Well, it was a long road to the end but if you were a fan of the Renegades Alliance then you had to be happy with tonight’s final episode of Big Brother. I posted most of what took place in the live finale in the BB Live Recap but since the episode was so full of BB goodness, I thought I’d run some of my final thoughts. Tonight we got to see the Jury Q&A session as well as a brief recap of the season, the return of Angie, Steven, Brian and Jessie, the winner of the America’s Choice Jury prize and of course, the winner of this season of Big Brother.
I’m not sure anyone could have predicted that the jury would vote unanimously in favor of Dan. I think part of that had to do with Keesha’s influence. She wasn’t impressed with the sneaky way Memphis played the game. Memphis’ approach when answering the Jury’s questions was to stress that he was a straight-shooter and always being himself. I don’t think the bulk of the jury agreed with the whole straight-shooter thing. Given the jury he was up against, he might have done better to be a bit more flattering to them and talk up his quiet strategy, explaining that it was never personal and that he couldn’t have gotten to the end without their help. Dan took this approach, making sure to compliment the stronger players and using that as part of his reasoning for his role in their eviction. This likely earned him more favor among the jury.
As for it being unanimous, I suspect that some of that had to do with none of the jurors wanting to be in the minority among the votes. April seemed to be favoring Memphis prior to the Jury questioning and went on to say that she preferred Memphis’ speech when the questioning was over. I wonder what it was that changed her mind. Did she think she might be the only one to vote for Memphis? I sort of wished she had. While I believe Dan definitely deserved to win, Memphis played an excellent game and I was kind of sad to see that he didn’t get any votes.
Steven and Brian made this finale. When Julie gave Brian a chance to speak, he called out Ollie for the temper tantrum he threw after Dan’s Veto ceremony. He then went on to call Michelle out for the things she said about Libra’s mothering abilities after the luxury competition. And to add injury to insult, he brought up the comments Michelle and April made about Keesha’s physical appearance (that was shown to us during a Jury house clip). There was a lot of nervous laughter among Ollie, April and Michelle during all of this and when the thing about Keesha came up, Michelle looked like she didn’t even remember that conversation.
Steven spoke after Brian, bringing up Jerry’s “Judas” remarks and we were treated to the clip from when Michelle won the HoH comp and Jerry ran around screaming “Screw you people!” They also showed him stomping through the bedroom waving his middle-finger around. Jerry laughed while watching this and afterwards explained that his “Judas” tactic worked because Dan stopped using religion after that. It’s funny because I don’t remember Dan “using religion” before that.
What does Angie have to say about all of this? She was sitting with Brian, Steven and Jessie but she never got to talk. Perhaps Brian and Steven running on meant she wouldn’t have time to speak. I’m sad that we didn’t get to hear from her but Brian and Steven made up for that. Jessie did speak and he seemed either sad or nervous (or both) in response to the reveal (that he would’ve already known about) of America voting him out and I actually felt for the guy. He seems like a sweet fella. Sure he has a huge ego but I’m over that. He did make the little “Burr” noise though and that got some laughs.
Jerry, like everyone else, ended up voting for Dan. When he cast his vote he said something about the person he was voting for showing him kindness. He said he’d explain more to that person later. I’m wondering what specifically he was referring to. Did Jerry come to realize that Memphis was playing him? This could have been Memphis’ undoing. Memphis played a risky game, making final two deals with Jerry and Keesha. Dan benefited from both of those deals indirectly but that would not have been the case had either Keesha or Jerry had won the later competitions and made it to the end. While I can’t fault Memphis for wanting to ensure a spot in the final two, it looks like he got a taste of what Brian received when he was evicted in the first week for being called out on his too-many alliances.
Michelle reacted to the America’s Player twist as most of us knew she would. She said “I knew it!!” repeatedly during the clips of Dan performing his three tasks. But she did look surprised and maybe a little confused when she saw that America voted for Jessie to go.
Keesha won the Jury prize, which pleases me as I think she played an excellent game and made it very far. She also played a big role in helping the Renegades get to the end and for that, I’m thankful. Jerry came in second for the Jury prize but Keesha’s win shows that most likely, more feed-watchers were voting than non-feed-watchers as the Jerry we saw in the “Screw You People” clip is just a taste of the Jerry the people who had the live feeds knew. The episodes were beyond fair in Jerry’s favor. Then again, you can’t say many of the words he used in reference to some of the other houseguests on TV so that might have had something to do with his cleaner edit. Had Keesha not won the Jury prize, I would have wanted it to go to Renny as she was such an entertaining character in this season and will surely be remembered for seasons to come. All the same, I thought Keesha played better and deserved to win it for that reason (in the spirit of good players winning money, which was almost like a theme for this season).
All in all it was a great season. The right man won but Memphis also played well and I’m glad he got to the end, if only to win second place. Both of these guys were entertaining and played a good game, never letting it get personal and making Season 10 of Big Brother one of the best seasons of the series, in this writer’s humble opinion.
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