Elissa Makes a Big Move on 'Big Brother'

There is nothing I want more (well, on Big Brother) than to see the look of indignant, woe-is-me anger flicker across Amanda's eyes the day she's finally eliminated. Why? Well, firstly because I wonder what that might look like on an insecure sea cucumber of a person (sorry, sea cucumbers), but also because I love seeing the unintelligent bully-type getting taken out. I can't help myself: I love seeing terrible people being put in their place. And, like so many of the people around her, Amanda is terrible. Not only because she's played this game like the true desperation savant that she is, but also because her game plan seems to be making aggressive stink faces and angry grunts until her pouts and wild declarations give way to submission. It's exhausting, it's annoying. It's like when a child gets mad and holds their breath until they turn purple, saying they're going to suffocate themselves until their parents submit.

And just like those dopey sort of parents, people keep falling for Amanda's schtick. It's both American and Sisyphean in nature: Amanda is just self-aware enough to know that being an intolerable nitwit will get her exactly what she needs from the other insecure people she's surrounded by. And so it goes: up and down, round and round. (I think I'm going to be sick.) The stink of desperation for mass validation is strong here, folks, and no clearer was that than in Amanda's flailing and flopping about on Sunday night. Homegirl is just a big control freak mess who probably knows deep down in some place she dare not look, that she's completely worthless in this game and must make others do the work to get what she wants. So it's time to go home, Amanda. Fly away home.

Amanda has consistently and obsessively positioned her brazenly obvious manipulation tactics as some sort of asset to the game. Which, yes, to some degree of course it is — especially with these folks. But it's also, as a viewer, the most obnoxious thing in the world. It's watching the popular girl beat her way to the top with words and threats rather than action. But Sunday night, thankfully, showed the inevitable: that her intense strategy-pandering is encroaching dangerously on ass-biting territory.

Which can only mean one thing: get out the ointment, girl, 'cause you 'bout to get burnt. Or so I thought and hoped when I saw Elissa win Head of Household. Finally! Someone who should, at this point, surely see how this game is being played, thanks to bearing much of the top alliance's disdain from week to week. And what a wonderful story arc that could've been, eh? Elissa, the one Amanda always discounted, taking power and control away before having the last laugh while she's pushed out the eviction door — there's no way she could talk her way out of this one, right? I mean, it's the most obvious and logical decision when you think about it. So naturally, Elissa went ahead and pulled the dumbest move possible by NOT doing what she originally set out to do. Aaryn and McCrae were put up for eviction.

Putting Amanda and Aaryn up for eviction would've arguably been the best move for Elissa make in this situation, ensuring that regardless of who was sent packing, the controlling powers in the house — who also just so happen to have it out for her — were set to 'disintegration' mode. But no, instead we get no-way-anyone-would-vote-him-off McCrae. Because d'aw shucks, what a dopey, lovable goof that McCrae is, we don't want to see him go!

If Elissa had done the smart thing, the potential evictees would've done most of the work for her: frothing themselves up into a tizzy of insecurity and that's-not-fair!-ness and made it easy to ensure a lot of holes to open up in the 3AM gameplan. Sure, Aaryn is a threat in her consistent HoH-getting skills, but she's also clearly reckless as evidenced by her wailing in Elissa's room. Amanda's use of sheer will rather than actual, game-able talent to keep herself on top is only effective when she feels in control and has no primary focus. But now her eyes are laser-pointed on getting McCrae the veto, and trust: that's way more dangerous, because Amanda is a wild animal backed into a corner right now, and by putting McCrae up, Elissa's basically given her half of the tools she needs to escape. Oh Elissa: you could've been a contenda!