Eolivet

I sort of disagree with this. If anything, it saved us from the "trying desperately not to be racist" justifications for voting out Black women on reality TV ("they're so intelligent! They're such a threat!") I didn't enjoy Tiffany and Hannah getting voted out, but at least "we don't trust you" or "we like the guys better" or "you're annoying" were honest reasons versus "golly gee, you're just sooooo good, I couldn't let you win." When Sarah Beth wanted to target Hannah that one week for being "so smart" and "knowing so much about the game," that was one thing I'm glad the Cookout snuffed out. The patting yourself on the back for "getting rid of a threat" when white women are pretty much never seen as being "too intelligent" or "too much of a threat." Maybe it's me, but I'm glad Tiffany and Hannah went out to the Cookout sub-alliance with their middle fingers (metaphorically) raised versus being evicted by a Derek X/Claire/SB/whoever conglomerate that would've gone over the top about how awesome they were, to make themselves feel better.

Yes, but they scored it to "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" which is the perfect song to describe Bear's brief Challenge career. And once Bear went home, nobody else really took their place. This season has been a new couple every week. I know The Challenge used to be like this, but I don't watch Love Island for a reason.

Why I miss the colder weather and the more austere setting: it cut down on the hook-up culture. This season feels trashier than the past few. Not since Paulie and Cara Maria were having sex on all the beds back in War of the Worlds. I would've said CT was interested "that way" in Emy, except he appeared to have a wedding ring on in one of his confessionals. Agreed that the daily challenge was lots of "tell" and not a lot of "show." You can scream how sick it is all you want, TJ -- it made for boring TV. Speculating that Josh isn't getting kicked off, since his edit has been really positive (for Josh). He even got a love interest this year, so you know he's hit the big time.

I feel like 11 minutes would've been last place in prior seasons of BB Comics. Were they harder this year, I wonder? More minute details?

Ugh, I cannot stand the guy who dressed up like a chicken! He dressed up like some obnoxious character last year, too -- a needy grandmother or something. Is he famous? Why do they keep bringing him back when he's not funny at all? Kyland's strategy of dropping the egg instead of maneuvering it was a bold move. And I guess it did pay off for him.

I actually remember when Britney found out she was going to be evicted by the Brigade, and she cried and wailed and was incredibly upset, and yet, the prevailing opinion seemed to be that she was stupid for trusting them. No evil was ascribed to the Brigade, only "game," and how dumb could she be, thinking she was part of their group? On the other hand, are people really that mad about being evicted these days? We're a long way from Boogie and Howie "get to stepping" in All Stars (the real All Stars, not this fake one last year). In this era of gaslighting alliances and "vote with the house," we don't really see deep betrayals on BB anymore, and certainly nothing like what used to happen on Survivor. If you're upset about Claire potentially getting evicted, at least she's not Brenda, who got voted out by Dawn after finding Dawn's teeth.

Even though CT and Kyle were crowing about how there's no skull twist, I sort of hope it's not gone for good. That you have to win an elimination or a daily challenge to make the final or something. The coasting through on your political game and making a final is tired. And a skull twist would be the quickest way for the veterans to turn on each other. Josh is getting an outsized edit, and it's not the buffoon one either. Wonder what that means. CT's exasperation with these Mensa candidates' lack of eighth grade math skills will never get old.

The zings have been awful these past few years. Get the writer back who wrote the BB14 and BB16 zings. Although I blame Zingbot for Andy ("it's pale and it floats, oh wait it's just Andy") waking up and winning BB15. Honestly, this hour's biggest laugh for me was Hannah walking into a room with, "Are you snitches conspiring against me?" Now that is a super-fan.

Dear Evan Hansen is a musical that deals with themes like mental health and suicide, whose main character goes to high school. So, having a fun, light high school-themed Veto (including photoshopping a cast onto someone's arm, which is a major plot point of the show) to tie into the movie was bizarre, considering it's not a happy, fun musical. I wish they had done a Veto that had nothing to do with the movie.

Things I never thought I'd ever see on Big Brother: A "Dear Evan Hansen"-themed ... high school Veto comp. I can't tell if it's truly in poor taste or just extremely tone deaf.

Never thought I'd be lamenting Michele's departure, but here we are. She seemed to be implying that there was something physically wrong with their locks (as in, an equipment malfunction). I'm curious what came of that. Obviously nothing, but she did seem pretty insistent something was up with the equipment vs she and Corey couldn't get the timing right. Boy, for all the hay made about the Survivor alliance, they sure fizzled out quickly. Josh has these weird "a stopped clock is right twice a day" moments of strategic brilliance, and his advice to Devin was one of them. Then he couldn't resist going into "meatball" mode with Fessy. Kaycee is pretty intimidating. Former football player, lots of brute strength, quickness. I'm not sure many women would want to face her.

I'd love to know the market research that led CBS production to think, "Vegas-style gambling games. I know, let's have them announced in an uppercrust British accent!" When the voice asked, "Would you like to play Coin of Destiny," I half-expected them to say, "and a spot of tea?"

Ed is a find. He's the player that Jay wanted to be: undersized, but athletic, smart, witty and self-assured. Or he's Paulie with way more brainpower (and guts). I was not a huge fan of Michele on Survivor, but I'm kind of loving her here. Competitive, but strategic and social. Last episode, her going up and apologizing for taking someone else's partner is the kind of move that probably won her that million dollars. Tommy was ten times more interesting in his three Challenge episodes than his entire Survivor season, too. Oh man, Josh is a seasoned veteran. I can't. I still feel like someone's going to tell me that it's Opposite Day.

This was the (OG) Friendship by the end. This is 90% of Survivor alliances in the early years. I just rewatched a Survivor season (Exile Island) where the dominant alliance hated each other, and chose to keep working together. People forget that Derrick's gaslighting alliances are fairly recent, where they all pretend to be friends and then evict people in a pre-chosen hierarchy. The word is "alliance," not "friendship" for a reason. The U.S. and Russia didn't braid each other's hair in WWII, they were on the same side and had a common goal. After several seasons of reality TV that seem determined to tell me that newschool beats oldschool every time, I am positively elated to see an oldschool-type alliance that aren't all friends, and are just working together towards a mutually beneficial common goal! Like alliances used to! I will take "you're on the wrong side and I have to evict you" versus "I'll pretend to be your friend and working with you, but then I'll bait you into doing something wrong that betrays the alliance, so I can stab you in the back, make myself the victim and cry about why you gave me no choice but to evict you" any day of the week, and twice on Sundays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

The High Rollers Room was one of those things that must've sounded great when it was pitched, but absolutely fell flat when it was broadcast. There's a reason Survivor got rid of its shuffleboard challenge. Shuffleboard is mind-numbing to watch. It made me long for the days of BB20's the Hacker, and that's saying something. I also didn't understand the rules about betting, and assumed there could be five Vetoes in play if everyone bet on the same person. Luckily, they explained it at the end but when you have to rush through nominations because your new twist needs 30 minutes to explain ... that's not a good twist. And I really have to strenuously object to the one some of them are saving for: spinning a roulette wheel to determine a replacement nomination. This isn't even Clown Shoe (where you need attention to detail), or even one of those "crap shoot" HoHs (where who gets the power is random, but in a good way for the winner, not a bad way for the loser). They think this ratchets up the tension, but it actually does the opposite, for me: if you can't control your game to the point that you could randomly be put on the block when someone spins a wheel, what exactly is the point of playing a good game? Nominations aren't supposed to be based on the shruggie emoji. That's not good Big Brother, and it's really not good TV either. Hope this twist is short-lived, because it seems to be nothing but an airtime-suck based where the outcome of someone's game could be pure, random happenstance. Or to put it another way: there's a reason why flipping a coin isn't a televised sport.