Big Brother 3: The Inevitable Ending… Or Is It?

There's a lot of important political science business to attend to, so my first thought when I saw Danielle win Head of Household was to turn off Big Brother 3 for the next couple of weeks. Why waste my time on seeing Jason's inevitable win?

It's really pretty simple: Danielle, as she did, puts up Amy and Lisa for eviction, preserving her partner Jason and giving him the decision to evict. He (they?) will pick Lisa to go because she is a far bigger threat than Amy against either of them in a jury vote. Right now, Amy probably would get only Marcellas' vote, maybe Josh's, at most Roddy's additionally, against the weakest of the other three in a jury vote (Danielle, against whom some hold residual resentment for her adroit playing). Lisa likely secures a win versus Danielle, and maybe against Jason.

But that is idle speculation; Lisa will go. In the Danielle/Jason dream scenario, one of them wins the next HoH and gives Amy the boot. If not, Amy gives one of them the boot. That latter victim likely is Danielle because Amy thinks Jason is so sweet and shows signs that she too is turned off by Danielle's style.

Danielle is an unlikely winner against Jason because she has been too clever by half. She wanted to use others to do the "dirty work" and largely has succeeded. But at the same time she wanted to disguise the fact to appear nicer, as nice as nice guy Jason does. And she is nice, particularly in loyalty to Jason - too nice to do her own dirty work in regards to him. This will cost her because while players of this type of game (like in Survivor, and with other such games where contestants eject others from the game with the finalists facing their victims) respect a player who moves nimbly (because they are recognized as meritorious and skilled competitors), Danielle takes pains to appear benign to them but gloats to the rest of the world. These people lose final votes unless they face someone seen as totally meritless and duplicitous in their abilities to make it to the finals (for Survivor: Marquesas watchers, think Vecepia vs. Neleh). Jason should avoid this fate vs. Danielle because he is seen as a nice guy who employed a nice guy strategy. Ultimately, one could argue he took advantage of Danielle's loyalty to make her appear as the heavy. This strategy will appear valid enough to the jury for them to consider him deserving. At least Marcellas will oppose him, but perhaps nobody else, in a final with Danielle.

So, maybe it's worth watching to see whether Amy wins HoH and takes Jason to the finals, or Danielle or Jason wins HoH and takes the other to the finals. It all ends up the same; Jason wins. No other reason to watch

...

Unless... Jason or the next HoH acts in a totally unanticipated and seemingly out-of-character way. What if Jason boots out Amy, even with he and Danielle surely knowing that Lisa has a far better chance of beating them than does Amy? And then if Danielle wins HoH, what if she disregards her niceness and screws up enough courage to screw (figuratively, even though she does keep saying she's missing marital relations) Jason by sending him out, knowing she has a better chance against Lisa or Amy, especially Amy, than she ever has against Jason (who, for his part, must surely guess he'll win any vote)?

I guess that's why I'll have to keep watching, just in case.

Jeffrey D. Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University in Shreveport where he teaches, among other things, classes in international politics, international organizations, and diplomatic history. He has published in the area of gaming simulations in international politics.

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