We join the HoH competition already in progress, and while we see everyone hanging from their individual chains, Matt explains the two factions in the house: himself, Ryan, Natalie, Sheila, and Adam; with James, Chelsia, Joshuah, and Sharon on the other side. James is still pissy about being voted out, and is determined to win the competition to win back his dignity. Because if you're feeling short on dignity, the best place in the world to get a fresh one would naturally be the Big Brother house. Chelsia DRs post-eviction that you can't trust anyone else in the game, and she feels very alone now. She has nothing left of James but the pink streak she put in her hair. Flash to the moment when Julie announced James's eviction, as we see James telling everyone to stay seated. Josh and Adam and Sharon DR about how bad they felt, while Ryan and Matt say they were glad to see him go.
And now let's rehash the fact that three people -- Sheila, Ryan, and Matt -- voted for the mystery houseguest to return instead of James. Adam says he voted to bring James back because he felt bad about voting him out in the first place, and Natalie says it was a way to give her word back to Matt. Out on the dangling chains that make up the HoH competition, Matt has the nerve to remind that they voted James back in, but James feels like he's got to stay in it to avoid going right back on the block. Adam drops off after 15 minutes of dangling, placing the blame squarely on his "fat ass." Josh lets go some time later, similarly attributing his failure to the "junk in [his] trunk." After 40 minutes, Matt's starting to feel the pain, and he drops out, relying on Natalie and Sheila to hang in there and represent their alliance. After some more dangling, Sheila comes clean with James and tells him that she voted for the mystery houseguest because she thought it might be Alex, who Sheila thought deserved another chance. You and America, Sheila, for all the good it did America. After an hour, Sheila starts feeling sick and bails. So now Matt sees Natalie up against three people he is sure would nominate him if they win HoH: Chelsia, Sharon, and James.
With 1:35 on the clock, the pressure's on Natalie to hang on, and she's very conscious of everyone in her alliance staring at her. Joshuah goes out to try to offer Natalie a deal, but he can't outbid Matt's massage, which he still owes her anyway. Natalie's been jabbering incessantly this whole time, making everyone crazy. And sometime after dark, with two and a half hours down, Sharon's down too. She heads over to talk to Adam, while Matt and Ryan worry that Adam's about to switch sides on them. So it's still down to Natalie, trying to outlast James and Chelsia. "She'll stay up there for years [for you]," Ryan assures Matt. See girls, this is why it's to your advantage to not have any respect for yourself when you're after a guy. After three hours, Natalie tells James and Chelsia that they're not her targets this week. They don't care, and they're still hanging on. But then Chelsia suddenly slips and drops off at 3:19, so now it's a very uncomfortable-looking James vs. a very relaxed-looking Natalie. With almost four hours down, James offers Natalie a deal: he'll let her be HoH if she'll nominate Ryan for what he did to James. Ryan gets pissed at James, pointing out that James voted Ryan out too. "It doesn't matter! I'm back!" James snaps. Uh, news flash, James: Ryan's back too. But James changes his mind, deciding to do it himself. He's got all this martyr momentum built up; he might as well use it.
At 4:05, Natalie is dehydrated and spitting on the ground. So now Natalie offers James a deal: safety for her and Matt if she drops. "No deals," Matt yells up at her. Natalie keeps hanging, almost dry-heaving. Seeing this, Chelsia threatens to beat the shit out of Matt if he ever talks shit about Natalie again. That I would like to see. Natalie tries to stick it out, but she can't, and at 4:26, she drops off, followed by James, your new HoH.
Chelsia and Josh run and get a hug from James, and Matt shakes James's hand. "I stick to my word, unlike everyone else in this house," James tells Matt. Oh, Christ, James, let it go. We know you got screwed. Quit bending over and showing everyone your bloody asshole.
Natalie's a wreck on the ground, with everyone worriedly gathered around her. James hugs her and promises not to break his word, and Matt says he's more impressed with Natalie than he ever will be again. Aw, that's...sweet?
Afterwards, inside the house, Matt promises that he'll finally come through with Natalie's massage. She's still pretty wrecked, shaking and glassy-eyed. Chelsia and James joke about his putting her up for nomination. They're both happy he's back.
In the storage room, Joshuah and Sharon speculate about who James will put up. Sharon assures Josh that James knows Josh has his back, because Sharon's entire function in this game is to keep Joshuah from going bazoo. It's a full-time job.
Now that Natalie has recovered, she's got some 'splainin' to do to Ryan; namely, why did she vote James back? Natalie says she thought the mystery houseguest was Allison, and besides, nobody told her what to do. She's seriously admitting out loud that she has no idea how to vote unless someone tells her? That's it, I'm calling it: Natalie for the win. Then we get a little clip showing her passing Josh in the hallway to the DR, desperately begging for guidance on how to vote. "James!" Joshuah says. So that's it: if Natalie had voted after Matt or Ryan or Sheila, the outcome would have been quite different, assuming HoH Ryan would have had the tiebreaking vote. Back in the now, Ryan explains to Natalie that now, because James is back, their group is screwed.
Meet the "Bible Buddies": Matt, Adam, and Ryan, who get a cheesy onscreen church graphic and harp flourish. We get to listen in on a little Bible study session between Matt and Adam, who marvel over the size of Goliath ("a big-ass dude," just like Father Pat used to say) and the fact that Jacob married two girls in one week (Jacob from the Bible, not Jacob from the first eviction, although I'm sure Sharon's Jacob would have been up for it). Ryan wanders in and talks about how handy it is to know the Bible, if only for all the references people are always making. And, you know, Easter.
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James's HoH room is full of pictures of himself and his friends demonstrating the truth of the adage, "Don't drink and photograph."
It's time for Natalie's massage from Matt at last, and they've barely started before Natalie advises Matt to claim that he voted for James to stay. It's worth noting that Matt goes right for the roller tool in order to minimize the amount of massage time he has to spend actually touching Natalie. Later, Matt sits and talks to Sharon and Joshuah as they wonder who cast the third vote to keep James out (with Ryan and Sheila already accounted for). Matt doesn't confess, and tries to divert suspicion to Adam. Joshuah is on the case, though, if only to protect himself from James's wrath. Which brings us to a scene with Joshuah, Matt, and Adam, which leads Adam to realize that James isn't clear on his return-of-James vote. So he goes right to James to say James got his vote. And then he snaps at an entering Josh not to question him, as Josh says that he's satisfied with knowing who voted for James to stay gone. Thanks for solving that mystery, Hercule Poir-no.
Time for another Joshuah-the-morning-person bit, as he wanders around the house in swim trunks and a bucket hat wielding a feather duster, which he then shakes out on people's beds.
You may recall that Joshuah won a letter from home in last week's PoV competition. He struggles through tears to read it to everyone around the hot tub, and DRs damp-faced about how this was better than any of the other prizes. People who have been wanting to see Joshuah cry may or may not agree.
Ryan visits James in the HoH room to try to resolve things. James lies in bed, crying like a rape survivor about the trauma of having to hear about his eviction and walk out the door and sit down and talk to Julie-- okay, he might have a point with that last item there. He asks Ryan what he was thinking, and whines about how everyone in the house but Chelsia screwed him. He DRs that obviously Ryan is getting nominated for revenge, so now he just needs to decide who else is going up along with him. "No hard feelings," he lies to Ryan.
Nominations. Ryan DRs that he fully expects to be nominated. Adam is "worried" that James might not believe that he voted for James to come back, but even with producers' prompting, he can't work up too much concern about it. Matt says he feels good about the deal Natalie struck with James to keep him safe, but he still says, "Never trust a kid with pink hair."
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As James loads the keys into he box, he narrates about being the phoenix rising from the ashes. He reminds us that all but one person voted him out, but then they made the mistake of bringing him back. It being a mistake because now they all have to listen to him bitch about it nonstop. When he convenes the nomination meeting, he lectures everyone about lying and how all you have in the house is your word. So to demonstrate, the first person who's safe is Natalie, who gets to pull Matt's key. James nods, like, Yeah, I keep my word, bitches. Bask in my awesome-osity. Matt pulls Sharon, Sharon pulls Chelsia, Chelsia pulls Joshuah, and Joshuah pulls Adam. Sheila and Ryan both nod like they saw it coming. James lectures Sheila SOME MORE about breaking her word, and says that he's nominated Ryan out of revenge. Meeting over!
Ryan is still confident, since he's "the king of the block." This is his third nomination, after all, and he's still around. Yes, of the other two times he was nominated, he only got evicted one of them. Matt DRs that Natalie prevented his nomination and he owes her big time. James says that this is the biggest revenge in Big Brother history. These people are even worse Big Brother historians than I am. Sheila DRs sarcastically, "I'm not gonna cry, boo hoo hoo." Now she's just pissed off. "Bring it on," she says. Well, gosh, why would we ever think Sheila might cry about something?
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