Househappenings

I like to wax historical on occasion, so I couldn't help but wonder if Adam is the most unlikely season winner ever, if you think back to how things seemed, say, a week into the feeds. I'm thinking that the only other winners that come close to his level of unlikelihood were Will from Season 2 (we kept waiting the whole first half of the season for the inevitable Will eviction that never came) and Dick from the most recent season (before we realized the extent to which he'd be protected by America's Player, it looked inevitable that he'd rant his way out of the house pretty quickly).

Our initial impression of Adam, as seen way back on the first episode of the season, was that he was a little bit too in your face, a little too lacking in finesse, a LOT too nervous-making for the women in the house and in particular for the person who was supposed to be his soulmate, to get very far. If Big Brother had been a reality show filmed in entirety before it ever aired, we might have looked at that stuff as foreshadowing a great redemption for him, but I think the producers figured him the same way: as a guy who might be entertaining in the short run, but someone who would almost certainly be too weird to keep around long. But last season's Adam character, Zach, had a similar reversal of fortune and got one HoH win away from winning $500,000. Adam exceeded that effort. And he was sure the most fun to screencap all season, and remained so till the very end:

We can question whether or not the jury made the "right" decision or not, but I think his less direct style of gameplay is a valid strategy, especially because we've seen it work before. I always say that Big Brother is the most personal of all reality shows, and juries rarely vote on the basis of "who played the best game" unless the alternative is a cipher along the lines of Cowboy in BB5 or Erika in All-Stars. Ryan took most of the heat for making the jurors jurors in the first place, and his strategy of trying to protect himself with side deals, while sound enough, ended up costing him because the others all felt betrayed when their inability to win anything led to their evictions, because Ryan was never going to turn on Adam in the end.

And while Adam didn't have a stellar jury questioning session, he was better than Ryan, as I had assumed he would be. His bluster made him seem more believable somehow, and the only person who seemed offended by it merely ended up costing him a unanimous win. I think Adam will get over it. Ryan didn't seem prepared for the question about what he would do with the money, probably because his first instinct was what mine would have been, which is to say that it's none of your damn business. I don't know if the mention of Jen hurt him or not, but even though I was a bit surprised to see feelings about her still so raw over 2 months after she left the house, it might have been wise to keep that part to himself, and share the good news with Jen in person. I'm not sure why Natalie and Matt went with Adam in the end, but in Sharon's case the supposed betrayal no doubt hurt him (Ryan should have told her she was lucky to get all the way to fourth without ever winning HoH, something that's rare on BB and usually limited to strategic lightweights like Jameka).

I was disappointed that the live show left so little time for catching up that Julie never got to speak to Alex, Amanda, Jacob, or Parker, choosing to waste everyone's time with a revival of the Jen/Allison feud. Julie's attempt to get the jurors to please keep their speeches brief fell on deaf ears, as you sort of knew it would considering how much in love with their own voices people like Natalie and Joshuah are.

James won America's vote as favorite juror and an extra $25,000 to fund his cycling and whatever else he might choose to do in his spare time, which will all hopefully take place clothed, or without me watching it happen. I usually don't like these votes, which always seem to me to be contrived consolations prizes for people the producers fell in love with and tried to sell as fan favorites (e.g. Rupert on Survivor), but it was worth it to see Sheila, who already knows America would rather read James's as yet nonexistent book than the one she spent a season promoting on the feeds, find out that she lost out to James yet again.

Anyway, not a bad finish to a season that seemed odd in a lot of ways. Something about watching feeds, going out to shovel snow, and then watching more feeds didn't really compute with me psychologically. I'll be wrapping things up as the days progress, although given that a new season is only 11 weeks away, I won't be disappearing completely even after that. Perhaps we'll get some decent spoilers in the interim.