The Cheese Stands Alone

"The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat." Lily Tomlin

The power has shifted. Keebler elves are busy in their trees cooking up a batch of deliciousness. Wood nymphs dance seductively to the sounds of birds chirping and squirrels scurrying. Babies born today greet their first look at the world with a smile rather than a cry. Bustling city traffic has suddenly gone quiet because there's no longer a reason to honk horns. The whole big blue ball of a planet we sit upon can finally exhale and breathe a sigh of relief. All is well. We are safe. How did we arrive here? What precipitated the perfection that is today? Let's recap, shall we?

Yesterday was the POV competition. Russell, Ronnie, Lydia, Jessie, Kevin, and Natalie were the players and I'm wondering if Bacchus was the name of the game. The POV had something to do with wine and togas and may or may not have included several live rats. Jessie, perhaps in a state of Week 4 paranoia, asks Russell to throw the competition to him if they are the last two standing. Russell tells him that he doesn't want Lydia, Kevin, or Ronnie to win. If one of them do win, Jordan will go up as a replacement nominee. I'm not sure if Russell is telling the truth or not, but it's music to Jessie's ears. In the end, Michele won the veto and no angels sang and no fairies danced. In fact, all the fairytale creatures just kind of looked at each other and shrugged.

Michele winning the veto does nothing for me whatsoever. I don't like the girl at all. I never have. I don't care how kinky she gets when she drinks, she does zero for me in this game. To make matters worse, whenever she wins something she gets smug and starts to gloat and wear ill fitting clothes and... ugh. I hate her.

Michele showers and then puts on what I'd like to call a blue potato sack. She struts around the house (sans plastic heels this time) and begins to feel very powerful. She goes outside to Jeff and Jordan and begins to share with them just how powerful she imagines herself to be. Power in Big Brother, to me, is the ability to get other people to do your bidding. MICHELE HAS ZERO POWER. Even with that POV hot in her hand, she has, and I repeat, ZERO POWER. The only thing Michele does have is a target on her back. Winning 2 POV's in a row and hanging on til the Final Four in the HOH has not gone unnoticed. Believe you me, Michele is more in trouble now than she ever was before and I'll explain why.

So Michele makes a pitch to Jeff and Jordan in the BY. She tells them she won't use the veto at all and she will jump alliances and vote to evict Ronnie. I think she expected Jeff and Jordan to do backflips or something, but instead they just sat there and nodded. Michele began her lackluster pitch by saying that she thinks Russell threw the POV and how she doesn't trust him at all. Remember folks, Jeff is in an alliance with Russell. Michele doesn't know this at all so she fancies herself to be some sort of great groundbreaker and game changer. All she's doing now is making herself disliked by 2 alliances instead of 1. She says, "Having won the POV this week gives me the power to game change and if I go next week, I go." What power, bitch? You're not using it! She goes on to say that everyone is threatened by her. OK, that might be a little true only because she's winning things now, but she's not a threat as far as persuading people to vote a certain way. She's only a threat when it comes to challenges.

Michele goes on to say that Kevin will be walking out that door if she has anything to do about it. Again, Jeff and Jordan are ALSO in an alliance with Lydia and Kevin. For some reason, Michele thinks that voting Ronnie out this week is some big huge power play. Michele voting Ronnie out this week makes her public enemy #1 with her old alliance (Jessie, Natalie, Chima) and places her in a very soft alliance with Jeff and Jordan. She will have effectively made enemies with the entire house after this week. Her old alliance will be pissed, she's said openly she doesn't trust Russell, and she's completely turned on Kevin and Lydia. That only leaves Jeff and Jordan. Jeff and Jordan having Michele on their side isn't something to brag about it. Her vote could come in handy or it could put them in a very precarious position.

I watched Twitter land light up with people foaming at the mouth over how great Michele is and how she's tipped the balance blah blah blah. I must be watching a very different game because all I see is Michele positioning herself to be more alone than ever before. Maybe Michele thinks that Jeff or Jordan will get the Wizard power (that's what the house is calling the Coup D'Etat). I'm not sure if that's her motivation for abandoning her own alliance. Sure, her old alliance was wretched and we all hate that group, but I'm trying to analyze from a purely strategic point of view right now. Jeff and Jordan may be the publics second coming of holy bliss, but they have other loyalties in the house that precede this new loyalty to Michele. For a second, I thought maybe I'm looking at this all wrong. Maybe all the chatters and Twitter people are actually right and Michele is a lot smarter than I give her credit for. I was clearly flying solo in my analysis of this when it came to the social networks, but then something beautiful happened. A lovely blonde angel named Jordan confirmed all of my innermost thoughts and turned to Jeff (right after Michele left them) saying, "Watch what you say to her." Thank you Jordan! Bless your little bloated naive heart. Michele is nothing more than a girl who's all alone in this game because she refused to commit and she's burned too many bridges. She's turned on every alliance she's had and has proved herself to be nothing more than untrustworthy.

Here's the Jeff/Jordan/Michele conversation for you to analyze yourself. Let me know in the comments if I'm completely nuts or the most astute person on the planet:

I forgot to mention yesterday that indeed everyone is referring to the Coup D'Etat as the "Wizard Power". Anytime anyone gets called the Diary Room they shout, "Wizard!" The consensus in the house seems to be that either Jeff, Jordan, Lydia or Ronnie could get the power. It all depends on what kind of edit CBS is giving them. They've pretty accurately determined what the power is - something that will override the HOH and allow them to evict someone. Unfortunately for Ronnie, this power is looking to be only chance of staying in the house.

This brings me to another little controversial gem. Yesterday BigBrotherLeak sent out a tweet that someone went to a tech geek site requesting the code to create a bot that will allow an infinite number of votes to be cast for Ronnie. I went to the site myself and checked out what all the fuss is about. It looks like a Ronnie fan was indeed trying to cheat for him. The screenname of the fan was nondescript and pointed to no one in particular. It's absolutely impossible to even begin to guess who made the request. There are millions of people who watch Big Brother and it's likely that a good many of them are Ronnie fans (keep in mind a very small percentage get the live feeds and Ronnie has been getting a sort of evil mastermind underdog kind of edit from CBS)As twitter is often wont to do, everyone began to jump to conclusions and point fingers. Naturally, people started blaming Michelle Talbott. Being the investigative journalist I am (not!), I went to Michelle and asked her to comment on it. This was her reply: "Yeah. I have no idea what they are talking about. What's wrong with ppl? First they say he won't win and now that he's cheating?!" There you have it. Cheating is wrong and no one should do it, but pointing fingers with zero proof is also wrong. I kind of have the feeling that if the bot was generated to create Jeff votes, that a big deal wouldn't have been made at all. In fact, I think people would be spreading it around to give to others thinking it was funny. The whole thing set my Hypocradar off and you know when it goes off I can't ignore it.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Jeff and Jordan were enjoying the quiet late California afternoon by themselves out in the backyard. They began to ask each other about their lives, dreams, wishes, etc. The Jeff and Jordan fans bathed in Sprite and farted bubbles of love and goodness while cynics like me just sat and stared dumbfounded at what was being said.

In response to what animal would you be, Jordan said she wouldn't want to be a shark because "they are stupid". Oh, it gets better. She also said she wants to visit Fiji, but she doesn't want to leave the United States because she's seen Locked Up Abroad (best show ever by the way... I highly recommend it). Out of every celebrity in the world, she'd want a date with Brody Jenner (all I have to say is, what the fuck?). She'd like to hang out with Tom Brady because he's cute and that must mean he's funny too. If she could take a weekend vacation with someone famous, it would be Justin Timberlake. She thinks she might like to live in California because "it's neat" and her absolute dream job would be a dental hygienist because she likes teeth and they make a good living. Jeff and I both immediately said, "A dental hygienist?" That's so random. I would have respected the answer "I want to be a mermaid" more than "I want to be a dental hygenist". What planet is this girl living on?

Jeff, on the other hand, might like to be a whale or a dolphin because they're just chill. He'd like to live overseas near the water because he likes the lifestyle. If he could eat anything right at this moment it would be crab legs. He'd like to date a Victoria's Secret model and he'd like to hang out with Rob Dyrdek because he thinks it would be fun and crazy. His dream job would be to have a travel show where he gets to go all around the world. Now we're talking! I've always said that Anthony Bourdain has the best job in the world. Jeff also said he's typically attracted to brunettes. That made Jordan get very quiet and the beautiful tiny pixie that was sitting on my laptop fell over dead. You can't say things like that Jeffy Pooh. There are ramificiations that affect all sorts of mythical creatures outside of your newspaper boy capped head.

Someone tell me I'm not the only one who thought a stage production revival of The Newsies was in order:

Come on, you know you were thinking it too.

Last night the HG's were given a little alcohol and most spent the evening outside chit chatting. Ronnie stayed inside and read his bible. Natalie at one point peeked in on him and told him not to ask Michele to use the POV because it was a waste of time. She told him to try to win her over instead and that her crew will also try to win her over. Ronnie already has votes from Chima, Natalie, and Jessie to stay in the house. They just need to work on Michele.

Ronnie must have interpreted, "win her over" to mean "go into full rat mode, humiliate yourself, and then piss people off even more" because that's exactly what he did. First he went up to the HOH and confronted Russell. He tries to convince Russell of his loyalty saying he's never gone against their alliance. His voice is cracking, he's shaking, and he begins to cry whenever he mentions how much he wants to stay in the game. He assures Russell that the only people he wants out of the house are Jeff and Jordan. He says he has no problem getting blood on his hands and taking one for the team like he did when he voted to keep Chima or when he put Jordan on the block. He goes on to tell Russell that his speech absolutely did not offend him (it had something to do with religion I think) and that he and Russell are actually very similar in a lot of way. They both like to "take the bull by the horns".

Ronnie confides in Russell that something horrible happened to him when he was 18. He lost a lot of friends and had to move 3 hours away from where he lived. He doesn't go into any more detail than that, but says that when he was in the HOH all alone all of those feelings from his past came up again. I began to get a very different view of Ronnie the more I saw him in action yesterday. It probably didn't help that I watched his audition tape for Solitary 3.0 as well (clip is at the end of this post). He's extremely vengeful and duplicitous and I have no doubt that this has caused him great problems in his personal life. He really had a chance to go far in this game, but his underlying need to make himself feel better by backstabbing others will be his ultimate downfall... not just in Big Brother, but in life as well. I think he's probably very insecure and his bravado is nothing more than a defense mechanism. Russell ends the meeting in the HOH telling Ronnie he'll "marinate on it".

Ronnie then approaches Michele in a fucked up effort to win her over. Michele tells him she will not use the veto and Ronnie lies and says that's the best choice. He goes on to tell her that he's always been loyal to his alliance and that "actions speak louder than words". He never listens to all the talk in the house because he knows most people are lying. He prefers to judge them on their actions rather than their words. This is actually a very smart way to approach the game. The problem is Ronnie doesn't abide by his own rules. He's absolutely paid attention to all the gossip. He's the one who spreads more than half of it. Anyhow, he tells Michele that if he goes home she'll have turned against her alliance and they'll go after her. She will have no one on her side. He says, "The cheese stands alone."

Michele says that if she chose to keep Ronnie in this game at this point that Ronnie will surely go after her the first chance he got. She only won the veto to ensure her own safety. She tells Ronnie that she knows he suggested Russell put her on the block (I said this yesterday, but Ronnie actually did NOT suggest that. He wanted both Lydia and Kevin on the block. All he said about Michele was that she wasn't trustworthy). Ronnie says, "No I never said that. I told Russell I didn't trust you." For once, he's telling the truth, but not for long. Ronnie then tells Michele that he's talked to Russell about staying in the house and that Russell told him he's marinating on it (truth). He also says that Russell is beginning to think that putting Ronnie on the block was a bad idea in the first place (lie). Oh Ronnie. What a stupid thing to lie about! If that gets back to Russell, he's going to make your life in there a living hell. Have you learned nothing?!?

Seeing that Michele is not going to budge, Ronnie's panic sets in and his evil side begins to show. Michele tells him, "Strategically, I don’t think it’s in my best interest to have you still around”. Ronnie replies, “Strategically, it actually weakens you. Now you have no true alliance.” He continues, "It may not be next week. It may not be the week after that, but you will be evicted if I leave that door. You will not make it to the final 2 and even if you do, you’re playing for second place.” Why do men always do that? The second they don't get their way they immediately insult you. Women do it too I suppose, but it's always uglier when it comes out of a man. To me, it immediately reads as misogynistic and cowardly. I think it's safe to say that Ronnie has failed in his attempt to win over Michele.

So that's where we are. It looks like Ronnie's ship has sailed and he needs a miracle to stay in that house. Will it be in the form of a Coup D'Etat? I have no idea. He needs to play nicey nicey instead of bitter bitter with everyone in the house. I think Michele using the veto is a lost cause. It's not going to happen, but can Ronnie convince more people to vote against Lydia? You can guarantee he's going to crucify her to Jeff and Jordan in the very near future. Will the Coup D'Etat holder choose to do something crazy and awesome like evict Jessie at the last minute? I can only hope. I still refuse to give up on my dream of having Jessie evicted AGAIN in Week 4.

Here's a blonde Ronnie trying to get on Solitary 3.0: