to say we needed at least that long to recover from the travesty that was BB15. Here's hoping racism and homophobia are at bay this year? Please?

This season seems to be riddled with twists. The first of which- two HoH's every week. We're still not exactly sure how that's going to work, we'll find out tomorrow on part two of the move in. All we know is 2 HoH's each week, but only 1 will be left by the end of each week. Somehow the HoH powers get revoked from one person. Which basically means, there's not much point in being HoH. I'm a pretty big believer in throwing most competitions, and this gives even more motivation for that strategy.

Anyways, onward and upward. Let's meet the first 8 contestants of the season.

Amber. I like her already. She seems smart, funny and is obviously gorgeous. She's also, how should I say this.... Not Paola. Her best move this episode was obviously throwing that first HoH competition. Unfortunately, her throwing the comp was painfully obvious, but by the looks of the other contestants, no one noticed. 

Nicole. AKA (according to twitter) Season 16's Jordan. We don't know a lot about her yet, but she seems a little ditzy, and apparently has bladder issues. 

Ugh. Paola. Voted most likely to have multiple one night stands, and/or arrested for sexual harassment.  

I kind of liked Joey, until I saw she listed GinaMarie as her favourite cast winner. Did she even watch last season? "Uhh, I like the homophobic racist with the inability to form a coherent sentence."

Cody. Seems like a decent enough guy. Strong and charming with no chance of winning. Which, coincidentally could also be said about his favourite case member, Jeff.

Oh Frankie GRANDE. He's Ariana Grande's brother, and don't you forget it! How could you, with him jamming it down our throats everytime he's in the diary room. 

Devin "Better than the Rock" Shepherd. Single dad who spends 6 days a week at the gym. Also has an open harassment case against Paola. 

"Duck Don-asty". Spends his evening entertaining the house guests with a little game he likes to call "What's in my beard?" Everyone loses. 

Stay tuned for tomorrow's episode of name that dysfunctional house guest!

Until then,

Sam

Return of the power rankings!

After a long absence, the blog is back! If you're wondering what happened, two of our members were busy uprooting their lives, while all of the members were busy hating this season. However, things have settled down, and the season is once again entertaining, so here's what you've all been waiting for!

1. Andy

A lot of fans have expressed very negative opinions of Andy and his game. The words rat and floater have been thrown around a lot. Here's the thing, being good at Big Brother isn't about being a competitions warrior, or a loyal ally, it's about doing what the situation calls for. Andy has done an incredible job maneuvering his way through the game and keeping the target off of his back. He was the most valuable member of 3 AM, and now that being associated with them is a liability, he's moved on. Like his strategy or not, he is playing the smartest game.

2. Judd

Judd left the house with no allies, and came back in with no enemies. Lines were drawn in the sand while he was gone, new enemies were created, and now J U double D gets to come back in after the fact, with clean hands and no targets on his back. Missing two weeks may have been the best thing that could happen to his game. Will the other HGs let a returning player win the game? Well I don't see Topaz around, so I guess we'll have to wait and see.

3. GinaMarie

Do I think GM can win the game? No, but I wouldn't put anything past these houseguests. Watching GM go after Amanda was difficult, I don't want to cheer for GM, but this week was entertaining because of her. Taking out Amanda would give GM a lot of points with the jury, and it would show something we haven't seen so far... that she understands she's playing big brother. Her last HoH was wasted on somebody who had no allies in the house, she didn't take out a big target, and she didn't create any allies for herself. This time around she seems much more conscious of the game she's playing, and even though she probably isn't, the jury doesn't need to know that.

4. Spencer.

Spencer is playing an absolutely incredible second place game right now. Nobody wants to evict him, as shown by his ability to survive 6 nominations, but at the same time, what jury member is going to vote for the guy who won nothing, and made no major moves? If the bearded wonder wants to do any better than runner up, he needs to either start making moves, or hope for a bitter jury vote like last season. But hey, maybe second place doesn't look so bad right now.

5. Elissa

While Elissa may have moved up my personal likable rankings after how she's handled being berated by Amanda this week, it hasn't really resulted in a better position for her in the house. When Helen left, Elissa lost her only true ally, and she has yet to find a true replacement for her. On one side of the house, you have McCranda, and the other, you have the Exterminators. Then, right in the middle, you have Elissa. This could work in her favour as she could be an attractive free agent to any alliance, or it could result in her being the only person in the house everyone agrees to get out next week. I'm leaning towards the latter.

6. McCrae

I feel like McCrae deserves better then what's happened to him this season. Don't get me wrong, it's his own fault he is where he is, he knew Amanda was dragging them down, and he stuck with her. However, McCrae has stuck with her through everything, and stayed above all the bullying through all of it. There's something admirable about that. If Amanda leaves this week, McCrae has a very important opportunity to reinvent his game. If Amanda gets vetoed, it's game over.

7. Amanda

I would be genuinely interested to see a psychological analysis of what happened to Amanda this year. I'm not convinced she was crazy the whole time. I feel like the isolation, the pressure, and the power drove her mad. At the beginning of the season she seemed like somebody who had her head on straight, but lately, she's been so caught up in her self righteous crusade that she's become unbearable. Some of the logical conclusions she's come too while fighting with Elissa have been unbelievable. She can't see beyond her own cause and it's turned everyone against her. On the one hand, I feel bad for her because this experience has clearly messed her up psychologically. On the other hand, I can't wait to see this psycho go down.

RIP Jessie

Honestly, what is there to say about Jessie? She leaves the house after being on borrowed time from the first week. She had no real strategies, she flipped and flopped, and ultimately she talked too much. She was not particularly interesting to watch, she didn't provide any entertainment, and she had a pretty terrible personality. But, all that said, I will miss Jessie.

Jessie's development in this house was basically the inverse of most of the people who are left. She began the game as one of the worst people I have ever had to watch. She was conceited, believing she was much more attractive than she was. She liked to follow around men like a lost puppy, hoping that one of them would be attracted to a clingy, immature mess. She appeared to be in the house for the soul purpose of starting a showmance, I guess she hasn't heard of eHarmony.

After the first week, Jessie seemed to disappear from the house. She obviously wasn't doing anything of interest and became an outsider. During her time of anonymity, the rest of the house took a steep decline into the nightmarish hellscape we're watching now. But, within the last week Jessie reemerged. Like a beautiful butterfly breaking free from her imprisoning cocoon she started receiving actual camera-time. And what I saw of her was quite surprising. Now maybe my standards of humanity have dropped after forcing myself to watch this season, but I actually began to like Jessie. She began to seem like a real person and in this house that is all it takes to seem likeable.

In her dieing moments Jessie tried to shake the house up. She revealed Helen's plans to take out Amanda and she drove a wedge between Aaryn and GinaMarie, who had previously been so tightly bonded by their mutual racism. Whether or not Jessie actually succeeded in changing anything is yet to be seen, but we owe her everything just for trying.

Jessie "Surprisingly Likeable" Kowalski

Desperate Showmancer

Uninteresting Roller Coaster of Emotions

Survived by... Who Cares?

Why I hate this Season...

It's clear that no one is actually enjoying this season of BB. It's by far the worst I've ever watched. I just need to write a post to vent my frustration and add one more point to the five that Tim already made in his "Who Broke Big Brother 15?" post. I agree with all of his points as well, but I think at this time in the game there's one more that needs to be said.

As my brother so eloquently put it one day, this season is how people who don't watch Big Brother think of Big Brother. By that I mean that it is mindless, uninteresting, and full of lousy people doing lousy things. But what is the major problem of this season? The lack of charismatic players certainly doesn't help. The MVP twist was a disaster. And nobody finds racism entertaining. But for me there is one major problem with this season that has eliminated any entertainment.

6. Nobody is Playing

I would say that everyone is this house is a floater and I'm dead serious. Even Amanda and Helen, who seem to be running the house, aren't doing anything of significance. They talk a lot, but because no one in this game will go against the grain, they really aren't saying anything. Just look at the voting for this season. They have all been basically unanimous. That's what really pisses me off about this season. There's no challenge to get people out. No one has even tried to make a plan to save someone on the block, or turn the house on its head, they just go along with whatever the "house" wants. Even someone like Judd, who was universally loved, was able to get knocked out within minutes. Nobody questioned it, nobody said "hey, he isn't pretending to be stupid, he's just stupid,"they all just saw what was happening and went with it. These people have become so complacent that they're shocked when someone on the block doesn't throw a veto competition simply because they told him to.

Right now GinaMarie, Helen, and Elissa should be looking at either Spencer or Jesse and wanting to work with one of them. The numbers in the house are dwindling (thank God) and pretty soon it will get to the point where a 4-man alliance is basically unstoppable. The 3am squad (terrible name) will win this game if the rest of the house doesn't do something. But, because this season has no hope left, nobody will do anything of interest, 3am will make it to the end and Aaryn will probably win because why the hell not?

This season has become an allegory for the futility of life. Nothing changes in this world. Nothing inspiring ever happens without a dozen terrible things happening subsequently. Any likeable people are somehow oppressed by the dictators and warmongers, and everyone simply pretends not to see. Racism, still rampant, is believed to have disappeared and forgiven. And in the end the winner will rewrite this history and claim that the end justifies their means. It's a cold dark world, it was inevitable that eventually the Big Brother house would succumb to the unbridled misery that encompasses our depressing planet, I was just hoping for a few more good years.

-Matt 

Week 7 Power Rankings

Let me just start by saying these house guests are terrible. They're either racist, have no game play, power drunk, or a combination of all three. At this point I'm just anxious for the end to come so we can move onto the next season. Maybe if Amanda, Gina Marie and Aaryn were evicted, the house would at least be tolerable. Could someone get the producers a memo?


1) Helen (last week 1): Helen has a ton of power in this house. What's even more impressive is the fact that she's had a hand in many of the evictions, while only being HoH once. I have to be honest, I don't really like when she talks, but you have to admire her persuasive capabilities.

2) Andy (last week 7):  Although Andy is HoH this week, his power will be short lived if he doesn't step up his game play. We've seen relatively little of him thus far in the game, and that's because he hasn't done a whole lot. That could very well be part of his strategy, and it's worked so far, but he can't keep that up forever. Even though his nominations were pretty weak, kudos to him for not blindly following Helen's orders.

3) McCrae (last week 2): McCrae is in a good place. He has a lot of control but doesn't flaunt it. He's going to have to split from Amanda sooner or later, especially if she continues on her power hungry rampage, but he's wise to her faults. He is quick to call Amanda out and knows how to do damage control. Not throwing the HoH competition to her was also a good move. Just like he said, he doesn't want people to think he'll make and concessions to Amanda. What is usually the down fall of every showmance doesn't seem to be plaguing McCrae.

4) Aaryn (last week 3): Aaryn seems to be holding her own in this game, unfortunately. She seems to have learnt that she needs to lay low, and keep her mouth shut. She has turned her social game around, and is a bit of a beast in competitions. Her only weakness seams to be her inability to throw a competition. She looked genuinely mad when she won HoH last week. She'll become a target again, but it's not super imminent. At the same time, she doesn't have a ton of power, but is allied with some pretty powerful people who can take her far if they so choose.

5) Amanda (last week 4): Although Amanda is very powerful in the house, she is unraveling. It seems she has a beef with a new person every week. If she can't control her mouth, people will get rid of her out of annoyance. And if she can learn to control her mouth (which is unlikely), they'll realize she's a threat soon enough. When you think of the McCrae-Amanda alliance, you immediately think of Amanda as the larger threat, and that spells trouble for her.

6) GinaMarie (last week 5): It pains me to put GM anywhere other than a crater on the south side of the moon, but alas, she must go somewhere on this list, and unfortunately it's not the bottom. She is a despicable attempt at a human being, and her lack of decency is nauseating. Harsh words? Yes. I'm done with her. 

7) Elissa (last week 9): Since Elissa hasn't been the MVP in a few weeks, we've seen refreshingly little of her. She's not doing much besides riding on Helen's yoga pants. She's floating, which will only get you so far. Her expiry date is quickly approaching but there are bigger threats people are going after. She may make it far, but not because of expert game play. 

8) Spencer (last week 8): This week, Spencer is on the block for his fifth time. I don't think he's the target this week, but maybe next, unless someone decides to shake things up. I like Spencer, he's one of the only likable people left in this house, so I'm hoping he sticks around so I don't gag. 

9) Jessie (last week 11): Jessie is uninteresting, and kind of annoying. But, the annoying threshold this season is so exorbitantly high, she's kind of likable. She'll be going home soon. It's inevitable without any smart game moves or allies. She'll have fun with Judd in Jury.

Until next time,

Sam

RIP Judd

Judd, I don't have a lot to say about you, because we didn't get to see a lot of your game play this season. From what I can tell, and what I've heard, you were not a good player. You seemed to have deals with everyone, and as soon as that was figured out. you were sent packing. Along with the fact that Amanda was "almost 99% certain" you were MVP, your fate was sealed.

In the end, even your showmancer gleefully voted to evict you. Perhaps she was happy she was taken off the block moments earlier, or perhaps she saw your true colors like the rest of the house. Regardless, you went out by a unanimous vote. You didn't even have one person secure on your side, even though you had made a final four deal a week earlier.

From a personal stand point, you obviously had a big impact on the houseguests. Nearly everyone was crying as they voted you out. Maybe they'll miss your accent, or your bear shirt, or your love of frogs. Or maybe they were simply crying because they lack any shred of human decency. Who knows. But either way, you will be missed. You were one of the only likable people left in the house.

Until next time, 

Sam 

Judd "Bear Shirt" Daughtery

Awkward showmancer

Believed MVP

Survived by an entire house of Allies

RIP Candice

After the first episode, I picked Candice to win Big Brother 15. My approach has always been to pick a quiet, unassuming character who can float to the end. Someone who isn’t easily identifiable as a competition threat (muscles are a curse in the Big Brother house), and someone who won’t shoot their mouth off and make enemies. Candice seemed to fit the profile. Sweet. Quiet. Even tempered. And then last nights eviction ceremony happened. I can’t blame Candice for losing her cool. She was the target of racial attacks from multiple house guests, and as if that wasn’t enough, she seemed to get into a personal battle with Gina Marie during her last week.

Part of me was disappointed in Candice near the end. I was worried that she was sinking to Amanda’s level during the veto competition. I was worried that she was sacrificing her dignity when she was exchanging insults with Gina Marie on her way out the door. But you know what? I would have lost it a lot worse, a lot sooner. She endured a lot. And she knew she was going out. So she spoke her mind while she had a chance. And I can’t possibly hold that against her.

You have to adjust to the unique makeup of your season's house. Sometimes that means being an aggressive strategist; sometimes that means staying out of the limelight. This year, apparently, it means being an insufferable, intolerant, lowlife. And she just didn't have it in her. Julie alluded to the possibility that players evicted to the jury could possibly return to the game. Part of me hopes Candice gets another shot in the house. Part of me thinks she’s just too good for it.

R.I.P. Candice "My Boo" Stewart

Wearer of clownitard

Reclaimer of beds
Survived by the most despicable Big Brother cast of all time