“Big Brother” update: Tuscaloosa woman held captive 70 days and counting
By Wade Kwon
Danielle Murphree reacts to Thursday’s blindside.
Summer’s greatest time-waster is winding down.
After 70 days, only three of the 16 contestants on “Big Brother” remain, including Danielle Murphree of Tuscaloosa. She had faced eviction as early as Day 1’s competition, but has coasted into the final three on the 14th season of the CBS reality show.
Her two competitors are Dan Gheesling, a high school teacher from West Bloomfield, Mich., and Ian Terry, an engineering student from New Orleans. Danielle, Dan and Ian had been members of the Quack Pack and Silent Six alliances, which helped them survive the weekly challenges and evictions. One of them will win the grand prize of $500,000 on Wednesday’s live finale.
Dan returned this season as a coach to three players — including Danielle — after winning “Big Brother” in 2008. In a surprise twist, the coaches (all previous contestants) entered the game as players on Day 27, and Dan is the only former coach to go the distance.
Ian, a fan favorite, has used his extensive knowledge of past seasons to build alliances and to strategically eliminate major players.
Danielle has gone along with her alliances’ plans for the most part. She’s the only female player this season to win Head of Household, twice, and happened to win the Golden Power of Veto those same weeks.
Her most recent reign concluded in disaster on Thursday’s live eviction show. Having nominated fellow alliance members Ian and Dan for eviction, she would have let her “showmance” Shane Meaney pick the evictee. Dan, who has outfoxed most of his housemates this season, convinced Danielle to use her Veto to remove his nomination and put Shane up instead. She did, and Dan voted out Shane to everyone’s surprise.
Dan has made and broken promises to both Danielle and Ian several times. Thursday’s betrayal might put them both on guard.
Danielle may likely be going to the final two, but only as the eventual runnerup. This week’s final Head of Household competition winner will select the sole competitor to face off in the grand prize vote among the seven jury members (the most recent evictees). Dan would pick Danielle as a weaker competitor, though Ian might still take Dan as they vowed to do so earlier, despite Ian’s misgivings.
The jury would likely reward Dan or Ian’s aggressive gameplay more than Danielle’s coasting strategy. But $50,000 for second place and 75 days in captivity ain’t bad.
The show returns at 7:30 p.m. Sunday on CBS 42, followed by the 90-minute season finale at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The Zingbot 3000 returns, and saves a real zing for Danielle.
- Tuscaloosa nurse to compete on “Big Brother”
- Watch all 28 mind-numbing hours of this season on Amazon | iTunes [aff. links]
Monday, September 17, 2012, 2:05 pm
Let’s hope Danielle seeks psychiatric help immediately after her release from “captivity”. Danielle is a case study in histrionic personality disorder at its finest.
Monday, September 17, 2012, 5:37 pm
danielle is psycho.. she stalked shane, was jealous of every female in the house thought shane would look at in the house.. day.. nielle haa a list of lies as long as you could imagine…from her father being an abusive alcoholic to her breast cancer conversations to she was almost a doctor, a gyn and that the doctors ask her for advice….she told lies saying janelle bullied her to saying something about janelles husband sleeping with or fooling around with her babysitter/nanny.. cant wait til she finds out that shane told britney that he has no feelings at all about her or want to have a showmance with her.danielle stalked shane.she is always fishing for compliments saying that she has a body like Jlo,Beyonce and get this … says she gets a lot of body images that of Tyra Banks. She will soon find out that she is the most hated big brother houseguest ever. I wish somehow she could read the live 24 hr feed chat rooms Danielle is a psychotic evil twisted minded hatred individual.I had enough of her when she said that she could snap and break Ian’s neck said she meanti t.Production had to call her in the diary room on that threat and other vicious things that she was saying about Ian mad as hell crying because he beat her and she has no chance of winning the half million dollar prize
Monday, September 17, 2012, 7:29 pm
Well, it’s good to see Danielle’s fans out in full force.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012, 3:46 pm
(since you asked)
Disclaimer- I am not a Danielle fan, just not a Danielle hater.
Danielle has actually played a pretty good social game, as well as outperforming all the other women in the BB House in competitions. She joined an alliance that dominated the entire competition, while developing at least one side alliance with JennCity. She attached herself to Dan Gheesling who has controlled the House as a puppeteer through much of the game, and this has allowed her to advance to the final three while others have been picked off one by one. Ian Terry has some personal weaknesses when it comes to social skills and Dan Gheesling’s season of constant backstabbing has created some enemies for him on the jury. If she makes it to the final 2 she actually has a chance to win the whole thing (but I think she has a lock on third place).
Season after season former BB players attest to the fact that the Big Brother experience “messes with their heads” and that they all feel like they are “going crazy” at one time or another in there. I’ve seen far worse “riders of the crazy train” than Danielle in other seasons. As for her dalliances with Shane Meany, he has spoken highly of her in his public interviews since his eviction, and her connection to him helped to carry her further in the game.
Her overreactions to her physical symptoms of stress aside, if Danielle had been a man playing EXACTLY the same game in the Big Brother House she would not be so actively hated by the fans.
Besides, it is better for her to be the player that people “love to hate” than the player that is so boring that people barely notice ( *cough* JennCity *cough*).
Wednesday, September 19, 2012, 9:55 pm
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