Only five remain and tonight one will be anointed as the winner of Big Brother 2012. Who takes the crown? YOU DECIDE! Let’s have a look at our contenders, shall we?
DEANA @ 2.22 has been arguably the focal character of this series with the clearest compelling narrative. She entered the house as an aspiring actress and Miss India UK, admitting to having servants and enjoying the finer things in life. Shortly upon entering, she was faced with selecting three housemates for nomination, a task that initiated an epic enmity with co-star Conor. This rivalry came to a head when the Derry bad-boy made some ‘hilarious’ threats involving an epilator and Deana’s vagina, sparking an arseload of official complaints. Somehow Conor got away with it and left the house with fifty grand. Deana went on to form an alliance with the smokers, which was nearly threatened when Shievonne got involved and tried to drive a wedge of suspicion between Deana and Lauren. Deana was publicly rumbled for naming her gang the ‘soldiers’ in a family nomination task that seemed deliberately skewed towards getting the outsiders in trouble. Deana is the most nominated as well as the most saved housemate of this series, escaping eviction on five separate occasions and always polling in at least the top 50% of larger nomination groups. She received cheers from the crowd consistently up until Conor’s exit after which she became a cocky madam to the dismay of some viewers. Despite mostly boos on Friday night, Deana heads into tonight’s final as the favourite to win the crown.
Her worst bit: Once no longer oppressed by the presence of the intimidating Conor, Deana really came out of her shell. Rather than simpering like a rescued damsel, she decided she would have a little bit of fun and rule the roost for a while. This didn’t go down too well.
Her best bit: Throughout bitching, backstabbing and bullying, Deana has carried herself with great poise and good manners, always extending an invitation to talk with her enemies.
Her odds: At around 2.2 for such a polarising housemate there doesn’t seem to be much value in backing her. Equally, her clearly committed base of voting fans makes her too dangerous to lay for the win (as one Betfair columnist has encouraged punters to do). Kudos to anyone who got involved with Deana at longer odds. For reasons both personal and financial, I really hope she’s still in with a shot.
ADAM @ 3.8 is the guy who stayed true to himself from start to finish. Adam entered the house as an ex-con and reformed man looking to enjoy a new experience and show the world what a nice guy he was. All in all, he did a pretty good job, befriending Luke A, falling for Lauren and generally being himself. There’s too much paranoid nonsense banded about on Big Brother with regards to who is ‘fake’ and who is ‘genuine’ – a concept which generally makes no sense to me and which I suppose is really about who is self-aware and who is down-to-earth or something like that. I mean, you can’t just take a toffee hammer to a man’s forehead and watch as he cracks like china, declaring, “See! I told you! Totally fake! Not a real human being at all! Not even a cyborg with the capability to learn emotion over time. Just an empty shell!”
Where was I? That’s it, Adam! There’s too much banded about on these shows about ‘fake’ and ‘genuine’ but the latter word really does seem like a good one for Adam. Even Luke A, as nice as he is, came on Big Brother with an agenda, as honourable as his financial motivations are. Adam, however, is just here for the ride. He doesn’t expect to win, he doesn’t need to win and he doesn’t feel that he’s entitled to anything. He has just been himself and that’s what will gain him votes tonight.
His worst bit: All the leering over Lauren was quite creepy and all the more uncomfortable when the public began to blame her for being a prick-tease.
His best bit: By far the moment when, sick and tired of Aaron’s pranks, Adam emptied a bucket of dirty water and old food onto the rapscallion as he lay in bed.
His odds: Adam and Luke A face the same problem. They kind of come as a pair and the votes could really be split between them, paving the way for a Deana win. Had Adam or Like A been evicted in either of the previous weeks then the remaining male outsider would surely be the favourite for the win. Again, there were some value odds for Adam last week so good luck to anyone who snapped him up at a long price.
LUKE A @ 4.1 is the transgender role model and talented chef who shocked the housemates by revealing that he was born with a woman’s body. Luke has admitted that his main reason for competing for the Big Brother prize is to gain acceptance on behalf of the trans community and/or pay for a phalloplasty. He has proven himself to be mature and level-headed when making friends and dealing with enemies. Of leaving the house, Luke A admitted to having dreams of working as a TV chef and/or becoming an ambassador for the trans community, both realistic and mostly commendable ambitions which differ from the usual desire to get famous and appear on more celebrity themed shows.
His worst bit: Saying of plus-size Becky, “She respects me like she respects her BMI” and getting caught out for it.
His best bit: His impression of nemesis Luke S, “guys want to be me, girls want to be with me…”
His odds: I think he should probably be the favourite, having the clearest narrative after Deana and a real, compelling reason for wanting both the acceptance and more importantly the cash. Whether you think there’s any real value for a late bet at 4.1 is up to you.
SARA @13.5 is the dark horse who has kept her head down throughout the series but could place quite well due to a normally sweet demeanour and strong regional support (seriously, when is someone going to have a word with the Scots and the Irish and explain that they are at least allowed to consider voting for English contestants on reality TV shows). Sara has belted out tunes like a dying cat and wowed everyone with her prize-winning beauty. Whether that’s enough to take the crown is very unlikely but still not impossible, as reflected in her current odds.
Her worst bit: Any argument about politics. Especially when she starts shouting down people who aren’t even attempting to disagree with her. She can come across as very conservative and self-righteous. And she called Deana her best friend and then virtually turned her back on her.
Her best bit: Crying at the most ridiculous things (a conversation about The Queen, Meatloaf’s ‘I Would Do Anything For Love’ amongst others).
Her odds: She’ll have a lot of Scotland behind her but ultimately she’s been a bit too much of a wallflower to have amassed fans or built support. I reckon her best hope is third place.
LUKE S @ 200 doesn’t stand a chance of winning because he is, as Becky would say, a ‘cheeseface’. He only made it to the final by being boring and then winning a golden ticket. Goodnight, Luke.
His worst bit: Easily the fake interview with a rep from ‘Barbell media’ in which Luke S was conned into saying that he would ditch girlfriend Ashleigh once the show was over.
His best bit: Does he have one? His giant bollock maybe?
His odds: Luke doesn’t stand a chance in hell of winning. He only just beat Caroline when she was the most hated woman on channel 5 and that was only after multiple vote refreshes. He’s too long to lay (oo-er) unless you’re a mental thrill-seeker and you have a lot of money to start with.
ALL IN ALL: There aren’t many good value bets to get involved in at this late stage so really it’s all about crossing your fingers on the investments you’ve made throughout the series. If I was forced to offer a tip at gunpoint I’d suggest trawling the Internet for the longest odds you can find on Luke A. Having said that, Deana still looks strong to me.
Yep, I’ll certainly be crossing my fingers on the bets I’ve made throughout the series! I’d only lose out tonight on a Luke A win. I’m the same as you – think he would be a contender, but his chances are entirely scuppered by having his vote split with Adam’s. Despite a rocky few days for Deana, I still expect she will win. As for 2nd-4th place, it is entirely up for grabs imo and will make tonight’s final somewhat exciting to watch. As I said in a comment earlier, some bookies are offering a 5th place market, which is good for anyone wanting to make some fairly safe money betting on Luke S. I’ve also got ADAM to be top male before the odds came down (he’s favourite now), so I’m really hoping he can pip Luke A. Good luck everyone!
Dug I agree with your point on partisanship but I think you mean “English” not “British”. You’ll never persuade them otherwise 🙂
Oh dear, thank you very much Henry VIII – I have amended said point. That’s the Olympics for you, I’ve been told off so many times for saying English that I’ve erased the word from my vocabulary. Well spotted.
After online hyperbole and hysteria surrounding Deana that’s lasted most of the series and that I never quite understood, she didn’t even make second place. To put it in ESC terms, Deana was this year’s (shudder) fanwank. She was the bookies’ favourite for weeks on end, topped the polls week in week out on the usual reality TV news sites, and was the favourite to win on the polls conducted by these sites in the run-up to the final. And she didn’t even come second. The lessons here:
– the BB betting market is nowhere near as shrewd as the ESC or X Factor markets.
– this, however, results in potential value, as in most evictions with 3 or more housemates up, the favourite to be evicted (at v short odds of 1.3ish in the case of Lydia, Conor and Ashleigh) stayed while the second-favourite to be evicted (typically at odds of 3-4 to go) left instead. This pattern (or is it too early to call it that?) can potentially be taken advantage of.
– online BB polls are nowhere near as representative as the X Factor ones as it’s much more of a niche pursuit. None of them have more than a four-figure sample size, from a highly select group of users. Don’t stake much faith in them: treat them as you would ESC fansite polls (ie. with a pinch of salt the size of Montenegro).
– a quick Twitter search is a much better guide to public sentiment than a trip to the Digital Spy forum, which is the near-exclusive preserve of hardcore BB fanboys and -girlz. A cursory Twitter search for “Deana” today while I was travelling turned up an awful lot of people saying they didn’t mind who won as long as it wasn’t her, whereas looking at the BB fan haunts, you’d think she was the second coming.
After surviving 2 and a half months in a pimped-out shed with a coterie of truculent morons and sociopaths, several of whom I’d have happily sandpapered into the nearest A&E, Luke A deserves every penny of that £50,000. I wouldn’t go in there for the world and I wouldn’t have an ounce of the patience he and the other “outsiders” had with spiteful, thick shitbags like Becky et al. With his phalloplasty on the cards and the other £50,000 in Conor’s grubby mitts, the only irony is that 100% of the prize money is being squandered on massive knobs.
Haha, a very good point, Euro. I agree that Deana’s chances were inflated in the final week but I have to disagree entirely on the point that she was ‘fanwank’ or overhyped throughout. I think it was clear that there was a drastic shift in public perception towards her after Conor’s departure and that she was a genuine public favourite in mid-to-late weeks. During this period she was dealing with a lot more shit and coming across as a charming underdog whereas the final week saw her getting a little big for her boots and getting heavy boos. It seems that her popularity outside the house was inversely proportionate to her popularity inside. Although the live crowd can be misleading, I think I could have taken their Friday reaction to Deana a little more seriously but I backed her at longer odds and wanted to see the investment through. In retrospect, perhaps I should have taken my own advice and placed a late bet on Luke A but the rapidly shortening odds made it a somewhat daunting prospect. Oddly, I had never really visualised Adam as a winner, something I didn’t really articulate even to myself until I saw the final 2 and knew it could only ever go one way. I think Luke seems like a nice guy and I hope the cash goes to good use. Having said that, he played his cards very close to his chest and I’m not convinced he didn’t know exactly what he was doing with all the chatter of acceptance – he is after all a supposed BB superfan. Personally I would have liked a woman to win this series – preferably Lauren but otherwise Deana or even Sara – as the girls seemed to bear the brunt of the series’ nastiness, whether at the hands of bitchy fellow girls or chauvinistic men. Failing that, Adam and Luke A were the next best thing and whilst I felt the former was the guy with less of a gameplan, I’m happy to excuse the latter’s on the grounds that he told a compelling story and introduced me to the expression ‘minge sandwich’
Deana’s change of behaviour in the last 2 weeks plus the cancellation of facebook voting probably cost it for her. But it may have been very close between the final 3 – we will never know. Shame on Channel 5!
Channel 5 must have read my comment from earlier, as they’re now revealing the full series voting stats on tonight’s Bit On The Side special.
Nicely shamed, Tim.
Here they are, for anyone who’s not seen them –
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s149/big-brother/news/a399588/big-brother-2012-full-voting-perecentages-revealed.html
And credit where it’s due – top marks to Channel 5 for this. Come on BBC, release those percentages for The Voice!
Thanks for the series commentary!!!! I had two bets both each way Luke A to win at 8/1 and Adam at 7/1 so well Happy with the outcome especially as earlier this year I had the same bets with Denise Walsh ad Frankie who also finished first and second, looking forward to X factor and CBB now
Superb! Brilliantly done! 😀 Did you avoid the eviction markets?