My worst fears of Big Brother 14 have come true. While part of me likes the twist of having returning players serve as in-house coaches to the newbies, the problem is that they take up all the screen time and hog all the attention, thus making the newbies seem totally forgettable, like minor characters. It’s what happened last year when Rachel and Daniele’s drama ruled the game.
A Tale of Two Cities
Boogie approaches Dan and asks him to “Will it up,” basically asking him to replace Dr. Will Kirby in Chilltown 2.0. Dan is slightly wary of this, as well he should be. Other than a brief moment assessing their rosters, this is about the only game talk between these two.
Meanwhile, Janelle corners Britney and explains that she knows Boogie and Dan are working together, so they need to team up so they don’t get influenced and manipulated by the guys. The irony of this whole situation is that Janelle is the one doing ALL of the influencing and manipulating. She seems to strong-arm Britney into the alliance and Janelle essentially takes control of her. It reaches a point where Team Britney meets in the HoH room and Janelle is also there, because Britney has basically given Janelle her proxy.
Janelle then proceeds to bad mouth Boogie and Dan to everyone on her team and Britney’s team, doing exactly what she is accusing Boogie of doing. And in a second bit of irony Boogie is laying low and NOT doing all of these things Janelle claims he’s doing.
Creepy Ian
Ian, the 21-year-old nerd, is a huge fan of Big Brother. He spends his nights wandering the empty house, studying everything and pacing around while Willie and Britney watch him on the HoH TV and mock him. He streaks and smacks his butt with a wooden spoon for no apparent reason. He also seems to lurk a lot, particularly in the bathroom, and that creeps out the ladies. I feel kind of bad that he’s going to get this reputation, but it seems kind of deserved. He’s definitely an odd duck (foreshadowing pun intended) and reminds me a bit of Andrew from season 12.
The Coaches Competition
Another new twist of the season is that the coaches will compete against each other in a competition, and the winner will get to give immunity to one of their players.
The first challenge is a horse derby where they chase each other around a slippery course and try to catch up to their opponent. In the first rounds, Boogie defeats Britney and Janelle beats Dan, but only because Dan threw the challenge because that’s what Dan does. It’s also so he doesn’t have to save one of his girls, thus putting a huge target on the other.
In the final round, Boogie defeats Janelle, thus dethroning the Competition Queen and making her hate him even more. Boogie chooses to keep Ian safe because he knows Ian is so creepy that he is the obvious target.
The Have-Nots
After the competition the coaches are then told to pick one player on their teams to be a Have-Not. Britney goes for Shane, probably because she knows he’s strong enough to handle it. Dan picks Danielle for no discernible reason. Janelle picks Ashley, which just seems cruel. And Boogie goes with Ian since he should get some bad to go with being safe.
The room itself looks insanely mean. The beds are small, curved, slanted and have little bumps all over it. No wonder on the live feeds Ashley and Shane are going through severe back pain.
King Willie Picks His Nominees
Willie, led by Britney and Janelle, wants to put Boogie and Dan against one another by nominating their top picks. That would be Kara and Frank, but the problem is that Willie already made a deal with Frank to keep each other safe.
Boogie finally gets around to playing the game by throwing Joe under the bus as a totally useless player who Willie could nominate and evict without making any enemies. He’s not wrong as Joe’s only talent is cooking all the food in the house at once, then throwing most of it away.
At the nomination ceremony, Ian wears a duck on his head for absolutely no reason. He’s like a combination of Andrew and Ronnie, and he is certainly going to be evicted before jury.
Willie nominates Frank and Kara and gives absolutely NO reason for it, instead choosing to ramble aimlessly. Boogie smells something rotten, as in Janelle pulling the strings on this one, and vows revenge. I hope this is a case of Janelle and Britney overplaying their hands early on, only to get destroyed down the road.
Next on Big Brother 14: The Power of Veto competition and ceremony come on Wednesday. Or you can click HERE right now to see who won and whether it was used.
(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.
