Big Brother 19 debate: Why Mark Jansen should be America’s Favorite Houseguest

We probably spent an inordinate amount of time trying to determine the answer to one Big Brother 19 question: Who should be America’s Favorite Houseguest? Why does this matter all this much, and should we really endorse anyone for the award?

This was a tough one to think about, mostly because this is not the most likable cast in the world and we had a difficult time figuring out what the criteria should be. For example, should we reward someone who was not good at the game? Cody was someone who got evicted twice, effectively didn’t do much to campaign the second time, and probably would’ve been evicted even sooner were it not for the Halting Hex. He also said some distasteful stuff on the feeds and we can’t really rally behind the guy just because he was in opposition to Paul and one of the most aware people of his game. Meanwhile, we’d be willing to campaign for Jessica … but she’s really just campaigning for Cody at this point. Hence, the struggle that we’re having with her at the moment.

Meanwhile, let’s look at another AFP favorite in Kevin. We do like Kevin a lot — he tells tremendous stories, he’s a fun character, and he did some exciting things at the end of the game. Yet, it did feel for his final month or so in the house that he was sitting around waiting for it to be over. We wanted to see Kevin fight more in the game, make deals beyond just Paul, and try to do something to mix things up given that he never really did anything that was playing to win.

This brings us to Mark Jansen, our CarterMatt – America’s Favorite Houseguest pick — one that we didn’t think that we would make.. In another season, he probably wouldn’t be our guy. Did he do distasteful stuff sometimes? Sure, but it was always reactionary: He lost his temper after Josh cheated in a stupid pool game; meanwhile, he almost beat Josh’s face after he was banging around pots and pans. He has a temper, but there are a lot of people in the world who do. He didn’t intentionally sit around and bash a ton of people, and he also did what he could to fight hard at least once we got to a certain point in the game. He won competitions, he actually tried to use the Tree of Temptation, and he at least partially understood what was going on. He should’ve made different game moves along the way, but he did try to play his own game. His biggest problem may have been that Elena yanked him in directions where it looked like he was flip-flopping a lot and he didn’t have a ton of trust anywhere.

In terms of entertainment, Mark also brought a lot to the feeds in between the emotional crying, the awkward showmance with Elena that felt very much forced on his end, the heated arguments, and his love-hate relationship with Josh. We appreciated that was a muscular guy who wasn’t a tool (a rarity for this game), and he’s probably one of the few houseguests this season we’d grab a beer with after the game.

If nothing else, him completely torching Raven on Thursday night’s Jury House segment was the icing on the cake.

Was Mark the best player, or the biggest character this season? No, but we consider him the best out of a questionable field, and he was a nice guy who was probably just too pure for the game. He couldn’t handle being cutthroat or mean, and that’s a big part of ultimately why he went home. At least he tried at times along the way. We do recognize that he is probably the third-party candidate with zero chance to win, but we’re still going to vote for him no matter what.

Who are you voting for to win AFP in the Big Brother 19 house? Be sure to share now in the comments below!

Meanwhile, head over here to see our most-recent exclusive CarterMatt interview with executive producer Allison Grodner! (Photo: CBS.)