Big Brother 2, Episode 19: Deception or Self-Deception?
by David Bloomberg
-- 07/10/2002
Change is in the air at the Big Brother 2 house. The way votes are cast is changed. The HoH competition will apparently be changed. And, most of all, Krista's personality has miraculously changed from one who lies and manipulates to one who takes a holier-than-thou approach to lying and manipulating. At least we won't have to see that anymore. But we do finally find out why she didn't tell anybody about the whole Justin-knife incident.
We had a number of interesting occurrences in Thursday’s episode of Big Brother 2. First of all, we had our first live vote; I wonder if the producers have realized that (as I’ve been saying), there has pretty much been no suspense in the votes because we could almost always tell how it would go based on a the two or three they showed. As it turned out, though, there was still pretty much no suspense, even though they tried to make us think a couple people were wavering in their strategic decision to evict Krista due to personal reasons. So, yes, Krista was booted.
On what I think is a far more interesting note, we finally have the answer as to why Krista never told the other houseguests about what got Justin the boot – she apparently has no memory of it. When Julie Chen asked her about it Krista showed no recollection of the events. Yes, she was that drunk. Or perhaps she has just been deceiving herself. After all, every time she opens her mouth I hear her talking about how she wouldn’t lie and manipulate, yet that’s exactly what she was doing for several weeks now. Does she even realize how ridiculous she, of all people, looks with this holier-than-thou attitude? Is she hoping everybody will forget her lies, or is she once again deceiving herself?
Let’s look at one particular situation that came to light in this episode. Nicole brought up how Krista had encouraged Will to get rid of Hardy and take his place. Will, of course, had told Hardy and Krista was all upset that Hardy believed Will. Now, while under normal circumstances believing Will would be a dangerous thing, the fact of the matter is that this is precisely what she said. We all saw it. She has lied about it ever since. Yes, Krista, you are a liar. And acting like it didn’t happen now won’t make us forget. You are not America’s sweetheart.
So, given that we’ve gotten rid of one liar who, for a while, had a great deal of power, who is left holding the reins? Answer: Nicole.
Nicole seems to be controlling pretty much everything and everybody. Looking at it, I’m not entirely sure why this is, but it may not last past the next set of nominations, depending on who gets Head of Household (see below for special info on next HoH competition). As Chen said to kick off the episode, nobody trusts anybody. But even though they don’t trust one another, they still are beholden to each other. Hardy is in it with Nicole. Will must do what Nicole says or he faces possible expulsion. Bunky is in a similar position. The only one who isn’t is Monica, and if she doesn’t win HoH next, she could be following her friend Krista right out the door.
Who does Nicole trust? Well, the producers have been trying to keep us confused on this front, by suggesting she perhaps trusts Will more than Hardy. But in the live interview of Nicole in the HoH room, Nicole referred twice to her alliance with Hardy, and not at all to anything with Will. No editing here, so I think it’s clear that she is tied more closely to Hardy at this point.
As I noted above, the votes were live this time, and probably will be from here on out. Ahead of time, Will suggested he might have to actually vote his conscience and try to get rid of Monica. Fat chance. When it came time to vote, Will noted that to speak one’s own mind is to dig one’s own grave, so he needed to vote for Krista if he wanted to stick around. Bunky, of course, broke down crying and could barely catch his breath long enough to vote against Krista. Hardy said it was foolish to play for anyone but himself (yes, we know, we’ve been yelling that at the TV screen for weeks now), so he voted to evict Krista as well.
When the vote was announced, Krista told everybody to stay seated except Will and Monica. She hugged Bunky and told him not to lie or manipulate to get anywhere – must be a strategic tip since she had already done that and it obviously didn’t work for her. As she said goodbye to Nicole, she said she’d see her at the end in what seemed to be a threatening manner. Will and Monica escorted her to the door where Monica had one of her fits again, encouraged by Krista saying that she was booted because she wouldn’t lie and cut Monica’s throat. Oh, get off it already! Jeez, you’re not fooling anybody. Monica realized that the only reason she’s staying is because the others think she’ll be easier to beat: “They want to dog me out,” she said, but she added that she “won’t sell my soul to the Devil.” That’s okay, he has plenty of others from the BB2 house.
Chen thought the comment to Nicole was threatening as well, and asked Krista about it. Krista said that if Nicole is there at the end, her vote will probably go to somebody else (note to Will: You now have three automatic votes on your side; keep playing up the strategy of telling people to bring you to the finals ‘cus you’re easy to beat). She then went on to complain that Nicole lied. Oh for crying out loud, woman! You really must have convinced yourself that you’re a freaking angel to keep spouting this BS about how horrible it is to lie! Even at the recorded goodbye messages, Krista rolled her eyes at Nicole’s (I have to admit, it is getting tiring to see her tear up at every one, though it could still work as a decent strategy if the evictees don’t compare notes) and told Chen that she thought all of them were true except for Nicole’s.
After Chen asked her about Justin and Krista showed her cluelessness, Krista’s brother and Mike Boogie were brought in (Krista didn’t want her daughter, Laken, to see her like this – I’d have been more worried about her seeing you lie, swear continuously, get so drunk you can’t recall what happened, jump on several men in the house, etc., but what do I know?).
There was no HoH competition today. There will be no episode on Saturday. Instead, the next one will be Tuesday, when they will have a food competition that could “send ripples” through the house, according to Chen. Then they will follow it with a special episode on Wednesday at 9/8 Central in which there will be a special HoH competition. So, does this mean there is no HoH ‘til then, or we just won’t know about it? Beats me. They are apparently changing the way some of these things work and aren’t yet letting us in on the little secret.
So, what happens next? It’s hard to say since we don’t know what changes are coming. Presuming Nicole still can’t get HoH again, she needs to watch her back. She noted that if anybody but Hardy gets HoH next time, they’d be stupid not to nominate the two of them to break up their power. Bunky would be smart to throw the competition, I think, because whoever he nominates will end up bad for him in the end. If Monica wins, Nicole and probably Hardy will be nominated, though Bunky could take Hardy’s place. If Will wins, he will probably nominate Nicole and Hardy to break up the power, but in doing so he puts himself at risk because the following week, he will be a target. He might also be smart to throw the competition.
So, it seems to be coming down to the end, though Chen indicated that there is still a month-and-a-half left. Hopefully, we’ll find out more about what they have in store for us next week. As my final thought for the day, I just wish I could have seen Krista’s face when they told her about what Justin did to get expelled. Alas, even on reality TV, some things are done without the cameras around.
New Note: As it turns out, Krista did apparently have some memory of the incident, which she discussed the next day on CBS's morning show. She also continued her lying ways. Click here for the full story.
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