Big Brother 11 - Week One Thoughts - July 21, 2009

Well, this first week in the Big Brother house has been……well…..normal. LOL. I had yet to get to watch the live feeds or really even read the recaps cause it has been a very busy week. I plan on jumping into the live feeds this week and following what is happening. So, I can only comment with what I have seen on the episodes. I know that often the editing and how it played out live on the feeds can appear very different at times. I’ve watched MANY things happen on the live feeds and then see the edited clips of it on TV leaving me thinking, that wasn’t how that went down at all. LOL. So, keep in mind that my thoughts and recaps are based just off of what has happened on TV. However, I have been doing some reading in the last few days and it does seem like things were shown differently based on the argument between Braden, Lydia, and Kevin. Based on everything that I’ve read, the episode really left off some things in that argument. Like I said, I haven’t kept up with the feeds so when I watched the episode, I was thinking why is Lydia stirring this up so much? Lots of name calling occurred which got it to that level.

Week one saw Jessie return to the Big Brother house and his reign as HOH began. Some were happy to see him while others were not. Ronnie went into action immediately trying to work an alliance between the Brains and the Athletes. Ronnie promised them safety next week if they were given safety this week. He went and talked to Chima about possibly forming this alliance which she was all for happening. They went to Jessie and then Ronnie was asked to be a pawn. He didn’t want to be and put it on Michele to be the pawn of the group. It should be noted that Michele was the only one of the Brains group not in the room at the time. The food competition has changed a bit this season. Not only is it food related but also effects living conditions. So, the challenge is now called the have and have nots competition. If you lose, you’re on slop but also your living conditions including sleeping are terrible. The groups competed with the Offbeat finishing first followed by the Popular group. That meant that the Brains were the have nots this week due to the Athletes having HOH power and not having to compete. Chima immediately melted down over it and the revelation of what have not included was shown. The beds were metal to lay on which looked extremely uncomfortable!! Lydia worked on Jessie hoping to avoid nomination this week. It didn’t work however as Jessie nominated her and Chima for eviction. Chima is the pawn but you know how things go on Big Brother with being a pawn. Lydia took it hard saying that it felt like high school again with her first appearance being used as a strike against her. She was consoled by a lot of people while being told that she was safe. Chima overheard this feeling badly that no one was consoling her despite being nominated as well. Jeff was one of the people in the room consoling Lydia with him starting to sway away from the Athletes. The veto competition takes place and the plan was to get letters and form the biggest word that you could. The person that had the biggest word at the end of the time allowed would win the veto. Jeff misspelled “continuosly” and that would come back at him later. The winner of the veto was Russell for spelling “shotgun”. The Athletes thought that Jeff threw the veto competition and Russell made his plan to embarrass Jeff in front of everyone. Jeff was also spending a lot of time with Jordan which may have stirred Russell’s mood even more. He went into a verbal tirade on Jeff about misspelling the word. Jeff took it really non caring with a reaction of sorry, I’m not a good speller. Jeff looked stunned that Russell was blasting over this whole thing wondering what the big deal was. It was way over the top is how it appeared on TV. Now, like I said, I don’t know what it looked like on the live feeds. Natalie got involved as well saying that Jeff didn’t hang out with them anymore and how he had isolated himself. Jeff pointed out that they didn’t even tell him what the nominations were going to be. Russell stirred things up even more when he told Lydia that Natalie was the one that wanted her nominated. Later, Natalie walked in on Jessie and Lydia in the HOH room. Lydia called her out on Russell’s claims. They basically talked it out and worked it out. Braden’s name was brought up by Lydia and the Athletes talked of targeting him. Russell told Ronnie about the idea of getting rid of Braden. He immediately went and told Jordan and Jeff about it who weren’t happy about this news. They in turn went and told Braden about it. Russell knew quickly that this news had got to Braden based on how Braden’s body language had changed. He knew that Ronnie could have been the only one to tell about it. Russell called Ronnie out about it and he denied it. That put a target on Ronnie leaving us to wonder what would happen with the veto. The plan stayed in place. Russell used the veto on Lydia. Jessie nominated Braden in his place. Braden talked to Russell who got him all fired up focusing on Lydia being the one to bring up his name. Braden questioned Lydia in the backyard as Kevin was also there. The conversation got heated and he called her several names. Now, when I was watching this all play out, I was thinking what is up with Lydia? She is really fired up way too over the top. I just thought is this really all necessary? Kevin got brought into it as well when he stepped in for Lydia. Jeff tried to break it up. After reading the feed stuff, I see that Lydia wasn’t reacting just to that. She was angered over some other things that Braden said that wasn’t on the show. Now it makes sense why she was so mad. Lydia went into the house and had it out with Jordan. Why Jordan? Lydia was mad about Jordan crying at the nomination of Braden but mad at the fact that Jordan didn’t cry for her being nominated when they are supposed to be friends. Jordan defended herself screaming that Braden was her teammate and that she was sad that he went up on the block. Kevin got involved as well and then so did Jeff. They were mad at Jeff for not defending Lydia and Kevin more in the backyard to which he said that he did stand up and pondering what else he could have done? Jeff, Jordan, and their group all pondered why Lydia worked so hard to get off the block and make deals when she had the votes to stay. They were very unhappy over the turn of events. They looked to form some alliances and save Braden as they were unhappy with how the Athletes were running the house. Jordan talks to Laura and they look to bring in Ronnie, Michele, and Casey to get the votes for Braden to stay. Jeff would be on their side too. Casey turned into the swing vote as everyone was on board. The live vote takes place but first was Chima’s last minute speech to stay. Most of her speech was cut out by CBS with Julie Chen saying how that was one of the more memorable speeches that they had over the years. The vote was a tie!! Yeah, that wasn’t the plan that had been set up. The votes to evict Braden were: Russell, Natalie, Kevin, Lydia, and Ronnie. Votes to evict Chima were: Jeff, Jordan, Laura, Michele, Casey. Yep, Ronnie flipped!! That left the decision up to the HOH. Jessie evicted Braden. That gets us to the HOH competition. It came down to Ronnie and Michele with Ronnie winning. Interesting week for him to win with so much attention on the vote that went wrong. He has been working both sides hard so he’s going to make someone mad with things this week.

Some random notes from the week. It was funny cause as the first few episodes played out, I thought this is a calmer group this year. Then came episode three. LOL. Yeah, the editing did appear to make things seem different with how conversations and reactions were to things. After reading things on the feeds, things make a lot more sense. Wow, the HOH room looked really good. A waterfall??!! Natalie and Jessie arguing over who won and lost the chess game was entertaining. Natalie’s comment of “who lost last season and who won to get you in the house this season” was a good one.

I’ll be back on my normal Big Brother schedule this week with recapping it.