realitea bites Veto Aftermath

[BigBrotherHBIC]

Come spill the RealiTea with me and take a bite out of the insanity that has been week 1 of Big Brother.  I know its been a few days since my last blog but in all honesty there is so much going on every time I find an angle and prepare to serve a hot fresh pot of RealiTea, everything is upside down again!  With eviction night tonight and the holiday behind us we need to try and dissect the house and player’s current statuses. The RealiTea is…this has been the most explosive week in BB history!

 

For those who aren’t up to speed on the current game I am going to focus on all the Tea spilt since the veto ceremony.  Cody is still HOH although we are finally at a point in his reign where essentially his HOH is over.  Sadly, he and Jessica have bunkered down in the HOH room isolating themselves since the veto competition.  Flashback of Nicole and Cory anyone?  Or the Willet sisters and the sloth? For the record, when you become HOH don't isolate yourself from other players.  HOH ends and hen you re most vulnerable the week that follows when you aren't allowed to compete.  Enjoy the occasional opportunity to escape the patients intros insane asylum but like Hotel California you can't check out.   Cody and Jessica will be in for a huge culture shock when they must head back down stairs tomorrow and integrate with the other HG’s.  Even worse they destroyed the advantage they had with the odds of 8 people winning the next HOH and having the ability to use this as their personal retreat in the weeks ahead.  I am actually grateful for that I loathe the seasons where one power alliance overruns the HOH room because it's terrible for their long term game.  In this scenario Cody and Jessica and their choices to ignore everyone else and isolate themselves in the personal love den they dubbed the HOH room for the past two weeks is seen as a plus, I didn't like their odds preseason and now that we've seen them in the house I personally like them even less. 

 

Since the veto meeting fall out Cody has spent the last week sending Jessica downstairs to search out intel, or relay messages, and his absence is noted by those he was aligned with and others.  Now on the one hand Cody has zero social skills so it’s not entirely a terrible idea to allow her to be the front man of this duo but this is a huge mistake players make in the game.  You can’t just build paths to friendship and communication with those you like or aligned with.  Arguably its even more important for players to lay a foundation socially with those that are their perceived enemies. Cody however realized quickly after the explosive Veto ceremony that his self title 'Maverick' game move move was not only a terrible idea but the manner in which he did so was splitting up the couples as a result.  In Cody’s mind whatever he did his team was supposed to fall in line and just accept his marching orders.  He's not the first HOH to make this error, its similar to Becky’s move in BB18 taking a big shot during her HOH without confirming whether she had the votes to secure Vanessa’s eviction. I appreciate having a player that was willing to take a big shot, but this is a hard lesson to learn that just because Vets or the largest threat needs to go, doesn’t mean they will or even should for that matter.  Your first weeks should be spent forming relationships, getting to know the other players, and listening more than talking.  This entire scenario goes back to what I conveyed about week 1.  You have no idea who you are dealing with.  You haven’t had time to really put players under a microscope and make informed decisions.   As we all saw, Cody made a critical error in judgement.

 

My cup runneth over when Alex wins the veto last week forcing Cody to nominate yet another HG.  This is the one area I sympathize with Cody for the blink of an eye.  Megan’s sudden exit forces him to replace Megan with Alex.  Alex wins POV so now he has to nominate a 4th HG in one week.  What Cody also didn’t give enough forethought and weight to when analyzing the game and his best move was considering that potentially a HG accepted the reward in the den of temptation.  So, when he makes a BOLD move without anyone is his group knowing, attempts to nominate Paul when Alex comes off the block with the veto he had never even ran through the possibility that Paul may have it and make a contingency plan. Cody is blindsided along with everyone on his team to his actual decision to take a shot at Paul only to be served up the pendant of protection eliminating the chance to backdoor Paul.  Now Cody is on his 5th nomination and takes a swing at Christmas suggesting she, like Jillian was to Megan, is the closest ally to Paul and it was the only option he had left at this point. Finally, when all is said and done we are left with Jillian and Christmas OTB for eviction night.  Cody sings the poor me song all week about having to nominate 5 players this week but that falls on deaf ears with me.  It would have only been a 3rd nominee if he had listened to his alliance and just nominated Jason.  Boo hoo, suck it up buttercup it’s your own fault.

 

Jessica on the other hand has been making brief appearances in between her constant mounting of Cody in the HOH room but the tides have risen and fallen with her and her status in the game after Cody named the replacement nominee after Alex won POV.  Jessica was in the dark just as much as the other couples, and Dominique prior to Cody’s insane idea to blindside his entire alliance by ignoring their collective suggestion to nominate Jason as the replacement nominee.  The showmance alliance, minus Cody all believed it was the 6 people in couple land plus Dom, Paul and Christmas in the short term.  Cody didn’t tell anyone what he planned to do.  Initially, Jessica is furious at the move but she is quick to say, it is what it is now we have to go ahead and vote Christmas out because she’s up there and Cody put targets on all of our backs.  Mark is in agreement initially, what’s done is done and now we have to make the hard play to go ahead and vote Christmas out.  No what any of them wanted to do but what’s done is done and we need to take a step back and make a new play book.  

 

Jessica being the kind of player she is, in less than a day, the anger and betrayal she felt initially about Cody's nominations is overcome by hormones and desperation for a man’s attention and forgets where she is.  What she could have done was distance herself from Cody the same way everyone else in their power alliance did and actively do some damage control. Even if she had told Cody, look, I’m with you but here’s what I have to do for the rest of the week and at the very least spend the majority of her time downstairs with everyone else repaving some roads that were demolished by Cody’s move. Cody expects complete and total loyalty and her burning loins smothered any cerebral understanding that she is playing a game for $500k.  We will nibble on the details of the status of each of the ‘showmances’ later.  There’s so much game to cover for now.

 

As soon as the consequences of Cody’s renom unfold, Matt and Raven decide they are done with that group, they want nothing to do with Cody, he is poison and all bets are off.  They pledge their allegiance to Christmas promising her their vote for her to stay. These two were the most outraged at the selfishness of Cody’s move and haven’t swayed on their stance since it happened.  What’s different about these two is they are much more subtle about blending in to the rest of the house.  They don’t make a big scene about it, eventually Matt has a one on one conversation after the dust settles asking cody to explain why he felt taking a shot at Paul without making sure he had the votes.  Cody’s response, I thought I had the votes.  His attitude is that he gave marching orders and it never occurred to him that his soldiers wouldn’t follow orders.  

 

Personally, I think this is the best thing that could have happened to Matt’s and Raven’s games right now.  Clean break from Cody early and prevents accumulation of missed kill shots that are tallied on them by way of Cody.  They don’t position themelve as Jessica has to be the way to attack Cody is by nominating them so as far as I can see they are the smartest of the large group this week.  Raven and Matt are friendly with everyone and keep a low profile all week focusing on socializing and not beating the dead horse of the actions of Cody.  You see people quickly forget they were aligned with Cody when he did this and blend right back into the backrground.  In my preseason analysis of these two (indivudually) who were both in my top HG with longevity becasue they can blend in and not draw attention to themselves with other big targets by way of attention seeking personalities. As far as the fallout Matt and Raven are the prize winners in the break up.  I will share more about the statis of the ‘showmance’ and how these two measure up later.  Matt and Raven have done an excellent job of interegrating themeselves in the house with all people but have slowly shifted gears, ready to contiue to work with Paul and Christmas who they wanted in their origianl allinace unlike Cody. Paul does a masterful job, the first two days after the fallout, of assuring them he holds no grudge against them and wants to work with them moving forward and ththemselvese current task is to do all they can to ensure Christmas stays.  I like a Matt, Raven, Paul, Christmas foursome if they can mange to save Christmas this week.  Yes, it’s Paul’s primary goal to save Christmas because its good for his game.  She has developed a strong connection to Paul, she’s a physical threat and can help them win comps, and she’s locked in on getting Cody and Jesica out of the house now which means the focus on Paul will continue to diminish.  For Raven and Matt making this transition is an asset.  Now they have Cody and Jessica as big targets ahead of them, while Cody and Jessica are focused on Paul, Christmas and for Jesica Alex ahead of them as shields we also have Paul and Christmas zeroed in on Cody and Christmas.  These two are in good positions as week 1 comes to an end.  Cody may be crying upstairs that Matt and Raven turned on him but even doing so Paul and Christmas are higher priority than Matt and Raven and if by some unexpected turn Matt or Raven become nominees they can go back to Cody and play the you are the reason we are here and you need to help us crawl out of the hole you dug for us. 

 

 

Mark and Elena are just as appalled.  Initially,  Mark takes a more subtle approach, telling Cody he doesn’t like what he did but a this point you’ve done it.  Mark, like Jessica initially accepts that they have to vote Christmas out because she won’t just come for Cody because she doubts whether the group was in the dark and you’ve put us all in danger.  Elena was more middle of the road she hates the move and really upset about the position Cody put everyone in.  Ironically, on the LF we see Elena talking with Mark later that day after the veto ceremony and she sees the rationale of voting out Christmas.   She comes around to the idea that what is done is done. Mark was absolute in his convictions initially and shares that with Elena in a way that allows her to land on the side of voting Christmas out even though she’s not happy about it.  

 

Unfortunately, when Mark begins to struggle with whether it’s the right move because he likes Christmas and is feeling a little guilty about voting his ‘friend’ out.   This gradual shift creates some questions in Elena’s mind about whether she can count on Mark or if he is too easily swayed by others (mainly Dominque).  This becomes a larger issue as the week continues because suddenly we have some distance beginning to develop between Mark and Elena over this entire situation.  Mark and Dom are close and spend a lot of time talking game.  Elena and mark are close and she is counting on being a ‘duo’ all the while trying to act like she’s not.  What feeds shows us as the week goes on is that Mark is all in on the Elena ‘relationship’ train but not playing for he and Elena.  Elena on the other hand is all in on the Mark and Elena duo in the game but always side stepping the ‘relationship’ part of the package teasing Mark and flirting but then keeping him at arms length.  Dominique is smart.  She sees this dance Elena is doing and uses it to create some doubt in Mark’s mind drawing him closer and more invested in his allegiance to Dom in the game creating some internal confusion for Mark. While this could be a very masterful manipulation on Dom’s part, she underestimates Elena’s instincts and the fact that others in the house are paying attention to Mark and Dom’s growing friendship and begin to use this to drive a wedge between Elena and Mark all the while developing a target all of a sudden on Dom.  Dom has blended in gracefully until this storm begins to build and we see her on 4th of July show her emotional side after a false rumor is spread that there was a banner outside suggesting that Mark and Dom have an alliance.  There was no banner, BB would have called for a lockdown and this made up plane banner scenario will find some others in hot water.  The RealiTea is that if you are going to lielie the most important element is that there must be some small grain of truth to make it believable.  Saying there was a banner in a house here so many players know BB, and how production handles it was a terrible idea!  Had there been some random sudden lockdown then they may have been able to float this lie, but in the absence of that it was never going to fly with this cast.

 

 

Now that we’ve taken a large bite of how the showmances faired after Cody’s attempt to measure himself in front of everyone only to be laughed ooutut of the locker room, let’s discus Paul since he is at the center of this all.  Paul handles the entire veto ceremony blindside and attempted backdoor by Cody perfectly right after it happens.  We see during the ceremony Paul doesn’t go off half cocked and give us some OTT reaction to being nominated.  He is humble and matter of fact as he reveals the pendant of protection which is perfect in this case!  While he was upset and certainly didn’t want to have to use the pendant of protection (revealing that he accepted the temptation and has safety for 3 weeks) he doesn’t react emotionally or explosively.  We are able to see him on the feeds minutes after the ceremony having a calm, rational, well expressed dialogue with Cody privately.   As I watched it happen I was so impressed with how Paul handled it all.  He serves Cody some ‘alternate facts’ to consider based on what Cody says about how Paul’s presence with the group creates chaos in his mind and as Cody repeatedly tries to imply ‘others’ made it clear to him they didn’t trust Paul he doesn’t go hard for receipts.  

 

Paul does exactly what a smart player should, he files that away in his mind and keeps that topic seperate from Cody’s actions.  Paul is being 100% truthful in this entire covnersation and understands Cody’s personality type so doesn’t directly challenge him trying to prove that Cody was wrong.  As the week unfolds Paul shifts his approach and I don’t like how he becomes a bit aggressive in his tactics both in RealiTea and in other HG’s minds.  He is not going hard and fast like a crazy man but as the shift unfolds with the collapse of the power alliance he had easily slid into a new fold where half of that alliance plus  a couple players (Kevin, Alex, and Jason) from the outside alliance gravitate towards him, because he handles it so well.  So what changes?  Christmas!  Christmas gets injured in the BY on Monday and this throws the house into chaos all over again!  

 

Monday morning durign the wake up music Jason and Christmas were doing their normal ritual dancing around and playing cowboys.  Christmas hopped on Jason’s back for a ‘bull ride’ and Jason slips on the grass bringing them both crashing to the ground.  I won’t go deep into tevrything that happens but the bottom lineis Christmas broke her foot in to places.  She has to be taken tot he hospital returns 6 houseparaters later on crutches. While she is gone being examined the HG spend the day pondering whether she can return, running possible scenarios if she cannot.  Would Cody have to nominate yet another HG?  That’s all we see all day Monday is everyone’s response to another unexpected event.  Christmas had an MRI on Wednesday confirming she has a broken foot and has decided to remain in the game.  Paul went into crisis mode for fear players would shift over to the side of sending her home because she’s a wounded animal and better to just put her out of her misery.  This makes Paul go to work which would be fine if he wasn’t working too hard.  This house is now full of paranoid players caught up in a tornado for 16 days straight and he isn’t slowing down enough to read people’s reactions to his approach.  He sees some things but rather than slow down and consider how to counter it he just rushes back in trying to clarify and that in many instances does more harm than good because a few HGT see him pushing to hard and either don’t like it or see it as an opportunity to bring attention to Paul once again because they had shined the light on themselves and want a distraction.  

 

Ramses and Jillian are the ones who keep stirring up issues that these savvy HG are quick to identify.  Both eavesdropping and running intel back to both sides.  Ramses is always lingering and listening which isn’t always a bad approach.  I mean Andy won BB 15 using this strategy.  The difference is that Ramses isn’t integrated into the covo’s.  He rarely offers any input into conversations and this is far to obvious to others.  He is easily labeled a floater trying to play both sides and he needs to take a step back and focus on his executions not his goal.  Andy and Steve for that matter were very good at floating intel around the house.  Andy however was always a part of the discussions.  Ramses is not.  He needs to develop some investments from others and become apart of the group rather than constantly fluttering by obviously so that everyone knows exactly what he is doing.  Jillian does much of the same but much more desperately.   They both need to take a page from Kevin’s play book and gain valuable information by invitation and then sift through what’s relevant valuable information and who it should be relayed to.  The indirect causality in all of this scheming is Alex.  She was seen as one of the stronger players and being purposeful in her game talk but now like many fans has whiplash from all the back and forth without the advantage we have of seeing everything.  She is only able to see small bits and crumbs and with so much unfolding so fast she’s drawing inaccurate conclusions. 

 

Paul and cody have both offered their ‘friendship’.  Cody out of desperation and Paul out of genuine plans to move forward with her in the game. She flip flops like Reef sandals all week and already doesn’t possess the most subtle delivery in her opinions.  If I were Alex I would consider this-Cody offered me a deal and is floating the idea he could have targeted her and her people but he didn’t and now she should trust him and be willing to work with him.  The problem here is he did target her and her side of the house.  He put 3 people in her squad up and only because she won POV is he now selling her beach front property in Kansas.  Paul may be trying to save Christmas, but if he’s offering her a group that includes the wall she needs to prevent her from being a repeated target isn’t this the better both of two questionable choices?  I hope she slows down and stops giving into her paranoid delusions that seemed to have been infecting her since Cody came in contact with her.  

 

Most of the week the house had been in an even split down the middle with the votes.  A tie would mean Cody can be the final say and send Christmas home.  Yesterday however the tide shifted a bit and the numbers appeared to be leaning in Christmas favor of staying.  The broken foot may have hurt her long term game but the short term game it became a benefit gaining sympathy from so many HG. The best thing that can happen for her right now is for Paul to chill out and let the house land on the side of sympathy.  Christmas made it clear she wants Cody and Jessica out.  She wont be able to compete in majority of comps and this makes her far less of a threat in the early weeks.  Let it be Paul. Jillian hasn’t made any friends and sometimes doing nothing is the best thing.  There you have it!  The RealiTea is that every week the votes change from hour to hour and it’s important not to get sucked into things early on because they will change.  Thanks for enjoying the enormous bites we’ve had in the house this week and I will be back later today to spill the tea on player’s standings in the game and how the relationships have shifted.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 6, 2017 by BigBrotherHBIC
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