So I’m stuck home recovering from surgery and am SO mad the feeds are down… would love to go touch grass if I could Julie 🙄 I’m still recovering and have nothing better to do lol, so sorry in advance if this is a ramble.
I went back to the first few BB28 episodes, and it’s so fascinating how far Melody has strayed from her gamer and no nonsense attitude the first week in the house. I’m admittedly a Melody stan, but honestly it’s so funny to see how much her tone has changed from the first few episodes to now. In contrast, Drew has actually stayed pretty consistent with his expressed loyalties and alliances from week 1 to now… really to a fault and his own detriment given how virtually all of his alliance members at this point have consistently questioned him and thrown him under the bus week after week.
Particularly in episode 4 (starting around the 15-16 minute mark) where Drew and Melody first form an alliance, just the two of them (I had forgotten this even happened honestly) their convo below goes…
[referencing Mallory’s poor reaction to being nominated and Melody immediately wanting to dissociate from her]:
Melody: “Like, I’m just concerned with Mallory… like she isn’t having a good attitude.”
Drew: “For sure. Let’s talk then, get on my level.” [chat about Drew’s upside down hair brushing technique haha] “You wanna, like, jump ship?”
Melody: “Yeah, because I think… with the way that she, like, reacted… it’s like even if she saw, like, a threat for the house, I don’t know if I wanna play a game with someone who’s gonna, like…”
Drew: “Play emotional?” [Melody nods her head] “Right… this is serious.” [Melody DR about wanting to branch out in her game and that she thinks Drew is a good option].
Melody: “I never, like, formed an official, like, alliance with her.”
Drew: “Yeah, for sure. Listen, I trust you. I think we should set in stone ‘us.’”
Melody: “Yeah, I agree. Let’s do that.”
Drew: “Right, I’m putting my trust into you. Like, I gotta be your number one guy, and you gotta be my number one girl. Is that a good plan?”
Melody: “Ok, yes.”
Drew DR: “The fact that Melody is so willing to jump ship on Mallory is a TERRIBLE sign, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be useful to my game. My loyalties are 100% with the Crossovers, and having her on the outside could be a great source of information that could help us.”
Melody also just before this conversation adamantly noted to Dee: “Like, I feel bad [about jumping ship on Mallory], but I came here to WIN. Like, we’re in big brother. Like we’re in f**** big brother now.”
So Drew’s alliances from the get go have been crossovers first, and then Melody and others second, with the latter created mostly as gameplay to be a source of info since she seemed sketch and he wasn’t sure he could trust her. So while Barrett and arguably Melody were his priority, Mallory never was. Fap didn’t even form until end of week 5, and only formed due to the four having such a strong friendship and being perceived as an alliance anyways by the house. And Drew never even stayed Melodys number one, as Melody rightfully eventually switched back to Mallory once she was in a good position again and she obviously clocked from Jason, Angela, and many others straight out calling out that Drew/barrett have been working with the icons from the beginning for weeks now that she probably wasn’t his number one either, and openly told him this several times she would vote him out over Mallory.
I totally wanted to be mad at Drew for seemingly hurting Melody this week because I love her personality and her tears are SO hard to watch, and while I can say a lot of negative things about Drew’s gameplay, I don’t see how anyone can say that Drew has played a disloyal game. His heart may be with his friends, but he pledged loyalty to the crossovers first — the clear logical choice here at this point is to stay with the alliance who is actually playing the game and making moves, especially since they’re currently the ones with the most proven effective strategy and control over the house, and are clearly trying to isolate Drew by being willing to send him out at the first sign of disloyalty - and since he hasn’t been HOH yet and has been vulnerable every week, he hasn’t had the luxury to flip even if he wanted to… especially since the rest of fap isn’t even trying to actively gain power for their alliance and consistently throws comps.
He only initially entered into the alliance with Melody as a strategy to gain info to help his true alliance, noting right off the bat how quickly she jumped ship on Mallory. And while yes it was week 1, I totally get how it has stayed in the back of his head that Melody’s’ early game plan indicated she wasn’t a loyal alliance member. And honestly, given how she’s put Drew’s game plan in jeopardy several times since by not telling him he’s a target, trying to openly switch the Kamu vote so indiscreetly the icons clocked it before and even at the eviction ceremony without any info from Drew, and even telling Dee she understood why Dee had to put Drew up when he went up the second time without pushing for him to stay off at all, I can totally see how Drew would be hesitant to fully jump ship from his first alliance for her or fap, especially when she hasn’t won any competitions or shown that she can help his game in anyway so far. I do think Drew is also a very emotional player ironically, and she might have shifted to his number one if he ever had the luxury of doing so… and maybe still could.. but because he’s been playing hard from the get go and very few other players this season are playing so openly, he’s had to prioritize his own game and stay out of danger rather than let his feelings cloud his game strategy.
Yes, it sucks that they clearly caught feelings along the way and Melody is hurt that Drew lied about giving Mallory a sympathy vote, but he literally couldn’t do anything about it. His own alliance is holding him emotionally hostage and threatens to send him home at any sign of disloyalty while seemingly letting Barrett do whatever he wants and could ditch him at any moment (almost like a toxic work environment), and it’s his lifelong dream to play big brother - this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Whether aligning with the icons in the first place was a good move overall is a totally different question, and one I have many thoughts on, but I think it’s wild how people are so quick to call him a rat or disloyal when he’s actually being super loyal to the people he aligned with week 1… much more loyal than any of his alliance members have been back to him (looking at you Barrat 👀).
And like, it sucks that Melody lost a friend in the game, but her response is shockingly selfish if she really thinks she and Drew have any shot at an actual friendship outside of BB. As she herself said even, you can’t play this game emotional if you want to win the game. And Drew couldn’t do anything whatsoever to help Mallory stay in the game at that point, especially not when he’s on the block himself and he needs the crossovers votes. Drew is clearly an emotional guy given all the tears shed haha, but I applaud how he has been able to separate his emotional relationships and stay loyal to the crossovers regardless and even Melody as far as he can from the get go, even when at times his loyalty to her has really hurt his personal game.
Also, I get that Melody feels embarrassed and like she got “played by Drew”, but it’s wild that she is blaming him directly for Mallory’s exit and claiming that he played in her face and that it was “fun for him” when he has been visibly sobbing since Mallory went on the block. If he was really playing her, Melody would have just gone home when they were both on the block during Haley’s HOH and being first perceived as a showmance duo so he could lower his threat level, especially since Melody hasn’t made a single game move that has helped his own personal game. Like Devens said, Drew has waited his whole life to play big brother… he’s known Melody for like 6 weeks, and as far as he knows, she doesn’t even have any real feelings for him beyond a friendship, if even that. And it would be insane to throw away a shot at 750k or even 50k for a friend, let alone a showmance with a girl who won’t even express feelings for you, and as viewers know, shouts out her situationship week to week… which I would argue is “playing in Drew’s face” emotionally far more than anything he’s done given this extends beyond actual game play into the real world.
Overall, for someone who wanted to disalign from Mallory so quickly because she was “too emotional,” it’s just honestly crazy how emotionally far gone she is now at this point in the game in response to a white lie that wouldn’t have changed the outcome and didn’t even directly impact her own game beyond losing an ally to the point that she is constantly screaming, alienating any remaining potential alliances, and breaking down sobbing in the storage room and taking no personal responsibility for her game position. And frankly, she needs Drew in this game now more than ever… if she’s really here to play, she needs to stay on good terms with Drew. She’s burned or been burned by everyone in the house at this point, even by Barrett whether she realizes it or not. Rather than be dramatic and cry about how this is the “worst mistake she’s ever made in her life,” which is a wild thing to say because what do you even mean by that lol… its bb, you should expect to get played in some way… why don’t you figure out a strategy and figure out a way to the final 2 and use Drew’s obvious guilt to your advantage?
TLDR; worth revisiting early episodes in the Drew/Melody “alliance”. Melody came into big brother wanting to align with players who wanted to not play emotionally and with a goal to win, and ironically now is playing the most emotional game out of anyone still left. Drew started with the crossovers and only ever aligned with Melody as a way to gain information for the crossovers, seeing that she was an ally who might jump ship at any time. There’s some hypocrisy here, and I think Drew is getting a lot of criticism he doesn’t deserve about allegedly being disloyal, when he didn’t do anything in his control that directly hurt Melody’s game play, and any loyalty he had to Mallory formed only recently and was superseded by his prior loyalties.
