So here it is, the eleventh show of the ninth season. How disappointed do you think the producers are that Alex, the 9/11 orphan, got booted last week and isn't here for episode 9-11? I bet they would have made him a cake.
Julie welcomes us to Day 28, and reminds us how much Joshuah hates Allison, that she and Ryan are nominated along with Sheila and Adam (who took the place of self-vetoed Matt and Natalie), and that there's going to be a big twist tonight. I don't really care what it is; I'm just glad that after tonight, it'll be down to eight people from the original sixteen. We're at the halfway point! Whoo!
After the veto meeting, Allison is glad to be up against Sheila, since it's time for them to go their own ways. And Matt is looking forward to being owed a favor by whomever ends up staying tonight thanks to his vote.
Some of them hang out in the backyard, wondering what the siren means and speculating that it's going to go off in the middle of the night. And meanwhile, Natalie and Josh sit up on the mezzanine and have basically the same conversation. It's so interesting to get the identical perspective on a situation from two very different groups of equally stupid people.
Allison and Ryan hang out by the hot tub, and Allison pushes Ryan to go talk to Matt, since she doesn't trust him. So Ryan does that, and Matt assures him that he doesn't need to worry about it. Of course, he says that same thing to Adam, and to Allison, and to Sheila. Matt DRs that this way, whoever stays will be grateful to him. Of course, he'll also have a sworn enemy in the jury house, but he may not be thinking that far ahead.
Satisfied that Matt and Natalie are in the bag, Allison goes to James and Chelsia to beg for their votes. While the other couple snuggles together in the hammock, Allison assures them that Matt is going to vote for her and Ryan, so James and Chelsia won't be left twisting in the breeze.
Which puts James in an awkward position when Sheila says the same thing to James, and reminds him that in the event of a tie, the HoH couple picks the couple to leave. Which means Allison and Ryan needs both of the voting couples on their side, of course. James realizes that Matt is playing both sides, which offends James as someone who hasn't promised anyone anything.
So James decides to put an end to Matt's little game, as he goes out to the pool table to join the other three non-HoH guys. He quickly establishes that Adam and Ryan are both expecting Matt's vote. Matt does some fast talking to try to get himself off the spot, but Ryan and Adam and Sheila look pretty worried. Allison isn't on the scene. Presumably she's working on giving Big Brother a new, even more terrifying makeup-removal shot for the archives.
In the DR, Natalie and Matt discuss whom to boot. Natalie wants to get rid of Allison because she's manipulative, but Matt wants to keep her around to do his dirty work, plus Ryan's his boy. We don't see Natalie try to leverage their disagreement to get herself a massage. When James and Chelsia get their turn to discuss it in the DR, she thinks it might be good strategy to keep Sheila and Adam, but he says they don't deserve to be there. He also affectionately calls her an idiot. They're so in love.
After commercials, Julie talks to the houseguests via the viewscreen, starting off the convo by bringing up the siren and asking for theories on what it might mean. James speculates that the couples might be split up (No! I will not have it! Not this close to the end!), but Matt has a more elaborate theory. He thinks there might be an identical Big Brother house door, and they're going to meet up for the endgame. Dude, that's kind of wild. And I can't wait to meet the recapper who's secretly been covering that other house. Nobody has a theory about the puzzle in the guinea pig cage? Julie then quizzes Sharon for some mysterious reason (we learn nothing, of course), and Julie then shows the houseguests the footage from last night of Matt and Natalie winning the PoV competition and jumping all over each other with joy. Julie tries to get Natalie to admit that the best part of it was making Matt happy. Natalie doesn't bite, so she's clearly grown a second brain cell. Good for her. Julie then reminds Matt that he owes Natalie massage for winning the PoV. Matt's still trying to weasel out of it. I don't think it's going to happen until the voice of Big Brother tells him to do it, and possibly not even then. Why would you even want a massage from someone who's clearly dreading it so much?
Julie tells us that Natalie seems to like Matt a lot more than he likes her, and before we meet their respective folks at home, we see a hammock scene between the two of them where Matt asks for a little space and Natalie whines a lot.
Cut to Oregon ("the Beaver State," the subtitle reads, encouraging Natalie and enraging me), specifically Natalie's workplace, the "Bikini Coffee Company." So I guess that answers the question about why Natalie is a bikini barista instead of a regular one. ["Up until now, you were thinking maybe she was just a specialist within a regular coffee shop? Because...actually, wait, that would be awesome." -- Miss Alli] A couple of her bikini-barista coworkers say that Natalie has an unfortunate tendency to clamp onto guys she likes, and her sister says that Natalie's looking for love but Matt's just in it for the game. I would make fun of such an obvious statement, bit it's clear Natalie's sister got the brains in the family.
And now to Boston, where Matt's equally fratty friends say that Matt's way more into the money than Natalie. And all of this is intercut with Matt telling an increasingly upset Natalie to back off already. How helpful to get an inside perspective from the people who know Matt and Natalie best, so they can tell us nothing we didn't already know. Julie sends us to commercial, teasing the siren one more time. Apparently it's going to go off when the evicted couple leaves tonight, whether the house is on fire or not. But we can still hope for the best.
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HoH competition, and there's only going to be one this time. Joshuah and Sharon have to sit it out as the outgoing HoH couple, so that leaves it down to the other seven: Sheila, Matt, Chelsia, Ryan, James, Natalie, and Adam. The competition requires them to answer true/false questions about the order in which stuff has happened in the house. Everyone gets the first one right. James and Natalie get the second one wrong, so they're out. During the third question, the camera abruptly cuts to a close-up of one of the guinea pigs for some reason, and then Sheila, Matt, and Chelsia are out. That leaves Ryan and Adam as the remaining contestants. They both get the fourth question wrong and the fifth question right, so they're both still in. But Adam biffs number six, so that means Ryan is HoH. Wow, I didn't expect Ryan to prevail in a battle of wits. And before going to commercial, Julie says we get to play a part in the game now, and she'll explain when we come back. Oh, goody.
So here's what she wants us to do. Julie tells us that Jacob, Jen, Parker, Amanda and Alex are currently being sequestered (unlike Neil, who left for good and even got taken out of the opening credits. And now we get to vote for one of them -- or Allison -- to return to the house. Because the season needs to be even longer? News flash, Jules: the writers strike is over. But listen up, everyone: don't vote for anyone. Maybe that way nobody will come back.
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