As Big Brother 18 winds down, it is probably time to start thinking about where the season ranks in the history of Big Brother seasons. Big Brother 18 has had way too many twists, but it has still been a marked improvement over the last two installments. Seasons 16 and 17 saw the majority of houseguests too nervous to make any moves, allowing for the people in power to stay in power for almost the entire game. Big Brother 18 has had the exact opposite problem.
The houseguests went after each other with an almost masochistic glee, and now all that remains is a sad, sorry groups of floaters and background players. Despite the strong start this season, if we are judging Big Brother 18 on its final five, it might be one of the worst seasons ever. Things don’t look much more promising for the final four (and beyond) as this episode sees the last two likable and deserving players get handed their eviction notices. One of them is going home, and that promises a very dour and depressing endgame, not to mention a completely undeserving winner.
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Another Head of Household, Another Blindside
The Head of Household competition is anything but a competition. Corey gains the lead early and keeps it. It’s not totally surprising that he is so good at this competition. His legs are almost the entire height of most of the other houeseguests’ bodies. At one point, everyone pretty much gives up and allows Corey to win Head of Household. Unfortunately, the win does nothing to give him an actual personality, so this is terrible.
No one feels the sting of Corey’s HoH win more than Paul and Victor. They are excited for Corey’s win because they assume it means they are safe. They are very wrong. Victor and Paul (still) think that Nicole and Corey are trustworthy, but little do they know that Nicole and Corey are already getting the shakes from being aligned with people for more than a week.
Getting rid of Victor and/or Paul is the better game move for Nicole and Corey, but they can’t even be confident about it. Sure, they decide rather early that they are going to try to get rid of one of them by nominating them both. They make the decision literally seconds into Corey’s HoH reign, or at least they make the decision as well as a constantly indecisive mess like Nicole and a moron like Corey can make a decision.
The problem is that Corey just kind of agrees and dumbly laughs with Nicole’s idea to get rid of Paul and Victor. Nicole isn’t sure if it is a good idea. She says that she feels bad for betraying the guys. She doesn’t want to stab Victor and Paul in the back, which is weird because Nicole has stabbed pretty much everyone in the back. You’d think that Nicole would be used to being a horrible and disloyal person by now. Guess not. Or maybe it’s just that Nicole can’t do anything if she isn’t able to whine about it for extended periods of time.
The Trouble with James
The only player more clueless than Corey and more indecisive than Nicole is James. So James naturally wants to join in on this alliance from Hell. James goes up to talk to Nicole and Corey and decides that he wants to work with them. James trusts Nicole and Corey for some unknown reason, even though the two were a very important part of Natalie getting evicted.
This is not even James playing both sides and using his relationship with Corey and Nicole to his game advantage. James genuinely thinks Nicole and Corey are the right people to align with and trust. I’d be utterly baffled if I didn’t watch James make stupid move after stupid move this summer.
Things aren’t that simple, though. After James tells Nicole and Corey that he wants to work with them, Nicole gets paranoid. Nicole, getting alliance cold-feet in record time, thinks that James is playing them and really working with Victor and Paul. This is not true, mainly because James is neither smart enough nor a good enough player to pull off that kind of deception. I know James thinks he “sheltered” Natalie from this game this season, but he is literally the only one who holds that opinion.
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Bone-Headed Betrayal
Even if Nicole’s James paranoia is not true, the smart thing would be to put up James against Paul and/or Victor. Paul and Victor are already expecting that one of them will go up, so there would be no drama there. They would be calm and probably wouldn’t play that hard at the Veto. The option would also be open to get rid of James. Corey is in charge, however, so the smart thing does not happen.
Corey nominates Paul and Victor for eviction. Paul and Victor aren’t even that angry. They are more resigned because this is the third time (at least) they have been betrayed by their alliance. If history repeats itself again, Victor will probably go home for the third time this summer. The blowout is obviously still coming, but the guys take the betrayal reasonably well.
This shows great moral character because I don’t think I could hold it together after hearing Corey’s eviction speech. If I heard him say the stupid phrase “Mama didn’t raise no bitch” in person like Victor and Paul did, I would immediately fly into a rage. Corey, your mom might not have raised a bitch, but she definitely raised an idiot.
Corey is doing all the dirty work here, but there is no way he is going to win. After the nominations, Nicole is already in the Diary Room mentally signing her check to win Big Brother 18. Nicole might be an indecisive, whiny wrecking ball of a human being, but she’s not wrong about almost winning the game. With the knowledge that either Paul or Victor will be evicted, Nicole is probably the most likely winner of a very, very sad final group.
Big Brother 18 airs Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on CBS.
(Image courtesy of CBS)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
Derek is a Philadelphia based writer and unabashed TV and comic book junkie. The time he doesn’t spend over analyzing all things nerdy he is working on his resume to be the liaison to the Justice League.
