Hello everyone, I've missed you guys!

As many of you will know, I'm usually a regular on this board during BBUS, I'm an avid feed watcher and regular forum poster, and I get really in to the show. I was planning to do the same for BBCA but as soon as they threw in that first Power Shift twist I knew that I couldn't watch this like I would do a regular BB season because it was clear they were going to mess with the basic rules of the game too much.

So I haven't watched any of the live feeds, I don't read spoilers, I don't even watch the shows as they air - I usually wait until Friday and watch three episodes at once.

This has been a totally different type of viewing experience from my usual BB routine and I want to know if being a TV only viewer means my opinions are different from those of you that have been following the feeds.

So here are a few of my opinions, and I'd love to know what you agree and disagree with. (PS - no spoilers about who won last nights HoH or who is nominated).



-I think the cast on the whole is great. Some interesting personalities, no one totally detestable, Tom was probably the closest to that role. The dynamics are good.

-Jillian is the best player. A perfect mix of likability, challenge strength, and the ability to lie and own those lies. And not only does she lie, but she can do it over and over again to the same people who keep trusting her. If she doesn't win it will be a travesty.

-Talla started off fairly likable but became super annoying about 4 weeks back and should have gone a long time ago.

-Gary started off annoying, became quite likable around Week 3, but ruined himself during that argument with Talla. I think it's stupid that he was allowed back in the game.

-Peter clearly over-estimated his own game while inside the house. Like Janelle said on last nights show, he didn't really do much of anything. When he wasn't trying to be a second-rate Dr Will or one of his various wrestling characters (The Shield, CM Punk last night), he was making ridiculous game decisions like trying to hook up with Liza and deciding not to use the Veto on Topaz (dumbest move this season).

-Andrew is quite likable, I enjoyed his relationship with AJ, but I think he has a bit of an ego behind his usual happy-go-lucky demeanor...he just manages to hide it better than others.

-Emmet is a sore loser. Doesn't seem to have much of a personality, although I respect that he has been able to control a strong portion of the game...however Jillian is by far the superior player.

I'll add more thoughts later.

I agree the cast was pretty good. Though I'd be interested if any strategy talk/planning was included in part of the audition process. As some came with plans that were pretty stupid in practice.
[LIST][*]Jillian: I think the lies have undone her. No one in the jury seemed impressed with her. If people in the house compare notes on her, she's in trouble as she has f2s with everyone but Gary. Her indecisives grates on me, like the deal with Topaz, she knew she was in an alliance with Emmett, Andrew & Talla, but agreed to keep Topaz & Alec safe. But then had days of moaning/flapping about it. Was just irritating to watch. [*]Talla: Not sure I could live with her, but she and Andrew are the only two providing entertainment on the live feeds. Never formed an alliance until recently, but managed to keep herself afloat in the game. [*]Gary: Annoying, dislike his lack of basic politeness and his intimidating of Talla was awful. Seemingly if your a camp gay you can get away these things. :/ [*]Peter. Somehow thought he was a mastermind and able to conquer a social game even though he hates people in general. [*]Andrew. Again with Talla only two in the house providing live feed entertainment. His game talks are a bit intense. I'd put him down as the best social game in the house, as week 3 he was looking on shaking ground. Paranoid and telling almost everyone whom he'd target if he won HoH. Formed Beast Coast alliance essentially, and that saved him for a few weeks. [*]Emmett. Started out kind of ok, Ditching Tom was a good for him. But now he's bit of a dick. [/LIST]

what you would have missed is some of andrew's more questionable behavior.
he can be likeable and funny but he can also be a real grouch, talking mean about people behind their backs and somewhat creepy with the girls.
the one night he smacked topaz on the butt and was all over a drunk talla like a creep.
and strangely playing with her hair every day, etc.
also he doesn't realize how lucky he was that some people decided to bring him into the long term gameplans, instead his ego got bigger and bigger as if it was all his doing.

talla basically floated through by luck, she was more bearable earlier because there were more people to take away from her but the less and less people it's become the more unbearable she is.

peter and alec played a good game it's just they made a fatal flaw in putting so much trust in emmett who betrayed them and their endgame plans, i guess it was smart by him because he's still there and they're not but it's alot easier to say they were dumb now than back then in the moment with how things were.
there was no way to tell that emmett would turn on them when he did and that he would take andrew to his side, etc.
and that they would win like every hoh, etc.

looking back now, yes.. after we seen which choices andrew/emmett made now it makes more sense to have shifted toward the gary/topaz thing but we have the advantage of hindsight and seeing how it played out, if emmett had remained loyal things would've played out a very different way in their favor.

i would strongly disagree that jillian is the best player, of the people left i would say emmett has played the best game... jillian won comps and clung to emmett but emmett has been at the powercore of the game from the beginning.

but i guess it depends how you view it, if you put alot of stock into winning comps/hoh and keeping that power then i could see that angle but if you're more the strategy/shifts/making the moves, etc type of person that definitely isn't jillian.
it's really where emmett shifted to where the game has headed with the exception of the tom eviction.

and jillian has all that blood on her hands, if it does fall to emmett/jillian at the end i can't see her winning against him now.

the only person she could win against i think would be talla, i don't think she'd even win against gary coming back in.

but i think you got a pretty good viewpoint overall from just watching the show seeing how so much has been excluded from the feeds in the show.

Interesting.

I think because Jillian has got so much blood on her hands is what makes her deserving of the win. And the fact that even though Emmet sometimes tries to persuade her otherwise, she seems to always stick to the decision that she ultimately wants to make.

Not buying this Andrew creep line. Though didn't see him slap Topaz. Talla asks Andrew to put his hands through her hair to remove split ends. There have been far worse things in the house, like Tom instructing Emmett how to masturbate Jillian. "It's all in the wrist action". And Peter was grabbing Talla and slapping her ass.

I don't think it was luck that beast coast formed, I think it was his doing. Building a relationship with Jillian was critical, and the one thing Peter and Alec failed to do. Hence why she put them out of the house and kept Andrew.

blood on your hands isn't usually the best way to go.. maybe in an all stars season where everyone is sort of on the same page of respecting it.

but in a normal season? i don't know... would topaz/alec really turn around after jillian straight up lied looking in the eye of topaz and promising her? and vote for her.
i can't imagine that happening.
i know i wouldn't, there's getting blood on your hands and then there's that... that's just wicked stuff there.

her doing anything is very recent... emmett was at the core of power throughout the entire thing, he brought her along into that power.

emmett allows her to think she's making any decision but he's shifted the game to where he's wanted it, if something was going to truly effect his game he would talk her out of it.
he completely talked her into betraying aneal and the promise she made to him earlier, no reason he can't do it again... also he got her out of the girl alliance, etc.

right now..

she asked him a few times early on and then he went out of his way to do it like every day in which alot of times she was clearly annoyed by it, and if you didn't see when he slapped topaz's butt then you also didn't see how he was with talla that night.. it was brutal cringeworthy stuff.
he was all over her.
and how he is with jillian when she's with emmett?

he's got alot of questionable behavior behind him.

andrew absolutely hated jillian/emmett and they had no links whatsoever, it was alec that pushed andrew into the endgame plans.. noone had any plans of andrew at endgame except alec who pushed for it.. early on alec wanted andrew to replace tom as the fourth quattro member and was regretful that it was tom instead of andrew.

andrew got insanely lucky that alec pushed so hard for him, and of course only for he/emmett to betray him which is fine that's the game but evenso it wasn't his doing.

first alec pushed for him and then emmett swooped in and got with him because he knew he would be the key factor at that point vs alec/peter, the paranoid move was probably going to be either alec/peter or emmettt/jillian using andrew to make the first move on the other side or remain loyal for something like a andrew/emmett and peter/alec four.

that being at a time where it wasn't exactly clear how close emmett/jillian were, as the quattro were all supposed to drop their girls at some point.

alec of course made the mistakes to lose andrew on his side which provided emmett/jillian the opportunity to snatch him up.

Dan did the same thing to Ollie and Michelle in BB10 and they both voted for him in the end.

It's not just getting blood on her hands, it is the other housemates getting screwed by her but then them still trusting her...then it comes down to their own fault, and if they aren't a bitter jury they should respect that.

Emmet has been in control a lot, and I do give him credit. But whether it is simply showmance or otherwise, Jillian also did well in getting him to switch on his alliance for her, and have him basically work to get her to the end. So Jillian not only has herself working for her benefit, she has Emmet working for her too.

well, in fairness.. ollie and michelle aren't in the same league mentally as alec/topaz.
any semi intelligent person wouldn't respect that and give a vote to it.

just bluntly breaking a promise you made to someone's face isn't exactly great gameplay imo, it's just straight up deceit which is easy.

it's easy to make the easy move, like straight up making a solid promise and breaking it and that's the beauty of this game is when those things come back to haunt you at the end, karma.. hell/heaven however you want to reference it.

i'll be rooting for them not to give her a vote, i don't respect how it went down at all.. if she owned up to it more i might respect it a bit more, perhaps.

But Dan and Will are often considered the best BB players and they both openly lied. Will did it all the time, right to peoples faces and he still won.

Jillian perhaps doesn't own her lies quite as much as say Dr Will did, but she definitely admits to them in the DR from what I've seen.

If someone is stupid enough to jump off an endurance comp at that stage in the game and put that amount of trust in to the other person it is their own fault. They got played.

it's fine that she did it, that's part of the game.. the same as when dan did it.
but the jury voting is also part of the game.
i'm just saying i don't think ollie should've voted for dan and i don't think topaz/alec should vote for jillian.

i don't respect the easy deceit, such as making a promise in an endurance comp and then breaking it in such a way.
i don't see that as gameplay or anything except taking the easy way out.

it's a part of the game and it can be done for sure.

there's lying for me and then there's that.

it's like when dan brought in religion and stuff, i didn't fault frank for not voting for him.

that's the thing i love most about this format, is how things in the game come back at the end.
if you take the easy way out such as breaking a promise there should be some karma, and it should come back at you some time later, that's what makes the game so difficult.

Sorry but your talking nonsense with this questionable behaviour. Like a load of people on jokers whom seem rather blinkered and only see what they want to see.

Andrew never hated Jillian.
He disliked the way the guys Tom & Emmett were kind of running the show, and said at one point (around week 3) he was going to put them up.

Alec didn't do anything, Topaz's talk during her HoH and her putting up AJ & Andrew, with Andrew as the target. Andrew knew either Topaz/Gary or Topaz/Alec must have been talking about getting rid of him. So at that point Andrew wanted all 3 gone.

Alec was bind-sided by the alliance of Jillian, Emmett, Andrew and Talla. He had to scramble to make up with Topaz because he realised he no longer had the numbers to be safe.

haha sorry but i can't take anything serious after "alec didn't do anything".

i'm including jillian in with emmett as them being a duo/together.

He kept having little game conversations with Andrew, but no way did he include him in any alliance or even any group discussions on the game.

Andrew treated Jillian & Emmett as individuals, and built relationships with them individually. Which is what Alec & Peter failed to do, and found themselves evicted.

you just admitted you didn't even see when andrew slapped topaz on the butt when she was in a bikini so i question if you even seen that entire night and if you didn't even see the events how are you questioning what people saw?

i like andrew and have been an early supporter of him from the beginning, but i'm not blind to his behavior that i've witnessed.

also i can't stand jokers and take offense to be put in league with them, i post there from time to time on occasion due to there not being many places for discussion but i don't agree or like most of what goes on there.

I didn't question what you say Andrew did, I questioned why you aren't calling Peter, Tom and Emmett creeps too, they've all done the same thing.

Peter was getting inappropriately physical with Talla on more than one occasion.
Jillian gets her ass and breasts groped hourly.

What about Gary involved in Topaz having her bikini line waxed. Surely that's not acceptable really?

well, i do call into question tom/emmett's behavior in the proper context but in this case i was making a point to what's been shown on the tv show vs the live feeds and i felt like tom/emmett have both been shown within some of their more negative behavior where as i don't think andrew has.

yes.. i agree everyone in there has displayed questionable behavior there wasn't intention to single andrew out as the only one i was just pointing out what someone who only watched the tv show might not see, to me that would be one of the more surprising things in seeing andrew on the show vs some of his behavior that i haven't seen on the show.

similarly i'm sure people who watched the tv show would be surprised to see peter the ghost barely even corporeal on the feeds most of the time.

I was thinking the cast was good, but I think I've changed my mind. Too many of the stronger women didn't last. And the show has been based around Tom, Gary to an extent, Alec and Emmitt, none of whom I actually like or am really that interested in either.

Few of the twists have had any real effect, Emmitt and Jillian have been in cruise control ever since Emmitt survived being nominated in the first HoH. So it's been a Big Brother where some HMs have largely been in control through the whole thing, that sometimes happens on this type of BB, but I think it goes against the main concept of Big Brother controlling people.

yeah i agree 100% here.

Keep the jury on your side and not piss everyone off is part of the game and when you can´t do that your gameplay isn´t that good.

She lied to Peter and Topaz several times and swore on her life, why did she do that? There was no need for it. From Peters perspective it made absolutely no sense because he thought he was still in an alliance with Emmett. I am pretty sure Peter and Alec won´t vote for her no matter what (maybe against Talla), Topaz won´t vote for her. She won´t win this game against one of the guys ... NEVER EVER.

And it still pisses me off when i think about her making fun of Peter for not be able to eat a salad. What kind of teacher is this women ? Making fun of someone who has a serious eating disorder? Wtf ...

And btw i watched that night when Talla was drunk and Andrews behaviour was inappropriate. I saw a lot of comments that night that BB should interfere and tell him to stop because it was so awkward to watch.

Yes exactly. That was the only flaw in the plan that Emmett got so close to Andrew that he decided to drop his Quattro alliance. I am sure without Andrew in the picture Alec/Peter/Emmett would be F4 now. And Emmett now realizes that he doesn´t like Andrew that much anymore and is really annoyed to be in the house with Andrew and Talla.

I wish he would have stayed aligned with Peter/Alec so i would have had my dream F3 but well ...
Emmett played imo the best game, he made no mistakes and has no blood on his hands. At this point he could only lose against Andrew

Yeah and Andrew is basically still there because the guys thought he is entertaining. He did nothing to deserve it. His only game plan is to win comps and everyone who doesn´t win is a floater to him ... what a moron.

Lots of differing opinions! The one big difference it seems from being a TV only viewer is that those of you watching the feeds have much stronger opinions and seem much more involved personally (and I'm usually like that during BBUS!). You don't really get that being a TV only viewer, like I said, there wasn't anyone on this cast that came across as detestable, I thought on the whole they were all likable to some extent, but obviously I'm only seeing what BBCA want me to see.

Again I think Topaz throwing Emmett & Jillian's name out, whilst in the HoH room kind of caused the rift.

We will never know because the feeds were off the whole weekend ... THANKS AGAIN prodcution for that!!! When they came back Emmett had dropped Quattro and was with Andrew and that came out of nowhere.
I really want to know what exactly happend during the 3 days and why Emmett did that. We as viewers know that Alec/Peter always were loyal to Emmett so it made no sense at all.

i believe it was paranoia, i think through that paranoia he thought alec/peter would strike first against him and so he felt like he needed to make the first move before they did.

which, i can't trash him for it because it worked out for him even though i want to haha.

a big part of it seemed to be the on/off stuff with topaz as well (and what ren referenced about topaz bringing their name up and by extension topaz being close to alec and it reflecting back on him), when topaz revealed that they were pretending to be apart emmett took that as a personal lie to him, that combined with paranoia seemed to really get him going against alec.
he mentioned a few times he couldn't trust him any more after that.

we've seen with his recent conversation that he's big on other people letting him in on what they're doing, he was mad at gary and felt he couldn't trust him because he didn't let him on the fact that alec/peter were protecting him (which is hypocritical because emmett doesn't let other people in on everything) through topaz, so i'd imagine he didn't like not being clued in on whatever was going on with alec/topaz either.

evenso, i don't see why it mattered so much as everyone knew alec's true alliance was with peter?

that leads me to believe paranoia was a big factor, just sitting there with nothing to do but think about stuff and getting paranoid as a result.

redmond old pal, i agree with everything you say apart from andrew who i find obnoxious for some reason