The week of Memphis (and why do the “jock” type white males always win early? Whyyyyyyyy?) proved to be more watchable than expected, although that was mainly because the end result wasn’t terrible.
Who won?
Memphis targeting David and Nicole A. wasn’t initially terrible–and while Nicole A. didn’t suffer an epic meltdown about it, her meltdown rated about a 5 on the Big Brother meltdown scale. She exhibited several of the steps: paranoia, acting out, bouts of anger, learned helplessness, and, seemingly, acceptance. But none of it really made for good television, because most of the time it came with a heavy dose of irritation. By week’s end, she was snapping at her biggest allies in the house, Kaysar and Janelle, deciding they were hurting her more than helping her.
Who else won? Maybe Memphis. I may not like him, but his early idea to not just help his alliance but really help himself and Cody… was that everybody else in the house should play the Safety Suite game mid-week to try to earn immunity for themselves and one person. His framing it to the house as “no one should feel safe and it lets me know you’re taking the game seriously” worked perfectly on an already-paranoid house. Convincing several of his own alliance to play so the rest of the house wouldn’t know his alliance was also smart, with him ultimately admitting the real reason was so that no one would have a chance to play for the Safety Suite again while increasing his own chances of winning safety in a future week.
On one level, Memphis “broke” Big Brother’s big twist of the Safety Suite. He convinced so many players (Christmas, Cody, Kevin, Da’Vonne, Bayleigh, David) to waste their Safety Suite ticket –Kaysar and Janelle have already used theirs– so only a few players have a ticket left. This was confirmed Thursday when Julie Chen announced “Safety Suite” would surprisingly end this week (instead of keeping it going all season long). It can’t keep going if there are no players to play. But as my wife so astutely pointed out, we can’t blame Memphis for outsmarting the game. It’s a bold game play move.
Memphis also proved to be the superstar of the week because he won the Power of Veto on Wednesday. The competition was an endurance challenge where players had to balance a ball on a large paddle in front of them. Last one who kept their ball on the paddle won Veto, and Memphis ultimately outlasted David and kept the nominations the same.
The most enthusiastic moment of the week went to Christmas. Yes, she was in the alliance that didn’t need to win the Safety Suite to control the house–but she’s been out of the game for several years and couldn’t wait to jump into a competition. And she won the silly Safety Suite competition of balancing drinks on tables that wobbled and swayed. Because of an earlier conversation with Ian, she saved Ian as her “plus one” in the competition, which briefly irritated her own alliance until HoH Memphis decided to nominate Nicole A. and David.
The Goofball of the week award goes to Ian–his “punishment” for being the “plus one” saved by Christmas in the Safety Suite was to perform scenes throughout the house–sometimes in day–sometimes in night–and be critiqued by an actor who ridiculed him. These lighter moments were juxtaposed with the serious conversations we had this week–Bayleigh and Da’Vonne talking about race in America. Bayleigh discussed moments of being discriminated against and Da’Vonne discussed how she taught her young daughter all about the Black Lives Matter movement and its importance. While we don’t get enough of these moments in BB, it’s nice to see some (and you get a sense that some of these house guests may need to hear these messages).
Ultimately, Nicole A. seemed to irritate her own alliance and her enemies… so David survived this week. She did have an emotional moment with Julie when she realized that Janelle truly had her back the whole week (at which point all of America was yelling at the TV’s to Nicole… why didn’t you believe Janelle??) but the game marches on. Sadly, we’ve already seen the entire HoH competition, and there will be no shake up this week…or will there be? If later in the game, Tyler would be in a great place to make a move, but this early he’s likely to stick to his alliance.
The problem with this season is everyone seems comfortable. The Safety Suite hasn’t produced any particular twist of note. So let’s hope the producers do something to create some added fun. And soon.
-
Overall Score
