Following a Power of Veto competition on Saturday that upset Vanessa Rousso’s plans she’s turned to looking for a new plan, but so far it looks like she’ll go for a much smaller target than she could.
After scrambling overnight to find a substitute plan and appropriate target Vanessa appears to have settled on taking out the closest ally to her original target, but when she does that she’ll miss the move that she should be taking this week.
James is effectively off the Block with his Veto win and Vanessa needs a renom. She’s decided her new target will be Meg. Yep, sleepytime “grandma” Meg who has apparently lost 18 HoH & Veto comps this season. Her renom options include John, Steve, and the Austwins. Vanessa continues to present herself as working closely with John and Steve individually in private so she doesn’t want to risk seeing one of those allies go home. That leaves her with the Austwins.
Looking at the situation I announced that Vanessa actually had a perfect opportunity here that had me thinking of Big Brother 14. Dan made a “shocking” move of betrayal when knew he had to split up the showmance of Danielle and Shane, something Vanessa seems to have only begun to focus on when it comes to the Austwins. Even worse for Vanessa, there’s a twin sister factor in here that Dan didn’t have to deal with. While that move may have been disastrous for Dan it could work for Vanessa as he did the voting she wouldn’t have to. It’s a perfect storm of opportunities. But one step at a time.
Just imagine: Vanessa tells Austin that she needs one of the twins to go up to make sure they vote the way she wants: Meg out. She renoms Liz against Meg then secretly campaigns to her allies John and Steve to join with James in voting to keep Meg by evicting Liz. 3-2, Liz is gone. Bam! Austin and Liz would be split along with Liz and Julia broken up.
Even better, and more importantly, is which of the three Vanessa would get to keep. Austin is more loyal to Vanessa than to Julia and Julia is more loyal to Vanessa than she is to Austin. Vanessa could pull the patented Danielle-SHOCKED face while getting no “blood on her hands” but walking away with everything she wants while not even casting a vote. Vanessa could be set up to work one on one with every single remaining HG except James. Practically perfect!
Guess what. It isn’t going to happen. Instead Vanessa has told the Austwins that she needs to keep them incentivized by putting Julia on the Block. Julia. What. The. Heck? Talk about a missed opportunity.
So Vanessa’s plan is for Meg to go and the Austwins stay unified while Vanessa goes in to the the F7 Double Eviction and F6 week with potentially her and the Austwins intact waiting for someone else besides the four of them to win and take out one of the Austwins for her. With that uncontrolled environment she could see Austin go and leave the twins together who again would not betray each other for her.
Originally when Vanessa started suggesting Julia as the renom I thought, oh it’s a bait and switch. She’s saying renom Julia so Liz would protest and Vanessa could go “you’re right, Liz. It has to be you!” Nope, not the case after all. I gave her too much credit.
Vanessa confirmed to John this morning, Flashback to 12:30 PM BBT, that Julia had agreed to be the pawn and she spoke again with Julia around 1:20 PM to let her know that was the go ahead plan. Sigh. I’m disappointed in Vanessa, but I guess this goes along with the strategy of someone who thought going to the end with a showmance and twin sisters was a good idea.
Now I’ve heard comments that Austin wouldn’t allow Liz to go up, but if Vanessa is using the “let’s build trust” line with Liz to get Julia up then why couldn’t she do the exact same with Austin? This would be just as easy to say she wants Austin to have zero other options than to vote to keep Liz, which he’d stay true to just as Vanessa must know he’ll do to the end over her unless Liz is evicted.
This could be Vanessa’s game killer move unless she lucks out and John or maybe Steve wins HoH in the next few rounds. But even then Vanessa will have to partake in voting one of them out herself. Right here she’d have the protection of later saying she did not vote against any of them while actually getting to pick which one goes. It’d all appear to be on someone else. Such a missed opportunity.
Do you see it otherwise? Could using Julia as the renom, evicting Meg, and keeping the Austwins together really be the better strategy and move to make this week? Share your thoughts below.