Character Check-up Time

Character Check-up Time by Roxanne McDonald

Not to copy Reality TV Calendar [and the writers’ ranking] or commit character assassination, but the remaining eight on Big Brother 8 have made some remarkable enough personality changes that it might be good to check in.

Mini-Me Janelle

For starters, Daniele is different, don’t you think? It’s not a full-out cockiness she has taken on, but a very bold, more vocal, more confident, more present persona. Wow.

When Daniele first came into the Big Brother 8 House, she was mawkish and weepy and reticent and recalcitrant. With the amazing recovery by way of winning several PoVs and two HoHs, the girl has become woman to be reckoned with, has boldly spoken to her distaste for persons and dynamics, and has even taken on an authoritative role (as when she was dismissing Amber after an agreement to take Amber off the block).
Yikes. Have we underestimated the anorexic? Doubted the dangerousness of the dumb blonde? Unlike others, Daniele does not win competitions by serendipity. There is some skill, some real intent there.

Thick as a Brick but Less Dangerous

Jen is just the punchline to a joke at this point. It’s not about composure. She’s just too thick, too insipid to be credited for being all that composed. It is little more than false pride and sudden strategy shifts of the others that keep her afloat.

The focus on her comes and goes, she switches alliances as quickly, and her shine is now as dull as our regard for her and her lackluster presence. Just listening to her makes our own IQs drop.

Following her shifts and switches is just as silly, as she, too goes the way the House wind blows…except that it blows against her for the fifth time this week, and then she doesn’t even bother to bolster her transparency or get some enhancing by way of alliance. Rather, she hyper-confidently announces her ensured survival in the House and denounces those she just, uh, had alliance and collusion with. I don’t know what I’m saying. Just trying to recap the one-dimensional has made me deliver little more than non sequiturs and mixed metaphors.

The One They Should be Watching Out For?

Either Jessica is consistently low-key and amiable unintentionally, or she is sharp-shooting smart and consciously staying on the margins when it comes to ganging up, over-competing, or hyper-conspiring. It may be, that is, that Jess has the unannounced brains and strategies to win this game…unannounced and therefore unattended to except when she gets the occasional spotlight.

Okay, Jess will be remembered (by the BB Houseguests) as the one who facilitated Dustin’s departure, but that wasn’t all her doing…so they likely think, so she will go ignored as a potentially potent killer of dreams this season.

Evil?

Dick has been proven to be as popular and hob-nobbing [sp?] as he first announced. He has also made sense of every switch in fealty he has made. I am sure I would be co-dependent to Dick if I were in the Big Brother House with him, so I am overlooking his inane antics and altered alliances, being more forgiving of his bellicose ways, but there is just something endearing about him. Starting with his devotion to his prima dona daughter.

Still, he doesn’t have the true evil, the truly malevolent gift that Dr. Will had and used, but rather has just the perpetuation of such an image because of the others in the House who are intimidated, challenged, insulted, or cowed by Dick.

Justified Injustice

Eric is the only one who can justifiably switch masks. And what an amazing job he is doing. Consider the duplicity, the absolute intelligence and maneuvering skill it takes to

convincingly change allegiances as much as he is made to do. Consider the élan. The finesse. The finagling few if any others in the house could get away with.

Looking at the House through Amber-colored Glasses

And Amber, oh, Amber. She has actually changed the LEAST, though she has just this evening [Tuesday, August 21] sworn off crying at the first part of the hour, saying no more crying [LOLOLOLOL?!], no more being upset, and no more hurting. Well we all just know that will last as long as, oh, Jen’s membership in Jensa? Amber cried at least three more times in that one-hour [for us] period.

Amber also has stepped all over her own vows, as we know, backsliding or contradicting on everything from voting Nick out to swearing—last Sunday—she was for sure going to win the POV. She did come close, but came in second to Daniele. And as we all understand, second is meaningless in the BB House.

Jenuflecting Jameka

Well, she doesn’t out-and-out genuflect, but how rueful is Jameka for bringing up her religious propensities? Jameka was and I guess still is one of my favorites and one I would bet will make it to the final few. Before she came out, as it were, I saw her strategy as one of the safest: staying a part of the wallpaper gets a contestant pretty far. Who was it on Survivor [Sandra?] who barely made a wave or wiggle, and who therefore went all the way to the winner’s chair?

But the higher profile state might just alter Jameka’s opportunities. And such a strong competitor, she needs to land that HoH spot…maybe toward the end when it really counts.

Self-proclaimed Silent Assassin

Now Zach is the one who thinks he is the go-along player, the one no one has seriously marked as a target, the one few have conspiratorial conversations about, etc. But Zach also thinks he is the brilliant mind behind his surviving each week. He doesn’t DO or SAY much to support this persona—isn’t planting seeds of execution or sowing rows among other houseguests. When in week one we might have pegged him as the type to be a part of a four horsemen alliance—ala Jas and others–or a dastardly duo of jocks or players, he actually just kind of doofs along.

Although what was the deal with his flopping his huge self into Jessica, who just pulled back her arms tight against her chest as if to say “EWWW”? He tells us it was to interrupt the Eric/Jess bond, but all it did was make him more unappealing than he already is.

So. Will they flip and fluster and flop yet again this coming Thursday, when, now that Daniel has overpowered her own nominations by putting Jen up in Amber’s place, they back-door poor Jameka and keep the foul femme AGAIN?

Will Jen keep her word [to herself] and make Dick and Daniele her sh-t-list top two? Will she or another prevail in reckless, thoughtless, inadvertent success? Or will, once again, cowardice, fear, fickle fame, or whatever have them hanging onto the coattails of whoever gets the new HoH position and thereby outlasting even our attention spans?

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