Big Brother Power Rankings: Past the Halfway Point

Ah, Big Brother. It is strange this season how the House has effectively coalesced into one unit set on ousting one person every week. While it doesn't make for interesting gameplay, it does make for effective, impressive gameplay. So here's the quick-and-dirty:

The long and short of this week is that the Head of Household, Andy, didn't want to make any waves, so he put up the two remaining useless unaligned players. Jessie tried to foil it and failed. Spencer tried to foil it and failed. Helen tried to foil it and may have wrecked her game in the process.

That's it. That's the week.

So this week, Aaryn is again our Head of Household. She's now won four times, and indications based on the live show and Wednesday show are that Helen is headed out the door. An added twist is that the evicted Houseguest will compete with Judd, Candace, and Jessie to perhaps return to the game. As the alliance in the House is dead-set on simply sending that person home once again, it may not matter, but still...

Anyway, power rankings for this week. A slow, steady week means a slow, steady ranking.

McCrae threw the HOH in order to try and get Amanda a win. Amanda blew it. McCrae is showing a lot of competition strength on a whole and, once the Helen/Elissa thing is sorted out, we should see a significant run from him.

Aaryn now has four HOH wins and the trust of McCrae, Amanda, and Andy. She'll be in great shape for the foreseeable future, and the racist nonsense might be far enough behind her where it might even make her a competitor to actually win this thing. I have my doubts on a whole, to be honest, but final two for Aaryn is a distinct possibility right now.

Andy had a successful HOH week, but had a prime opportunity to get Helen out for good, and bizarrely didn't take it. I can't figure out why he didn't want to do that, especially given that he'd have most of the house behind him for the long term on the matter. A strong week for him, but that might have been a mistake.

Amanda is the "head" of her alliance, but is also the biggest target and blew an easy opportunity to win HOH. In a final three situation, I suspect she may be taken along in order to have an easy competitor with two other players, but she really needs to win something soon.

Helen drops significantly in our rankings this week, mostly due to her overplaying this past week and making herself into the target for this week. If she's nominated and doesn't win veto, she's done for now. The only reason I haven't dropped her completely is because I'd consider her the most likely to win a spot back in the House against Candace, Jessie, and Judd. We'll see in a week.

Spencer didn't do himself any favors this week, but he's at least safe until Helen and Elissa head out the door, and maybe safe until GinaMarie heads out, too. He's one nomination away from breaking a Big Brother record, I believe, so at least it's something to root for...

GinaMarie's only saving grace is that she's not considered a threat in the House by anyone. Not high praise at all, and there's nothing much to be said for her at this point.

Elissa is actually still in this game. Can you believe it? You'd never know from her gameplay, of course, which has been nonexistent since the MVP switch. Expect her to be nominated with Helen, and expect her to go home in the next few weeks.

Things will be VERY interesting a week from now with the returned players and such. Looking forward to it!