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Thursday, November 10, 2016

Last Night's Cluster...

What a weird night! If there ever was a Big Brother eviction night that was both entertaining AND troubling it was last night's double eviction. In some ways it was a complete shit show, but it was also one of the most interesting nights of game play I've seen in quite some time.

The night begins with an egregious error by the production team. In the late afternoon, the house was summoned to watch some videos to prepare for the night's HOH competition. At the end of it, a piece of diary room footage was accidentally aired to the entire house. The clip that aired was Shelby talking about taking her LSAT. Her reaction was pure fury, and she stormed off to the diary room. Remember, she has been keeping her law school history a secret from everybody (except the sisters she revealed it to yesterday). She was also pissed because her time spent in the diary room didn't allow her to assist Morgan and Alex study.

Due to this incident, during the week recap episode the house got another chance to watch the vids, which I believed were altered a bit. The eviction then happened, and Alex was out as expected.

Shortly after, the doorbell rang and the Redheaded Monster arrived to host the next HOH. Ugh, why do I have to endure Rachel again? This comp was about the vids they had just viewed, which were all about the "Big Brother Shopping Network". Justin missed one question, but everybody else correctly picked True or False on each question. The tiebreaker then was the total cost of ALL of the items, and we had our second controversy of the night. When Rachel asked for answers, Danielle continued to figure out her answer. It was another 20 seconds or so before she locked in her answer, and of course she won. Really, though, we've seen others over the years try to get as much time as possible so I had no issue with it. If Danielle had been disqualified, Morgan would not have won so it's really a moot point.

The phone lines were then opened to vote for the next care package. As this went on, the divide in the house was predictable. Morgan and Shelby cried and cried, while the Misfits babbled. Well, Danielle babbled, and the rest listened and giggled.

It was approximately 90 minutes later when the shrieking America's Care Package voice came on, and everybody ran outside. This is where it was once again a bit confusing, and if you're on a certain side it was a rigged event. The Care Package we were voting on was the actual POV, and it was awarded to Morgan. However, not only did this POV make her safe from nomination, but also allowed her to use it to save a person.

That's not exactly what the public was voting on, and the main issue was the timing. All season, the care packages have been awarded before nominations, while the POV obviously happens AFTER nomination. These two acts being combined raises many issues. It's my belief that the care package should have been dropped before nominations as usual, but it should have not been opened until afterwards. They could have announced who won it, and then the strategy between all players could have included the theories as to the contents of the care package.

Oh well. If you're into drama and strategy, this did create some fun. Before it dropped, the girls knew that one of them was going home. Shelby's tears were more about the fact that she'd be alone with all of these people she hated. But Morgan winning saved both of them, and their tears turned into celebrations.

After a bit of time where the other group felt sorry for themselves (especially a tearful Whitney), Danielle went to talk to Morgan and Shelby. Well, she mainly talked. Knowing she was going to have to evict one of her team, Danielle's only demand was that Jason be kept safe. Eventually they decided that Whitney and Justin would be the nominees. When Jason was brought in, Shelby even joked "I don't trust you but I'll work with you."

In tears, Danielle then nominated Whitney and Justin. We had another few minutes of strategy, but none of it involved either nominee. In fact, Justin spent that other time trying to cheer up Whitney, who was convinced she was going home. Meanwhile, Jason and Danielle were sort of arguing with Morgan and Shelby over who should be evicted. The girls wanted Justin out, while Danielle/Jason were worried that Whitney may slide back to the girl's side if she was saved. Ultimately, Danielle said she'd decide at the moment she had to break the tie.

The vote then happened, and Danielle broke the predicted tie by...evicting Whitney!!! Hallelujah!!! It's such a fabulous move!!! Whit the Twit is gone!!!

At this point, I went to bed. This turned out to be the best move given what happened over the next six or so hours. The HOH comp actually started not long after Whitney's departure. It was a maze-ish setup where each contestant had to position mirrors to reflect a laser beam to hit a target. Jason was first, and finished at 8:14. Morgan was next and her time was 11:27. Kryssie also struggled, but finished at 11:57.

This is when things get interesting. It was now Shelby's turn, and at first it seems that she has not managed to beat Jason's time. For three hours, we had no idea what was going on. Poor Kryssie (and this is the only time I'll ever write those two words together) was stuck in the storage room, while the others were in rooms with beds.

Here's a video of what happened during Shelby's run:


After all of this waiting, Justin finally started the competition at 3:40 am. In a move that shocked nobody, Justin timed out at 20 minutes. He is just the worst at competition!!! Or is he even trying? That's what everybody wants to know.

So it seemed like Jason had won HOH. But then came the official announcement. Shelby had a mirror malfunction (broke), and production had determined the breakage happened at 7:23. Because of this issue, the two would be having a face-off tonight (Thursday) to determine the HOH.

This is when the online world went nuts. Rigging, conspiracies, and incompetence are just a few of the words thrown around ever since this happened. Many feel that production is trying to rig this for Shelby, and it also wasn't fair to Justin to have to wait so long.

Everybody needs to just settle down. Let's take a look at this from the perspective of a person who doesn't care who wins or loses this game. There's the obvious question that I ask anytime somebody believes there is interference from production. Why would they want Shelby to win? Why would they not want Danielle to win? Or Justin?

Here's what I think happened. An unforeseen incident happened at almost one in the morning. A solution must be immediately determined that is fair to everyone, but nothing was going to please everybody. There's also a piece of equipment that must be replaced, which may not be easy to do in the middle of the night. Even after replacing the mirror, there has to be some testing to ensure that the laser would properly work with this new mirror. Hell, the person in charge of the setup may have even gone home for the night. We don't know.

I'm pleading with my friends to take emotion out of last night's incidents. This is not Trump versus Clinton. It's a handful of twenty-somethings playing a TV game show, and overall this has been a fabulous season. Why does it matter who wins?

6 comments:

  1. Excellent article. I'm glad you included all the details and then shared some common sense perspective. Thanks, Scott. A very well done summary.

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  2. BBOTT, you are wrong about nom times from Dani she did not make a single nom till after Care pack was revealed & made deals with Morgan knowing MO & Shelby safe she had to save LNJ best she could & always Care pack comes in afternoon before Safety ceremony/ Noms!

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  3. That is exactly what I said.

    And thanks Kelly.

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  4. Scott, you wrote "If Danielle had been disqualified, Morgan would not have won so it's really a moot point." Mike (@BBGossip) and I were talking about this at lunch today, and I think disqualification of Danielle could have had a profound impact on the game. My understanding from the twittersphere (admittedly, haven't myself gone back to verify this) is that Whitney would have won HOH during the double eviction if Danielle had been disqualified. As HOH, Whitney would probably have nominated Danielle and Jason, right? So the evening's outcome could have been very, very different — Whitney would still be there and Danielle (probably) would have been evicted.

    That said, I'm not crying foul here because there is apparently no built-in time limit for answering tie-breaker questions in true-false quiz comps like that. Kryssie, Whitney, and Morgan happened to finish their answers in about the same amount of time, and Rachel did repeatedly ask Danielle to lock her answer in (and Danielle took another 20 seconds). But I can't remember even Julie disqualifying someone for taking too long in similar comps. (But obviously my #BB memory is shorter than yours. Has it happened?)

    Going forward, to ensure fairness, I believe production should use a countdown timer (60 seconds or whatever) on tie-breaker questions so that they're all allotted the same maximum time.

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  5. There's always threats but never a DQ. "Answers please" followed by a "I need an answer" and still more hesitation. Which is exactly what Rachel did last night. Wait, am I defending the red headed monster?

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  6. Great update! Especially for those of us who had to give up before the end result and go to bed for work. One note: the houseguests didn't actually SEE the DR leak, it was just audio from the produced show that was leaked into the house. The way it's written reads as if they saw the footage after they watched the shopping network package

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