After Natalie's nominations of James and Joshuah, James decides that his new routine is to be on the block every week. Good of him to keep up. Joshuah knows that James is the real target, so he figures he just has to keep his cool and he'll be fine. Oh, play to your strengths, Josh. James finds himself isolated. To the extent that Joshuah and Sharon end up sitting outside talking matter-of-factly about James's impending exit.
Sheila is in the sauna with James, for some reason talking him up and saying he can win PoV. She's got a feeling. But then later she goes to Joshuah and tells him the same thing, in front of Ryan and Natalie and Adam. James overhears, gets out of bed pulls his pants on, and heads out to the kitchen while Natalie tries unsuccessfully to get Sheila to "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah." Joshuah takes off as James confronts them for all being against him, until nobody's left in the room but himself and an unrepentant Sheila. Then James goes outside with Adam. Left alone, Sheila goes to Joshuah, who's sleeping in the bed to James's, and repeats her position that Joshuah needs to believe in himself and James is whatever. She's still blathering when James returns, still acting hurt as he gets into bed. Sheila then goes outside to the pool table to bitch angrily about James's pity party. Adam goes in and more or less tells James that Sheila feels better now that James knows how she feels. This time, James doesn't even bother putting his pants on to go confront Sheila one-on-one again, and he has a full-on screaming swearing meltdown right in her face, bringing up shit from three weeks ago. I'd call it a Joshuah-style hollerfest, but James actually means it and is almost crying while he calls Sheila a lying sack of shit (the other way it differs from a Joshuah performance is that James refrains from saying mean things about Sheila's appearance or socioeconomic status.)
Inside, James is still freaking out all over everyone about how everyone's against him, and he's finally reduced to hoarse tears. Things spill over onto Natalie, whom he accuses of getting Chelsia out. She reminds him that it was Adam who actually nominated Chelsia. Overhearing, Adam puts down the Bible and comes in to angrily defend himself, and James decides that he's had enough and wants to go to bed.
Late at night, James can't sleep, so he gets up and goes to the kitchen. Joshuah comes in to commiserate with him, and comment on the fact that nobody knows what Sheila's doing. James is just hurt that Sheila talked him up all day, when eh really needed it, and then he found out she was full of shit. In a DR, he weeps about how much he opened up. "There is no good way to play this game," he says. "There is no nice way to play Big Brother." He's just now realizing this? Actually, let me amend that; there may be a nice way to play Big Brother, but there sure as hell isn't any nice way to win it. He says this is the first time he's cried like this since his dad died, but he's going to keep trying hard in the game, for Chelsia and the other people who are pulling for him. Don't knock yourself out on my behalf, Jimbo.
It's time to pick the players for the PoV competition, and James has decided to get into his "mental warrior zone" (read: stop crying like a Mafia widow). HoH Natalie draws Houseguest's Choice and picks Ryan. Josh draws Sheila, and James draws Sharon. With the six players selected, that leaves Adam as host.
The PoV turns out to be a various collection of rando items from past Big Brother competitions, like large amounts of gumballs, lard, popcorn, and asparagus. Adam slurs out the complicated rules, which require people to either bet on their answer to gain points or "fold" if they think they're wrong and want to stay in the game -- because if you stick to an answer that's further away from the correct answer than someone else's, you're out of the competition. The first person to win three points wins PoV.
The first question is how many letter blocks are in a bin. Most everyone guesses between 800 and 900, except for Ryan, who guesses 1400. Now Adam asks each one of them in turn whether they want to stay or fold. The right answer turns out to be 992, meaning Natalie was closest with her guess of 885. She wins a point. When did she get so good at counting letters? Since Josh and Sharon were the only other ones who didn't fold, they're out. Joshuah is disappointed, but he doesn't think James has much chance to win against three other people. James, for his part, has adopted the strategy of folding whenever possible in order to let the others knock themselves out.
The question regards the number of pushpins in a giant Veto symbol made of them. James folds again, because of his aforementioned strategy. Sheila does too, because who knows why she does anything. That leaves Ryan in (with one point) and Natalie out of the PoV. On the question, Sheila wins this point because she's the only one who didn't fold.
up is a big gumball machine full of rubber balls. James guesses 675, Sheila 380, and Ryan 1100. Seeing Ryan sweat, James decides to stay with his guess, and Sheila and Ryan fold. So James wins a point, bringing it to a three-way tie. Everyone else looks glum while James celebrates his one point and Ryan realizes too late that his guess was closest. The round, guessing the number of links in a chain, goes the same way, and James is now in the lead. "The house is against me," he gloats, rubbing it in.
For the question, James makes a big speech and stays with his guess of 54 pounds of popcorn. Sheila folds after guessing 250, and Ryan stays with his guess of 75. James is about to either win or get eliminated. And it turns out to be 49 pounds of popcorn, which means a PoV win for James. The third in a row, no less. He celebrates by himself, while everyone looks disappointed. Surprisingly, it doesn't seem to dampen his joy.
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Seeing Joshuah moping across the yard, Sharon literally comes running, but Joshuah wants to be alone. He DRs that he's done in the game. All finished! Bye now!
James is back in his manic phase, dancing and boasting that he's here to stay. Joshuah, on the other hand, goes off into a bedroom by himself and cries. In the DR, he predicts that he's done; they'll put Sharon up against him and he'll be gone. As usual, Sharon comes and promises to figure it out for him. "When he's hurting, I'm hurting," Sharon DRs. Would it really be that hard to turn a couple more people against Sheila at this point? Am I missing some vital part of her appeal?
In the storage room, Sharon asks Natalie what she's going to do. Natalie says that she has no choice but to put Sharon up, which Sharon gets. "How many lives does this guy have?" Natalie asks. Sharon realizes there's nothing she can do to save Josh. Whom she goes back to, so that she can witness a little more of his self-pity until he sends her away.
Ryan visits Natalie n the HoH room. "What do we have to do?" they wonder, marveling at James's resilience. Joshuah, Sharon, and Sheila, meanwhile, are playing out their own little Terms of Endearment farewell scene, only with more crying, mucus, and slop. They split up to separate corners to cry. Sheila goes into the toilet stall with Sharon and tells her that it's not her fault; she's done everything she could for Joshuah. And suddenly, in the storage room, Joshuah realizes: "Wait a second -- why should Sharon stay, and I have to go?" Uh, you want that alphabetically or in order of relevance? But he pulls himself together -- cold as liquid nitrogen, now -- and goes to visit Natalie to ask her for another week. While Sheila is comforting Sharon by telling her that Joshuah is a good person who wants her to succeed, Joshuah is telling Natalie that he can get votes from Ryan and James, and she can cast the tie-breaking vote for Sharon's eviction.
So Joshuah goes to his secret ally, Ryan, to make the deal. Ryan's down with it, and so, for some reason, is James. "He's going to walk out with some dignity and class…because that's who he is," Sheila says to Sharon in the toilet stall. Meanwhile, Joshuah is up in the HoH room sealing the deal to throw his partner under the proverbial bus.
PoV. James looks forward to "confronting his competitors and giving them some lasting words that go into week." He convenes the meeting and gives Joshuah a chance to speak in his favor. Joshuah stands and makes a speech to the effect that he sucks at competitions, so he doesn't deserve to be saved by the Veto. It would be kind of impressive if I thought he meant a word of it. James says he's vetoed himself because everyone wants him out, and once again they have failed. He gives a condescending speech to everyone (although it's mostly directed at Sheila) that they can do as well in competitions as he has, and they should -- because his experience in the house surpasses that of all of them, many of whom are just coasting. Pretty smug for a guy we just saw on national television in his black briefs, screaming at a 45-year-old mother. Obviously, he's vetoing himself.
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Natalie stands and announces her replacement nominee, Sharon, to nobody's surprise. She perkily sits to her partner, oblivious to the fact that he's already arranged her demise. After the meeting, James DRs that his speech was meant to be "inspirational and confrontational," and probably more than Sheila expected from him. Sheila, in turn, gives a DR that indicates he got through to her. You think that by this time week, she will still be the only houseguest who has yet to win a competition of any kind? Yeah, me too.
Sharon DRs about how hard it's going to be for her to watch Joshuah leave, since she feels he's her responsibility. She's right, too; it is going to be hard to watch him leave, because her sequester house isn't going to have a TV. Joshuah in turn is remorseless, saying he didn't come to get second place. Well, dude, even if you succeed in ejecting your mom/therapist/babysitter tomorrow, you've still got an uphill battle to come in fifth.
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