And the Ball Smasher lives on! Yesterday saw the final competition of BB OTT. It was a race through a long chicane to gather one photo of an evicted house guest at a time and then return with the photo to the start and use the photo to answer a question. There were hay bales to climb over and it was physically demanding task.
Justin got off to a fast start thanks to his longer stride and got off to an early lead. Morgan however had a better initial strategy. She was focused on retrieving the photos first and then arranging them afterwards. By the time they were on the third photo Morgan had made up her deficit and was pulling ahead. Around then Morgan started to really think about the answers to the questions as she ran through the chicane and would then place the photos in their proper slots.
On around the fifth trip, Justin was really starting to slow down and started largely walking through the chicane while Morgan maintained a faster pace. She soon had a full lap lead on Justin and was placing her photos in the right spots while Justin had two wrong. Morgan then finished the comp pretty quickly, hit her buzzer and got the ding telling her she'd won. Justin still had at least one more photo to retrieve and two placed incorrectly, so Morgan won handily. Morgan had an edge in any Q&A comp over Justin, but the questions weren't especially taxing and he had a chance, but Morgan was just faster and wanted it more.
Justin then quietly and graciously left the house. Both Justin and Morgan were exhausted after the comp. BB then rewarded the house guests with one final bottle of champagne with which to celebrate. Monte, Alex and Shelby were quick to congratulate Morgan on her win on Twitter and Instagram. Tonight at 7:00 PM ET (or so, there seems to be some conflict in the timing as an earlier press release said 8:00 PM ET) the final three will each have two minutes to make their pleas to America for votes. At 11:00 AM (ET) today the voting starts and runs through 4:00 PM (ET) tomorrow. At 8:00 PM Thursday night we start the finale and see who won BBOTT.
The early polling shows it to be a two horse race for the win with votes largely split between Morgan and Jason. Kryssie's support is hovering in the 1%-2% range on most polls, so barring a massive upset, she's in third place. My votes will got for Morgan for the win. The game was stacked against her side of the house most of the season, but she managed to scrape through to the end and make the final three despite nearly everything going against her.
Jason seems to feel that Kryssie is his biggest threat to win. She's got him convinced she's got a great story to tell of how she manipulated the whole house the whole season and is downplaying his role in it all. For the record, Jason thinks his being a smoker is what created the LNJ. That since smoking is only allowed in a limited area he was able to stake out that area and it became a refuge for the LNJ and brought them together and kept them together. I'm not sure how he'll sell that as gameplay, "I smoked, we lounged, vote for me" but he seems to feel it's a selling point in some manner.
I'm kind of surprised they're limiting the house guests to just two minutes for their final speeches. Granted Kryssie would go on for two days if they let her, but given the lack of time constraints I would think they could up it to five minutes and not lose viewers. I expect Morgan's speech to be the best and most focused. Shelby and Morgan talked about a lot of what to say back before Shelby got evicted, so Morgan has a head start on the speech and has likely been refining it in her head. Jason's speech sounds like it'll be more focused on his forming/maintaining the LNJ. Kryssie seems to be going off into never-never land where she was the glue that held the whole house together and loved everyone and was loyal to everyone while manipulating the whole house to do her bidding.
I don't think the speeches will matter all that much.I suspect the fans of the show already know how they'll vote. This largely comes down to voter turnout. Of the top two, Morgan and Jason, you can argue that Jason played the better game, but he had bigger advantages. Nearly every HOH won by the Ball Smasher side of the house got stolen away from them and ended up with someone on their side being evicted, despite them winning HOH. Monte won the first HOH and instead of an LNJ member going, they lost Cornbread. Alex won the second HOH and they lost Monte. Shelby won HOH and Alex got evicted. Morgan won HOH and Shelby got evicted. In a "normal" year, winning HOH guarantees safety for your side of the house. The Ball Smasher side won six of the nine HOH's and lost four allies in those six HOH's. A season that should have been an easy win for the Ball Smasher side turned into a desperate fight for survival, but Morgan survived.
It's hard to find much fault with Morgan's game play. She made the tactically smart move every week for her and her alliance. She played a smart social game staying outwardly friendly with everyone while adopting her "I'm just a harmless Bikini Girl/cheerleader" persona. She couldn't win every comp, but no one can. She did win when she needed to however.
Jason's game play largely came down to saving himself with the POV when he was at risk. He'd have been gone week one if he hadn't won that POV. (That was the Veto Vault comp where they had to figure out the correct numbers and enter the right combination. Pretty much everyone had the right numbers, but Jason got the order right first. That was largely a luck based comp.) He'd have been nominated again in week 2 but America gave the Care Package to Kryssie who used it to protect Jason. And when Shelby was targeting Jason in week six America gave him the Co-HOH Care Package to keep him safe. Winning the POV in week 8 (the corn maze) kept him safe again.
In a season where a single politically incorrect statement by someone on the Ball Smasher (Monte and Cornbread) side led to their condemnation and ouster, we heard nonstop filth from the LNJ side with no real consequence in the game. In a "normal" season of Big Brother, much of what we heard from the LNJ side would have been roundly condemned, but the fans of Jason largely excused everything said by him and his allies.
So, now it all comes down to the voting. It appears to be a two horse race between Morgan and Jason. Kryssie is largely irrelevant and locked into third place barring a massive upset. My votes go to Morgan. I just can't support Jason and the way he's acted and the things he's said in the house. If you put Jason's words in the mouths of Scott, Monte or Cornbread, they'd have been burned at the stake. I don't see how it's okay for Jason to say the stuff he does and I won't reward him for such behavior.
No comments:
Post a Comment