Big Brother U.S.: Season 19 - Episode Discussion

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Big Brother U.S.: Season 19 - Episode Discussion

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Bloops Crusts posted:

How does Jessica get the temptation?

People like underdogs in the house. If you look at like jokers rankings or something, as soon as Cody went out Jessica started moving way up in popularity. Alex's support started dying down once people realized how closely she was working with Paul. People wanted to give the power to someone that would need it and not to someone who would save Paul if he was in trouble. Also Jessica got a lot of airtime on the show. Casual fans probably could only recognize her, Alex, Paul, and like one or two others.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2017 13:04

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 15:53

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Max posted:

Funny that Josh is the go to person for getting under someone's skin.

Paul trying to set up a fall guy in the event Jess/Cody win HOH?

# ¿ Jul 24, 2017 17:13

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Orange Sunshine posted:

She's a dumbass.

She should have told Paul exactly what her power was, and he would have believed her, and not put her up, so as not to waste his HOH. By being so vague about her power, nobody knew what to think.

This is true. I originally thought the whole nomination debacle was all her fault, because Cody was telling her to lay out her power to Paul and she was refusing to do it because she wanted Paul to come to her (even though Paul is the HOH and they're the ones trying to avoid the block??). But in the show she did have Paul alone and ask him multiple times if he had any questions about her power. So, while she should have laid out what the Hex did to him herself, without him asking, if his HOH week goes to waste then he's at fault too since she gave him the opportunity to clear things up and he passed on it. Basically, Jessica has herself to blame for having to burn the Hex this week, and Paul has himself to blame for getting nobody out on his HOH.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2017 05:47

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

She's not allowed to lie and she asked him alone repeatedly if he had any questions. How about asking, "What happens if I nominate you?" If she vaguely bses it's her problem, but if she spills the actual facts, he already has plan b nominations laid out if he wants to avoid an empty week. She gave him the opportunity to ask and he didn't take it.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2017 14:52

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

I'm pretty sure the conversation in question was from when feeds were off right before noms. You can say maybe she would have still blown him off with muddy "we're safe, if you nom us it's bad for you" garbage but in the footage that aired on TV he clearly didn't even attempt to ask what would happen, when that would have obviously been the time to do so. He also could have just as easily told her he was going to test her power by nominating her, and then it seems like he'd have gotten the full story from her. There's not really any point in blindsiding someone with an unknown power when they come to talk to you just before nominations.

And mind you, I clearly said she should have just been up front with him far before then and said it's her own fault her hex is getting blown. Not only that, but the mistake came less from bad strategic reasoning than from just pettiness and pride on her part.

I'm just also saying that she ultimately went to him and Paul had the opportunity to talk to her one on one before nominations and he blew her off, and now his HOH week is blown.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2017 03:13

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

ToastyPotato posted:

I dunno, I just don't see what is commendable about a husband and father, who just recently learned he will soon have a second child, risking a $500k prize to save a "friend" he just met 68 days ago from a 50/50 chance of losing the game. I mean, maybe it makes sense if Jason just flat out does not need 500k, and with the way most people play this game, I am starting assume that BB does not cast people who actually need or want $500,000.

Oh come on now, this post is really too much. Someone actually doing something in their own best interest for once is now a boneheaded move throwing away their own game? Did you think Alex knew what the hell she was talking about and had Jason's best game interests in mind during those confessionals? Come on.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2017 13:22

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

ToastyPotato posted:

It's not about Alex having Jason's best interests in her mind, it's Jason having the house expecting him to put Kevin up because he basically said that would happen, and then deciding that going against the house and his word was a good choice. Jason was already a target because of his wins and his known duo with Alex, but he just solidified himself as a massive target by handing the whole house the excuse that he can't be trusted either. Jason had a decent thing going with Alex, and with his ability to win comps, the absolute smartest thing to do is keep booting the easy targets and let the house do what they want until he has no choice but to start picking off people from the group he's with.

Deciding Kevin is going to be his new ride or die, which is what he basically just did, when he kind of already openly has one, is a terrible move, especially because Kevin hasn't won anything. Jason cannot protect both himself and Kevin if they both have huge targets on their backs, though with the stupid tree, it might actually be possible, so I guess we'll see. The whole point of having a duo, or a goat for the end, is that usually you kind of don't want too much attention brought to it.

My point is that making unilateral decisions that go against your prior word and go against the majority of the house is objectively bad. So good luck to Jason on playing in and winning every comp he can for the rest of the summer, unless someone else blows up and takes the heat off of him.

Kevin is one of his best buds in the house, Matt was supposed to be going home anyway, why is the rest of the house so invested in who Jason makes the pawn? Just so they can blindside Matt and Raven and deal with the anger after the eviction instead of after the veto? Like, if Matt still ends up being blindsided, he and Raven are gonna be angry jurors either way. So is it just to have a couple fewer days of Raven being angry? The insistence upon Kevin going up really barely even makes sense, which led to Jason rightly worrying why they cared so much, and if Kevin could be in trouble, and there's no good reason as HOH to take that risk with someone you actually want in the game. Just look at what happened with Jess attempting to placate the house by leaving Ramses up there. We already have an example this season of someone putting up a friendly pawn and having it backfire on them.

Obviously Jason would've been better off if he didn't lead everyone to believe Kevin was definitely going up as a replacement, obviously we can nitpick exactly how he did it and it's not good to ruffle a bunch of feathers in the house. But really, he says I'll put up Kevin, then talks to Kevin and says nah, I'll select another pawn: how bad is that, exactly? The only reason for this to really upset people is if they want to dictate and micromanage everything Jason does, or if they were going to try to gently caress over Jason on his own HOH by taking out one of his best friends.

Jason was the #1 target before this already, btw! Keeping someone who would never nominate him, and who would take him down with veto, is absolutely a good thing for him, so he does it, one of the only times all season someone actually made a move in their own best interest, and you were ranting about how he apparently wants to lose and doesn't want $500k because he broke from the cult-like groupthink in the house!

Fast Luck fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Aug 31, 2017

# ¿ Aug 31, 2017 20:59

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

It's good because it's good. It guarantees he has Kevin in the house instead of Matt, which is good for him. Matt would have targeted him. The outrage and disbelief the rest of the house is expressing over an HOH making his own choice of pawn is the cult-like groupthink. It's pretty bad and Jason would not be acting in his own interest if he bent to it. Of course Jason shouldn't have too strongly promised to put up Kevin but that was his plan before talking to Kevin, and afterward he realized it was a bad move. He simply changed his mind.

Obviously Paul has set the tone for this season and has been calling most of the shots and this thread is the one contrarian place on the entire internet but that has nothing to do with it.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2017 22:56

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

TyrantWD posted:

Part of the reason things have been this easy for Paul was that the entire house (outside of Paul and Kevin) had broken up into ride-or-die pairs really early on. Even if Josh had this epiphany about Paul two weeks ago, it wouldn't make sense to act upon it. Why waste your HOH on Paul and leave another duo around to take a shot at breaking you up next week? Even if Josh had yet to figure out Paul, after Jason leaves is the first time he could really take a swing at getting him out of the house.

Because if you know what's going on enough to want to take a shot at Paul, you should also know that Paul is allied with every single pair. In effect, they're all trios and he's part of all of them - and Kevin, the guy not really in a pair, has also been taking orders from Paul! That's why he's the most dangerous, that's why you'd want him out, and it's also why it'd always have been very difficult to get him out. To just think it's a bunch of equal duos and that Paul is by comparison a less powerful single is to simplify the facts down until they become harmfully misleading, and the idea that using an HOH on Paul, who is one of the most powerful figures we've ever had in the house, would be to "waste" an HOH is just downright absurd.

That's not to say it always made sense for everyone to target him, or that they always or ever could have successfully targeted him, of course.

Fast Luck fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Sep 7, 2017

# ¿ Sep 7, 2017 18:18

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

So you take out Matt instead, and then the other half of his "duo," Raven, is now instantly in a blindly loyal duo with Paul. That's the thing about Paul's trios! Alex will probably be loyal to Paul after Jason goes. Christmas will be a loyal duo with Paul if someone else takes out Josh.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2017 19:05

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

The only real risk to Paul right now is that he's prioritizing taking out blindly loyal followers like Alex and Raven over people like Kevin and Josh who are starting to get wary of him, but by the same token that may just allow Paul to win out on the comps.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2017 19:07

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Josh and Paul's goodbye messages back-to-back hahaha

Paul's goodbye message was pretty dumb really because Josh/Christmas/Raven knew Paul was part of it so Jason doubtlessly would have found out eventually!

Like lying inside the house to Alex makes a lot more sense than lying in the goodbye msg

# ¿ Sep 8, 2017 02:19

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Raven did just vote out Jason, and Alex has obsessively hated Kevin for awhile.

Paul's elaborate plan pretending not to know about Jason's eviction, yelling at Josh, etc gave him the trust with Alex to also convince her those were the people to nom.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2017 02:31

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Iodised QQ posted:

Please tell me Paul doesn't get off completely clean for outright shouting at josh and Christmas about his own plan and then publicly backing Alex in that moment and in the hoh comp

Like, he got away with it in this double eviction, but at some point in the next week someone is going to call this poo poo out, right

I mean, Alex might be catching on to him now that he evicted Raven. But I think he told Christmas and Josh they'd do that, he'd act blindsided so he could still keep Alex reigned in in case she won HOH. Which she then did.

Fast Luck fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Sep 8, 2017

# ¿ Sep 8, 2017 03:06

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Paul has had an unprecedented vice grip on this game. After Jason went out, look at who was still in the house:

Raven, would take Paul final two
Alex, would take Paul final two
Kevin, would take Paul final two
Christmas, would take Paul final two
Josh, wouldn't, voted wrong on the Raven eviction, emotional, questioning Paul's orders

People throw competitions basically on command and I think the HOH has nominated his choice of players every HOH back to, hm, I think every single loving round since jury started.

But he's so drat shook about losing the jury vote to Nicole (by one vote mind you) that:
1) he's lying in his goodbye videos
2) he's giving future jurors orders for what to say in the jury house
3) he's fixed on bringing the one person who doesn't want him at the end to the end since he thinks that's the one slam dunk f2 opponent

Fast Luck fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Sep 13, 2017

# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 14:13

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Christmas could easily commit to Josh for f2 because she's going to be dq'd from the final HOH anyway so who cares if it's true, right? It's not a promise she'd have to break. I really wanted to see Josh save Alex because he harped on about how he wanted to do it for quite awhile, and actively tried to get Paul to put that vote on Kevin and make him the tiebreaker... but then he doesn't do it. That's just weak, wishy washy gameplay. Now, would it have been a good move? I lean toward no because Alex being loyal to Josh wouldn't be a sure thing even after saving her, and she might be tough to beat at the end. But there's positives in it too, if you feel Paul is unbeatable, and this is you winning the respect of the jury by proactively turning against Paul (which nobody else really did after Cody week 1), and this is you (attempting) getting a strong physical threat to help go against Paul. Plus she'd still be a bigger target than Josh, probably.

Orange Sunshine posted:

It makes absolutely no difference who the HOH puts on the block when you're down to 4 people. Whoever wins the veto decides who's on the block and who goes home.

Yeah it's like HOH becomes the veto and the veto becomes HOH.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 15:42

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Faustian Bargain posted:

The thing I don't like about Paul is when he pretends he wasn't part of things, like with going off on Josh when Jason went home. Maybe it's because we have the outside perspective, but I thought that was really stupid.

Do the jury members get to watch the episodes or just the competitions? Do they know the votes? What does the jury get to see?

But that was a plan Paul made ahead of time that worked out exactly as planned and helped the whole Poshmas trio! Paul told Josh prior that they'd stage a fight, and what it let him do was fool Alex into thinking he was still with her. This was the contingency for if Alex won HOH, that he could then feasibly still pretend to be her ally and thus control her. She does win that HOH, and Paul tells her they need to put up Raven and Kevin, and she does it. We saw her say Christmas and Josh betrayed her but that she has no one else to trust so she needs to take Paul's suggestion. I get it was annoying to see if you just think he's full of poo poo covering his rear end and whatever, and if Alex hadn't won HOH it would've looked even more unnecessary and hacky, but it ended up actually being one of his highlight moves of the season.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 16:31

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

STAC Goat posted:

I don't think it would have made any sense to keep Alex in the game with Paul. Maybe that makes sense if you think you can turn Alex against him but Alex is the same person who threw F7 HOH at Paul's say so, let Paul control her F6 HOH even after that blew up, and then stayed loyal to him at F5 and was excited about him winning POV even though it blew up again and Paul admitted having a hand in it that time. Maybe Paul not using the POV is the final straw but can you really gamble that on Alex to put her into F4 where she and Paul could possible run the board?

Speaking nothing of the simple fact that as Josh said, he couldn't beat Alex. She's arguably the biggest jury threat. Cody and Mark loved her and she had generally good relationships with everyone else besides Kevin and Elena (and the Elena thing was pretty much all Elena's actions). And everyone regarded her as a bad rear end and hardcore player who had to fight for her life, which goes directly to the criticisms people have about Josh and Christmas ("floaters") and Paul ("was never challenged").

Yeah, well I think Josh has been hosed for awhile at F2, because he lost everyone's respect with his many freakouts and meltdowns and basic immaturity. If he's ever going to have a shot he either needs people to really hate Paul (which, you know, maybe not a completely hopeless bet) or he needs to do something big to win people's respect, and targeting Paul in a big way could be the door to that. Imagine if when he's breaking the tie, he says, "Alex, it was Paul's idea for you to go up, because he's scared you can beat him at comps, and he's scared you can beat him in front of the jury. But I'm tired of playing Paul's game. I hope you'll join me in taking on Paul and his fake 'friendship.' I vote to evict Kevin." I'm not insisting this would've been the better move but drat if it wouldn't have been cool as hell, and when they played that tape back on jury house? Everyone would've stood up and clapped!!

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 17:42

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Paul's attempted jury management is so delusional. If he doesn't make F2 I'll be so freaking mad, I wanna see him insist to every single player, lying to their face, that he was always with them, or finally fess up and get "blood on his hands"

# ¿ Sep 15, 2017 02:41

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

MrBuddyLee posted:

Josh and Christmas played great games, are likeable, and both deserve to win against Paul in F2. Josh is humble by nature, and Christmas can be humble when she puts her mind to it--she did some masterful jury massaging at times this season.

Paul, not so much. He deserves to be Hantzed in front of America again.

Now that's a hot take. Paul had alliances with everyone, and the reason he chose Josh and Christmas as his final three was because Christmas is crippled and everyone sees Josh as a big stupid baby, so he's Paul's F2 golden goose. Paul's loss to Nicole is definitely in his head and that's why he's set on Josh coming with him to the end.

As an aside, I do agree with you that Christmas at times did good social work with people and can speak well (not sure about humble)

STAC Goat posted:

If Paul loses it will be because he betrayed too many people and made the incomprehensible decision to lie to them when they were out of the game. I think he's still the favorite to win since the jury's likely to be just as bitter that Josh/Christmas outplayed them and/or were more trusted allies to Paul but if Paul loses it will be because he hosed up his game. Because as much as some people may not like Jury Management being part of the game it IS just as much as the curveball is part of baseball to the guy who can't hit it.

I agree with this bit 100%. I basically need to see Paul make that f2, so I can see him either win or lose based on his questionable jury management. I assume he'd win, especially against Josh. Remember that if Josh is sitting next to Paul at the end, it means despite Josh being "woke" to Paul, he'll have never acted against him. But Paul's jury management is so hilariously bad, and I can honestly see people walking into questioning planning to vote for Paul if he'll only admit his game, only to have him disrespectfully lie to their faces about having no knowledge that any of them were going out. That would be amazing to watch. The only recent juror Paul managed fairly well was Alex, and that was only because he was forced to talk out with her why he wasn't going to play the veto on her. Everyone else he thinks he can keep bs'ing even once they're out of the house and it's just so laughable.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2017 15:47

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

I really liked when he did it with Jason, the juxtaposition between Paul's big fat lie goodbye and Josh's was a thing of beauty. but the problem is he's emphasizing "yeah Paul has a final three with me and Christmas, he didn't tell you that did he?" but we saw in the jury house everyone just laughing when someone says they have an alliance with Paul. "Yeah, we all did." Cody: "Not me"

# ¿ Sep 15, 2017 17:05

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Josh and Christmas could've been out of the loop as well, though, and only happened to be the pair that was right because they were the pair that Paul chose for his end game. The reason this cast was so bad at Big Brother is that most of the time, they only strategized among their only little cliques, and then had Paul go out and talk game to the other groups on their behalf.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2017 18:34

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Paul is denying everything and lying to the jury. This could be interesting.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2017 02:19

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

ShakeZula posted:

Every year it seems like there's a real gamer in there that I expect to vote on gameplay, and every year it seems like they vote bitter and disappoint me.

This year it's you, Alex

All season, Alex was banking on "friendship" meaning Paul would be loyal. Doesn't surprise me she flipped after being betrayed. And the Jason vote out was brutal, the way he just stormed out without wanting to talk to anyone, even thinking Alex turned on him, after that there was no way Jason would vote Paul and you could tell he'd bring Alex with him.

Then I think it built up into how ugly a guy Paul was.

Matt and Raven voted impartially for the best game player because they didn't even care about the game, so the betrayal didn't hit them so hard!

Anyway, the last few weeks the big question was whether Paul's abhorrent jury management would catch up to him. I guess the jury house started resenting and hating him pretty big time. Previously I thought Cody/Mark/Elena were Paul locks. They told everyone, stop Paul or he wins, Paul is playing you all, I'd vote for Paul. But nope haha

heel turn posted:

In an odd twist, Cody wins the season.

Haha, Cody finishes with: Jessica, AFP, and casting the deciding vote against Paul

# ¿ Sep 21, 2017 03:11

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Paul's fatal mistake was either Mark, Elena, and Cody being surprisingly bitter despite not being backstabbed at all, or the ridiculously awful way he sent Jason out. That could have been where he began to lose not just Jason but Alex, Marlena, Cody, as they started to see Paul as a real pos.

Casting is pretty bad too though. I'm currently watching Australian Survivor and :swoon:

Night and day.

Turbl posted:

I think Paul should have won if he had admitted to using his vet status to manipulate people and owned up to the backstabbing. I thought the lying in the goodbye messages, acting like he fought an uphill battle the whole game despite his temptation advantages, and acting like he was super totally friendship despite the betrayals was pathetic. I mean he might still have lost but he really did a piss poor job with jury management and he more than anyone should have known that was important.

Yeah I don't know if that would have made him win but I agree he was a jury disaster in exactly that respect.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2017 03:31

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Fat Lowtax posted:

The fact that the Josh votes were a solid trio (Mark/Cody/Elena) and a couple (Jason/Alex) makes me think the votes were set in stone, and all Paul did was fail to sway anyone away from Josh, but I really want to hear the people in that voting group speak out about what happened in there.

Yeah I agree. And they were pissed at Paul when they met with Will, even before the jury session.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2017 04:02

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Robnoxious posted:

I'm not sure it's as clear cut until we get after-interviews but I really think Josh's goodbye messages stirred the jury pot to his favor. It got them talking and comparing notes which they failed to do all season within the house.

I think Josh's goodbye messages helped but I think the jury would have compared notes regardless and that's even more the reason why Paul's goodbye messages were so shortsighted. Of course Jason is going to ask people what happened after he gets completely blindsided. He wants to know and eventually the truth will come out (like when Raven gets to the jury house an hour later).

Sodomeow posted:

You are out of your mind if you actually think Paul deserved to win this season. Its possible to be good at getting to the end, and still play a poo poo game.

Oh, I wouldn't call it a poo poo game. He got second place and only lost by one vote. It was a pretty dominant game with a fatal flaw that still just barely took him out, because he was obsessed with the idea of not getting blood on his hands to the point of insulting the jury with lies way past their expiration date. Imo it's actually a bit of a shame that Paul, with the game he played, didn't end up with winning the season, but of course I agree he turned off the jurors with his own behavior and that's the way these sorts of games often work. We've been talking about his jury mismanagement for weeks. Still, though, he's not someone incapable of ever winning that everyone just hated like a Hantz. He's just someone that in two attempts still hasn't figured out quite how to win enough jury votes.

STAC Goat posted:

Interestingly the most recent season of Survivor changed the Jury format to allow an open back-and-forth conversation that could have helped Paul here. It was clear from the Jury questions Paul was in trouble and he seemed to be picking up on that, but then he just went into his rehearsed final comments. If it was a more open discussion like the last Survivor season then there probably would have been a point where someone said "Paul, did you know Jason was getting backdoored and Alex was the target?" and Paul would have had the chance to wise up and come clean.

I think in Big Brother it's probably really hard to flip any jurors because it all happens so fast and is over so soon, all on live TV. Those Survivor jury segments are already longer just with what makes it to air, but before editing they're probably how long? A couple hours?

# ¿ Sep 21, 2017 16:26

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 15:53

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

I really don't understand these celebrity seasons. When the celebrities are d-list garbage, what's really the draw as compared to like another BBOTT?

# ¿ Sep 21, 2017 23:43

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Big Brother U.S.: Season 19 - Episode Discussion