Something very special and magical happened on tonight’s episode of Big Brother 11:Ronnie, Jessie, Natalie and Chima got the swift kick in the buttthey’ve been asking for since this season began. They tried tomeagerly defend themselves, but for the first time, they weren’t on thewinning team, and all four of them were as deflated as balloons onJanuary 1 at 9am.
This much-deserved rude awakening came in the hands of two HGs who havejumped to the top of my all-star list: Russell and Michele. One usedbrute force to shut down Ronnie’s crew, but the other used brains andwits to outsmart him. I’ll let you guess who did what.
BRussell’s greatness came from telling everyone that he wants Ronnie out because he doesn’t trust him at all. Jessie, Natalie and Chima try to talk him out of it, but their pitiful, demoralized pleas are met with deaf ears. It’s not so easy being on the outside looking in, and it gives me the greatest schadenfreude to see their flaccid impotence.
Michele, on the other hand, finally put that Ph.D. to good use. She realized that Natalie, Jessie and Chima want Ronnie to stay and Jeff, Jordan and Kevin want him out, making her the all-important swing vote. Despite Ronnie’s previous claims that his master manipulating skills could be used to get Michele to do whatever he wanted, Michele is her own woman.
In the PoV competition, it’s half guessing how much of something there is and half strategy by choosing to stay in with your vote or folding. Thanks to the fact that Michele works with rats, she’s able to fake a low guess for one item and make everyone else fold, giving her the first of three brilliantly strategic points and letting her win her second PoV in a row.
My love for Michele grew as Ronnie came to her, first with a soft sell, and then with a hard sell. He tried to forcefully explain that keeping him is the logical thing to do, and that if he is evicted, Michele will lose. I’m astonished that she doesn’t laugh in his stupid rat face.
But as great as Russell and Michelle are individually, the best part of this Big Brother 11 episode is when they combine forces. The two hang out in the HoH room and talk for a long time, though they’re both on the same page about evicting Ronnie. The genius is that Jessie and Natalie are right outside, and the longer Russell and Michele stay in their, the more paranoid Jessie and Natalie become about one of them being backdoored.
Jessie, Natalie and Ronnie are Michele’s lab rats, and electrocution cheese is the only thing on the menu. For most episodes, this would be enough for me, especially since Jessie, Natalie and Chima openly admit that Ronnie is a dead man walking.
But the cherry on this ice cream sundae is the implosion of Russell and Chima’s showmance (which makes its first and only appearance in this episode). Basically, Chima is a super jealous psycho diva. She and Ronnie have a talk about how Russell and Michele are going to go home because they were dumb enough to target Ronnie, and Russell overhears every word. Yet somehow, Chima has the brass cojones to call Russell paranoid.
News flash, you wannabe diva: it’s not paranoia if people REALLY ARE talking about you behind your back.
-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of CBS)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
