Looking oddly reasonable in lilac and white, Julie welcomes us to day 26 inside the house, reminds us that the nominees this week are Casey and Jordan, and relates the not-so-shocking news that the cliques are about to be broken up. The only surprising thing about that is that it's happening so early. She also lets us know that Jessie is gunning for Casey. "This could be the banana's final appeal," she deadpans.
After a replay of Jessie putting up Casey as the replacement nominee for Michele, Casey Diary-Rooms that he's shocked that no one else was shocked. "Didn't we have a plan?" Casey, it's time you learned: if you've gone three days in the house without hearing about a new plan, the new plan is to evict you. Ronnie DR-gloats, Jeff has no idea what's going on, and Jessie explains that Casey's a bigger threat to him than Ronnie. Well, now he is.
In the DR, Jordan recalls Ronnie's smug reaction to the new nominations, and how she wanted to tell him, "The only reason why you are still here is because you are Jessie's bitch." She and Casey lament the short memories in the house. Jeff joins them, and asks what was up with Jessie's snotty attitude during the Veto ceremony.
While Jessie sleeps, Lydia enters the HoH room, lies down to him on the bed, and watches him sleep. That doesn't even need the night-vision cameras to be creepy. The producers give her a Psycho edit as she talks about her disturbing hobby in the DR. That's fucked up.
Jordan's strategy to survive the upcoming vote is to literally lie back and let Casey's mouth get him in trouble. "I'm the greatest pawn ever," she boasts.
Still wearing his banana suit, Casey puts his strategy into effect, beginning with Kevin. Kevin runs down a few scenarios, suggesting some other potential votes to join him and Lydia to keep him. Casey has doubts as to whether Lydia would go against Jessie, but he's not exactly swimming in options right now.
Thus he approaches Russell, trying the same tactic he did on Kevin: will Russell vote his own interests, or do what "daddy" tells him? Russell is kind of offended, but even he realizes that Jessie might send him home before either Natalie or Ronnie. Russell gives it some thought, and wonders if Casey can line up Michele.
Back in the studio, Julie introduces a little package about the Jeff/Jordan showmance. We see a clip about Chima, Natalie, and Michele flirting with Jeff on Jordan's behalf, and pressuring her to date him the minute he's out of earshot. Then suddenly we're in Shawneetown, NC, where they're so proud of their hometown girl they've misspelled her name. "Good Luck Jordon on Big Brother" reads a hand-lettered sign that looks to have endured a rain shower or two. We see the family watching Jordan flirting with Jeff on Big Brother, and her mom speculating that Jeff might be the guy. Then we're in Chicago, with a viewing party witnessing his "Technotronic" triumph. There's a little montage of Jordan being dumb and Jeff being sweet to her. There's some creepy talk from their respective parents about why they haven't kissed yet, supported by a clip of Jordan planting one on Jeff's cheek with a loud fart-noise. Aw, isn't that just adorable.
So now that my stomach is empty, Julie gets on the viewscreen to interview the houseguests. She starts in easy, talking to Casey about the banana suit, before moving on to ask Ronnie if he was surprised not to be nominated. Ronnie says something passive-aggressive about people's actions revealing who they are, without naming names. Julie then calls Lydia out, asking if her dispute with Natalie is really about beds. Lydia unconvincingly claims that's all that was going on, but when Julie turns to Natalie to ask her take, she doesn't get much more from that quarter. Then it's over to Michele, whom Julie congratulates for the PoV win before replaying her mud dive in slow motion. Which they love seeing. It takes so little to entertain them at this point.
Moving on to the private HoH Chenterview, Julie's first question for Jessie is how it's been to be caught between Natalie and Lydia. He denies that they're fighting over him. In fact, he talks about both of them as though they can hear him, until Julie asks if they're playing him. "Very likely," Jessie says decisively. Julie's final question is which one of them he would choose to be stranded on a desert island with. He refuses to answer, Julie calls him lame (and she should know from lame), and he calls out a birthday greeting to his dad before getting cut off. Second year in a row he's missed it, I suppose.
Back down in the living room, Julie offers to let the nominees say their piece. Jordan doesn't say much beyond what she said last week, when she didn't say much then in the first place. When Casey stands, he seems to know he's going home, because he apologizes to his family for the position he's in and calls Ronnie "the dorkapotamus with the God complex" and Jessie a "self-absorbed, smedium(?!)-wearing egomaniac with the personality and IQ, ironically enough, of a banana." He warns everyone else that they'll turn against them in turn, and urges them to make their own decisions in the DR. We're about to see how that goes.
The voting starts with Jeff, because we know he's going to vote to evict Casey, and that's what he "sadly" does. Ronnie is "ecstatic to vote to evict the hypocritical, sore loser, midlife-crisis-having Casey." Natalie also votes to evict "the bitter banana." Julie will leave us "hanging" for the rest of the votes through the ad break.
Chima votes to evict Casey, which is an early sign that Casey hasn't been able to sell his alternate plan. Russell says he's staying true to his word and voting out Jordan. Michele votes out Casey, which Julie tells us is enough to get rid of Casey, but we might as well complete the charade. Lydia sits down in the DR, wearing a fake olde-timey mustache that she fake-twirls as she votes out Casey in a weird fake accent, like she's olde-timey evil or something. I don't get it, but she seems to think that's funny, which I don't get at all. Kevin also votes out Casey, leaving the total at 7-1. Awkward week coming up for Russell, just like this last week was for Natalie (not). When everyone's back in the living room and Julie reveals the vote, Casey gets up and makes his exit, but not without a parting shot to Jessie that "your word is mud, man." Natalie yells at Casey while Jessie stands silently, and Casey also snaps at her on his way out the door. Once he's gone, there's so much audio cutting out I can't really tell what's going on inside the house, other than some speculation about why the vote wasn't unanimous. Oh, and everyone comforting Natalie for having to yell at Casey like that.
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Casey's still in the banana suit for his exit Chenterview, as Julie observes that Jessie was turning red throughout Casey's tirade. Casey says that's fine, since he's not a fan of Jessie's. Julie asks him about choosing the margarita party in the PoV competition, and asks how Casey missed the signs that he was in danger. Casey admits that he made the mistake of trusting Jessie. Finally Julie gets tired of listening to him babble and cues up the farewell messages.
Russell: He tried, but couldn't come up with the votes. Ronnie's farewell is smug and obnoxious, of course. Jordan is sweet, and Natalie reveals that she is not the "immature 18-year-old" that Casey thinks she is, but a 24-year-old with a college degree, and that's why he's gone. I'm still not convinced she isn't immature. Kevin wishes Casey the best. Michele laments having Ronnie as the only other married person in the house, with a thumbs-down and a raspberry. Jeff tells him, "Walk out of here with your banana high, bro." And that, my friends, is what she said.
Then Julie invites Casey to stay and watch while she breaks up the cliques. She gets back on the viewscreen, and they all know what's coming in advance. They're not surprised when Julie tells them the cliques are over, but when she tells them that one of them "will be granted a mystery power," they're all like, "oooohh." Julie talks it up, and adds that only the person with the power will know what it is, and as far as who will get it? That's up to America. Or, more accurately, the segment of America that gives enough of a shit to vote about this silliness. Julie does tell them that HoH and PoV are more important than ever, "because that is the only way to guarantee your safety." You know, unlike all the other weeks.
Julie dismisses them to the backyard for the HoH competition and tells us about the mystery power, which is called the "Coup D'etat." This will allow the person who has the power to flip either one of the two eviction ceremonies on its head by replacing one or both of the nominees. In case you don't get what that means, Julie explains that there could be two new nominees on the block seconds before the live vote, which would of course knock any pre-vote strategizing into a cocked hat. "Now that could be a game-changer," Julie says. Yes, we know. The announcer tells us how to text our votes. Or, I should say, text their votes, because I don't know about you, but I ain't voting for shit.
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After the ads, it's immediately clear that this HoH competition is going to be an endurance challenge. Supposedly it's a "graduation" theme, now that the cliques are over. The nine houseguests that aren't Jessie are hanging from swings suspended below a round lighting grid, and the last person up there will be HoH. Julie sweetens the deal by saying that the first five people to drop out will get to pick one of the "graduation" gifts off a nearby table, which of course they don't know the contents of, although Julie reveals that one of them contains a $5,000 prize. Before she goes to break, Julie introduces this challenge's first wrinkle: while being swung around in a circle, each of them is also bashed at high speed against a giant yoga mat that's dressed up to look like a diploma and stuck into the circle. Which, okay, is kind of hilarious.
In the tag, the diploma's been temporarily pulled out of play while Julie flogs the upcoming weeks' show schedule, including the news that the Coup D'état winner will be revealed Thursday. Can't wait. Julie gets back on the viewscreen to note that they're all still up there, just before the rain starts and the diploma comes back. Something tells me we'll have a winner before the people on CSI get too deeply into their first corpse.
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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, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.
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