Sunday, August 7, 2016

#bb18 Power Rankings(Week of August 7th)

Social media is abuzz that the happenings within the confines of the Big Brother House continue to greatly assist the game Paulie. I'm here to explain to you tonight that a Calafiore championship celebration isn't such a foregone conclusion.  This season is enduring an unfair level of criticism as in my opinion this season is much more open then people want to believe. Are there some that have hadtheir winning windows closed? Sure, but I can't signify the importance enough that because we live in a world where twists can dictate an outcome, we're in for a wild last month and a half.  As always, houseguests seeded in descending order.


10.Natalie-As we touched on last week, hilarity ensued listening to Natalie's reaction on being  the recipient of America's first care package. It's not surprising that her shoddy perceptive skills didn't have her understanding that the viewing audience is saving the most game changing twist for their actual favourite houseguest. She's going to get out of the house reprehensibly disappointed when friends and family relay this information to her as understandably, your not privy to outside reaction while playing the game,a task she has yet to partake in. I'm not about to say anything that hasn't said before with Natalie but realistically playing for second place behind her cuddle buddy James is frustrating at no end. The friendship with Bridgette is a fantastic avenue to be driving down but instead she chooses to venture down the scenic, although endless highway riding shotgun with James.

9.James-Captain America, Precocious Prankster, whatever you want to label him as does nothing to elevate his current strategical positioning. Let's keep in mind audience that this is the same individual who willingly targeted a physical threat in Frank, a player who was never targeting James any time soon. His clamoring for camera time is widely viewed as fame whoring amongst super fans like myself but it would be one thing if he was searching out cameras while playing the game of Big Brother, which he's not. Where can James go from here? Assuming Michelle is sent packing this coming Thursday, it would be advisable for James to pull in Zakiyah as by that point Z would surely conclude that Paulie and company have been playing her the entire time and at that point her best option would be to attempt to strengthen the minority. Will James do this, not a chance, I chalk this up to wishful thinking. James will succeed at what he set out to do, extend his stay by a few weeks, finish 5th or 6th, be content with leaving and likely be a finalist for America's Favourite Player.

8.Michelle-The fact that Michelle is all but guaranteed to be going home and is still ranked higher then James and Natalie speaks volumes to the porous abilities "Jatalie" has displayed thusfar. On twitter, Rob has a Podcast correspondent Alex Kidwell and I engaged in a brief, friendly debate last Sunday when I challenged his ascertation that Michelle was drawing dead. For all you keeping score, hand the win over to Mr.Kidwell as I can be the bigger man and denounce my once strong feelings towards Michelle. Her growing immaturity is just becoming too much as it's begun to negatively rub off on her housemates, an observation I was late to the party on.  The crying, general emotional outbursts as a whole are not something you'll find in the Big Brother 101 manual. The more I watch and hear about Michelle the more willing I am to draw the comparison to another Michelle, Big Brother 10's Michelle Costa. Both entered the game with an apparant understanding of strategy and in the early going both were commendable in how they were positioning themselves. In the middle half of the game for both, an implosion ensued. Michelle not gauging that a lot of these alpha males were beginning to weed out the females is unforgivable as the best way to summarize her game is this, she put friendships with Da'Vonne and Zakiyah ahead of logical game moves.

7.Nicole-If you're noticing a trend of females being ranked consecutively on the lower end of the list, kudos to you, you're right. I hate doing this but this Brigade-esque alliance being engineered by Paulie is slowly becoming insurmountable for the ladies to overcome. When brainstorming advice for Nicole, although from what I'm gathering it's all too late now would be to think of  a way to save Michelle because I genuinely think there's enough of  an accord to reignite a fleeting bond that once existed. Seemingly Michelle has nowhere to turn, and a bed next to Corey and Nicole would be the perfect one to claim. This is a pivotal moment for the Big Brother sixteen's starlet as orchestrating a plan to save Michelle is about the only way she can weezle herself into a power placement. Nicole at least from the feeds I've seen has alienated herself too often with Corey embarking in individual conversations while not keeping tabs on the others. Zakiyah's presence in the house is acting as a detriment to Nicole because this aforementioned Brigade type alliance will pull Zakiyah in to soon ouster Nicole.

6.Zakiyah-In the first two weeks, I along with others(Taran Armstrong I'm looking at you) enunciated that Zakiyah was maybe playing the best game. All those aboard the Zakiyah train look foolish now. One minute, you get the impression that Z has moved past Paulie but then the next minutes she's pushing for romantic vibes. One of her biggest mistakes, debatably her largest was not pushing harder for Da'vonne to stay. The loyalty Da'Vonne exuded to Zakiyah was unprecedented as she would've never voted her out, can't fathom any scenario that would've happened. Because she didn't however, she's backed into a corner being to forced to rely on Paulie who's leading her to a slaughter house. The saving graces to her chances would be if somebody like Nicole won HOH and targeted Paulie as with his removal from the house, her eyes could be opened and possibly, we can only pray lead an all female coalition against some of these males. Still has slight winning capital dependant who's she up against but it's tough sledding from here.

5.Victor-It's ironic that I just finished analyzing the relationship between Zakiyah and Paulie and how I felt Paulie was leading her to unswimmable waters but pertaining to Victor's game, could a similar thing be said about his bond with Paul. If Paul has invested into a final two deal with Paulie, where exactly does that leave Victor in the grand scheme? So many questions, so few answers! I could definitely foresee a scenario when Victor is inevitably evicted from this game that his thoughts on Paulie immediately sour as based on his positioning,the suggestion that he's drawing dead isn't far fetched. He won Head of Household this week and his nominations have left Michelle vulnerable. I personally think his best play at this point is to make peace with Natalie and begin working with James and her as could you imagine the golden bridge Victor would get to walk on if he brings those two to the final three alongside him? A pure pipe dream of course as the more likely outcome is getting dragged to the final three/four to get blindsided by his "best friend" Paul.

4.Bridgette-I warned(hinted) at the possibility that if Bridgette were to survive this week, which she did that she could fast track to the number one position. At careful consideration, I've concluded that after all this time she lacks the forcefulness required to win this game. Now by saying that, I maintain that Bridgette is in an excellent position and the longer she's left in this game, the better and better chance she has at winning(captain obvious statement right?). I've illustrated this a few times and that's her soft spoken demeanour works to her advantage because it's not threatening but has the educational background to construct a masterpiece if she was fortunate enough to find her having to vocalize a jury speech. Is the painting Van Gogh-esque? Probably not, but if I was the other houseguests it's not a painting I'd want to see started because the potential is unknown.

3.Paulie-A belief that I have is that being the ringleader early in the game is contrarily not a enviable position to be in. When it does lead to victory it's a rarity, the plight of Derrick comes to mind. Even other heralded masterminds such as Dan and Will were not viewed as the ringleaders, most of their work was done behind the scenes which more times than not will maximize success. For Paulie, his leadership cleverness will be exposed, not necessarily at this current juncture but whether it's at the final four with Victor or perhaps at the final seven with Nicole and Corey(who naturally will be influenced by the former) I'm confident this fairytale won't have such a happy ending for the Calafiore family. In watching the early parts of this episode and from the reports I've been receiving on social media, this may in fact be an act Zakiyah is putting on with Paulie when in reality she has every intention to chop him at the appropriate time. The other reason why I'm not as bullish on Paulie is because in society we root for the underdog, Paulie has been in power too long and what often transpires is a twist that is intended to favour the underdog punishes the leader. This takes away from game purity yes, but it's a facet that does exist and even though he may not see it, the underdog some are getting could very well be his demise.

2.Corey-Last week's number one has fallen ever so slightly to number two. A couple of reasons for this. For starters, I'm sensing a lack of respect the majority of the house has for his strategical prowess. While that's an obvious assertion, it's not as self-evident than the uninitiated want you to believe. Contrary to the edit, Corey's game may be lacking respect, but his personality has strung a great deal of endearment across the house. For the longest time now, he's been firmly ingratiated with the boys but yet not viewed as the most feared physical threat. When somebody, and we don't yet know who that somebody is grows the courage to place a bounty on the "Executive", and when it happens I opine Corey is in the clear. Fans are understating the potential of Corey and the inference behind such a misnomer is this dead brained edit he's receiving. Forming fandom over an edit has happened countless times throughout Survivor and Big Brother history, and in almost every occurrence we look back and ask ourselves, how did "insert name here" win the show because he's being edited as a clueless character. Fascinating over puppies doesn't automatically equate to cluelessness and I'll continue to push the plausibility of a Corey win.

1.Paul-Your boy is back at the top of the standings. This obnoxious Californian is clearly getting pushed for the America's favorite player moniker as in recent seasons it's  a  regularity that they'll only profile a houseguests family if they're satisfied with the content that houseguest is spouting off and this is most certainly the case with Paul. One of several reasons for  the inclusion at the top of the chart is due to the control he has over Victor and while others in the house have that "ride or die", no one has a challenge beast quite like Paul has. What a pleasure it must be for Paul when he full well knows, by no means it is subject to debate that Victor will go before him and being as how we're currently enthralled in the final ten, I couldn't draw up a better path. Game aside, well actually let me retract that as I think a quality that gets overlooked is meshing the humorous nature with covert strategical discussion. A character like Paul is someone that people become blinded by because he acts as the life of the party which is code for "we're not nominating you". A comparison that has been often made is between Paul and Zach Rance. While both were the narrators of their respective seasons in the early going, the categorical difference is that Paul had strategical backing while Zach was falsely under the premise that the "Detonators" had his back. I don't see Paul's game detonating anytime soon.





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