Big Brother 11 - Finale Recap and Thoughts - September 15, 2009

Tonight was the two hour finale of Big Brother. We had the final three of Jordan, Natalie, and Kevin. Part one of the HOH was won by Kevin. Part two between Natalie and Jordan was won by Jordan. It was revealed that part three would not be played until tonight’s live finale. That meant a lot of days of everyone trying to work deals. Kevin and Natalie. Yeah, this alliance has not been solid for weeks now. Kevin said in the diary room that Jordan winning part two was the perfect scenario for him cause he felt that Natalie was going to turn on him. Natalie started to get worried about Kevin’s loyalty to her. In the diary room, Kevin said that he felt that he couldn’t beat Natalie cause she has too many friends in the jury house. Oh, if he only knew. LOL. He did tell Jordan that he was going to take her to the final two cause he knew that he at least had a shot against her but not against Natalie. Jordan and Natalie talked about Kevin’s promises of final two. We then went to the jury house for Michele’s arrival. Jessie definitely celebrated while Jeff and Russell were disappointed. Michele told of Natalie’s engagement and Pandora’s Box prank. Michele was also told about Natalie’s real age. While watching the events of the week on the DVD, you just continued to see the build up of anger against Natalie continue. Jeff, Lydia, Russell, Michele, and Jessie all discussed the final three with the jury discussion. It was mostly a back and forth between Lydia and Jeff. Lydia was supporting Kevin and fighting for him while Jeff was fighting for Jordan. Interesting discussion. The argument for a winner was definitely between Jordan and Kevin with Natalie getting little support for her game play. That gets us to part three of the HOH competition between Jordan and Kevin. It was the usual deal where you have to guess what the jury members answer will be as they look back on the game. It came down to a 2-2 tie and then they tied on the last question as well. That gets us to a tiebreaker. Julie Chen asks the question on how many votes to evict have been cast total this season including tie breakers? Jordan picks 50 and Kevin picks 80. The answer is 51!!! WOW. Jordan wins part three of the HOH!!!! It was funny to listen to the audience cheering on Jordan during the HOH. Applause every time that she got one right. At this point, I’m freaking out thinking that she has to take Natalie if she wants to win the game. She couldn’t beat Kevin unless Kevin had won HOH and turned on Natalie. Jordan would need a mad Natalie vote against Kevin to win. Jordan voted to evict Kevin from the game leaving a final two of Jordan and Natalie. In his exit interview, he thought that Jordan made the right decision on who to face in the final two. Kevin was very classy in his interview. The jury questioning was done live after Kevin was brought out to the jury. Lydia was not happy to see him of course. At first, I thought the live jury questioning was a great idea. After it was done, I wasn’t so sure. I thought the questions were mostly softball type stuff. Michele did ask Natalie about being an 18 year old and now being engaged. The question was why did she want her to tell the jury about the engagement? Natalie did not say a thing about the age reveal but did say that she had friends in the jury house and wanted them to know of the excitement. Natalie was asked by Lydia who her biggest threat in the game was and Natalie said that it was Lydia due to the alliance with Jessie. Jordan was asked a house consensus question by Jeff about what her best move was in the game besides aligning with Jeff. Jordan said that it was evicting Kevin cause it gave her a better chance to win. Natalie did talk about not backstabbing anyone in the house which got laughs and groans from the audience and some from the jury. When each talked about their strategy, Jordan said that hers was to lay low while Natalie’s was to align with strong players. Natalie said that she stayed loyal to four people in the house and did not backstab them. The live voting took place and then it was reunion time. Braden, Laura, Casey, and Ronnie were brought back to talk to the rest of the cast. The best came from Ronnie where he said that everyone had talked about what a liar that he was but then brought up Natalie’s lies. He talked of the age reveal which stunned two people. Jordan and Kevin. Both of their reactions were hilarious. Ronnie was mad about not being told the truth on that to which Natalie said that she only told Jessie and Chima cause she trusted them 100%. Casey said that the biggest mistake in the game was Jeff believing the lie by Kevin and Natalie. The video was shown of the lie being started. Jeff said that it really didn’t matter cause Michele had already told him that she had heard it from Russell herself. Chima was brought up and Laura said that Chima leaving bothered her because so many people wanted to be in the spot that she was in yet she bailed. We got closure on the Ronnie/Michele situation. You might remember that he called her the worst person that he had ever met as he was on his way out of the house. Michele took the high road when questioned about it and Ronnie said that part of the speech was strategic. He did apologize and she accepted. Both are moving on. Nice closure to that. Next came a fun moment. Jessie was asked about his relationship with Lydia and whether it was platonic? Footage was shown of them under the covers and they were asked again. Julie asked if it was platonic or more toward romance. Jessie said that it was more toward romance while Lydia didn’t comment at all. Russell was asked what he thought of it. He had the line of the night. Well, besides Jordan with the “shut up” when she found out that Natalie was 24. LOL. Russell was shocked saying “I don’t know where I was, probably yelling at someone in the house”. That was a great line. Jeff was asked if he would be taking Jordan with him to Hawaii. He said that it depended on whether she won or not. He was joking of course and it got laughs. He didn’t commit to it but said that she was on the short list to go. What about their relationship? Both agreed that they’d see what happened and would talk about it when they got out of the house. Now, to the voting results. Jordan wins on a 5-2 vote. Votes for Jordan were from America, Jessie, Lydia, Jeff, and Michele. Votes for Natalie to win were from Kevin and Russell. Jordan wins Big Brother 11!!! Wow!! The voting results were also announced on the favorite houseguest. America voted Jeff so he was given $25,000.

Ok, my overall thoughts on tonight. It pretty much played out like I thought as far as how the votes would go. I said that Jordan would have to go against Natalie to win. UNLESS, Kevin won part three of the HOH and took Jordan to the final two. Then, the revenge vote from Natalie may have tossed things up in the air with America breaking the tie. I said that Natalie couldn’t win against either Jordan or Kevin. She had made too many enemies in the jury house. Lots of people in the jury house annoyed with her. I was shocked that she didn’t even get Jessie’s vote. That was a surprise to me and I think it was to her too. That was really the only vote that I was surprised with. Jordan stepped up and won big at the end. She won the last two parts of the HOH competition and set herself up against Natalie for the win. The reunion was fun. I always like when the cast is revealed different things that they didn’t know about. I am thrilled that the show got a two hour finale. The show always feels so rushed every year due to it being one hour. It felt like we got most everything out of the two hour finale this time. Congrats to Jordan on the win!! I really enjoyed this season a lot. Best season since Big Brother 8 in my opinion.