Tag: CBS

Fall Sitcom Intro

It’s one of the best times of the year…the weather is getting more chilly, trees will start changing colors soon, people are going out and picking pumpkins and going to apple orchards…and all the new and returning TV show premieres roll out! 

The idea of a laugh track disgusts me, tropes are boring and unimaginative. However, I can’t help but watch or at least try all of the sitcoms that come out every year. Since I watch them all, I wanted to spotlight some that might be worth checking out!

The Good Place Season 4 (NBC)

The Good Place is arguably one of the best things on TV. It’s unprecedented that a show this unique is aired on a major broadcast network. Shows like Community struggled if they did one “weird” episode. The Good Place does full seasons of “weird” and we didn’t have to worry about sudden cancellations ending their story early. If you’re tired of the generic sitcom plot that is always used and you want a change of pace, give this one a try if you haven’t already.

They are only a few episodes out so far and they haven’t missed a step. All of our favorite characters are back, and we have a few couple new residents to The Good Place. So far the new residents haven’t been fleshed out a ton, but I have no doubt, considering the track record, that they will be able to do so. They have set them up for quite the challenge with one of the new characters. Brent, played by Benjamin Koldyke, who plays a horrible male chauvinist trash person. We’ll see if they can make him likeable at all, they have to keep us on our toes somehow.

Each season finds a new way to reinvent itself to keep the amazing story going. I can’t really go too far into this without spoiling things. So please, just go over to Netflix and catch up on the series so you can watch along for the final season.

The Neighborhood Season 2 (CBS)

This one really surprised me. I had a lot of negative opinions from the premise and commercials. It seemed like the point was to criticize the black neighborhood for not accepting the white family moving in as a gross “see all people do this!” validation. I was thrilled to see that it wasn’t the neighborhood that had a problem with the white family moving in, just the grumpy neighbor.

Despite my concerns when first learning about The Neighborhood, I was looking forward to Max Greenfield having his own show with New Girl ending. I loved his character Schmidt and I just needed more Max on my TV. Greenfield has a certain charm and excited energy to him that lends well to Schmidt’s “Bro” persona but still being endearing, which allows the negative aspect of his womanizing to not be his defining characteristic. In The Neighborhood he is able to strip all of that douchiness and he is just pure excited charm which is perfect for his role as Dave.

The second season is a couple episodes in so far and its following the same solid path the first season went. With it being more a typical sitcom, there isn’t really a big overarching plot line that was resolved and then a new one starts on the next season. The episodes usually revolve around the growing friendship of Max Greenfield and Cedric The Entertainer’s characters. A lowkey great relationship is between Cedric the Entertainer’s adult sons and Greenfields young son. They look out for him like a little brother and create some cute moments together. This one might be a little bit more difficult to catch up on since you can’t stream it anywhere except CBS All Access. 

 The Unicorn Season 1 (CBS)

Confession: I love Walton Goggins. Anything he touches is gold, and when I saw he was getting his own sitcom I was on board immediately. Goggins plays a widower with two young daughters. A year plus has passed and he is encouraged to get back in the dating scene by his group of friends. He is considered a “Unicorn” because he is a single father and it’s not by any negative actions of his own. AKA he isn’t an ass..

Goggins regularly plays villians. Sometimes they are flat, by-the-book villains. Other times, like his character Boyd Crowder in FX’s Justified, he is very complex and it doesn’t feel right calling him a “bad guy”. In all these roles it’s clear he has leading man qualities, yet nothing ever comes. Seeing him play a sweet father to two young daughters is such a breath of fresh air. One would think your mind would immediately jump to him as one of his many nefarious characters, it just doesn’t happen in The Unicorn. He immediately pulls you into the character and you’re along for the ride with him getting his life back together.

Aside from Goggins the rest of the cast is really strong as well. Rob Corddry, Omar Benson Miller, and Michaela Watkins creates a pretty strong and compelling supporting cast. They all have their own kids and so far after two episodes the chemistry between all of them is strong and there will be a lot of real estate for the story to go.

This show is about as much of a guarantee you can get to having multiple seasons. Goggins is arguably the biggest star CBS has on any of their new shows this season and as long as he wants to hang out there, they will keep letting him.

Bob Hearts Abishola Season 1 (CBS)

This one is a unique story of a Detroit businessman falling in love with a Nigerian immigrant nurse. It has a lot of things going for it. Folake Olowofoyeku, as Abishola, is pretty fantastic. The budding relationship between the two is very sweet. Also, I’m always going to root for a story that takes place in my city, Detroit. 

Bob Hearts Abishola is included on this list because it will be a fun one to watch for a season. I would be willing to bet it won’t get a second season, though. CBS is throwing everything at the wall and hoping something sticks. They have too many sitcoms and something has to give. It doesn’t feel like they put a lot of money into the budget or time into the writing. A lot of the jokes fall short and don’t have the punch you know they wanted. I don’t really have a lot of love for many of the supporting players either. Despite pulling some names like Vernee Watson, Barry Shabaka Henley, and Matt Jones…I just don’t care about any of their stories and I don’t think this one can last long relying so heavily on just Bob and Abishola.

Also it’s a horrible name for a show…

Sunnyside Season 1 (NBC)

I’m all for a group comedy. Community is one of my favorite sitcoms of all time. Taking a bunch of different personalities and throwing them into a room and having them play off each other and see what happens. Sunnyside stars Kal Penn as a former New York City councilman who is disgraced and fired. He finds himself tutoring a group of immigrants studying for their US Citizenship test. 

The cast of this show is very diverse and from the first couple episodes, quite funny together. The character Griselda played by Diana-Maria Riva has a running joke where she always shows up working different part time jobs. She catches a lot of characters off guard being in unexpected places and they way she plays off everyone is very entertaining. The character The cast, aside from Penn is fairly new. It’s hard to tell how successful the show will become this early. It all relies on how well the actors hold up and are fleshed out by the writing. This could either be the next big thing that goes 7 or more seasons, or it could be a dumpster fire and be done after a season, there will be no inbetween.

I would definitely recommend hopping on early here and going for the ride. You could be on the ground floor for the next Office. If it gets cancelled after a season, no harm done!

UPDATE: Sunnyside was cancelled after 4 episodes.

There ya have it, folks! Of course, there are a ton of other shows out there, but here are a handful to check out to help navigate the wild waters of Fall TV Premier season.

The Mighty Have Fallen

Big Brother S21E18-20

It finally happened! All of our hopes and dreams have come true….The Six Shooters are done! All it took was a piece of furniture in the house to win HOH and stick to their guns to shake things up. We were close with Cliff a couple weeks back, but that obviously didn’t pan out. The Six Shooters weren’t so lucky this time! I mean, they didn’t really help their own cause with fracturing before last weeks eviction of Sam. Let’s get into it!

The HOH comp this week is a memory one. There are themed kiosks thats have different photos photoshopped of the houseguests. They have to study the photos and then will answer true/false questions about them. If they answer correctly, they stay in, answer wrong, eliminated.

The Sunday night episode started with the HOH comp in progress, but quickly turned into flashbacks about all the madness that went down before Sams eviction. It all starts with Jack and Jackson. Jackson tells Jack that he can’t trust Christie and Tommy, that they would definitely take a shot at them. Jack is in tight with Tommy and Christie, and wants to protect them. Jack tells Jackson that he is wrong about them. This is just the foundation of the fracture, because next Jackson tells Jack how Kathryn and Holly know each other from outside the game. Jack plays it cool but in the Diary Room he confesses he was freaking out inside.

Jack goes to Tommy to relay this information about Kathryn and Holly. Tommy says he had a hunch they knew each other because he overheard them having a conversation about how they were at Stagecoach Music Festival together. Tommy proposes a theory that Jackson and Holly were dating before the show so all three of them know each other. This doesn’t really make sense considering Jackson and Kathryn were hooking up pre-feeds but whatever. Tommy wants to flip the votes so Kathryn can’t be in jury. Having Holly, Kathryn, and Jackson in the jury house together creates a voting block that can tank someone.

It’s now time to try to orchestrate the flip from Sam to Kathryn. First was Christie and Analyse, which were easy. They needed some more votes to make it happen though as they were at three. Jack and Christie are talking to Nick and Nicole and seem to get them on board. It really looks like the flip was going to happen. That is…until during one of the conversations is overhead by Holly, where she hears Tommy and Analyse saying “Don’t tell Sam”. Sam at this point already knows he is going home, so what is there not to tell him unless he flips. Holly goes to Jackson and tells him stuff is happening. They try to get answers from Tommy and Jack about a flip and they both are denying it.

Two hours before eviction Holly tells Tommy straight up that she heard him and asks why they are flipping. Tommy says the way Jackson is acting, which Holly doesn’t understand. Tommy tells her Jackson told that Kathry and Holly know each other. In a DR clip Holly is blown away and can’t fathom why Jackson would have done that. At that same time Jackson, Christie, Analyse all walk in. The conversation turns into a huge fight that results in the wonderful death of The Six Shooters. Nick, Jessica, Cliff are all listening outside the door. 

Eventually Jackson storms out and Jack slams the door after him. Kathryn comes in to defend herself. Holly and Kathryn say that they were given peoples’ word that Kathryn was safe. Tommy says this was before they found out about the trio. They react like they got shot. Kathryn of course gets all emotional and crying. Holly drills questions at Kathryn like it’s going to prove anything. “Do you know me?” “Do I know you?” “Do you know Jackson?”. One answer she is kind of getting made fun of for which I thought was a really smart way of answering was Holly asked “Do I know Jackson?” and Kathryn answered “I don’t know, maybe?”. It shows a disconnect between them to the others despite actually knowing each other and having a final two deal.

The flip feels in full swing! Until it wasn’t. Christie let her emotions get the better of her and doesn’t like the idea of flipping. Doesn’t think Holly and Kathryn are not friends. Might know each other, but not friendly. Which doesn’t actually matter. Any connection regardless how small is more than strangers. Christie pulled the plug on the flip with a half hour to go for the flip. Bye Sam.

HoH

After all this fighting that just happened before the live show everyone feels like they need to win HOH to feel safe. Especially the people from the now defunct Six Shooters. Jackson is the first out, which was really fun. None of the former Six Shooters wins and Jessica pulls out the victory!

Jack, Analyse, Holly, Christie, and Tommy are talking. They can’t believe the group is falling apart. Christie says Jackson showed his true colors and there is no six going forward. Holly and Kathryn are talking and doesn’t understand why Jackson said anything to Jack. They understood he thought he could trust Jack, but still. Holly doesn’t want to let Jackson go yet, but her true alliance is with Kathryn in the final two deal.

Nominations

Jessica wants to target two big people instead of pawns. She is just really happy she can keep other people safe who have felt so powerless in the game so far. She goes for the biggest targets in the game by nominating Jack and Jackson. During the entire nomination ceremony Jackson was staring forward emotionless like a psychopath. Based on where he was sitting, he couldn’t see the photos of the nominees and didn’t look back to see if he would be nominated. In the DR after nominations Jack seems to regret betraying Jackson, getting very emotional. Jackson just said he wasn’t going down without a fight.

At the beginning of the veto episode we see Nick playing both sides of the house and kind of getting caught. Jack, Tommy, Christie, and Nick are talking. Nick seems to be on the side of saving Jack at this point. Later Nick is in the HOH room with Cliff, Jess, and Nicole. Nick asks if there is a specific target and she says Jack. Nick seems on board but in the DR tells us he will tell everyone what he needs to and will do what is best for him. Later in the episode, Jackson hears Nick talking with Jack, Tommy, and Christie and outs him to Jessica. Jessica gets so mad she threatens to put Nick up in one of their places.

Veto Competition

Jess, Jack, Jackson, Kat (picked by Jess), Tommy (picked by Jack), and Nick are the players in the veto comp. It’s a space themed launch comp. BIg board with different spots. Each spot is worth different points. The lowest point shot is eliminated every round. Before launching their arrow, the platform they are sitting on spins around making them dizzy. Each eliminated person gets to open a box for a prize, then keep or trade it with any other prize.

Kathryn is eliminated first, getting the Veto. Jack is next and gets a trip to Hawaii which he trades with Kathryn for veto. Tommy is eliminated third. His “prize” is “Angry Alien”. For 24 hours an angry alien follows him around. He trades with Jack to get the veto. Jackson is eliminated fourth. He wins BB Explorer. Sent on missions around the house. He trades with Tommy to take the veto. Lastly, Nick is eliminated and gets $5,000, which he keeps. Jess wins and gets “Area 21” which makes her a doctor on call in case an alien arrives and needs help. She trades with Jackson and wins the Veto! Which, as anyone could assume she does not use on anyone, keeping noms the same.

They show us Tommy’s punishment in the Veto episode. He has to wear a costume of a rocket ship and travel at the speed of light (flashing strobe lights), sound (air horns), or smell (smell emitting canisters) into every room in the house. This is more of a punishment to everyone than just Tommy.

We see Jackson and Jacks punishments on the eviction episode. Jackson has to wear a doctor outfit and run out to a tent in the back yard and get slimed pretending to practice surgery on an alien. Jack’s was hilarious. An actor dressed as an alien followed him around making fun of him, making messes, and screaming. 

Jack seems to be regretting blowing up the six last week. He tells Tommy, Holly, and Analyse that no matter what, he wants the six to come back together. Neither Jack nor Jackson are really campaigning against each other. Tommy gets the other members together so they can make up. Christie apologizes to Jackson for thinking he was coming after her. Jackson isn’t able to be an adult and accept the apology without rubbing it in her face and taking no liability in anything. 

The vote goes pretty much as expected, and how Jessica wanted it to. Jack is voted out on a 6-2 vote. Jack had a nice final speech where he pointed out little things about each houseguest. I assume at that point he knew he didn’t have the votes to stay.

I didn’t get to watch the eviction episode live this week. I did see on twitter everyone getting excited how great Julies exit interview and dragging Jack. I was kind of disappointed when watching it the next day. Sure it was calling him out pretty well and they had clips, but it still felt lowballed. I would have wanted her to call him out more on who his targets were for the beginning and how it looked. Calling him out on calling Kemi a bitch, dog shit, and that he would stomp a mud hole in her chest (a Big Brother 20 reference) was nice, but i’ve heard way worse in past seasons not get called out. It felt like Big Brother giving fans who were up in arms enough to quiet down, but not actually do anything.

Is this finally the end of The Six Shooters!? We know they can’t go to the final six, but hopefully something can happen that will keep the remaining five from coming back together. I probably would have preferred to see Jackson go because he is a monster, but I think it was smarter of the not Six Shooters to keep Holly and Jackson together, as they would be less willing to go back to the remaining Six Shooters than Holly on her own with no Jackson would have. I can’t wait to see what happens next week on BIIIIIIIIIG BROTHER!…Bye!

Counting Sheep

Big Brother S21 E15-17

Every week we keep praying The Six Shooters will finally collapse. Every week we are left disappointed. I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to suffer through this group until the final 6. Even when the tides appear to turn, like last week with Cliff’s HOH, we still have a Six Shooters gain. I’ll probably still sit here pissing and moaning about it…lets see if we have any luck this week with a shot at the majority!

The HOH competition was a good ol endurance showdown! The houseguests had to hold on to two vines, while having their feet in two stirrups attached to vines. The vines would move around to different positions and the houseguests just had to hold on for dear life! When you drop you had to pull a chip. Two houseguests would have the “Poison Ivy” punishment. Endurance competitions are fun if you have access to the feeds because you can jump over and watch the full thing after the TV episode did. I did it for a little bit on this one, but my girlfriend was losing her mind with boredom, so it was following online for me.

Jessica and Nicole had dropped before the live show even ended. Production threw some twists in to make the competition harder. They shot pink calamine lotion out of cannons and kept dropping leaves on them to distract them. The two Poison Ivy punishment recipients are Christie and Tommy. Which later we find out they are wearing green underwear with red spots painted on them. They aren’t allowed to go outside, or to shower for four days.

I had mentioned previously, maybe we will have luck and someone will win who can take a shot at the Six Shooters. Nope. The final four in the comp are Jackson, Kathryn, Holly, Analyse. Sure Kathryn MIGHT take a shot at Jackson because he is a fuckhead to her, which they showed a montage of moments of this during the comp, but that isn’t a guarantee since she thinks she’s part of the big majority. 

It comes down to Analyse and Holly. They are joking around about bartering who will win, since they are on the same team it doesn’t actually matter. Jackson keeps yelling at Holly to not barter and not fall, that she needs to win. This makes Analyse, and other Six Shooters mad. Jackson only because he thinks he can manipulate Holly, and he can’t do anything to Analyse. Holly gets the W. While we are stuck with a Holly/Jackson HOH, we may have found a fissure that will split Six Shooters earlier than final six! Later in the episode Christie and Tommy are talking about how Jackson needs to watch how he speaks to people, especially women. The feelings towards Jackson seem to be shifting away from douche Jackson.

Big Brother never does the “Who wants to see my HOH room!” anymore. For some reason we see it with Holly. I was expecting some drama to break out. All we saw was her getting emotional over her letter from home. Were they showing just to show she isn’t a piece of furniture in the house now?

Holly tells Jackson she wants to put up Nick and Sam. Jackson says it’s bold putting up two guys, making strong enemies. He pitches Nicole as a pawn, Holly seems to consider it but doesn’t tip her hand on where she is going with the nominations.

Nominations

Sam goes to talk to Holly and Jackson. He doesn’t want to be guilty by association with Nick. Nick and Sam have been best friends since the beginning of the game, it just isn’t really shown on the show much. Sam offers to be a number for them when Six Shooters breaks up. He also promises never to nominate them. It looked like this might have worked as Holly and Jackson talk later at night that Christie needs to go. She has everyone wrapped around her finger. Jackson wants to keep Sam safe so he can take the shot at Christie, and they don’t have to get blood on their hands. Ultimately, none of this matters as Nick and Sam are nominated for eviction.

Veto

Reactions are pretty dull to these nominations. Everyone expected it, so no drama from the choices. I’m going to get right into the veto draw since not a lot happened between nominations and veto. Nick, Sam, Holly, Tommy, Cliff (Sam’s choice), and Jessica are chosen. It worked out well for Sam and Nick as they both wanted Cliff and Jessica to play because they would be easy to beat in the competitions.

For the competition a bunch of live sheep with number jackets on are released into a fenced in area that is muddy. A number shows up on the screen and the houseguests who are matched up need to go in and catch sheep with numbers that added up equal the target number.

Starts with Nick Vs. Jessica, Holly Vs. Sam, and Cliff Vs. Tommy. Nick, Holly, and Tommy win their first heats. The game ended up being pretty unfair. Next was Nick Vs. Holly where Nick won. Then Nick Vs. Tommy in the final. I don’t understand why Nick had to play three heats to Tommy’s two, but whatever. Nick still wins veto!

After the veto Tommy and Christie have their poison ivy punishment tweaked. They now have to be covered head to toe in pink calamine lotion for their “treatment”. Tommy tries saying it’s the worst punishment ever. I think a robot Sam from Season 20 would beg to differ.

The cracks of Six Shooters are really growing. Christie and Tommy talk to Analyse about how they think Holly and Jackson are keeping Sam so he can take shots at people for them. Analyse immediately goes and tells to Holly and Jackson reporting them. Jackson, who is a hot head, wanted to go off on them. Holly and Analyse try to stop him, but Jackson doesn’t listen to what women say. So he went to talk to Tommy and Christie. Holly walked in on him telling Tommy and Christie that they aren’t protecting Sam and Nick and the HOH is Hollys, not theirs. Holly comes in and asks why he is talking to them when she asked him not to. Jackson threw a temper tantrum and left. Eventually throwing enough of a fit causing Holly to apologize to him when she did nothing wrong. 

Nick of course uses the veto on himself. The replacement nominee is Kathryn. She calls Holly a “Conspiring Bitch” and it seems to shock everyone. It wasn’t that shocking when we saw earlier in the episode Kathryn volunteered to be the pawn since her and Holly have a FInal Two deal and this would help hide it. 

Eviction

The Eviction episode starts out pretty wild, resulting in little payoff. Julie talks about how the last hour and a half has been crazy and anything can happen tonight. In all my years watching Big Brother I’ve never seen Julie start a live episode like this before. I had a feeling that we wouldn’t actually see anything that happened as production wouldn’t have had time to edit and set everything up yet, but I had hope.

Before the eviction, we see a few flashbacks about what happened after the veto ceremony. Kathryn wants to drop seeds of distrust amongst The Six Shooters. She tells Holly that Christie told her she doesn’t want to go to the final 6 with The Six Shooters because the 2 sets of couples would be closer and cut Christie and Tommy. Sam tells Jackson later how he asked Christie if Cliff put Jack and Jackson up, would she be okay with it. She said 100% she would be on board. 

We jump back to the live show and get the final speeches. Out of context, Kathryns doesn’t really make sense. She talks about how she is very pro women and wants to play with the morals her mother taught her. Sams was uneventful and basically a goodbye.

Sam gets evicted 9-0. When everyone voted they talked about how crazy everything happening was. Except Jackson looked absolutely livid. My theory between Kats pro femisit speech, and Jackson being mad, something sexist happened. In the exit interview Julie tells Sam how he was a goner all week, then Thursday afternoon he was safe, then after all “blank” broke loose he was gone. Julie asks Sam if the 6 will stay together. He says no way, he thinks Jack will go after Jackson. Which as far as we know at this point makes no sense.

I’m so excited for Sundays episode to see all the madness that went down Thursday! It sounds like the dream of Six Shooters falling apart is finally here! Julie also introduced (way too early) the Field Trip twist. Three people will be voted for and do a competition. First place will be safe for the week, second place will have a punishment, and third place will be up on the block as a third nominee. This doesn’t happen until the following week. I’m ready for the wild ride, hope you all are too!….Bye!

Same Ol’ Same Ol’

Big Brother S21E12-14

I would like to thank, and apologize to the people who have been reading my Big Brother posts. They have been way too long and I have to find a way to shorten them. It’s just difficult fitting three episodes of content into one post. I’ll try cutting some more things that aren’t as important to make the reading easier!

The first episode of this week was formatted a bit different as there wasn’t a HOH competition at the end of the eviction episode. They didn’t even start the episode with the competition, instead showing us the fall out from Nick being blindsided by the Cliff eviction.

Nick and Bella meet with The Six Shooters and ask why he didn’t know about the flip. They throw out all sorts of excuses. “It just happened”, “It wasn’t planned”, “We didn’t know until right before the vote”. It’s all bullshit and Nick knows it. Bella keeps going on about how disrespectful it is and Jack snaps at her. Jack points out that she can’t keep saying how disrespectful it is when she’s been making moves over and over again to break the group up.

HOH Competition

The houseguests are shown a bunch of Merit Badges on a screen and they have to answer questions about them. Like which one shows up most kinds of questions. If two people answer incorrectly, they are eliminated. Also, the last two people to answer are eliminated if everyone answers correctly.

A relatively uninteresting competition came down to an exciting end! It was down to Jack and Cliff. Cliff who just won his way back in from Camp Comeback and Jack, a powerful member of the majority alliance. Cliff pulls out the win! Such a turnaround from just being evicted to winning HOH. When Nick brings him the HOH key Cliff says right away “You’re safe, you’re good”.

Later on in the HOH room Cliff, Kathryn, Jessica, and Nicole are talking game. Cliff says the four of them should be working together against the majority. In the DR he says he doesn’t know if he can trust all of them, but they need to do something to weaken the couples (Six Shooters). The unfortunately isn’t going to work. Kathryn refuses to see herself as an “outsider” with the likes of Cliff, Nicole, and Jessica. She thinks because she is a pretty girl she is automatically included in the other pretty people alliance. 

Jackson comes and talks to Cliff one on one. He volunteers as a pawn, and putting Nick or Bella up and getting one of them out. This maintains the idea of Cliff getting back at Jackson for banishing and going after the couples. Cliff admittedly doesn’t trust Bella either so Jackson pushes getting her out for that and to get back at her for Nicole. Jackson goes another step further and grabs Christie and they tell Cliff about the Diamond Power of Veto. Jackson may be a horrible person that we have found in the feeds, but I will say he is playing the actual game pretty well. He comes on slightly strong at some points but his planning is pretty solid.

Nominations

Cliff decides against risking losing a number to the “outsiders” by putting up Nick or Bella and goes with the fan favorite nomination of Jack and Jackson! Someone has come into power to bring balance to the force! Cliff the hero of the people!

While us, the people are celebrating, there are a few people in the house not so happy. Tommy went into a bedroom and was crying. Jack and Christie come in and comfort him. I don’t really understand why the nominee has to make someone else feel better, but whatever.

Big Brother rolls out the useless Have Nots for the season. Cliff has to randomly pick 4 people to be Have Nots and he goes with Tommy, Kathryn, Christie, and Jackson. It is peculiar they showed this on the TV broadcast. In ancient Big Brother days, on the nomination episodes they would have a Have Not Competition and it was a bigger aspect of the show. It’s almost nothing at this point. Its rarely mentioned, and we don’t usually know who are the Have Nots. Live Feed fans have heard about Jackson breaking the Have Not rules by eating food in the shower and Production not doing anything. I feel like it has to come back to get him at some point, otherwise why show us this?

Veto Competition

Time for the veto draw! It is Cliff, Jack, Jackson, Sam (Cliffs choice), Holly, and Jess. BUT WAIT A MINUTE! Jack busts out his Chaos power! On the Veto redraw we have Cliff, Jack, Jackson, Kathryn, Sam, Analyse. It still is arguably 3-3 like it was the first draw. Jacks power was a joke, and thankfully it’s gone and we don’t have to think about it.

The competitors have to sit on a jet ski that has 3 buttons. 1 on each handle, and one where their right foot is. They need to undress to a bathing suit and jump off and hit a button to stop a clock. If they let go of the button their time goes 10 times faster. Two buttons let go is 30 times faster, three buttons let go is 60 times faster.

During Kathryn’s turn in her DR narration she says she isn’t sure if she wants to win and use the veto on Jackson and show her cards. Excuse me, Kathryn? What cards? THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU, YOU AREN’T IN THEIR ALLIANCE. She would be saving her ex hookup and get nothing out of it. Also, Analyse might be one of the worst DR presences I have ever seen in 21 seasons of Big Brother. I think a corpse would have more life than her when talking in the DR.

Unfortunately for everyone outside of the Six Shooters, Jackson wins veto. Jackson will of course use the veto, and he is completely sure he will be able to use the Diamond Power of Veto power of Christie’s. However, she isn’t sure she wants to use it. In the DR she talks about how she’s afraid of pissing Cliff off. She says she regrets telling everyone and feeling all the pressure.

Christie talks to Cliff alone. Tells him how Jackson is pushing her to use the power. Cliff says he understands her worry about trusting he won’t nominate her or Tommy. Christie proposed a deal, that’s not really a deal. Christie says she won’t use her power if Cliff agrees to nominate Bella and they backdoor her. Then he will be safe for at least two weeks. 

At the veto ceremony Jackson of course uses the veto on himself. Everyones waiting to see if the power will be used or not. Christie holds on to it! This is the chance for Cliff to finish his shot at The Six Shooters! Cliff nominates Christie and is going to take her out and get rid of the Diamond Power of Veto all together! Just kidding…….Cliff does exactly what The Six Shooters want and puts up Bella. It makes absolutely no sense to me. Why even bother trying to take the big swing and then chicken out at the end. I get wanting to guarantee safety from them, and it’s not like Bella is trustworthy by any means, but it’s just delaying the inevitable at this point.

After the veto ceremony Cliff talks with Jack and Jackson. They were really impressed that he kept his word by nominating Bella. It seems like the deal he made with them seems to be benefiting him in the short term at least. Cliff says he took his shot at them, and it didn’t work, so no one would expect if the three of them worked together from here on out. It would be a pretty interesting team up, but unlikely they would be on board in my opinion.

Bella does some pretty good campaigning to stay this week. She makes points that Jack is a better competitor and this may be their only chance to get him out. Bella clearly isn’t a comp threat and would be a good number for people to use.

Eviction

There was a package that we saw showing us Cliff’s family. It was nice and all, but not worth writing about. So we will get right into the eviction! Bella had a great speech, again pointing out Jack being a bigger threat. She also named everyone who wasn’t in the majority alliance and this was a good chance to take a shot. Alas, it was not meant to be and Bella was booted out 8-2. In the exit interview Bella says she does regret turning on Nicole and they had a conversation in the house where Bella apologized. I thought that was a nice bow to tie her story in the house.

That was the week, everyone…Cliff, who could have changed everything, did nothing. He just did the dirty work that Six Shooters wanted him to. Jack might as well have won HOH and we would have the same result. I’m going to go ahead and end this since the Nomination half way over and I need to get to watching it…bye!

Camp Comeback is Closed

Big Brother S21 E9-11

These first few weeks have been pretty brutal to write about, let alone watch. It seems like nothing is going right, the good people are getting picked off left and right and we are still left with the gross majority alliance. Thankfully, Kemi’s elimination caused a little bit of a stir right at the end of last week, putting a target on Nick and Bella. Maybe we will get lucky and things will change this week! Probably not though…

HOH Competition

Pretty simple HOH comp this week. Houseguests had to underhand throw an arrow at a target. The highest score wins. To create the effect of an “interesting twist” on the comp they had two circles, one at each side that you could hit instead. One was for $5,000, the other was for immunity this week. I say it was to “create the effect” was the targets for these were so small and far away it would be nearly impossible to intentionally hit them, which no one does. So much for hoping things would change…Nick wins!

Remember last week when Jackson cast the rogue vote for Jessica? His plan was to pin it on Nick or Bella, but now that they are safe with the Nick HOH he needs to find someone else he can blame it on. He decides to convince the house it was Nicole. Jackson takes this news to Nick and he seems convinced by it. His original plan was to put Cliff and Jessica up but now he seriously needs to consider Nicole. I really like this move by Jackson. Its early enough in the game it’s hard for the accused to deny and it puts a big target on them, one more person out of the house.

Bella is talking to some people in the bedroom outside of the Diary Room. I’m not sure if production really wanted to have Kemi come do a confessional, or if they knew they could create some drama, but it sure resulted in the latter. Kemi overheard Bella running her mouth and they got in a pretty decent argument. There wasn’t a lot of substance to it, but it sure highlighted that Bella can’t fight. The highlight was when Kemi went to leave and Bella followed her, which caused Kemi to turn around and get in her face telling her not to follow after her. Bella folded pathetically saying she wasn’t following her, she was going to the kitchen (She clearly was not). Kemi tried a few times going in the DR to get away but production kept the door locked while it was going on, which was pretty great haha.

There is a Gr8ful meeting in the HOH room. Nick is voicing doubt that Nicole cast the rogue vote. He says she isn’t stupid, she knows how to play this game. Jackson starts to worry and really doubles down on blaming Nicole. He really needs to calm down on this if he wants to sell the lie. The more you push it and don’t even entertain other ideas the more clear it becomes that you’re lying. Bella proposes this to Sam after everyone else leaves the room, that Jackson cast the vote as he is trying so hard to deflect.

Wacktivity

We are finally on the last wacktivity! Its the Panic activity and Analyse, Jess, Christie, and Nick all compete. For the competition there is a large box full of cockroaches. They need to move the cockroaches to reveal picture clues to words to put together a phrase.

The most important thing we learned from this comp is that Analyse is horrifically bad at explaining things in the DR. She was the main person who explained the rules to us and talked through her entire turn. We also found out she didn’t know how to spell Julie, poor girl. Anyway, Christie wins this one and is given an actual useful power! She wins the ability to turn the Golden Power of Veto into the Diamond Power of Veto. One time over the next four weeks she can allow the veto winner to take down a nomination and choose their own nomination to replace. 

Christie plans to only tell Tommy about the power. As she is explaining the power to him, Jack walks into the room. Things got awkward and quiet for a minute. Jack shares with the two of them what his weak power he won in the wacktivity was. Christie is thankful he shared and said she wished she could give him good news like that but doesn’t have anything. So far this season it’s rare when someone says they are going to keep a secret so I was impressed!

Speaking of secrets, there were a few scenes of secrets being shared after this. Nicole tells Kemi she thinks there is a big group working together, she doesn’t seem to know who they all are yet though. Kemi has a connection with Nicole and even though Bella told her some things in confidence she is ready to spill. She tells Nicole about Cliff being overheard by Christie. This blindsides Nicole who goes right away to Cliff to let him know the news. Cliff is understandably upset by this. He apologizes a lot to Nicole for ruining their game.

Nominations

There was a small push to get Nick to turn on Gr8ful. Nick, Bella, and Sam were talking and know that Gr8ful isn’t going to last much longer. They are aware they are on the bottom and will be picked off. Sam asks why are they just accepting it and not doing anything about it. Nick of course is going to be to big of a chicken to actually make the move. Nicole later goes to NIck and Bella and tells them how they were going to be the target if Nick hadn’t won HOH. They are pretty shook by this but ultimately it didn’t matter. Nick still went the easy route of nominating Cliff and Jessica.

Right after the nomination ceremony Nick is still pissed that his alliance was going after him. Him, Bella, Tommy are in the HOH room. They tell Tommy what they find out and he starts trying to do damage control. He quickly gets the rest of Gr8ful (and Sam) to come in and convince Nick and Bella she was lying.

Gr8ful+Sam go real gross in this episode. It turned into a mob mentality and straight up bullying. Multiple people outside of the alliance try coming into the room to talk and are booted out. FIrst was David, he was told they were talking game and to come back later. See, King Jack made a rule that people in camp comeback weren’t allowed to talk game or be around people talking game. So they are continuously ostracized by the group. Cliff tried to come in, but he was kicked out as well, Nicole shortly later tries and is kicked out.

Bella tells everyone what Nicole said about them being targeted if Nick didn’t win HOH, also that they were calling NIck and Bella bullies. They all act outraged that Nicole would play both sides of the house like this, and that she was the one calling them bullies. Analyse says how pissed she is and threatens to go down there and yell at her. Production was amazing and cut to a scene where Analyse and Holly are talking to Nicole and talking about how Nick and Bella are bullying her and Nicole didn’t agree or anything. Bella IMMEDIATELY believes everything she is being sold, with no actual proof.

When Nicole was kicked out she came downstairs and was upset. She regrets talking to Bella since she can’t keep her mouth shut. That house doesn’t deserve someone as good as Ovi. Ovi, knowing he was going to be attacked, goes upstairs to scold them for treating Nicole like that. They yell at him to go and to wait a bit. He says he just doesn’t think it was cool what they did. Bella says it’s not really your say. He just says it’s not cool and walks away. Bella is such an idiot, what does it mean its not his place to say them treating Nicole like that is not cool? Because he is in Camp Comeback he isn’t allowed to have an opinion. I can’t want for her reality check.

Everyone starts screaming and jumping around in the HOH room. They all became manic and it was honestly frightening. I was almost expecting them to leave the room and start burning people at the stake or some shit. They out of nowhere decided to solidify themselves as an alliance! Sam isn’t supposed to know about Gr8ful so now they have this brand new perfect timing “Unde9able”. Sam is so good though; it cut to him in the diary room with a straight face where he said “I should be Gr8ful for this opportunity …it’s unde9able”

Later on after the bully party Nicole is in one of the bedrooms. Bella and TOmmy walk in and asks if she wants to talk. Nicole says she was upset because she had a heart to heart with them and they announced it to the entire house. Bella said she went to them because some of it didn’t make sense. What Bella means by this is Nicole is only 1 person, and 3 people told her it wasn’t true so that makes more sense to her. Bella bulldozed Nicole the conversation. It was for Bella to talk AT Nicole and accuse her. Not to have an actual adult conversation. When Bella finished her talk, instead of letting Nicole respond, she said she was tired and wanted to go to bed. 

The next day Kathryn and Bella are in the bedroom and Nicole comes in asking to talk. Nicole says she loves and respects Bella and apologizes if anything she said offended her. However, because Bella is a petulant child, she just wants to hear more apologizes from Nicole and won’t listen to a word Nicole has to say defending herself. Nick and Tommy come in and Nick joins in with Bella. Both of them are so offended that Nicole supposedly called them bullies, they bully her in defending herself against the lie. Nicole finally snaps, and it’s beautiful. Tells Bella that this is all her. That she constantly misconstrues what people tell her and is always running her mouth. Nicole tells Nick that she respects him and hopes he does well in the game but Bella will drag him down. 

Veto

The contestants in the veto were Nick, Jessica, Cliff, Jackson, Kat, and Christie (Picked by Jessica). Two weeks in a row now Jessica got houseguest choice and picks almost the worst possible person to play. She’s willingly picking people to play she know aren’t playing the game with her.

Kaitlyn from season 20 is hosting the comp! The contestants enter the maze search for their color puzzle pieces and put together a Kaitlyn puzzle. It was the same puzzle that Kaitlyn was able to try to put together last season to stay in the house. Kaitlyn does a really good job at poking fun of herself, and ive really turned around on her from my dislike of her last season.

Kathryn wins! Much to everyone’s surprise. It wasn’t even close either!

At this point in the veto episode it seemed like we weren’t going to have time for anything else aside the veto ceremony but BIg Brother crammed one more, amazing segment in. Christie had a full blown meltdown thinking she was getting backdoored for literally not a single reason. She kept taking random things he was saying in general as attacks at her. Christie breaks down talking to Kathryn about how she for sure is going up. 

Veto ceremony comes around. Kathryn uses the veto on Jessica and Nicole is the replacement nominee, it looks like the back door is in place for her. Christie in the DR says “The risk I just took not using the diamond power of veto is so huge!” Except it wasn’t, because she wasn’t at risk whatsoever.

We find out early in the eviction episode Christie spoke with Nick and Bella about her worries she was on the outs with the group. Which really surprised them, rightfully so, because it was a crazy thought. To try and ensure her safety, Christie told them about the diamond power of veto. So much for keeping it a secret with only Tommy. Also funny when she told them not to tell anyone, and Bella is part of the conversation, which means everyone is going to find out.

As I have been saying from the beginning, an eight person alliance is impossible and the majority alliance whittles itself down. Now instead of Gr8ful, they are “The Six Shooters”, keeping most of the same group as before, less Nick and Bella. Also, no Sam, sorry buddy!

Christie was all over the place in this episode. She has stopped melting down about being on the outs with her group now that Veto has passed. Instead she leads the vote flip from targeting Nicole to booting Cliff. She knows Nicole has motivation to take a shot at Nick and Bella now, meaning SIx Shooters wouldn’t have to if Nicole can win HOH. She is also still mad that Cliff said her name and recognized the majority alliance.

They showed a package from the Camp Comeback members about what they have been doing to stay in the game, and just different things that have happened to them. David is making good relationships, Ovi makes a lot of cookies, and Kemi kind of hangs out. In this package, though they show a scene where Jack has a disgusting, offensive conversation with Kemi scolding her for putting her shaker bottle in the refrigerator. Jack has been shown being an asshole a bit on the show, and he definitely is a piece of shit on the feeds, but this was the first time showing how bad he is on the show. He is a cocky fuck who I can’t wait to watch his downfall. 

Elimination

Time for us to see the fourth and final spot at comeback be filled. It’s the seasons first split vote. At 6-4 Cliff is voted out. Nick and Bellas reactions were priceless. They were furious and I can’t wait for the next episode so we can see how those conversations go. 

Camp Comeback

For the Camp Comeback competition, the four contestants have to roll 6 balls down a winding board maze and drop them into a container. Whoever gets either 6 balls, or the most in the time period wins their way back into the house.

This was no contest. Cliff completely dominated this game. He didn’t have a ball of his drop off a single time. It was like he did this for fun at home and was a pro. He was winning 4-0 before anyone else even got one. Cliff showed some awesome confidence with his celebration. He threw his hat and flexing on everyone! 

While I’m happy that Cliff got back in because he seems like a great guy and will do some cool things in the game there are a couple negatives. First, the coolest nightmare power went out of the house with Ovi. That really would have been fun to see. Two, the visual of David, Ovi, and Kemi all sitting with Julie for an exit interview was really striking and awful. Almost all of the diversity in the house being kicked out in one go. 

I’m happy that Camp Comeback is over. I was glad that we got to see David, Ovi, and Kemi some extra weeks. It just leads to the same issue that Edge of Extinction had in Survivor this season. There are only so many minutes in an episode and when we are splitting screen time with people who aren’t in the game,and not even talking game (not by their choice to be fair). It takes away from other, more meaningful moments in the game.

We had a really fun drama packed week, it didn’t end in any great results with changing things up, but we were able to keep Nicole and Cliff so hopefully we can see some revolution and attack on the majority alliance. Shake things up, make the powerful fearful. Talk to everyone later…bye!

Predictable

Big Brother S21 E6-8

I feel like there were such high hopes for this season. Usually, we watch the pregame interviews and it seems like a bunch of turds were cast. I saw potential in almost all the houseguests, except maybe Kathryn. Here we are two weeks in and looks like we have a bunch of turds anyway. A problematic, toxic, offensive power alliance preying on the minority alliance and apparently minority people. Let’s get into this….

This week started with one of the lamest HOH competitions I can remember. They watched a “fireworks show”, which I mean a digital computer screensaver show. Then had to answer incredibly easy questions about the color patterns. You know that boring explanation you just read? That’s the feeling we all had watching it. Jack wins, wonderful.

That all wrapped up the live eviction episode. Starting the nominations episode we are shown a stupid long recap segment. By the time the recap and theme song was over we were past 5 minutes into the episode. In that same recap I heard Kathryn’s “Are you bitches conspiring against me!?” and I wanted to die.

Jackson is doing damage control with David. He knows David is a strong competitor and depending on the type of competition, has a good chance of getting back in the game. It doesn’t seem to work right off the bat, but at this point it doesn’t hurt having the conversation. Jackson goes on a PR tour and chats with Ovi. Tries patching things up in case he gets back in. Ovi seems too nice and innocent at this point and they are on good terms by the looks of it. This conversation is beneficial for us as well because we learn the Nightmare Power is not dead. It is dormant until he gets back in the house. The work by Jackson doesn’t last long as Nicole tells Ovi how Jack and Jackson were never behind him and the plan all along was to get him out. 

Random little short paragraph here. David and Kathryn talk and she says how there aren’t any alliances. David gives her a hilarious “are you serious” look. He tells her there are alliances, and if she doesn’t think there are any, that means she isn’t part of a majority. She seems pretty shocked, but moves on pretty quick.

Wacktivity

*Summer camp horn plays here*

This whole comp is about matching snake colors. There are three snakes in boxes. The contestants need to look through all the released snakes around them and match the color/designs of the snakes. Jack wins seemingly gaining even more power in the week! Until we learn what the power is…Chaos Power: Until there are only 6 players left if Jack doesn’t like the people playing in the veto he can cause a redraw. Not pick who plays, but initiate another random draw. Almost a completely useless power, but good for you Aquaman.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m so sick of seeing Love Island bull shit stuff. We see it on commercials and ads constantly. What could be worse? It being in the show we are watching? Sure! Houseguests see a video of Brett, Winston, Swaggy C, and Bayleigh from Season 20 pushing the show and telling the houseguests whoever wins Veto gets a trip to Fiji. Thanks guys, bye!

To go along with the Love Island stuff, we get a Holly and Jackson showmance package. Which ends with Kathryn popping up and scaring the two of them while they are cuddling in the hammock and she awkwardly joins them. Kathryn is becoming an enigma to me. I don’t think shes playing the game, but she’s pretty funny. Safe to say Jackson is tired of her though and is considering pushing Jack to put her up to get her out of the house.

CREATION OF A NEW ALLIANCE: Black Widows. Jessica, Nicole, Bella, Kemi create an all women’s alliance. We know how well women’s alliances happen in the past. This might be a record for how fast one falls apart though. Bella goes right to Jack and tells him about he Black WIdows alliance. Bella says in a confessional if the Black Widows had a number she’d stay with them, but they don’t. “Floaters grab a life vest”.

Nominations

With the info of the Black Widows alliance it validates Jack’s already problematic plan of targeting Jessica and Kemi. Jack was able to use in his nomination speech that he was going after the Black Widows alliance that would be going after him. In the DR Jessica is rightfully pissed because she doesn’t know who she can talk to and trust. Kemi says he is an idiot and should have backdoored him because she thrives under pressure. Jack later on says how he didn’t want to risk backdooring her with Camp Comeback in play.

Now we are to the veto episode of the week. Bella tells Nicole she told Jack about the Black Widows. Says it was best for her game.  Nicole is pretty shocked. Bella seems to tell everyone everything. She is truly a wildcard. She says in the DR how she wants to be in an alliance with everyone but she can’t keep her mouth shut.

David has only been in the house a few days now, and he already has the whole house figured out. In the DR he tells us how he knows Jack and Jackson are the big 2. Holly and Analyse are with them and he knows Christie and Nick are with them. Tommy is a likable guy who no one would put on the block. Nick and Bella are close so she is safe there. Cliff, Kemi, Jessica have no idea what is going on and Sam is a wild card, not part of an alliance.

Jessica and Jackson have a talk. She tells Jackson she didn’t create an all women’s alliance. She tells him that she didn’t even know about an all women’s alliance. Sometimes this move can come off as desperate and not believable. I actually think she did a good job selling it. I don’t think it matters in the long run but it was good hustle on her part.

Veto Competition

Players in the veto are Jack, Kemi, Jessica, Bella, Jackson, Sam. Jackson was a houseguest choice by Jessica. Just for the record that wasn’t a typo. Jessica picked Jackson. Jessica who could have picked Nicole who she has a relationship with, chose the guy who is BFF’s with the HOH who nominated her.

Tyler, season 20 runner up hosts this comp. The houseguests pull the plug on a “Aqua Clock”. They can fill up a container and if all the water runs out their time is out. While this is draining they need to take foam frogs to the other side of the course and stack them on their side. Whoever has the most frogs on their stand when the timer runs out wins.

Sam is the first to let his clock run out when he stacks 18. He knew stacking more would risk it falling. Great move by him, except winning the first 2 vetoes and appearing as a comp beast in week 2 isn’t a smart look. It’s guaranteeing a backdoor down the line. Jessica lets her clock run out at 13 and Kemi’s falls right before time is out at 4. I can’t fathom this. There is no set time on this competition. Only when you let it run out. If you know you aren’t winning, why would you not run back and put more water in your container to extend your time until you find a way to win. It’s the equivalent of giving up to me.

As usual after Sam wins he becomes Mr. Popular in the house. Kathryn is afraid if he uses the veto she will go up, so she talks to him about it. Jessica talks to him trying to get him to use it. An amazing moment happens when Nicole walks in on the conversation and they trail off awkwardly. She stands there sipping her drink when it hits her that they are talking veto and she apologizes a ton and leaves. The idea that Nicole is a very plausible replacement nominee is the extra fun in this. We round this out with Kemi talking to Sam about veto. Kemi makes a good argument that Jessica really is all in on the Black Widows and would put up 2 men everytime she is in power, where she would work in the game and promises not to nominate him. Sam says if he used the veto it would 110% be on her. 

Big Brother goes a little off script here. Sadly, Sam’s grandfather passed away while he is in the house. They were close and production wanted to tell him. On a human level I have no issue with him being informed of this. It also created some heartwarming moments where the house rallied around him in support. I do think it would be a mistake to say this info didn’t effect the game. There is no way to tell for certain, but Sam seemed to consider using the veto on Kemi which would have kept a strong competitor in the game. However, the news of his grandfather passing reminded him why he is in the house, for his family, so he didn’t want to rock the boat and kept noms the same. 

Eviction Episode

CREATION OF A NEW ALLIANCE: Fellowship of the Zing! So this is a partial alliance. Its Cliff, Nicole, and Ovi. The strength of this alliance hinges on Ovi getting back in the game. If he doesn’t make it out of Camp Comeback this is nothing. 

More showmances are developing. Nick and Bella have been simmering for a bit so that wasn’t surprising. The other is Jack and Analyses. By the way, Analyses goes by “Sis” which I’m not cool with, so Anal Lice will stay as Analyse on my blog. Jack calls Analyse “Exotic” which I feel like has to be a little shade by production to include in this. Don’t use “Exotic” as a compliment, it’s outdated and problematic. Just goes in line with his already shown race issues.

Every morning sweet, fun, super-fan Cliff gets up before everyone else and does his “Cliff-Notes” talking to the cameras. He addresses his family, friends, fans about what is going on in the game. Talks about everything on his mind. The only issue with this is that he doesn’t appear to talk quietly, assuming everyone is still asleep. It didn’t take long for someone to catch him. Christie gets up one morning and walks by and hears him talking. As he is explaining Fellowship of the Zing, and the majority power alliance putting her and Tommy as a 4th couple. Essentially the worst timing possible for someone to overhear. Instead of using this revelation to her advantage and listening to future conversations, she goes right to Tommy, Jackson, Holly and freaks out about it and everyone finds out. Her loss for losing the well of information. Only a matter of time until it gets to other people not in Gr8ful.

Kemi knows she has a good chance of being voted out this week. She isn’t going out with a fight. She brilliantly, in my opinion, tells Jackson that Bella created the Black Widows and blamed it on the other girls. Jackson tells Jack about this, as well as the whole Cliff-Notes thing. News is spreading like wildfire at this point in the game.

Lets jump back over to Bella partaking in her favorite past time, telling people secrets! She tells Sam about the 8 alliance and he is on the outside at 9. Says sooner or later he is going to find out, might as well be from him. Sam seems mad about this. I get the initial anger, but if I was in the house I would LOVE to be the 9 in an 8 person alliance. There is no way the 8 will stay strong to 8. At 9 you become a chip that the fractured sides will be fighting over. Being fought over is one of the best places to be. 

Not only does Bella blow up Gr8ful to Sam, but Jack fucks up too. They are talking in the pantry and Sam is pitching an idea of flipping the vote away from Kemi to Jess (if only he had won the Veto and would have been able to protect Kemi!). Jack says he is “good with whatever is best for Gr8ful..I mean…whatever is best for the 9 of us”. I’m warming up to Sam and I hope he can do some damage some day this summer.

Eviction

The ladies give their speeches. Jessica has a speech of rambling nothingness that I can’t believe didn’t get cut off sooner. Kemi went and blew up Nick and Bella’s spot. It was wonderful. They were pissed off and made it real easy to vote her out. 

Kemi is voted out 10-1. Jackson threw out a rogue vote to keep Kemi. I have to say, with Camp Comeback being in play, the “goodbyes” after an eviction are quite awkward.

There you have it, folks! Week 2 in the books and evil still reigns. Jack was able to finish what he wanted to do with Christies HOH. There was a lot of information exchanged, but it was a pretty predictable week which makes it boring. I for one can’t wait to see the chaos that will happen when the 8 blows up. Kemi obviously put in a lot of work to put Bella and possibly Nick on the outs with putting Black Widows on her, and calling them out in the farewell speech. We need to hope the 8 crack sooner rather than later because this could potentially stay boring at this pace for a few more weeks. That’s all for this week!….Bye!

No Nightmares

Big Brother S21 E3-5

This post is so late…I’m finally going to churn it out, and stay more on top of things for this current weeks post! We have the first full week in the books, yet still have the same amount of people in the house, because…twist! Hookups, emotional breakdowns, no fights…let’s get into it!

The nomination episode is made up of a bunch of pieces falling into place. Mostly establishing the major alliance in the house. Previously we had the majority group at 6 with Jack, Jackson, Nick, Christie, Bella, Holly. Jack and Nick are hanging out and decide to expand to a group of 8. This is always a great idea and never goes poorly…The more people you have in an alliance, the more likely it’s going to fall apart. I was surprised Level 6 went so well last season, since 6 can even be too high of a number. Jack and Nick decide on Tommy and Analyse, both of which are ecstatic to join. They all decide on the name Gr8ful, which I’m not a fan of, but whatever.

At this point there is no clear target, essentially anyone not in Gr8ful. Kathryn, Analyse, Kemi, and Bella are all talking about how well they know the HOH Christie. Kathyrn is trashing Jack and Jackson saying how she can easily manipulate him since they have a relationship. Wort noting…Jackson and Kathryn had a prefeeds hookup. It had already ended by the time feeds started. They show us a package in the next episode of them being flirty but in the Diary Room (DR) that they aren’t in a showmance. Producers cut between them denying it, but still hooking up a few times for a humorous segment.  Anyway, Bella immidly tells Christie, Jack, and Jackson what Kathryn is saying which inflates her target significantly. 

Later on when Christie is planning out her nominations she pulls Cliff aside. She asks if she can put him up as a pawn. Of course “Pawns go home” but when someone asks if you want to be a pawn, you can’t really say no. After this we see Christie pull Kathryn aside telling her that if she is nominated it’s as a pawn because Cliff is an easy target. I really like this tactic especially early on when the people you are nominating aren’t really talking game to each other. This way regardless of which person survives the block, you can sell you were backing them.

It doesn’t take long for us to see our first slip up! When you’re talking game, just make sure the room is empty or talk later. Pre-noms there is nothing that is so important you need to risk talking in front of people not in your group. Tommy, Nick, Jack are cuddling on a bed talking about the group of 8…while Ovi and Cliff are laying in the room. Cliff is completely passed out so no risk there, but Ovi was awake and heard the mention of 8, and since he wasn’t in a plan with anyone, knew he was in the minority now.

I love Ovi, he seems like a great guy, and he’s clearly a Big Brother fan. He handles this knowledge of the 8 group SO badly its painful. He needed to sit with the information and observe, try to see who the 8 were so he knew who it was safe to speak with. Instead, he speaks to Analyse right away, and shortly after talks to Christie, Bella, Jack, and Jackson telling them all about the 8. Statistically, with 15 people in the house there is no way the 5 of them, and himself are all not part of this majority alliance. He let 5 of 8 members of Gr8ful he was onto them. Hello target. Oh…also we have the creation of the Fab 5 with Ovi, Jack, Jackson, Christie, Bella. Clearly a fake alliance to keep Ovi calm.

Wacktivity Competition

At some point throughout the week all the houseguests had to sign up for different “Wacktivity Competitions” without knowing what they were. The categories were Nightmare, Panic, Chaos. Each has 5 people and takes place over the first 3 weeks and the winner gets a special power.

A horn goes off to announce it is time to play the Wacktivity competitions. The first one is Nightmare that has Cliff, Bella, Ovi, Kathryn, Nicole. Each houseguest is in a little shack that looks like a cabin with 3 buckets in front of them. Each bucket has an awful smell. There are signs on the side of the cabin. They need to run out, smell different stations and match the smells There were 3 rounds. No one got all of them right until Ovi gets the W in round 3. He is pumped but knows he can’t react and needs to keep the power a secret.

Ovi is awarded the “Nightmare Power”. It’s one of the more powerful powers in all of Big Brother in my opinion. After the nomination ceremony, Ovi can use this power to wake up the whole house in the middle of the night and force the HOH to nominate two new people. The previous nominees are safe for the entire week, including from being renominated after veto.

At the end of the episode Kathryn and Cliff are nominated. No shockers there. Kathryn is pissed off at being used as a pawn (even though she’s the target at this point). She says “I don’t have the personality of a pawn, I have the personality of running this shit!” Which I don’t really know what that means, but alright!

Kemi and Bella are shown having a pretty close relationship. They spend a lot of time together and are really connecting over making great jokes at other houseguests expense. This connection is making some of the members of Gr8ful nervous that she is the weak link. Christie tries getting the group together to touch base and realized its nearly impossible to get an alliance of 8 together in secret (no shit). 

It is decided that if veto is used, Kemi would be the backup nomination. It would cut that tie with Bella, also Kemi is throwing out a lot of peoples name acting like she’s running the game. We were shown a scene where Kemi is talking to Christie and Jack throwing out Ovi’s name as a nomination. Christie and Jack are pissed off about her name dropping people. The anger does seem a little extreme until you take into account Kemi was throwing Jack and Jacksons name out as nominees and it got back to them. They didn’t show that in the show though.

Veto

Players for this week’s Veto comp are Christie, Cliff, Kathryn, Sam, Jack, and Nicole. We have ourselves a guest host! Season 20 winner Kaycee! The house flips out. I was looking forward to making it through this season without hearing “lets go!” as a catchphrase. No such luck.

The competition is similar to the space invasion veto comp that Kaycee dominated last season. The houseguests need to catch things flying at them that’s mixed in with messy sludge and paint. Its pretty difficult and just an excuse for them to look stupid. No one did great at it this season. Jack asked Kaycee how did she get 37 points last year!? It helps being a professional football player. Sam ends up beating Jack by 1 point. It doesn’t really make sense for Sam to win this, but hey, it gets him involved in the game and he seems excited so why not?

It is pretty expected by everyone that Sam is going to use veto on Cliff. So Gr8ful plans on putting up Kemi and backdooring her. Jack comes up with a pecking order of Kemi, Jessica, then Ovi. Christie doesn’t understand Ovi before Sam. Jack made a really bad situation for himself here. It looks really bad that his biggest targets are all the people of color in the house (aside from Bella in his alliance). It might not be his point…but it still looks really bad. 

Nick and Bella are cuddling (budding showmance) and Bella tells him that she doesn’t want Kemi gone yet. Nick says he will talk to Christie. Christie doesn’t want to get rid of Kemi either, that’s Jacks plan and this is her HOH. You mean there are already rifts in an 8 person alliance!? What!? Christie talks to Jack and says she isn’t putting Kemi up. Jack turns into a huge ass hole saying over and over again “The plan stays!” Like Christie isn’t her own person in charge of her own HOH. 

Christie really comes unhinged the rest of the veto episode. Very emotional about being pressured to backdoor Kemi which she really doesn’t want to do. She seems to be turning on Jack really hard, getting to the point of threatening to nominate Jack in the DR. She really hopes that Sam doesn’t use the veto. She pulls him aside seeing if he will not use the Veto. He says he is going to, as Cliff has been through enough. They are trying to think of a replacement and poor Ovi comes up to tell them dinner is ready…looks like wrong place wrong time for him.

For some reason, Sam agrees to an awful plan of letting it look like he blindsided the HOH and going against her when he uses his Veto on Cliff. It only makes him look bad, and her a victim. Either way, Sam uses it on Cliff, and the replacement is Ovi. He is really hurt because he thought the Fab Five alliance with her was strong, so it was a blindside for him.

The target appears to have fully shifted from Kathryn to Ovi now. She is still using the tactic of telling the other they are a pawn, just like she did with Cliff. Poor Ovi is very emotional and scared over the nomination. Jack and Christie are consoling him but still heartbroken. 

Kathryn did her damndest to try getting herself sent home. She was driving everyone in the house crazy. She went full paranoia and came up with a catchphrase “Are you Bitches conspiring against me!?”. There was a horrible montage shown where she just kept saying it over and over. It would have been tempting to vote her out just to not deal with that anymore. You know as soon as she is home she’s turning those into shirts and hats to sell in her 15 minutes of fame.

Ovi throws a hail mary. He sits Jack and Jackson down telling them about the Nightmare Power. I understand the desperation, but I still don’t like it. He is telling two very strong competitors who get to play for HOH next week that he has the ability to change their nominations. Ovi offers it for their use and protection to stay, but thats trusting someone. There would be a lot of incentive to just boot Ovi so the power is gone and can’t mess with their game. For what it’s worth, Jackson does consider flipping, Jack wants to stick with the plan though.

Eviction

Ovi did a great deal of campaigning when he was put up, and did almost everything he could to sway people. However, it wasn’t enough as he was voted out unanimously at 12-0. Its a shame he wasn’t able to use his Nightmare Power. That would have really shaken things up in the house. Everyone is saying goodbye as he is about to go to the door when the horn for the Wacktivity comp goes off. Everyone sits back down and we are introduced to “Camp Comeback”

The evicted houseguests don’t leave the house. They continue to live with the rest of the house and after 4 people, 1 gets back in the game. Camp Comeback members don’t participate in house comps, or ceremonies, but play the social game. Julie tells Ovi “but you won’t be alone…” then the door bursts open and David comes running in and everyone starts freaking out!

We are basically dealing with Edge of Extinction again from Survivor this season. I really like it so we can see more of David and Ovi. It does make the show a bit messy as we aren’t losing people so the screen time is still pretty spread out, but only a couple more weeks and we will likely be back to normal, but who knows!

I’m going to segment these from HOH to eviction. So even though the HOH comp is in this same episode that Ovi was voted out, I’m going to go ahead and save it for the next post. Again everyone, I’m sorry for the late post, I’ll try staying more diligent on it for the coming weeks! I’m gonna go now…..bye!

We are Back!

Big Brother S21E1&2

Many people look forward to summer for all of the outdoor activities and great weather. I however, love summer because that means it is time for my favorite TV show! BIG BROTHER IS BACK! I can’t wait to start writing about this season and talking about all the craziness happening in the house. 

My plan is to write one post per Head of Household cycle (HOH, Nominations, Veto, Elimination). I don’t want to write about each episode individually. If I was posting that much, I’m sure I’d have no followers. Also, I should mention, I don’t watch feeds. I listen to podcasts and read the posts about what happened in the feeds so I’m generally caught up. I can’t watch the feeds because I enjoy having a girlfriend, friends, and a job. WIth my obsessed I get with TV, watching the feeds, I would neglect a lot of other parts of my life. 

Episode 1

This post is just going to be about the first couple episodes since the first HOH cycle hasn’t been shown yet. Full disclosure, I did not take notes on the first episode since I watched it at a friends place and I haven’t gotten around to rewatching. The first episodes are usually pretty lackluster anyway. We had a pretty quick intro package for everyone thankfully, I’m not really here for the fake “finding their key!” that they film every year. I don’t think we learned a lot more than we could have found out in Jeff or Ika interviews.

We are shown everyone introducing themselves blah blah blah. Shortly after this, Julie gets the game started by announcing the role of Camp Director! The whole theme of the house this season is camping, and the house is decorated with that theme in mind and it looks really nice! Anyway, Camp Director, is position where the rest of the house votes someone into this position and they get unprecedented power in the game, the only one known to the houseguests at this point is they are immune for the first week. It doesn’t appear to be a clear front runner at this point until the idea is thrown out for people who want to volunteer. 

We get 4 volunteers for Camp Director. Jackson, David, Cliff, Jessica. David fizzles out pretty quick, same with Cliff. Or I should say, we don’t see much of their campaigning. The episode mostly focuses on Jackson and Jessica campaigning. It appears that there will be a girl alliance putting Jessica in power, but that quickly fades and Jackson is ultimately the winner. The winner is revealed in a fun, messy way… everyone who didn’t win gets blasted with different color paints. Jackson is the winner, and Jessica is pissed.

Julie reveals the powers of the Camp Director, which is Jackson needs to pick 4 players to banish from the game, where 3 will come back in and one will be eliminated. Julie keeps saying throughout all of this that the 4 banished houseguests are “out of the game”. This doesn’t really make sense, because they aren’t out of the game, just in a different part of the game. I guess it just sounds more dramatic to say “out of the game”. 

That was all in the first episode where I’m going off memory, sorry if it feels like I mailed it in a bit. The rest will be more detailed!

Episode 2

A majority of this episode was dedicated to people campaigning to Jackson to not be banished. Everyone except Kemi, who said she didn’t want to suck up to him, always a smart route to take…

We see the creation of our first alliance! Jack, Jackson, and Bella. This is the start of a snowballing huge alliance that we will touch on later. In this meeting Jack pitches the idea of putting up the other people who volunteered to be Camp Director (Cliff, Jessica, David). I thought this was a pretty good idea. It’s a good way to excuse why you are calling people out right off the bat. 

Jackson has to go upstairs into the room they have been using as the “twist room” like the trending power twist from last season. He selects 4 people to be banished. Cliff, Jessica, David, and Kemi. Only 3 people, other than Jackson, had volunteered to be Camp Director. Kemi’s brilliant decision to not even talk to Jackson is what got her banished. The people who were banished were “taken” by a person in a creepy squirrel mascot. It was hilarious seeing everyone run away from the mascot as it carried a person sized bag around and put it over the banished peoples heads. Then made a quick cut to the squirrel carrying them out in the bag. It lowkey fooled me if the squirrel was really carrying the people out…it wasn’t.

The banished people are in a pitch black wilderness setting. They need to feel their way around a course to find the right hole to get back into the Big Brother house. If they go in the wrong hole they have to go through whatever that room is to get back to the main room and keep searching. The first wrong room we see is “Camp Bee Bee”. Jessica and David go in there and wade through sticky honey and fall into a pile of feathers, it was a pretty good sight. The next room is “Camp B-Ball” where Cliff enters and is pelted with basketballs and an air horn goes off in his face, poor dude.

Cliff is our first houseguest back from banishment! Some retribution for poor Glenn in BB19 for the older guys.

Kemi goes into “Camp Boo” and that is all terrifying clowns and a whole lotta Nope from me. She gets out of there quickly and she is the next to reenter the game! Jessica goes into “Camp B&B” which is all sticky syrup and pancake obstacles. Right after that room she also re enters the game! That is all of the returned houseguests and poor David is eliminated. Julie tells him that he is out of the game….for now. Leaving us all hanging. 

WE didn’t really get to know David at all, he seemed kind of emotionless for the most part but he did show us emotion in the diary room. He was upset and said he wanted to be the first black winner of Big Brother. Apparently forgetting Tamar Braxton, though she did win Celebrity Big Brother, not Big Brother proper. These first night eliminations are so fucking stupid. Nobody wants them. They aren’t fun or interesting. Let the players play the game! Regardless of recruit or not, these people up-end their lives to come do this and they don’t even get a real fighting chance.

Everyone celebrates the returnees. Jackson immediately starts trying some damage control apologize to Jessica and hugging her. We get a couple quick conversations. One between Tommy and Christie where they acknowledge how they know each other. Also the previously mentioned alliance of Jackson, Jack, Bella gets a little bigger. It grows to include Nick, Christie, and Holly. More to come on that later still…

Head of Household Competition

For the HOH comp everyone is in pairs hanging on a log that’s lifted off the ground. Last person hanging wins. As Jackson’s last act as Camp Director he has to pick the pairs sharing the log. It really ended up being of no consequence since it was still an individual HOH comp.

The competition steps up a notch after everyone is hanging for a bit. Paint starts pouring on them making holding on even harder and vision is all messed up. Overall it was a pretty enjoyable endurance comp and the winner is Christie! It really worked out well that Jack, Jackson, and Bella included Christie in their growing alliance so they all could feel safe this week.

The first 2 episodes overall weren’t that fantastic in my opinion. It would have been better if it was a 2 hour episode on one night and we could get into it. Instead dragged out over 2 nights had a lot of unnecessary stuff. I’m still ecstatic we are back and looking forward to a great summer of Big Brother!…Bye!

Don’t Hate the Player

Survivor S38E13

Here we are folks! The season finale of Survivor: Edge of Extinction. Survivor has been putting out some fantastic seasons as of late and this one is no exception. On our trip to D.C. last week I missed the live viewing of Game of Thrones and Survivor. I knew social media would be spoiling things so I had to stay off until the following  mornings when I had time to watch. Believe it or not, it was much more difficult to avoid Survivor spoilers than Game of Thrones. Guess that kind of shows who I follow on social media… This was a long episode so the post will probably reflect that, sorry in advance! I won’t be writing about the reunion because the way Survivor does their reunion show is crappy and useless.

EDGE OF EXTINCTION COMPETITION

So the episode technically starts with Jeff talking to the viewers in front of the live audience back in the States.Then he follows up his introduction with a bit of a recap of the season and the remaining players. Boring for our purposes here though, so jumping right in to where the episode actually starts!

Opening shot we see is of a challenge all set up. Jeff brings in the remaining contestants, then brings in the EoE group. It’s time for someone to come back into the game! It’s a long obstacle course that ends in a table maze. It’s neck and neck for most of the challenge, with Aurora, Joe, and Chris all looking like they could win. Finally Chris, who was voted out 3rd and been on EoE for a long ass time, wins and is back in the game!

Back at camp, Chris is telling everyone he feels out of it and needs to recuperate. He is intentionally trying to downplay his game to reduce the size of his target. He tells everyone that if he goes home tomorrow it’s cool, he is just happy to be back. Victoria in a confessional right after this line tells us she knows Chris is full of it and that you wouldn’t hold on that long at EoE to just be happy going home.

Devens and Chris go to talk on their own. Devens hopes that Chris is more in the game than he is leading on. Chris says he wants it to be them until the end, that he wants to work with him from here on out. Devens is a bit nervous since Devens stabbed Chris in the back weeks ago, but is hopeful that Chris isn’t playing a revenge game. Chris asks Devens to confirm the idol is real, which Devens is a little hesitant to do, but does tell him it is real. Right after this conversation, Chris talks to Lauren. Chris tells Lauren that Kelley told them about her idol, but he wants to work with her. They seem to make a bit of a connection, but Lauren doesn’t know if Chris is being real with her or just looking around for the best option. At this point we are kind of on the edge of our seat regarding whether Chris is going to team up with Devens or Lauren, and they leave us hanging as we go right into an Immunity Challenge.

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE

This challenge was a pretty complex one. It contained an obstacle course, balance beam, combination lock, and circular puzzle. It also wasn’t just an Immunity Challenge, but a reward challenge as well.

Julie was pulling away with the competition and Lauren started rooting for her. Devens reminds her that they weren’t rooting for her when they were going to split the vote between the two of them. Julie is close to winning when her puzzle starts to fall over and almost falls apart. Chris, who was right beside her, started coaching her through it. He was nowhere near winning so wanted to help her out. Devens was pissed about it, but I think it was a pretty good idea when you are just coming back to try  to make any connection you can, and helping her is a good case for getting chosen to join in on the reward.

Julie wins and is able to bring two people. She first picks Chris, which is a good easy choice. Her second pick is Lauren. Devens is visibly upset about this and Jeff asks him about it. He says he’s gone to bat multiple times for Julie and she never does it for him. Also, Lauren has been on more rewards than anyone.

At the rewards, Lauren and Julie are talking to Chris about Devens. They are all talking about the idol and if it is real or not, which they ask him directly. He says he wants to feel out if it’s real or not. This was reassuring that he is truly working with Devens, because at this point he knows for a fact the idol is real but isn’t exposing him. Chris pitches splitting the vote between Devens and Victoria just in case the idol is real, and the others seem in agreement. Victoria and Gavin are talking back at camp about going after Chris and propose the idea to Devens. Devens listens, but doesn’t commit to anything.

When they get back from reward, Chris and Devens talk again. Chris again tells Devens he is 100% loyal to him. He says yes, he was betrayed by Devens in the past, but Devens was voted out right after. They made amends on EoE in a genuine, true way and now they are completely even. Devens wants to believe it but he is still nervous. Chris asks what he can do to prove his loyalty to Devens. Devens asks what he got in his bag when he got back. Chris keeps a straight face for about 3 seconds, then cracks a smile. He pulls out the same idol Devens got, where you have to give half to someone else and after the next tribal council, when the sides are reunited, it becomes one idol. He gives the half to Devens.

TRIBAL COUNCIL

Not a lot of interesting talk at this tribal. Asking Chris how it feels being back, talking to Julie about who she chose. Nothing that crazy or fun. Victoria did say Chris is an easy vote but they have a target who they have been gunning for all along, so why rock the boat?

While the talk was boring, the things happening after the vote, were not. Devens plays his idol, which is real. Lauren looks upset. There is some hesitation, then Lauren gets up and plays her idol…ON CHRIS! It ended up not being needed as Victoria was voted out with more votes than Chris had against him.

BACK AT CAMP

In the middle of the night, Devens gets up to go Idol hunting again. Before he begins hunting, he hides two idols that he has been making the last couple weeks, which he wrapped in the parchments of his prior idols to make them seem more real. It doesn’t take long for everyone else to join him and shadow him. Which it’s about fucking time, but a few weeks too late. It actually didn’t even matter because Devens still found the idol, right in front of everyone! Everyone is really bummed and it’s hilarious.

Lauren and Julie are talking about Idols. Lauren is still mad she played hers for Chris and regrets doing so. In a confessional, Julie says since two of them were played last night, that must mean two have been rehidden. Julie keeps looking and she finds one! She is yelling for Lauren and running to her. They are hugging and all excited. Devens is sitting with Chris when this happens and can hear them in the distance. Devens tells Chris that he thinks she found his fake idol. A little bit later Lauren is walking and sees the parchment saying there is an idol hidden above the camp. She goes back and finds it and is ecstatic. The whole time she is searching Devens is peeking around a tree laughing and shocked his second fake Idol is working so well.

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE

As usual, they are really amping up these final challenges. This is a giant platform above the ocean that has 6 different obstacle course paths to get puzzle pieces. It was a really fun competition to watch, which is a lot coming from me. Devens wins another immunity, his 4th, and he came from behind to do it! Devens has been getting unwarranted criticism for playing the idol hunting style that got Ben Driebergen his win. For the record I loved Ben, and I was so glad he won. A huge difference between the two though is that Devens didn’t just rely on finding idols. 4 times, when he was target number 1, he won immunity and was able to keep going.

Devens can’t use his most recent hidden idol as they become obsolete at the final 4. He is going to be able to use his idol on someone else, but his ally Chris already has one too. He approaches Gavin and says if he uses it on him, and Gavin wins the final immunity challenge, will Gavin promise to take Devens to the final three. Gavin agrees, but in confessional says that it would be a terrible plan to take Devens to the final and if he has to go back on his word, so be it.

TRIBAL COUNCIL

All the talk at this tribal is about who has the best chance to beat Devens. Jeff asks Devens how it feels to have all this attention on him. He said he would have thought that it would be cool, but it’s not at all. So many people became laser focused on getting him out that they let the game go right by them. They show Kelley rolling her eyes at this, which is kind of silly, because he was right. So many people trying to get him and not work with him is what made him so fun to the Jury and such a force that he can’t be beaten if he got to the final.

Votes are placed and Jeff asks for Idols. Julie plays hers, Jeff reveals it is fake, and she just hangs her head in her hands. Lauren plays hers, but it is also revealed as fake. Lauren’s response is “That’s amazing”. Devens plays his for Gavin, and Chris plays his for himself. The Jury is going bonkers here. Lauren gets the boot.

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE

Very difficult final 4 challenge, which is par for the course in the past seasons as well. It is a  rocking balance beam where they have to stack 6 boxes on the end. Chris wins it, not easily, but he seemed to struggle the least with it.

Back at camp, Devens and Chris are talking. Devens asks if there is any chance he will take him to the final. Chris asks if Devens has practiced fire. Devens said yeah, which Chris tells him he should keep practicing. Very clear that Chris isn’t taking Devens, in fact Chris goes to train Julie and Gavin since they will need to go against Devens. Chris says whoever can make fire best will be the one making fire against Devens.

TRIBAL COUNCIL

There was a move that was teased to us in Ghost Island but Dom didn’t end up going through with it. Giving up your final 4 idol and making fire yourself against someone to secure your place in the final. Chris does exactly this by giving his immunity necklace to Julie and saying he and Devens will be making fire against each other. They have to make fire up in the voting booth because the wind is so bad. Devens struggles a bit getting his started. Chris got his going pretty quickly. If Devens had another 30 seconds he likely could have won, but it was too late and Chis won the fire making challenge. Devens was finally fully eliminated from the game after so long and so many people failing to do so. While watching, I knew that his was a game winning move by Chris.

TRIBAL COUNCIL

After the last tribal, they go back to camp and they each give a monologue, but there isn’t anything exciting in them so we are going right to the final Tribal where the jury gets to ask questions. There are a lot of questions that are asked and I don’t think it would be fun reading for you to have me go over all of them. Instead I’ll just give my impressions of how the 3 answered their questions.

Chris stumbled at the beginning when he asked Gavin an aggressive, defensive question and the Jury wasn’t feeling that. They wanted him to leave the questions to them. After that, Chris answered all the questions really well. Very clearly painting the picture why he should win. He had very little time to play the game but he did every possible thing he could have to win the game in that short time.

Gavin played a pretty solid game and I think deserved to be in the final. He really botched his questions though. He spent a ton of time talking about how unfair it was for Chris to win. His point was that Chris hadn’t been in the game long. Sure, mention it once, but maybe a majority of your time to talk should be spent on why you should win, not why someone else should lose. He was trashing how unfair Edge of Extinction was and how it was an easy route, to a bunch of people who had been living on EoE for the whole game fighting to stay in. Perfect way to sour jury members on you.

Julie was…a non-factor. At the beginning she tried claiming that her getting emotional and having breakdowns was an intentional game move to manipulate people. Which, just to be clear, absolutely was not. Her freaking out after being left out of votes had no impact on how votes went after that. The most it did was show she was a weak player they could keep around and not worry about winning. This bull shit answer told the jury right away she had no business even being considered for votes, and she pretty much received no questions after that point.

Everyone votes, Jeff leaves and we go back to the live audience show. First vote is for Gavin, then Chris, then Gavin. After these I knew that Julie wasn’t receiving a single vote since Jeff would have read it so each were tied. It goes back and forth between the two guys for the 8 votes where they are both 4-4. We get 3 additional Chris votes for him to win the title of Sole Survivor!

I have no issues with Chris winning. As he pointed out in his jury questions, he played really hard in the short time he had. He didn’t get to coast to the end. It’s not like Edge of Extinction was Ponderosa and he just got to chill and stay strong in comfort. He was playing hard, even out there surviving every day, in arguably more difficult conditions than the people still at camp. It is such a lazy take to criticise him winning because he played in the confines of his seasons theme. This goes for any season or twist in any show. Chris didn’t CHOOSE to be voted out, he didn’t CHOOSE to play on this season, they don’t know the theme when they get taken out there. He was presented with the rules, and he played within the confines of them and won the game. Literally the whole point of the phrase “Don’t hate the player, hate the game”

Thank you so much for reading along everyone! This was a blast and I hope I provided some entertaining writing for you throughout this season of Survivor. Big Brother starts soon so that will likely be my next big show but we shall see, maybe I’ll write about The Bachelorette! Until next time…bye!

Hide and Seek

Survivor S28E12

Changing things up a little bit and writing this on a Friday night. I know, it’s a wild way to spend the first night of the weekend. It’s really my only chunk of time I will have to write it though since I’ll be on vacation next week. Already going to be challenging enough to watch the finale and The Bachelorette premier, so my goal was to squeeze this in before. Luckily, it was a pretty straight forward episode, with a solid chunk of time waste on Edge of Extinction.

After tribal, everyone is asking Devens about where he got the idol from. He lies and tells them it was sent to him from EoE, which I thought was brilliant to get people to not look around camp for them. That got sussed out pretty quickly by Lauren, since she found her idol around the camp back at the beginning of the game. Lauren confronts Devens, trying to get him to tell her it was around camp, but Devens sticks to his story. Not really sure why Lauren was trying to joke around with him to get info and thought he was going to tell her. She has lied to him too many times for him to trust her.

Devens gets up in the middle of the night, when everyone else is sleeping, and starts looking for the idol. He does it all night and into the morning. Everyone else is awake and knows that Devens is out there searching, but no one is shadowing him. This might just be editing, it’s hard to tell, but after someone just used an idol why would they not be stuck to him like glue? Of course, later in the episode they do shadow him, but it’s too late since DEVENS FINDS ANOTHER IDOL THE FIRST MORNING AFTER TRIBAL!

REWARD CHALLENGE

There is a boring reward challenge that Gavin wins. He gets to pick two people to go with him to partake in the reward. First he chooses Victoria and says it’s because she has gone the longest without some sort of food reward. He then picks Lauren with no explanation. Aurora visibly reacts, upset. Jeff asks about her reaction and Devens says it’s because she has gone without food as long as Victoria has, which Gavin kind of shrugs off.

At the reward, Gavin, Victoria, and Laurn discuss whether they should be concerned with Aurora being mad at them for not being selected. Gavin says Aurora still has a better shot with any of them than going with Devens to the end, so she should make the smart decision and stay with them. They agree that Devens is the first target and Julie is next. We see a Lauren confessional where she is resistant to getting rid of Julie because they have a good connection. When they get back to camp, Victoria speaks with Aurora to reassure her nothing has changed. Aurora is thankful and says the logical choice is to stay with them. Except one thing, that is isn’t logical at all. The game goes to the final 3. Gavin exposed the pecking order right there. Logically, it would be better to go with Devens and at least get to the final 3 with him to have a shot to plead your case. The route she is going will cause her to have to make fire at the final 4 and being against the group of 3.

EDGE OF EXTINCTION

EOE was so stupid this week. Eric walks up to the group with a box and everyone gets excited thinking they were getting info on the competition to get back into the game. NOPE, they get letters, that they wrote to themselves before the season started filming. We got a lot of dramatic shots of people sitting reading letters. Great use of time.

AT CAMP

Normally I wouldn’t have hopped back to camp after EOE there since the Immunity Challenge happens here pretty soon. However, the segment before the challenge was so hilarious it needed to be included. Devens goes searching for the idol again, even though he already has it, to keep up the illusion he doesn’t have one. FINALLY people shadow him and join him in the search. Gavin is hanging around Devens and at one point he turns his back to look up in a tree and Devens just full sprint runs away. The afternoon turned into a big game of hide and seek where Devens was fake looking and people were looking for him looking for idols. It was a great moment.

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE

The challenge this week is different sorts of things put together that end in a word puzzle. Almost everyone starts groaning at the mention of the word puzzle, especially Aurora. Aurora says she is awful at them. Devens says he likes hearing when people say they are awful at things because it means he only has to be mediocre to win. He showed that he can be mediocre at word puzzles, because Devens wins himself another immunity challenge.

Back at camp we see a Devens confessional. It becomes pretty clear since he is safe, the next obvious target would be Julie. He wants to try to keep her because the other 4 are too tight for him to try to infiltrate, but he can hope to work with Julie. I was terrified  that he was going to give Julie his idol. Devens pulls Julie aside and they agree to vote for Aurora.

Julie approproaches Lauren to talk to her about what she can do to stay. Julie points out that Aurora has a better chance of winning immunity than Julie does and that Julie is a safer bet to take to the final 3. Earlier on the reward challenge we already saw that Lauren is more inclined to keep Julie because of their connection. Lauren said she would talk to Gavin and see what they can do. Gavin seems on board with the plan but only wants to do it if Victoria is in, so he will go talk to her about it. Victoria doesn’t think it is a smart move, she thinks it is too soon to go after Aurora. Gavin just tells her that he is with her whatever she wants to do.

TRIBAL COUNCIL

So much of this Tribal revolved around Devens, even though he was the only safe person. Everyone was talking about the effects of Devens winning immunity and what it did to the plan, because it was very clear Devens was the target. Julie talks about how she knew the attention was going to shift to her as soon as he won. Jeff essentially goes person to person and has them talk about how much they want Devens out. Jeff asks Devens how he feels about this, and he just starts talking about everyone being paranoid and shadowing him and how they lost him. Devens says that when he was hiding, he found some interesting things. Aurora is asked what she thinks of that and she says she doesn’t even listen to 90% of the stuff he says.

Jeff asks Devens what he thinks of all this attention. Devens says there is all this talk about the tight 4, which it is actually a tight 3 and even if Aurora doesn’t want to admit it, she is on the outside of that 3. His point is that there shouldn’t be so much attention on him alone, but this strong 3 that are going to get to the end if unchecked. Devens decides to stir things up by pulling out his hidden immunity idol. He tells everyone he is going to use it on Julie and the two of them are voting for one of the 4. Everyone is rolling their eyes and Aurora says she doesn’t even know if it’s a real idol, or if he is going to play it. Also, even if he plays it, it still would be 4-1 odds. Devens makes a declaration in front of the Jury that it could very well be 3-3 with EOE coming back, extending an alliance offer to the EOE member before they are even back in the game.

Jeff’s last question is to Devens, asking him about his bravado, that if getting voted out once has brought this on. He says absolutely, that he went out so quietly and quickly the first time, but that he will go all out this time. Now it’s time to vote! Devens of course doesn’t use his idol, and it actually doesn’t matter because Aurora gets the axe. She is shocked and asks “How do you all fall for reverse psychology!?”.

Now…there is a lot of poo pooing Devens because the last couple weeks he didn’t actually control the vote or anything, but it looks like he is making great moves. The theory is the vote was going to be Aurora, not Julie, coming into Tribal. If I remember right, the name of the show is Survivor…and the goal is to survive to the end. Who gives a fuck how it’s done? Devens won immunity, and found an idol, which then forced the Aurora vote. Regardless of how Aurora was out, it was a direct cause of his actions. Just like the elimination next week will be a direct cause of his actions. Putting on the show for the Jury is part of the game and how you get the votes to win. If you are a purist and don’t like how he is using idols, be mad at the producers introducing them into the game, not Devens using the tools provided to him. Also, if you are coming up with conspiracy theories that production is giving them to Devens, just stop. People who think production cares or manipulates the winner are irrational and really overestimate production’s stake in who wins as opposed to having a good show. Which by the way, having a popular person get cut is good content.

That’s all for this week everyone! Hope everyone has a great weekend. Do some fun stuff and get ready for Game of Thrones on Sunday…bye!