Mystic Gemini's BigBrother POV
When I first heard that Rachel and Brendon were coming back to BB I was less than thrilled. I was not a huge fan during BB12, though I did always say that I wanted to see her play the game without him. But when Brendon first left the game, we got the same old Rachel, just with more tears and more whining. And with Brendon's return, we were back to the same old Brenchel. He berated her, she took it, we shook our heads.
But with Brendon's second eviction, when Rachel was "forced to totally rethink [her] game" we got a whole new Rachel. She was calmer, and more focused, she kept winning when she really had to, and didn't have Brendon to fall back on. In BB12 Rachel never won a POV, and this year she pulled out 2, including the super-critical duo do-over. And it was all uphill from there. For the last few weeks of the game it's hard to find almost any fault with Rachel's game. She did everything she could to keep her biggest ally, Jordan, in the game, but at the same time, she knew Jordan was worth more to her in the jury house. It wasn't deliberate, but having Jordan leave at Porsche's hands couldn't have worked out better for Rachel.
And then with the Final HOH, she could not have done more. She was staying on that mixer until she had won part one, even if it hadn't been for Adam and Porsche not having the stomach for it. She got a little lucky in part III since neither she nor Porsche seemed to know the jury very well. I did take a bit of issue with her decision to evict Adam, but I understood her reasoning. Rachel's not one to think about what's necessarily the best game move. She has her Big Brother principles and she sticks to them. Adam's final speech honestly was a bit rude, but he had to try. Calling Porsche a floater is a little pot-kettle-black, but it could have made an impression on Rachel.
When it came down to it, the votes were, once again, not quite what I expected. I did think Shelly was a toss-up, though after the jury roundtable it became clear that she didn't particularly respect Porsche's game. I was more surprised at Adam, going with the personal vote rather than the best game player, but in the end, it didn't matter thanks to Shelly.
And it wasn't much of a surprise that Jeff won the favorite HG prize again. With that, his $15K, and his stipend, he walks away with almost as much as second place. And that's assuming that the re-runs didn't get more money (signing bonus or higher stipend) than the standard HG rate.
I watched the SuperPass BY interviews (that's where most of today's screencaps are from), and for me the only moment of real interest was when the interviewer told Jordan about Porsche putting the Benefiber in the Muscle Milk mix. Apparently it really did make Jordan kind of sick, and she was pretty shocked Porsche would do that. When Porsche got asked about it later, she laughed it off, though to be fair it's not at all clear to me that she realizes Jordan actually drank a tainted shake. Shame on BB for not getting it out of the kitchen before it was used. Another slightly interesting moment was Shelly's take on puppy-gate. She claims she was trying to teach Rachel a lesson. I'm not really sure what the lesson was supposed to be, but whatever....it's all over now.
So, at the end of the day, Jordan and Jeff have both forgiven Shelly, Adam honestly thinks he would have won the game if he'd made it to the end, Jeff and Dani will never be friends, and Jeff, Porsche and Rachel are all walking out with the money. And I ended up a huge fan of this year's Rachel. From my BB POV she absolutely deserved the win from every aspect of the game. But what really surprised me is that I ended up liking her. Once she stopped screaming BREN'N! and started having real conversations with people I saw someone I could relate to and have real respect for. And I wish her the best of luck in her real life. Hopefully either the Brendon we seeing berating her on the livefeeds isn't the real Brendon, or with this win, and having done it on her own, she'll have the confidence to stand up for herself and put a stop to his mistreatment...or walk out. She should know she's worth more than to let anyone put her down that way. She was always worth it....and now she's worth it plus half a mil.
We'll wrap up with screencaps of the HGs I just haven't gotten so far (and Jordan's reaction to the tainted milk news).
