James Huling isn’t doing Michelle Meyer any favors this week on Big Brother 18 as she faces eviction and for some strange reason continues to rely on his guidance for surviving this week. She did watch last season, right?
Overnight James, Natalie, and Michelle became aware that Corey and Victor were actively studying together and short of a giant neon sign they started to piece together that they may not only be studying together but also working together in the game. Well that should worry you if you were depending on some votes there, right? Not if you’re listening to James for strategy. Matter of fact, it’d be best to just dig deeper in that sand and wait out this storm.
Starting back at 11:45 PM BBT 8/30 we can watch Natalie reporting back to James that she saw Corey and Victor studying together in the kitchen. James asks if the guys stopped when she walked through, but she says they didn’t and kept studying.
James sounds a little concerned about Victor both studying and apparently knowing the days and events. Natalie thinks it’s a smart move by Corey to gain knowledge from Victor. She doesn’t seem to worry that it’s a sign of them working together which we know they are.
James says he wants to go call Corey out for potentially betraying him and Natalie after they voted to keep Corey last week. Natalie discourages James from doing anything about it saying whatever will happen will happen. Quite the laissez-faire strategy here.
Michelle shows up (11:49 PM BBT 8/30) and she’s upset to have seen Corey and Victor studying together. She’s literally roaring about it. James again says he should go out there and tell them he’s “f–ked” if they’re working together. Natalie again tells James not to do anything but he gets up and heads out to observe.
On his way out the bedroom door James leaves them with this sage wisdom “When people are studying together they’re working together.” Okay, so that’s bad news for them, right? Good thing they caught up on to this with two days of time to campaign, right? Let’s see what happens…
Jump forward to 5:16 AM BBT as James and Michelle are the last two awake and talking about what could happen this week. Michelle asks James if he can guarantee she’ll be staying this week. James offers her “90% sure on that” while telling her “just don’t blow your lid.”
So what’s James basing this assumption on? Anything? Has he asked at all about the plans? Well don’t worry, because he plans on approaching Nicole on Wednesday. Michelle says she’s worried because she has barely spoken to either Corey or Nicole at all on Tuesday. “It’s cool. You don’t need to,” says James. What? Of course she does! Michelle, get up and start campaigning you knucklehead!
No need to campaign, says James. He tells Michelle he’s going to go upstairs for a one on one to make sure she’s staying. James tells Michelle he “has a lot of pull with them” and thinks he can sway the decision with a simple conversation.
Not only will James handle the situation but he doesn’t want Michelle to even get involved. James says he’ll go check the pulse and see if there is anything going on “but what I don’t need is you going up there and saying something wrong.” What? Like calling Nicole a snake and openly making her Michelle’s target? Or maybe he means doing something like broadcasting that Natalie wanted to keep Victor over Corey in front of Corey and within earshot of Nicole? Yikes, James.
We’ll keep watching the Live Feeds today to see if/when this conversation takes place between James and Nicole. Nicole had previously indicated she didn’t want to blindside James but Corey also pointed out that if they never ask then why go volunteering this information.
It’s such a bad strategy and approach. Is James indifferent to Michelle going or is hubris to blame here? When you’re on the Block you need to be talking to everyone and get things figured out. The first time Michelle may end up discussing the vote is with Julie Chen outside the house on Thursday night!
What do you think of James, Natalie, and Michelle’s approach the vote this week? Should Michelle be leaving her game in James’s hands or does she need to start getting her game in to gear and talking to the votes out there? It’s a short list and shouldn’t take too long if she bothers. Think she will?