Era Of Good Feelings
I think I've posted something like this before, but it's always amusing how every Big Brother season seems to unfold in a logical way while you're actually watching it; but when you picture where we were at the beginning and compare it to where we are now, you wonder how much sense it really made.
Seriously, in mid-February I probably would have assumed Adam would have driven everyone crazy and been evicted long before; the seemingly game-less Ryan would have gone out meekly; Natalie would have left as the stereotypical victim of male treachery. Despite the lousy track record of older women on the show, Sheila I could have seen staying, based on "not a threat" considerations. James would have been hard to figure. Sharon is actually inheriting the role I had pegged for her all along: a good game player who is being underestimated. Certainly it would have seemed impossible that Sheila and Adam would be getting along swimmingly.
But a house that once seemed so filled with massive personalities is incredibly carefree right now, at the very point of the season where things tend to devolve into operatic drama. James is beaten down and is almost entirely keeping to himself now, resigned to his fate (though if he can win just one more veto this week, he ought to be able to try to exploit the inevitable fractures in the Adam/Ryan/Sheila/Natalie alliance). Sharon isn't much happier, although she's actually not in bad shape (again, if James doesn't win the veto), because Adam's alliance is one week away at the latest from having to turn on itself in some form. But not only is everyone else getting along, but with the exception of Sheila, the 4-person alliance is composed of personalities who are really easygoing by the standards of the show. With her major enemies mostly gone now, Natalie has become ridiculously cheerful, as her encounter with Julie Chen proved tonight. Ryan is an uncomplicated guy who just likes to eat, smoke, and drink beer. Adam is an enormous goofball. With Joshuah now gone, it's hard to see how we're going to get a lot of drama in the house, let alone any other sort of entertainment.
Joshuah continued the emerging house tradition of making a little speech after being evicted, and I suppose it was a nice gesture, although what he said seemed to be belied by his later comment to the effect that only James and Sharon are being genuine people in there (I think about 8 weeks, you pretty much always see the genuine person, which is why so many of us are so ambivalent towards the hamsters). I think when he looks back on it, Joshuah will see that the roots of his problems date back to his tenure as HoH. Despite his double secret alliance and his ambivalent feelings about his old "soulmate," I'm sure Ryan never fully forgot how Joshuah went after Allison, which seemed to be fueled by a misogyny he doesn't recognize. His bio segment came across as less of a puff piece than usual, unless I've forgotten another such segment where someone's parent called their BB kid a monster. Joshuah managed to channel a lot of his irritation in being voted out into passive-aggressiveness; he certainly had time to steel himself to what would happen and play the good loser.
So we have a week ahead of Natalie congratulating the forces of Jesus for winning again, and James moping around in his ridiculous self-pity--apparently he's already forgotten it was only a first-of-its-kind twist that even permitted him to stick around to begin with. What we need is a Sheila meltdown or some such.