TV Recap: Big Brother 11 - Week 1 Nominations

Hey Ronnie. If the pawn “always goes home” then why were you willing to agree to let one of your own team members go up on the block? Seriously, for a guy on the “brains” team, he seems to be missing the hole in his glorious plan. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The Nominations were the last thing in the episode, so we’ll get to that later.

Jessie was the star of tonight’s episode, which began with the houseguests’ reaction to Jessie’s entrance into the house. While we knew his sizable mass wouldn’t be so big that he couldn’t fit through the door, Jessie also managed to heft his ego in with him and let’s face it, isn’t that the best and worst part about him as a character in this wacky show? I know plenty of people will brand Jessie the obnoxious douchebag and I don’t really have much to say as an argument to that but seeing him jump around like a cracked-out monkey in the diary room reminded me of what made him so entertaining in a crazy, is-this-guy-for-real sort of way. I’m thinking I’ll be able to tolerate Jessie’s antics for at least a few weeks.

As Jessie entered the house as this seasons first Head of Household in addition to being the resident BB vet, he naturally scored plenty of attention from the other houseguests. Since Natalie had nothing to fear from him, being on his “Athlete” team and thus, immune from nomination, she had no problem pouting and talking smack to Jessie after she lost to him at chess. Some of the other houseguests weren’t so quick to give the beefy guy a hard time. Laura tried to butter Jessie up by stating that she thought he was the hottest guy in the house. Jessie could tell she was just trying to kiss up to him and wasn’t impressed by that any more than he was by Laura’s “assets” during the bikini-show some of the ladies put on. Jessie made it clear in the DR that he knows how Laura’s going to be playing this game and he isn’t buying it. Laura, on the other hand, thinks Jessie’s indifference toward her must be the school-boy act, where he pretends not to like her so he can get attention. I’m thinking they’re both at least a little bit right.

While the houseguests continued to get to know each other, BB set them up for their first food competition. The Athletes were exempt from the competition and got to sit back as the other three teams, decked out in glow-in-the-dark war paint, headed into the rave-themed competition course in an attempt to piece pipes together. The goal was to get a flow of glowy, colorful fluid through the pipes that hooked up to big light-up letters and out the end-point, which flowed into a mill-like wheel that turned once the liquid started to fill it up. This competition was the first we got to see of the teams working as an actual team and it was pretty enlightening in that respect.

You would think the Brains would’ve been able to handle such a basic task but it seemed Ronnie may have overthought the matter. His plan to go at the project linearly backfired when their straight-line approach overshot the target and they weren’t able to get their pipes to plug into the letters properly. He and his teammates, who seemed to follow his lead despite the fact that his plan wasn’t working, started to loop their pipes around, taking up more time (and pipes) than necessary.

The Off-beats were led by Casey, whose teaching abilities made him a very strong team leader in this task. He shouted out what he needed and Lydia and Kevin were there to provide. They ended up finishing first, followed by the Populars, who used Braden’s basic Lincoln-log mentality to get the job done. This left the Brains in last place, making them this season’s first “Have Not” team. They’re on slop for the week and will be spending their nights in the minimalistic Have-Not room. The bedroom had two double-bed sized mats set atop a metal loft that didn’t look very comfortable. The only other furniture in the room were two steel carts for their belongings. I have to say, their situation could be worse. I remember that isolation room that Danielle had to stay in a few seasons back. At least they got a cushion to sleep on, right?

Now on to the nominations. Ronnie and the Brains made the wise decision to form an alliance with the Athletes. That was about as far as their wise decision went. Rather than making the standard, “don’t put us up and we won’t put you guys up if we get HoH next week” deal, they agreed to let one of their own go up as a pawn. Ronnie said it twice in the episode. The pawn always goes home. If he’s so familiar with this game, I don’t understand why he’d be ok with this plan? Even after the nominations were over, he seemed so happy to have his own safety and not at all concerned about his team. Duh, Ronnie. If the pawn always goes home, don’t offer one of your own teammates up for sacrifice. I know thinking too long-term can be a game-ender in Big Brother but not protecting his team and their numbers, especially when they’re proving to be not so great at competitions seems foolish to me.

Lydia attempted to get closer to Jessie by rubbing his body down during a private HoH room massage but it did little to help her in the end. Jessie nominated Lydia and in accordance of their agreement with the Brains, put Chima up next to her. Right now, it’s clear the Athletes have the upper hand. Most of this is for obvious reasons, as they have four members and Jessie’s the HoH. Their alliance with the Brains could be worthless though if those guys don’t figure out how to handle the competitions. While I think the Athletes made an OK decision to make a deal with another Team, I’m not sure the pawn approach was their best bet. It might have been better to keep the deal with the brains, make a deal with one of the other teams and then target the third team by putting two people from the same team up for nomination. That way, it’s nearly guaranteed one of them will go home. Then again, Jessie seems to be playing it fairly cool with the houseguests and if things continue to work in the Athletes favor, they might be able to get through this week without pissing off any of the other teams. In the end though, all three of the other teams have to see the Athletes as a target, since they have the extra member so a one-week immunity deal with two of the three other teams probably would’ve been worth more than the deal they have with the Brains. Guess we’ll have to wait and see how things go during the Veto competition.