Big Brother – Quack Pack or meat shield?

After Thursday’s disheartening eviction of Britney, things took a turn for the better in the Big Brother house after the endurance competition for HOH concluded with a new man in charge — Ian! After the Quack Pack turned on Britney, Ian was the only person I had left to root for. Dan is playing for himself, and I don’t for a minute buy Shane’s BS in the Diary Room about Britney being closer to Ian so that’s why he voted to evict her. She’s been Shane’s coach from day one, so how could she be closer to Ian? I’m sure that’s what Shane was coached to say by the producers because, apparently, the live feeds showed Britney not campaigning for votes and she even told Shane that she’s had her turn at the game and it was time for someone else to have a shot. She obviously knew she was leaving since she was the only person dressed for an interview with Julie Chen, so I think there was a lot more to her eviction than what we saw.

Speaking of not seeing everything that went on in the house since Dan’s bravura performance to bring himself back from the dead, the live feeds showed Danielle telling both Ian and Shane that Dan’s “funeral” was all an act to stay in the game. And this was before eviction! If I had that kind of information going into the eviction, Danielle would have been voted out to get back at Dan for pulling such a stunt. That’s just me. But what all this served to prove is that Dan is a master at the game, and Frank is a puppet who can kill in competitions, but not make a decision on his own to save his life. First he did Boogie’s dirty work, and now Dan’s, and he’s a fool for believing that Dan’s final two deal with him was sincere. Come on, Frank! The guy helped send your two closest allies out the door, and orchestrated the eviction of someone in his own alliance … the alliance he exposed in order to save himself. Do you really think he’s got your back? In fact, besides himself he’s only had one other person’s best interest in mind the entire season — Danielle’s. Why do you think he’s suddenly going to toss that away to go into a final two with someone who is pretty much unbeatable with the jury? I wanted to give Frank more credit, but while he’s a good competitor and a good talker, he really can’t make a good decision when it comes to trusting people (except for Boogie, who would have remained loyal to him).

And now that Ian is HOH, he’s got the hard decision of what to do with nominations. Does he stay true to the four remaining Quack Packers now that Dan seems to be back on board (or at least as long as it serves his game), or does he give the “meat shield” another week since he can’t play in the next HOH competition? I’ve been running scenarios in my head of what’s best for Ian, and I have to say it’s a tough call. Ian is incredibly loyal — as witnessed by the nominations of Frank and Jenn. He can say he put them up there as 99% strategy, but you know there’s more than 1% revenge there for sending Britney out the door (and, seriously, if I hear Jenn talk about her “big move” one more time, I’m gonna scream … she simply did what Frank told her to do because she needed an alliance). But with Dan in his ear, I fear that he doesn’t see that Dan is just manipulating him and the game to get himself to the end. It’s obvious he really doesn’t care about the Quack Pack, but he’ll use Danielle, Shane and Ian as long as he can, and right now that’s his best bet. I think to align with Dan at this point is to secure your place on the jury.

I think Ian’s better move is to keep Frank and form a new alliance with him and Jenn … and then go after Joe to join them. It should be an easy sell. Joe really has no one. He says he’s faithful to Shane, but that’s only because he has no other options to keep his floating ass in the house. Joe is now the ultimate swing vote if Frank and Ian could see that. All it would take would be to offer Joe a spot in the final four with them and after that it’s every man for himself (or promise him final three with Jenn hitting the pavement before him — promises are made to be broken, after all). Then you’ve got a new four with a beast in competitions and a mastermind at really playing the game with two totally expendable players and no real loyalty to each other that’s been there from day one (although Ian and Frank were both Boogie’s team mates, so they should have some loyalty to each other). That scenario makes total sense to me. No one could really win against Frank … except Ian, because I think the jury would respect his mental and social game more than Frank’s physical prowess (and Ian certainly has proven himself in the endurance challenges). Dan is more dangerous to keep in the house at this point because he can play mind games with everyone (and throw competitions because he knows he can talk himself into safety), and taking him to the end will ensure that he takes home another half-million. If I were Ian, I’d work to either take Jenn out, or back door Dan (he made a deal not to back door Shane or Danielle, so that is entirely within his game play … and it’s not like he hasn’t gone against an alliance already). What would you do at this point?

Of course, this decision all comes down to who wins the POV and if they decide to use it or not. If you’re curious as to how this may all play out, the winner of the Veto competition that was held Saturday is

Show Spoiler »

Clacked by Chuck Duncan
on Sep 02, 2012 @ 23:37 EST5EDT