Big Brother 17: The Denial and Downfall of Shelli and Clay

…and so it was decreed that Big Brother fans near and far would be bestowed with the scrumptious taste of whatever jubilation brings when one is immersed in full out, unadulterated schadenfreude; and it is all thanks to King James!

All Hail King James!
All Hail King James! (Courtesy of @bigbruh16)

Finally! Finally the power in the Big Brother 17 house has shifted a bit. After four weeks of the Sixth Sense alliance (aka, Vanessa and Shelli) running the house, a member of “The Outsiders” grabbed power and ended their reign.

WARNING: This post contains Big Brother spoilers from the Live Feeds that have not yet aired on the CBS show. Please do not proceed if you do not want spoilers!

The thing about having power in the Big Brother house is that it can be quite fleeting. In order to survive the weeks when you are out of power, houseguests ideally want to make the right deals, with the right people and hope that their decisions do not come back to bite them in the rear end. All it takes is one wrong move, one fit of paranoia, or one poorly thought out plan to undo weeks of groundwork; a lesson that Clay and Shelli learned the hard way! Even a deal with James, in front of the entire house, would not be enough to save them.

As soon as James, Jackie, Meg and the rat Becky had the Head of Household room to themselves Thursday night, talk turned to who should be targeted. With Battle of the Block making it too dangerous to put their initial targets up on the block, everyone had been trained to put up pawns and backdoor their targets. (Only one initial nominee has been evicted, thus far, this season.) It took a 7AM epiphany for James to realize that, with Battle of the Block THANKFULLY coming to an end, there was no reason for him to bother with pawns at all; he could put his targets directly up on the block! Imagine that!

Big Brother 17's Becky Rats Out Her Friends
Big Brother 17’s Becky Rats Out Her Friends

While plans for nomination could have easily gone off the rails, with Becky choo-chooing her way to Clelli (Clay + Shelli) to rat out her friends, after Clelli spoke to James they felt confident that he would uphold his end of the deal. Little did they know that the more they talked, the deeper they dug their graves. (Who knew that telling someone, who you have just withheld information from, “if you are withholding information, that is lying,” would not help their case? James responded to Clay’s ill-advised comment with a resounding, “Exactly!”)

After an explosive nomination ceremony, Clelli were naturally upset to find themselves on the block. The fallout from the ceremony was no less dramatic, with Shelli’s cries of, “Why?” and her insistence that it was flat out unfair that they were getting most of the blame for what unfolded the prior week. Most insulting to the showmantic duo is that they would be split up prior to making jury. Never mind the fact that several of the previous evicted houseguests could have really used the money that they would have received upon making jury, everyone left in the house should want Clelli together for no other reason than they want to be together in the jury house. That’s not how Big Brother life works, dearhearts!

Shelli dissolves into tears as she realizes that her showmance with Clay may be at risk!
Shelli dissolves into tears as she realizes that her showmance with Clay may be at risk!

For some reason, that fans AND houseguests cannot quite wrap our minds around, “Clelli” is totally oblivious to the part that they played in the events of the previous week. Are they simply in denial? Because…

It is as if Shelli did not have a minor panic attack when she heard that people were not happy enough to see Clay win Power of Veto, and that it directly led to her wanting to keep Austin and “go for the other side.” Does logic not dictate that, once you decide to save the agreed upon target of the Final 8 alliance that you made a couple of nights before, you are going back on your word?

It is as if Clelli really did not think that the other houseguests had a firm enough grasp on mathematics to realize that they HAD to be a key factor in the decision to put Jason on the block. Perhaps it is because they themselves are not so great at ‘ciphering and don’t realize that when you are in an 8 person alliance, with only 12 people in the house, “the house” IS the 8 person alliance, not the 4 who were not included! Of course, Austin and Liz would want Austin to be safe. So, was Vanessa listening to Steve and John when she made her decision to put up Jason? Are they “the house?”

It is as if Clelli does not realize that Austin had no power and could not force Vanessa to keep him off of the block and, therefore, that it is not a suitable line of logic for people to accept.

It is as if Vanessa was speaking in French when she reiterated, time and time again, that the decision to backdoor Jason would draw lines and everyone would see where Clelli’s allegiances lie.

It is as if Clelli does not realize that saying that they wanted Jackie as the replacement nominee is not actually any better than Jason being the replacement given that Jackie was in the same Final 8 alliance Jason was in. It would have been even worse since Vanessa had agreed that, as co-HOHs, they would not backdoor one another.

It is as if Clelli is on another planet, in another realm, in another universe, in a dimension where up is down, right is left, and common sense has to be harvested from trees for people to have any lick of it.

It is this denial that has landed Clelli in hot water. From the moment that Jason went up on the block, they have told everyone (including themselves) that it was not their choice. Even the fact that Vanessa gets angry with them every time the phrase, You put Jason up,” comes out of either of their mouths, doesn’t seem to clue them in on the fact that they were a part of it.

Vanessa walks out on Clelli  when they tell her that it was her choice to put up Jason.
Vanessa walks out on Clelli when they tell her that it was her choice to put up Jason.

Instead of Clelli acknowledging what they did and accepting the consequences of their own actions, they have repeatedly asked, “Why?” “Why us?” “Why now?””Why are we,” getting the brunt of the blame?

In a nutshell, dearies, you are getting the brunt of the blame because Jackie, Meg and James actually trusted you and actually thought you were working together! And, ultimately, it is your delusions, denials and broken deals that emboldened James to break his promise to keep you safe. If you can go back on your word, why can’t he?

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