the play's the thing...

Donny continued to make something of a pitch to make the TA mission "Save Donny," but Derrick, and particularly Frankie, were having none of that. In a way you can't blame them--it would be hard to pull off even if they wanted to. But more importantly, they don't want to. And Donny said it first - they're there to play their own game first.

So they've settled on getting the HGs to put on a play as the "mission." Donny's on board, as he wants the $5K, especially if he's leaving. This has led to a big split out here as to how to vote, assuming we do get to "approve" the mission. (It's worth noting that nothing has been said on the show about this week's task, we're just basing the assumption that we get to approve it on what Donny told Derrick/Frankie he was told.) There are those who don't like that Derrick and Frankie are turning on Donny and advocating "Vote NO" on the play. Then there are those who feel bad for Donny, want him to get the money and are saying "Vote YES." Then there are those, like me, who aren't making this about Donny at all.

To me, this is about what TA was supposed to be. It was represented as "an alliance with America" and something that could affect the game. The play certainly does nothing to affect the game, so that's off the table. So the question is, is this a mission "America" wants to see? And that's why for me, I'll likely vote no. I would rather see spontaneous entertainment, game changing moves, and just plain fun. For the most part, if I could have voted "none of the above" on the TA nonsense all season, I would have. I did actually enjoy the clothes hunt until it turned into a Zach-witch hunt, but that was mostly just because of the spontaneity that came from the HGs when they realized something odd was going on. Once it turned into the actual "mission" of the 24-hr watch it was as dull as dirt.

In a late breaking development, there were fans shouting outside the house again this afternoon. This time it seems they had a megaphone and yelled "Frankie is the saboteur." It was heard by Caleb, Cody and Christine. Cody in particular seemed unhappy about it, giving some a small glimmer of hope that he'd repl-nom Frankie. I don't see Derrick allowing that, and since Derrick didn't get thrown under the bus by megaphone man, he'll still have control of Cody's puppet strings. But it does make me wonder if the HGs won't look slightly askance at Frankie pushing them to put on a play tonight.

There's not much going on in the house, so I'm going to jump up on my BB commentary soapbox for a minute about something I've been thinking about for the past couple days in regards to how we view the HGs. It's always struck me that we look at them as these sort of caricatures. They become the characters of the roles both that they choose to play and that production pushes them to fill. We have our heroes and villains, schemers and floaters, and everything in between. It's easy to forget that they are actually real, complex people. I first started to think about this yesterday when Victoria got taken off to be treated for her tooth issues. People were all over Twitter hoping she'd be too sick to return, going on about bring back Zach, etc. Which is just terrible. I'd certainly rather see Zach in the house than Victoria, but I wouldn't wish actual illness on anyone.

And then it got even worse today when someone took that same pic of Derrick and Victoria that I put at the end of yesterday's post and sent it to Derrick's wife, with some comment about filing for divorce. Derrick's wife promptly shutdown her Twitter. I sincerely hope that she just got tired of the nastiness and in no way thinks that there's anything for her to worry about. Anyone who's seen anything of the feeds knows that there has never been anything inappropriate about their relationship. The picture was just an unfortunate camera angle.

I've never really held back from posting anything about the HGs. Whether it's a bad screencap or an unflattering quote, and whether I think it's a fair portrayal of who they really are or not, they signed up for this. But bringing their family and friends into it, especially with something that's a blatant lie, is wrong. We have to remember that though the HGs have put themselves out there for our entertainment, to their families they are still the same real people they always were. We have the right to love them or hate them, to laugh at them or with them, to wish them success or failure--but all only in the context of Big Brother.