Julie and her short-sleeved mock turtleneck with matching corsage-like fabric-blob welcome us to Day 70 and ask us if being in control of the votes means that Ryan and Adam are also in control of the house. Frankly, I'm not entirely convinced those two meatheads are in control of their bowels.
After the Veto meeting -- which, counting the previouslies, we just saw the end of for the second time in as many minutes -- everyone talks individually in the DR about what's . Sheila wraps it up: "[Natalie's] gone. Bye-bye." Well, that depends on the level of plan adhesion now, doesn't it?
Meanwhile, Natalie is working on Ryan and Adam, asking them to stick to her plan so they can all go to the final three. I should point out that Natalie really needs to stop spending so much time in the sun; she's starting to look a bit charred.
The day, while the women are all out in the yard, Ryan and Adam take advantage of their privacy to talk about what they're going to do . What do two meatheads do when they have a secret decision to make? Call a house meeting, of course. Wait, what?
Afterward, Natalie is back in the bedroom with Ryan and Adam, leaning on them to keep her, and she's surprised to hear they want to have a meeting that night. I'm surprised the editors expect us to believe this isn't a continuation of the scene I described in the third paragraph; everyone's in the same position and wearing the same clothes. Upon hearing that the guys need a meeting before they're willing to decide what to do, Natalie commences freaking out, and goes to Sheila to tell her about the meeting. Sheila is also a little freaked out, but not for the reasons she claims to Natalie. This meeting is not in the plan, therefore the plan is not being stuck to.
Ryan and Adam try to call their meeting, complete with the Bible waiting on the table. But Natalie wants to sit it out, ostensibly because she's in the middle of dying her hair but, I suspect, in truth because she'd rather avoid the discussion altogether. So the guys decide to relocate the whole meeting to the back room, where Natalie is. Ryan confronts Natalie regarding what they've heard from Sharon and Sheila, namely that Natalie is playing both sides. Sheila and Sharon watch nervously -- this is so not in the script. In front of the whole hose, Natalie insists that her true loyalties are to the two boys. They don't let her off the hook; as they are no doubt aware, it's easy for Natalie to claim she's on their side now when they have the controlling votes. Unfortunately, nobody asks whose side Natalie would be on if Sheila and Sharon were doing the voting this week. Those two ladies, by the way, are just sitting there helplessly watching their plan go down the drain. Ryan decrees that there will be no more playing of both sides, and Adam declares the meeting adjourned. Who's Head of Household around here, anyway? But I guess they've just answered Julie's question from earlier.
Sheila angrily bitches in the DR about how this completely screws up her plan and she doesn't know what's happening now. But Ryan and Adam are pleased at having had a chance to throw around their considerable weight, and now seem to feel comfortable letting Natalie in on the plan to backdoor her. Of course, before they do that, they give her a hard time some more about playing both sides. Natalie starts crying as she insists that she's been lying to the girls for the guys' benefit all along. They seem to accept what she's saying, at least for the moment, and everyone hugs. But we don't see them telling her that she's the real target, so maybe the plan is still in place. Or one of them is, anyway.
Later, Natalie confronts Sharon in front of Ryan and Adam for "talking smack" about her to the boys. There are accusations of lying and everything. Natalie puts on quite a show for the guys, but Sharon's responses are sincere enough that Ryan and Adam seem to be having doubts all over again.
Up in the HoH room, Sheila asks Adam and Ryan what the hell is up with them. Tempers flare, Adam calls Sheila a bitch, and she throws them out of the room. I don't know why she keeps trying to get people to do what she wants by getting completely pissed off at them. I'm sure it works on her son, but she's not anybody's mom in this house.
Viewscreen time. Julie starts the group interview by asking Sheila and Sharon why they didn't say anything when the boys confronted Natalie on her loyalties earlier in the episode. Sharon says she was just lying low, because it wasn't her place to say anything. Just like always (although she leaves that part out). Sheila, on the other hand, says she was pissed off, but it wasn't the time to say anything. Which I don't believe for a minute; Sheila was too blindsided to think of a way to handle the situation in real time, and probably couldn't have come up with anything to say even if she wanted to. Although I guess I do have to give her props for not throwing a tantrum on the spot because she wasn't getting her way. Maybe she's growing. Speaking of that meeting, Julie asks Ryan what he and Adam were trying to do, and Ryan says they were tired of hearing shit about Natalie from Sheila and Sharon, and the meeting pretty much stopped that, so it accomplished what they'd hoped. So in other words, it wasn't to show the house who was really boss this week, no, not at all. Julie then asks everyone whether they would rather be in the final two with someone deserving or someone easy to beat. Everyone agrees that they'd want to be up against the most deserving person. I think at least half of them are lying, but Sheila, answering last, is the most unconvincing one.
Natalie goes out for her Chenterview, and while she gets set up, we cut back inside the house for a few seconds and see Sheila tensely lying to the boys that she didn't want to have to be the tiebreaker, but it's fine. You know how some people pronounce "fine" so it sounds like "I'm so pissed my hair is on fire"? That's how Sheila is pronouncing it. She's probably just now realizing that she can't go back in time and nominate Ryan to punish Adam for the pity vote, like she threatened last night, and it must be making her crazy.
As the Chenterview commences outside, Natalie expresses her shock that she got a tie; she knows she was playing both sides and now figures that it cost her the game. Kind of odd that the rare person who actually does get voted out because everyone is scared of her doesn't claim that as the reason. Natalie continues to maintain that she was trying to protect the boys all along. Too late, Nat. But at least now you can get back to stalking Matt, in the jury house.
Goodbye messages: Sharon tells Natalie that nobody knew what to believe about her. Ryan just says good luck in the jury house. Adam tells her to be strong. And Sheila claims to be sorry she had to nominate Natalie, and starts crying and claiming to care about Natalie. Wow, she's really campaigning hard for Natalie's jury vote. I never thought it would come to that for Sheila, but at this point in the game I'm kind of forced to reassess.
Time for the HoH competition. Ryan, Sharon, and Adam are standing back to back on a game board, separated by high partitions so they can't see each other. Outgoing HoH Sheila's sitting with her back to all of them, because Big Brother knows her poker face is for shit. The game board is a series of concentric circles marked "Fact" and "Fiction," into which the players must step to answer true or false questions. The first question involves Allison, so I kind of tune out. The second question is about the guinea pig toy and whether it still holds a significant clue. They all guess Fact, wrongly. Aw, Julie, why'd you have to wreck that? The third question is whether Chelsia has been escorted out of the jury house by security. Adam and Ryan clearly have a pretty low opinion of Chelsia, because only Sharon gets it right, taking the lead. We also learn that the number 8 is not significant in the game (that's another "mystery" debunked), and Sharon is still in the lead. The standings don't change during the two questions, because all three answer that Amanda's medical emergency was for real, and nobody thinks that James and Chelsia have stopped speaking to each other in the jury house. It looked like a near thing for a minute, there, though. The question is whether there's a third preexisting relationship (after Sharon/Jacob and Jen/Ryan) in the house. Only Ryan guesses Fact, and gets it...right! "The guinea pigs," a subtitle helpfully clarifies. Oh, now, that's just mean. And it totally makes up for the guinea pig toy.
Ryan and Sharon are tied for the lead. For the tiebreaker, they each have to write down the total number of combined minutes everyone stayed up in the glass boxes during the last HoH combined. Sharon guesses 184, which she has to know is wrong; Natalie and Sheila each lasted longer than that. Since the right answer is 556, Ryan wins HoH with his guess of 310.
There's very little celebration as Sheila hands over the HoH key, because everyone is thinking about that third preexisting relationship and asking each other, WTF?
Julie welcomes us back from the last ad break by explaining how the week is going to play out: there's going to be an eviction Tuesday, and apparently at this time week, there will only be two houseguests left. Still two too many for my liking, but I'll take it.
And the "let's eavesdrop on the houseguests" segment is actually kind of fun for once, because everyone is accusing each other of knowing someone else in the house. Except Sheila, that is, who claims to know the score. But when Ryan asks her, she cannily says, "I can't say." Smart move; they've got to keep her around now.