Big Brother 17 fans watched as Vanessa Rousso escaped eviction last week. Becky Burgess, who had attempted to backdoor the poker player, now risks eviction on Thursday night’s live episode. Evicting Becky seems like it’s a no-brainer for Vanessa, who sees her as a strong player and a personal threat.
But live feed viewers watched last night as Rousso attempted to flip the house and keep Becky over John McGuire. She wasn’t the first to come up with the idea, but her failure to change this week’s target might indicate Vanessa is not as powerful inside the house as she was in the game’s early weeks.
Warning: Spoilers from the Big Brother 17 live feeds to follow.
Viewers of Sunday night’s episode witnessed Vanessa conveying her conversation with John to Liz and Austin, showing Rousso herself could have shifting targets. Even before Liz made her nominations, Vanessa was not fully focused on Becky. The conversation that laid out Vanessa’s suspicions of John was enough to solidify the doubt in the minds of Vanessa’s allies about her trustworthiness. On Wednesday’s Power of Veto episode, viewers saw Liz consider backdooring Vanessa and then decide against it.
As live feed spoilers revealed, Liz, Austin, Julia, John, and, apparently, Steve, want Vanessa out. Liz would rather not do the deed herself. It is part of what led to John’s apparent safety this week as Becky seems headed to jury.
But on Wednesday, things, for a moment, seemed destined to change.
Becky has injured her toe so severely she eventually received medical attention from Big Brother producers in the diary room. As Big Brother Network described the action, Becky was asking for assistance for hours before she received it.
Austin and Liz chalked up Becky’s injury to game play: a last-ditch attempt to seem like less of a threat and remain in the house. Hours later, Julia suggested that Becky should stay because of her injury. Vanessa came up to the Head of Household room and suggested the same thing.
Liz said it was a bad idea because Becky’s injury could be healed by the veto competition, which usually happens on Saturday. Austin also was pressing to keep John in the house over Becky. He also suggested John or James would be best to win HOH in the upcoming week. That, of course, is consistent with the plan to evict Vanessa.
Ultimately it seems the Julia-Vanessa attempt to keep Becky failed and John is set to remain.
Whether Becky or John escapes eviction Thursday night, whomever is left is unlikely to protect Vanessa. The returning juror twist is also still in play. If Vanessa is still in the house, she could be a target of whomever comes back.
Shelli Poole, who said in her exit interview with Julie Chen she was not sure whether or not she would ally with Vanessa if she got back in, later told Entertainment Weekly she would like to target Vanessa or James.
But even if Vanessa doesn’t pull the strings anymore, doesn’t mean she will get out of the house anytime soon. Liz declined to backdoor her because having a bigger threat in the house could protect her and her sister.
Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly , in his recap of Wednesday’s program, said Vanessa’s gameplay is “the single most bizarre successful strategy” of any Big Brother player he’s watched. Rousso, according to Franich, has a self-fulfilling paranoia.
“Vanessa has stumbled onto some new plane of house power: Her worst fears are made manifest only because she fears those fears so badly.”
Big Brother 17 airs Sundays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays on CBS.
[Image: CBS ]