BBCAN: The Game Begins

I'm Brooks MacLachlan, someone who for some reason thinks his obsession with Big Brother in recent years makes him qualified enough to judge those who are actually playing the game. I analyze everything I can: the episodes, interviews with eliminated players, side show, and occasionally the live feeds to come up with the motivations behind what each player has done. I decide what should have happened, because I obviously know best, and I predict what should and what will happen in each player’s future in the game. And I’ll probably get it right every time because that’s just how I am.

Technically, two weeks have passed in the second season of Big Brother Canada 2, but it wasn't until this latest week that it truly felt like the game had begun. There's a lot to talk about strategy-wise, so let's get right into it, shall we?

The main question for the majority of the houseguests this week was whether it would be better to evict Paul or Kyle. As these two were arguably my two least favourite players this season, I was absolutely thrilled. And then Kyle had to suddenly become this really great guy and ruin the moment. In the end, it was Kyle who was booted for being the bigger threat. Many have pointed out that simply having muscles doesn't actually make you much of a threat in the Big Brother house, and while this is true I still think the house made the right move in evicting Kyle over Paul. I think it's safe to say that Kyle would be a bigger threat in physical challenges, while Paul would be a bigger threat in mental ones, so challenge-wise they're actually pretty even. But Kyle is clearly the more likeable of the two. He was on the outs, but it seemed that whenever someone got to know him, they were surprised by how nice he was. Paul, on the other hand, is probably the least liked in the house. Plus, he'd proved his strategic incompetence in the first week. He's not a threat in any sense of the word. 

Paul's strategy to "be the bad guy" after being nominated followed his habit of making absolutely terrible game moves. While it's true that people may want to bring unlikeable people to the end, you can't be so unlikeable that the other players literally can't stand living with you. To Paul's credit, he seems to have realized his mistakes and is making some good steps towards recovery. In Thursday night's episode, he apologized to Andrew and admitted that he acted out of line this week, and that he was not going to do that again. I don't think Paul is going to recover fully from his early blunders. He still won't win, and really I still don't see him making the jury. But his decision to admit he was wrong rather than stand by what he'd said previously will take some of the heat off him and may buy him a few more weeks. 

Right now, the First Five alliance seems to be in control of the house. But resentment building up against Andrew may spell the end for this alliance. Last week, I was impressed with Kenny, but this week I'm starting to think once again that he won't be around for very long. He is driven to win competitions, which really has no value this early in the game and only serves to make the target on his back bigger. He's very close with Andrew, and so it seems reasonable that some of the hate towards Andrew may be directed at Kenny as well. I will say that his move to test Heather's loyalty by feeding her false information was crafty and effective. But I'm not sure it was really necessary. Carrying out the plan involved explaining it to Rachelle, who is now aware that Kenny is playing a sneakily strategic game. Plus, if Heather giving information to Rachelle makes her untrustworthy, doesn't that mean that Kenny doesn't consider Rachelle a close ally? Unless Kenny has some secret alliance with Rachelle that Heather doesn't know about, I would be wary to continue trusting Kenny wholeheartedly if I were Rachelle. Plus, the fact that Kenny smokes immediately makes me like him less.

While Kenny has disappointed me this week, Jon has really impressed me. I loved the scene where he and Neda were in the bedroom talking about the others. Both he and Neda have a good strategic sense and they can be a deadly team in this game. With the target on Andrew and Kenny's backs getting bigger, the First Five alliance may soon lose power, and I can see Jon and Neda controlling things behind the scenes. Neda was my pre-season pick to win and she's still doing well. She went on the block but didn't do anything crazy. Her crying probably only reinforced in the others' heads that she's not a threat.

Arlie, my other pre-season favourite, is doing well too. He's in the First Five alliance but doesn't appear to have the target on his back that Kenny and Andrew do. He hasn't been involved in any conflicts and his pre-season cockiness doesn't appear to be prevalent in his interactions with the other houseguests. My one complaint with Arlie is that he hasn't hidden the fact that he's there to win. From the day the game started, everyone knew that Arlie was a giant Big Brother fan. His move this week to overdramatically throw the HoH competition may have had the desired effect-- to appear weak and gain sympathy-- on some houseguests, but it may also have shown them that Arlie is someone who will never give up. If he tried that hard just to win the HoH competition, to what measures will he go to avoid elimination? Arlie may have simultaneously decreased the "competition threat" target on his back and increased the "strategic threat" one.

Other players that have impressed me are Ika and Rachelle. We haven't seen a lot of either of their strategic games, but the little we saw of Rachelle on Sunday night's episode told me that she had more game sense than I had initially thought. When she was told by Heather that Kenny didn't trust her, instead of taking her word for it, she checked with Kenny to see what was going on. She seems concerned simply with making everyone like her and trust her, and if she succeeds at this she'll be able to make the big moves when she needs to later in the game. Ika has a louder personality, but we haven't seen any houseguests say they didn't like her, which tells me that they enjoy her personality. Or the editing just isn't showing any annoyance the others have of her. Either way, she's funny in the diary room so I hope she sticks around. Plus, she may be bold enough to target Andrew and Kenny with her HoH reign this week, which would be a lot of fun.

The last thing we saw this week was Allison entering the house. First of all, I was shocked by this because these "[Insert country here] votes!" twists never seem to go my way. I am so excited to see Alison play the game, and she joins Neda and Arlie as my favourites. We saw her beginning to come up with her story when she met the houseguests, and it will be really interesting to see how the others react to her appearance. She'll surely have a target on her back for entering the game late, but she's knowledgeable when it comes to Big Brother, and I don't doubt that she can survive this week and making a deep run in the game, and maybe even win (I would not be able to say the same had Scott entered the house. The fact that he's such a huge personality paired with the target he'd have for entering the game late would almost surely result in his elimination next Thursday)

That's all for this week! What are your thoughts on the season so far? Sound off with a comment!