I suspect fans of the Big Brother 15 live feeds are going to have a HUGE problem with this episode. We find out who won the first MVP (but everyone, including the producers, clearly knew who it would be a long time). We see the Power of Veto competition. And we see Nick’s latest “master plan.” Well, we only get to see a fraction of it. I assume the rest is on the cutting room floor because they needed to make room to show Elissa crying and getting into a fight with Jeremy over Gisele Bundchen.
Most Valuable Puppet
To the credit of Big Brother 15, they show everyone in the house talking about how the MVP twist is total bullshit because Elissa is going to win it just because she’s Rachel Reilly’s sister and has a huge fanbase coming into the house, unlike everyone else. They’re all right, and I’m impressed that the show is basically admitting that the twist is blatant producer manipulation.
Then when Elissa actually gets MVP, she acts shocked and thanks America. Shut up. Shut your damn face. This whole “fake surprise” is so transparent. Either she’s delusional and genuinely thinks she won it on her own merits or she’s just playing it up for the cameras. Either way, it makes me nauseous. She really is Rachel 2.0, a completely fake person who only does things because she thinks they will make better TV. She’s a producers dream and a superfan’s worst nightmare.
Elissa then runs up to McCrae, tells him she won MVP, and asks who she should nominate. He suggests David, hoping she can do the dirty work the Moving Company (his big alliance with Nick, Jeremy, Howard and Spencer) wants done. Elissa is suspicious of Nick and thinks he’s a bigger threat, but since Nick is in the MC, McCrae talks her out of it.
He also tells her that, if one of his nominees comes off the block, he’ll put her up as the replacement nominee. I genuinely do not understand this strategy at all. McCrae is coming across as a truly terrible player, doing things that make no sense.
Proving my point, Amanda yells at McCrae that he can’t win the Power of Veto because it would put a target on him, and in order to calm her down, he tells her that Elissa told him that she’s the MVP. She leaves, Elissa comes in, and McCrae automatically tells Elissa that he told Amanda that Elissa told him that she’s the MVP. Sorry if that’s confusing, but McCrae’s actions are a total mystery to me.
Prior to this, Elissa said in front of Jeremy that she would win the MVP because her sister has such great fans, then played it off as a bit of a joke saying her sister is “Gisele Butt-chin,” as Jeremy calls Tom Brady’s supermodel wife. After the MVP nominee is revealed, Jeremy asks her about this in front of others and she completely denies ever saying it. Later he confronts her again about it and she sort of admits she said it, but it was a joke.
Elissa and Jeremy get into a bit of a fight because Jeremy says he wouldn’t have nominated David if he was MVP and Elissa somehow takes this to mean that not targeting a strong guy means Jeremy is picking on girls, which he shouldn’t do. Her highly flawed and totally illogical argument is basically that guys should only target other guys in the game or else you’re a misogynist. Seriously, who the hell actually likes Elissa? She’s the worst.
The Daaryn Showmance
On second thought, maybe Elissa ISN’T the worst. David tells Aaryn that he lives with his parents and only lifeguards during the summer, collecting unemployment the rest of the year. He has no idea what he wants to do with his life even though he’s 25. And she STILL likes him. We don’t need to see her racist comments to hate her, this alone does the trick.
Later she starts yelling at him for absolutely no reason. After she vents, he’s just like “Are we good?” She says he’s going to have to work to win back her trust. If he weren’t so dumb, he’d be running in the opposite direction, because Aaryn is a shrill, controlling crazy person. It’s a coin flip to decide who I hate more, Aaryn or Elissa.
The Power of Veto Competition
It’s revealed that David is the MVP’s nominee because McCrae told Elissa to do it. Since the HoH and all three nominated HGs are playing for the PoV, only two other people are selected (Elissa and Howard). This is going to dramatically increase the likelihood that the Power of Veto will be used every week.
Some random woman from The American Baking Competition on CBS hosts the challenge. The HGS must crawl through honey, pop a balloon with a letter in it, bring it back through the honey, then spell a word. The longest word in 15 minutes wins. This is ALWAYS the first Power of Veto competition.
David is just a complete and utter disaster. I feel confident saying that he is the dumbest person to ever play Big Brother. McCrae’s goal is to spell a mediocre word so he won’t win.
Howard spells “sailing” because he wants to sail through the competition without looking like a threat. Good luck with that, dude with GIANT muscles.
Candice spells “rafts” and David spells nothing. Oy.
Elissa spells “potroasts” because she thinks it’s one word instead of two. It is not and she is DQed.
McCrae spells “delivery,” and he wins the Power of Veto with an eight-letter word despite trying to throw it. Yes, on Big Brother 15, the HGs are so dumb that you need to try really, REALLY hard if you want to lose.
In the aftermath, Helen comforts Elissa, who is whining about how she’s not cut out for this kind of show. Gee, where have I heard that before? Oh, right, Rachel freaking Reilly who was ALWAYS crying about how everyone hates her and she should just go home, but sadly, she never did! I don’t believe a single tear she sheds. If you are actually falling for this act and think Elissa is a genuinely good person, I feel sorry for you. Fool me once (Rachel on season 12), shame on you. Fool me twice (Rachel on season 13), shame on me. But fool me three times (Elissa) and I’m dumber than David.
The Master Plan (But Not Really)
Elissa tries to talk McCrae out of using the Power of Veto and backdooring her. It doesn’t work, because he’s not about to put his game on the line to save someone everyone else hates. Also because Elissa is terrible at this game and bad at convincing people to do things.
Nick talks to McCrae about how the Moving Company should send David home this week. It’s edited to make it look like Nick’s only idea is for McCrae not to use the Power of Veto. That’s all we see, and I’ll have a LOT more to say in a bit on this shamefully fraudulent editing.
The Fake Power of Veto Ceremony
McCrae uses the Power of Veto to save Candice and he nominates Elissa in her place. Seemingly against Nick’s wishes.
If you ONLY watch the TV show on CBS, you may think that McCrae made this decision all on his own and Nick was against him using the PoV to backdoor Elissa. You’d be wrong, because the TV show is LYING TO YOU!
In reality, on the live feeds, prior to the Power of Veto ceremony, McCrae and Nick constructed their REAL master plan where they would split the house in half, with Nick and Jeremy pretending to be allied with David, Aaryn, Kaitlin, GinaMarie and Jessie while McCrae, Spencer and Howard would get in good with everyone else. The real plan was to use the Power of Veto on Candice to backdoor Elissa, knowing the whole time that they would still evict David. Nick was not AGAINST nominating Elissa. He was a part of the plan to do it.
In other words, when McCrae said that he wants Elissa evicted during the Power of Veto ceremony, it was pure theater designed for the other side of the house. People like Spencer, Howard, Amanda, Judd, Helen and Andy had already been informed of the fact that McCrae was using the PoV on Candice, but they’d all vote out David anyway.
If you don’t believe me, here’s a spoiler article I wrote based on the live feeds from Friday, and inside the house, the Power of Veto ceremony wasn’t held until Saturday afternoon.
So I call B.S. on Big Brother 15 for some truly awful editing. After starting the show so promisingly by essentially admitting that the MVP twist was rigged for Elissa to win, the show ends by completely ignoring and misrepresenting Nick’s “master plan.”
If I were a Big Brother conspiracy theorist (which I kind of am), I might suggest that the show is misrepresenting Nick because the producers realize he’s so charismatic and playing such a great game that he could win the next MVP, so instead they have to cut his master plan out of the episode to fool fans into thinking he’s not on the same page as McCrae. This way they can make sure Elissa will continue to win the MVP instead of Nick.
What do you think? Did CBS misrepresent what really happened? Find out if this gets corrected Wednesday at 8pm for the first live eviction of Big Brother 15.
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(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.
