Looking back, a surprising amount happened on Sunday's season premiere. The houseguests picked an HoH, Jerry, before they'd even officially met each other, then they had a food competition, then Renny and Jessie had the first argument over her acting like a noisy asshole in the middle of the night, then Jerry nominated Renny and Jessie for eviction. If the season keeps up this pace we might be done by this time week.
A fancy new title sequence punctuates about five total minutes of previouslies, and we come up to speed in Day 2. Brian boasts in the DR about how he's in control of everything going on in the house. HoH Jerry insists this is all his plan. And Jessie's blaming Renny for getting the two of them nominated, so after the ceremony he spurns her attempts to commiserate with him. Which gets him called a punk by her. Jessie goes right to Jerry, while Renny's downstairs, immaturely bitching to everyone else about Jessie's alleged immaturity. And while Jessie's still up in the HoH room, Michelle heads up there to congratulate Jerry on his nominations. He's way ahead of her, going so far as to compare himself to King Solomon (while Jessie rolls his eyes).
When Jessie comes back down, Renny accuses him of acting like a baby. The two of them start sniping at each other -- or rather, Renny does the sniping and calling him immature some more, while he gets bored with her and walks away. Meanwhile, Brian drinks slyly from a tiny little cup like this is all his doing. Shut up, Brian's cup.
However, in the DR, Brian backs off from the claim that he's running the house, and will only say that things are going the way he wants. Dude, you're two days in. Don't be reaching for Dr. Will's stethoscope just yet.
Jerry invites everyone up to the HoH room to drink some wine, which is just a stellar idea. Renny sits alone, sucking down the red pretty quickly, and then decides to apologize to Jessie, grandstanding in front of everyone else in the process. He's kind of an ass about it to her, claiming that it took her a day and a half to say that (whereupon the editors play a flashback of Renny apologizing -- albeit insincerely -- at the time of the incident). Renny calls him a liar in front of everyone else and storms out of Jerry's HoH room.
Out on the porch, Brian runs a hypothetical past Ozzie and Michelle -- why not take the chance to get rid of Jessie and wait for Renny to self-destruct, as she inevitably will? He lobbies Angie, informing her that he's running everyone, which Angie finds intimidating. Brian's target is Steven, who's happy to make a deal with him. Then it's Memphis, who's less receptive, and so of course you know Brian's already looking around for a Memphis-shaped trapdoor. Brian is the all-powerful mastermind who successfully got the HoH to change half of his nominations, so you decline his overtures at your peril. Brian reports back to his alliance-mates, Dan and Ollie, that "I have enough votes to do whatever the fuck I want." Can not wait for this cocky ass to go down.
Flirting montage featuring Ollie and April. Fortunately it's short, but it's also setting up something bigger later. I know! When did this show hire writers?
It's time to draw Power of Veto players. As always, there will be six players: HoH Jerry, and nominees Renny and Jessie, each of whom will randomly draw another player. Jerry draws Memphis, Renny draws Michelle, and Jessie draws April. Jerry picks Angie as the host. And then Jerry says something about sleepwear waiting for them in the storage room? What?
In pastel pajamas (and Renny in a swim cap), everyone heads out to the backyard to find a giant bed filled with pillows, where they'll have to rip open pillows find and collect teddy bears matching the colors they're wearing. And lest you think this sounds too dignified, they'll have to squirm through a big pool of honey to do it. When the competition starts, the honey slows everyone down, but nobody as much as Renny. She's just arriving at the bed when Memphis and Jerry get their first bears. Everyone's now covered with honey and feathers so they look like they're wearing Foghorn Leghorn costumes without the heads. Michelle is in third at first, but then finds her second bear and takes the lead. It goes on this way for just about forever, with everyone getting more and more exhausted. Michelle and Jessie stay out in front for a while, but it's Jessie who ultimately wins the Power of Veto. He congratulates himself in the DR, and Renny talks about her motivation: "I wanted to get a bear for myself. For my children. And America." For what? Jerry's already worried about naming his replacement nominee. And Brian is dealing with his disappointment over not getting rid of Jessie by looking forward to picking Jerry's nominee for him.
In the living room, Dan and Brian discuss how despite losing, Memphis did well in the competition. "Too well," Brian says. "Memphis, you had a good run." Okay, maybe I'm miscounting, but how many people has Brian gotten evicted in this game? Brian goes to pitch his plan to Jerry, and Jerry's fine with it, as long as he can assure Memphis that Renny will be the one going home. "Absolutely," Brian agrees, shifty-eyed.
In one of the bedrooms, Ollie is busy reassuring Keesha, April, and Libra that they have nothing to worry about. Brian comes in and further promises -- promises, mind you -- that Memphis is gone, and that Renny will go week. To the women's credit, they aren't fooled by Brian's Jedi mind tricks, and commence mocking them as soon as he and Ollie are gone. But April isn't willing to buy Libra's theory that Brian, Dan, and Ollie are in an alliance, because Ollie would have told her. Because they're flirting. Still, Libra's not about to do Brian's dirty work for him. Good for her.
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day, Keesha, Michelle, and Angie huddle in the sauna to discuss what a threat Brian is to everyone. Libra is still trying to convince April that Ollie is down with Brian and Dan, and that they're planning to take out Memphis and Jessie before moving on to the girls. April is brokenhearted and pissed, and decides to confront Ollie on the spot. All Ollie will say right off is that he isn't against the women, but April is still pretty pissed about what she sees coming her way in, like, late August or whatever. So he ushers them into the storage room to do damage control, but after listening to their conspiracy theories about Brian for about a minute, Ollie has a solution: "Flip it on him." They agree on step one: warn Memphis.
Ollie goes to warn Memphis, which he does, and then Memphis informs Jessie of Brian's plan. Meanwhile, Libra suggests a plan to Ollie and Keesha: backdoor Brian. All they have to do is go to Jerry en masse and tell him that the votes aren't in place for anything else. So they draft a bunch of other players -- enough so that they have to come up with a plan to occupy Brian while they talk to Jerry.
.So here's that plan, which we now see in action. While Jerry, Brian, Dan, and someone else hang out on the porch, April comes and flirtily asks Jerry if she can use the HoH restroom. He of course goes to let her in, while Libra and Ollie rally the rest of the troops. thing you know, there are like eight people in the HoH room with Jerry, all telling him that he needs to put up Brian, because Brian is playing everyone. Jerry's resistant to the idea when the commercials come, which of course means he'll come around.
Back from the ads, that's how it's looking. Jessie promises that the PoV ceremony will leave some people shocked, and a defeated Jerry isn't wearing any of his military stuff because he doesn't want to dishonor the service with what he's about to have to do. Well, that should e a useful little "tell." Brian DRs that he's loving every second of this, misreading the situation as people being tense over Memphis. Dude, I'm just going to dome out and say it: Brian sucks at this game.
Jessie kicks off the PoV meeting by offering Renny a chance to make her case. She's all class as she says the whole situation is his fault anyway and she wouldn't expect him to use it on her. Jessie predictably vetoes himself, and Jerry takes the floor. He makes a long speech regarding Brian's multiple alliances, and then nominates him. Looks good on you, dickweed.
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Dan DRs about how shocked he is by all this. Ollie DRs that they would have done it to him, he just did it first. Libra congratulates herself: "He was a mystery, now he's history." Brian is big enough to admit defeat: "The player got played." Except that no, Brian. You did. Still, he claims to have some more tricks up his sleeve. I just hope Renny keeps her nose clean, because I would love to see Brian come in dead last.
For our early predictions on who will win, check out our gallery. Clearly we didn't predict that Brian would be such a freakin' moron and take a massive nosedive. Think Dr. Will is laughing right now? Talk about it in our forums.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, or just e-mail him at M.Giant[at]gmail.com1 2 3 4