Big Brother 11, Week 3
Ronnie Rides Again
By Eric Hughes
August 3, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
This time last week, the house wanted him shipped out chiefly for being a manipulative rat. Turns out he had a lone supporter in Jessie, who also conveniently was this week's Head of Household. Because Jessie realized he personally held no grudges against Ronnie, he simply extended the video gamer's 15 minutes of fame.
Folks, Ronnie rides again.
Instead of our beloved, backstabbing dough boy, it was the easy going Casey who got the boot this week – banana suit and all. (We'll get to that).
And with Russell earning HoH duties for Big Brother's next week of gameplay, the Athletes are destined to maintain their stranglehold on the game, right? Well, not exactly.
At the close of Thursday's live episode, Julie announced that Big Brother's Athletes/Populars/Brains/Offbeats cliques would be dissolved. Even more, she introduced a new power to the game – the Power of Coup D'etat – which must be used by one HouseGuest (as chosen by America) in the next two weeks. With the power, one lucky player will have the ability to assemble a more personalized Chopping Block minutes before a live vote.
You set? Let's get to the recap.
Week 3 at a glance
Head of Household: Jessie
HouseGuests nominated for eviction (pre-veto): Jordan and Michele
Power of Veto winner: Michele
PoV used on: Michele
HouseGuests nominated for eviction (post-veto): Jordan and Casey
HouseGuest evicted live on Thursday: Casey
Who should have been evicted: Jordan
New HoH: Russell
HouseGuests remaining: 10 (Chima, Jeff, Jessie, Jordan, Kevin, Lydia, Michele, Natalie, Ronnie, Russell)
"It's an easy week, Jessie. Stick to the script... send the rat home" – Casey
The rat in this case is, of course, Ronnie, a scheming, dishonest HouseGuest who has managed up to this point to evade eviction – even after enduring dubiously shameful incidents like locking himself in the HoH room for 48 hours to avoid confrontations of any kind.
He's the house's most dangerous enemy, and the player everyone loves to hate. Everyone except Jessie, who secured the power this week to toss whomever he wanted out the door.
As Sunday came to a close, it wasn't Ronnie and a pawn on the Chopping Block, but surprisingly Jordan and Michele – two quiet-as-a-church-mouse types who allegedly didn't do a thing to validate their nominations.
On Ronnie, Casey would later say: "This dude's like a cat, man. He's got nine lives."
Margarita parties and banana suits
Heading into the week's Power of Veto competition, the HouseGuests adorned full-body, pink spandex suits, complete with a oversized round nose. They were supposed to look like pigs. The game called for HouseGuests to swing into a pit of mud and collect four personal pizza-sized objects that each had a number (from one to ten) printed on their underbellies.
With Ronnie sitting out, players like Casey assumed Jessie was planning to backdoor Ronnie at the evening's PoV ceremony. Considering himself safe, Casey told Jordan she "can have: the competition. He also played the game half-assed, electing to gamble a little by picking a mystery envelope to be opened at the end of the game and choosing to host a margarita party at a later date in lieu of tallying a fourth number.
Little did Casey know, Jessie had no plan to backdoor Ronnie. Instead, he nominated Casey as a replacement nominee after Michele won big at the PoV competish. Even worse, the contents of Casey's envelope held no exotic vacations or cash, but a sheet of paper explaining that he must wear a banana suit for a full week.
The "prize" led to one of my favorite moments of the season, as Casey meandered around the halls of the Big Brother house, showing off his bright yellow shirt with an obnoxious, pointy cone on top. He called it "making [his] banana rounds."
Let's play a love game, play a love game"
A strange love triangle emerged this week. I say strange for two reasons: A) the HouseGuests we're dealing with here (Natalie, Lydia and Jessie), and B) the mysterious way in which the triangle supposedly operates (Natalie's into Jessie, Lydia's into Jessie and Jessie's into, well, Jessie).
Unbeknownst to his lady friends, Jessie couldn't give a damn what Natalie and Lydia think of him. Instead of formulating an opinion of either one, Jessie would rather give (and receive) massages.
Even so, the women pulled out the stops to arouse the affection of their asexual beef boy. For Lydia, this translated into SNEAKING INTO JESSIE'S ROOM AT NIGHT, CRAWLING INTO HIS BED AND WATCHING HIM SLEEP.
It's... creepy.
And while proving a point of principle to Natalie, Lydia forwent sleep for a night because Natalie refused to share her bed with anyone. (At the time, Lydia had deduced that she'd already shared her mattress plenty of times and figured it was time for Natalie to do the same). It was a bizarre argument that even had Lydia's BBF, Kevin, involved. In his head, Lydia was proving little (or even nothing at all) while painting a target on her back for Jessie to strike at.
Luckily for her, Jessie already had his sights set on Casey.
Now that's what I call a send off
When the votes were tallied live on Thursday, Jordan's sugary sweet personality was too much for doofy fifth grade teacher, Casey. It was a shame to see him go, considering he added a comedic element to the house and would have rallied the troops to take down Ronnie and the Athletes.
He also never got around to having that margarita party.
But whatever. His final comments before leaving the house for good were hilariously critical of his biggest adversaries. He dubbed Ronnie a "manipulative dorkopotomus" with "a god complex" and Jessie a "self absorbed... egomaniac with a personality and I.Q. of, oddly enough, a banana." (It's better to hear all of this on video since he's wearing that raucous banana suit at the time of his verbal delivery).
When Natalie threw herself into the scuttle, Casey fired back that she should stay out of the argument and to go make Jessie a sandwich.
And that's how you properly leave the Big Brother house after wrongly getting evicted from it.
Final thoughts
Even though Casey's gone, we at least have Southern belle Jordan in the house to spit out entertaining bits of banter. A particular favorite would be when she stated on Tuesday that she "may not be the smartest crayon in the box, but [she's] not that dumb."
It's good to have you back, Jordan!
Elsewhere, the Athletes (and Ronnie) are mopping the floor with the competish. Pretty soon there won't be any "good guys" left to fend off the attacks. Of the ten remaining HouseGuests, I only like Jeff, Jordan and Kevin. Michele'd be OK if she had a personality to go with her brains. The other half dozen or so are pretty unbearable.
For this week at least.
I'll end on the Power of Coup D'etat, which is a brilliant way for the at-home audience to cleanse the house of baddies. (Big Brother producers clearly don't want solely intolerable people running around the house. I even don't want to watch that).
Ideally America would give Jeff the power. And with the Athletes again in charge, the ability to overturn the HoH's nominees couldn't have come at a better time.