It’s been a long summer, but Big Brother 13 finally comes to a close with the 90-minute finale. Bacon enthusiast Adam Poch, VIP cocktail waitress Porsche Briggs and second VIP cocktail waitress Rachel Reilly are the three left standing, and now it’s time for one to walk away with half a million dollars.
Who will win and will anyone care? The biggest problem with Big Brother is the endgame, because the last week is so painfully boring as the three remaining HGs have been waiting for several days with nothing to do. CBS would be smart to quicken up the end and also to push the premiere up to June so it could end in August. Right now TV fans are more interested in the fall premieres than summer finales, so I think Big Brother would do a lot better if the finale came before Labor Day.
Anyway, on with the show!
Previously on Big Brother 13: We get a recap of the entire season, and the editors are playing fast and loose with the facts, making it look like the veterans are responsible for getting rid of Lawon and totally glossing over Brendon getting to come back into the game, which was a pretty big deal. But it doesn’t fit the narrative of “veterans triumphing over adversity” that the producers obviously want to force down our throats. There’s also a crying montage of five moments, three of which are Rachel. After more than six minutes of this, we get on with the real show.
Final HoH, Part 1: We see the end of the “endurance” competition in the mixing bowl. Adam falls after 29 minutes and Rachel mocks him for being such a pathetic competitor when this is allegedly his life-long dream. Then Porsche falls at 46 minutes. Rachel is happy as a clam to win, but it’s not really a “Cinderella story.” She didn’t even break a sweat and could’ve been up there for a couple hours, easy.
Final HoH, Part 2: It’s an underwater maze where Adam and Porsche need to put the HoHs in order. It looks pretty hard to breathe, but obviously the edge goes to the young Porsche over Adam the smoker. Porsche takes two at a time, which is smart, while Adam gets frustrated, throws his goggles away, then runs out to get them again. Adam does it in six minutes while Porsche takes less than four minutes, so Porsche wins!
Jury Debate: The six members of the jury gather and it’s very clear that Rachel is going to win this game. Daniele and Shelly are the only two who don’t feel comfortable giving half a million dollars to someone who was so mean and awful. Jordan and Jeff, on the other hand, have no respect for Porsche not playing the game and they respect that Adam was loyal to them, though Daniele is absolutely right that he was a “piggybacker” who just let Jeff and then Rachel control his decisions. It seems clear that Daniele and Shelly will never vote for Rachel or Adam while Jeff and Jordan will never vote for Porsche.
Final HoH, Part 3: It’s Rachel vs. Porsche in a quiz about what the six members of the jury said after leaving.
Question 1: They’re both wrong.
Question 2: Rachel gets it after a last-minute switch.
Question 3: They’re both wrong.
Question 4: They’re both wrong.
Question 5: Rachel gets it right.
RACHEL WINS THE FINAL HOH!
That was embarrassing. Porsche didn’t get a single one right and all she had was two choices for each question. Rachel cries a lot when she wins, probably because she knows she just won the game. We’re only 35 minutes into the 90-minute finale, but it’s already painfully obvious that Rachel will win the game. At least I have time to prepare myself for that awful moment.
I’ll start by acknowledging that Rachel has now won six HoHs (two last year and four this year) which ties Janelle’s record for most HoH wins ever. And with eight overall competition wins, Rachel moves up to third on the all-time list all by herself behind Janelle and Danielle, beating her fiance Brendon by one.
Nominee Speeches: Porsche is nice and Adam throws Porsche under the bus as a floater. That’s a little pot-kettle action.
RACHEL VOTES TO EVICT ADAM!
She only gets there after a drawn-out speech about how hard she fought, basically trying to ensure Adam votes for her to win.
Adam gets the biggest laugh of the season by telling Julie Chen that he would’ve won if Rachel kept him. Wow, he is insanely delusional. Rachel was winning either way, and with Adam it would’ve been a 7-0 vote, but since he was the first person out on part 1 and lost part 2, he made it clear he didn’t step up when he absolutely needed to and doesn’t deserve to be in the finale.
Jury Questions: It’s time for the seven members of the jury to question the final two HGs, but it seems like a formality. Brendon, Jeff and Jordan are 100 percent for Rachel and after the way this final HoH played out, I suspect Adam and Kalia are too. Brendon is overjoyed when he sees Adam because he knows his girl just won.
Brendon: He asks about Rachel saying hurtful things and whether she should be rewarded for it. Her answer is the same as the speech she gave to Adam and she basically tells the jury to ignore her personal attacks.
Jordan: She asks what Porsche did besides wear a bikini. She argues that she played a social game since she didn’t get to compete as much.
Kalia: She wants to know what Rachel did besides win competitions. Her answer involves multiple mentions of all the competitions she won and she sucks up by saying Kalia would’ve won.
Shelly: She wants to know when Porsche started playing, and she says agreeing to take a Golden Key was a big move.
So essentially Rachel should win because she fought hard and won a lot of stuff, while Porsche’s half-hearted argument is that she played a good social game by being friendly to everyone. Normally Porsche’s strategy would work against someone as mean-spirited as Rachel, but since the jury is full of Rachel-loving veterans, that’s impossible.
Rachel’s Final Speech: Like a politician, Rachel stays on message and says the same thing she’s been saying all night. She fought hard, she had a target on her back from day one, she won the most competitions, etc. She ignores the fact that Brendon saved her when they were on the block and also takes credit for exposing Daniele’s plan to backdoor Jeff, which isn’t exactly how I remember it.
Porsche’s Final Speech: She does a nice bit of sucking up by saying the six people in the jury are the six people who voted for her to stay in week 1. That’s nice, and her argument that she won a bunch of competitions and competed hard is OK.
Jury Votes: Brendon loves Rachel. Daniele snarks that Rachel is lucky this isn’t a personality contest. Jeff has nothing cute to say. Shelly is proud of both of them and knows that it’s just a game. Kalia has nothing funny to say at all. Jordan misses Rachel. Adam again says he would’ve won if he made the end and promises to win when he returns for All-Stars. Get the white jackets, because that man needs to be committed. Reading between the lines, I think Rachel may have just won in a 7-0 vote, or maybe 6-1 or 5-2.
Early Evicted HGs: Before the reveal Julie chats with Keith, Cassi, Dominic, Lawon and Evel Dick. Evel Dick blames Daniele for screwing up but she doesn’t agree at all. He thinks Daniele should’ve waited for a newbie to win to turn on the veterans. Cassi acknowledges that Shelly had her fooled, but she also respects Shelly’s game. Jeff seems to have buried the hatchet with Shelly. Jeff then admits that he and Daniele are just not on the same page and don’t really like each other. Wow, Dominic and Keith didn’t get to talk at all. Why does Julie Chen hate them so much?
The Final Vote
Brendon voted for…RACHEL
Daniele voted for…PORSCHE
Jeff voted for…RACHEL
Shelly voted for…RACHEL
Kalia voted for…PORSCHE
Jordan voted for…RACHEL
RACHEL REILLY IS THE WINNER OF BIG BROTHER 13!
She’s happy and screams and hugs Brendon a lot. Good for her, I guess. More importantly, I hope we never have to see or hear from Brenchel again. Let them run off and be married somewhere that’s not televised. The funniest part is that, in a perfect metaphor for his entire time in the game, Adam’s vote doesn’t even matter. But Adam voted for Porsche, so Rachel only won 4-3 and Shelly was really the deciding vote. Wow, people hated her more than I thought, now I just kind of wish Shelly wasn’t so committed to the game.
JEFF IS VOTED AMERICA’S FAVORITE!
Seriously, America? Now he won $25,000 twice as America’s Favorite both seasons, and he won $15,000 in prizes this time. So that’s more than Porsche got for second place.
I only hope that since Rachel and Jeff both won that Big Brother will stop forcing them down our throats and give some new people a chance to shine instead of having these larger-than-life personalities suck up all the air and attention.
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(Image courtesy of CBS)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
