On Day 15, everyone reacts to James and Chelsia's nomination of Amanda ("we're too strong," not "everybody hates me") and Alex ("this is all Amanda's fault") and Matt ("James is a dirty double-crosser. Also, Parker who?"). In the HoH room, James doesn't feel bad about it at all, although Chelsia is worried that they'll be on the block week no matter what happens.
Meanwhile, Natalie and Matt commiserate over James's mendacity, and Matt says that he intends to win the PoV competition. Alex, on the other hand, sits out on the porch and sulks. When Amanda comes out to talk to him, he pushes her away, warning her that he needs some time to avoid lashing out at her. "Okay, just keep a positive attitude," Amanda chirps instead of leaving. Which causes Alex to lash out at her after all, saying that nobody said anything bad about him, only her, but now they're both nominated. Still, Alex struggles to take Amanda's advice after she leaves. "Think positive," he mutters to himself. The obvious joke: I'm positive Alex and Amanda are going home this week.
This must be footage from the all-bikini day decided upon in the HoH competition, as Allison and Natalie stage duels with spray bottles full of cleaning supplies. In other words, Allison is happy to be off the block, and generally more fun to be around. This is quite annoying to Sheila, who preferred the old, needy, clinging-to-Sheila-for-support-24/7 version of Allison rather than this new, independent, happy one. Amanda, having learned nothing, eggs Sheila on.
James and Adam stand outside smoking, and Matt comes out to confront James in a rather passive-aggressive way. Alex shows up as well, and they kind of double-team James. Adam has vanished somewhere in the editing, much as his real-life job has vanished thanks to his referring to his autistic clients as "retards." Not to worry; I'm sure he'll land another PR job right away. Clearly, he has a knack for it. Anyway, James pretends not to be intimidated, reminding them that they're playing a game. But he soon heads inside, before they can start administering noogies to his pink Mohawk.
Sheila decides to take Allison aside to put her on notice that Sheila's not happy, using the tried and untrue "are you mad at me or something?" gambit. Allison assures Sheila that it's not so. She just needs to get to know Ryan better, which is why she hasn't been hanging with Sheila so much lately. Good one.
PoV player selection: the competing couples will be James/Chelsia as HoH couple, Matt/Natalie and Alex/Amanda as nominees, and Joshuah/Sharon as the randomly selected couple. And they've picked Adam as the host, which surprisingly is not random. Why they'd want the event to be hosted by someone whose vocal delivery when he's worked up sounds like that of the Tasmanian Devil is beyond me.
Alex and Matt duck into the pantry to agree that one of them is going to have to win PoV. And I'm sure they'll each use it on the other, right? James comes in, taunting them (which is dumb) and bending over with his back to them to get something out of the fridge (which is dumber) before ducking out again (which is less dumb).
For the PoV competition, everyone heads outside into the back yard (the competing couples wearing color-coded hardhats) to find it all rainy and fogged up, with an obviously Jericho-themed playing field set up. It's on after this, you know. Adam explains that the idea is to "restore communication to the outside world" by stringing lengths of cable from a "generator" across a series of eye-level "utility poles." And where will they find those cables? Hidden inside giant barrels of peanuts, of course. Hell, CBS had to do something with them, right? Props to the network for figuring out a way to use them in the Big Three's worst reality show instead of giving them to the needy or something.
The competition begins. It's harder than it looks, because the cables are all different lengths, and the poles are different distances apart. Also, they swivel, so you may be able to attach the cables on one side without the other. "We were definitely lost," James DRs, totally missing the point of this whole cross-promotion. Everyone starts by just putting up cables haphazardly as soon as they find them, except for Joshuah and Sharon, who end up winning.
So now that they've "restored communication," they get to have a news ticker come on and flash a few headlines. "McCain remains the frontrunner" is the first headline, which thrills Amanda. Except she's also thrilled that Barack Obama is leading Hillary Clinton. So she's the Mitt Romney of the house. Joshuah gets his stereotype on by being glad to have a Britney update. And the last headline? "The Hudson River Virus is threatening those cut off from the outside world." Oh, now what? James thinks this is some kind of hint, having to do with the fact that the four colors of the hardhats happen to match the colors of that stupid puzzle in the guinea-pig cage. Every player has a weakness, and James's is the guinea-pig puzzle. James hopes to find another clue related to that whole thing. Because that worked out so well last time.
Sheila gets tired of watching Allison hang out with everyone but Sheila. So she goes off on a rant to Natalie in private about how much Allison sucks. Or what she thinks is private, because the walls don't go all the way to the ceiling and Joshuah is listening on the other side. Natalie's like, "Whatever." Fortunately for her, Sheila is too busy being crazy to notice.
Sheila then buttonholes Matt in the pantry, yapping away about how betrayed by Allison she feels. Shouldn't this wait until Allison, you know, does something bad to Sheila? Matt does a great job of not poking the crazy, making polite noises until he can duck out of there, just after Sharon runs away from the door where she's been listening in.
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