Now that Kevin has nominated Jeff and Michele for eviction, Jeff denounces Kevin in the Diary Room as a "snake," although he seems cool with it when Kevin apologizes to him right after the nominations. Kevin, for his part, DRs that he's just trying to get rid of the strongest players. In the storage room, Kevin tells Jeff that he's not leaving, and Natalie backs him up. They're both lying.
Meanwhile, Michele and Jordan discuss the nominations, and Michele DRs that she'll just have to win the Veto. Jordan is also feeling low, thinking she let Jeff down on the HoH competition. It's a houseful of gloomy gusses right now.
Later, Jeff assures Jordan that he'll have to win the Power of Veto, which he thinks he can do, because as he puts it, he's a winner and winners win. Jordan's best-case scenario is her winning, taking Jeff down, and forcing Kevin to name Natalie as the replacement nominee. Jeff's just focused on winning for himself. He's either not thinking ahead to seeing Jordan go up as his replacement nominee, or he doesn't care.
Kevin walks into the HoH room to discover a new door there, with a big question mark on it. There's also a similarly marked envelope on one of the drawer/shelves. Kevin reads the note, which tells him that this is the doorway to "Pandora's Box," which could be bad, or good, for the HoH, or for the rest of the house. No way of knowing until it's too late. The monitor gives him a clue: a shot of sign that reads, "To release $10,000 put your hand in the hole," sitting on top of a very large box. Kevin soliloquizes about not knowing what to do, until he decides, "I'm a greedy bitch."
With that, Kevin enters the room behind the door. Pandora's box is sitting there, to a flat screen monitor that reads, naturally, "Pandora's Box." Kevin sticks his hand inside, and nothing happens. Until suddenly his hand is trapped, and he screams like a little girl. We go to commercial on a grim shot of the door hiding Kevin's grisly fate. How awesome would it be if Big Brother squirted some fake blood out under the door right now?
But Kevin's laughing when we come back, saying, "I knew it!" He's stuck good. Meanwhile, the rest of the houseguests go out to the backyard to discover that it's raining cash. They run out and gather up as much as they can, while Kevin watches helplessly on the monitor, unable to participate in the windfall he brought about. After watching his housemates strike it rich, Kevin gets a new message on his video monitor: "The Key To Your Release Is Hidden Somewhere In The House." He starts hollering for help. Natalie's the one who goes up to see what's happening, and Kevin yells through the door that there's a key in the house that she has to find. Natalie goes scampering off -- but to collect more money, not find the key. What's awesome is that Kevin can see what she's doing on the monitor. He DRs that if it had been Jessie with his hand stuck inside a box, Natalie would have been all over it. Except Jessie would have just carried the box out into the yard. As the cash-scooping continues outside, Jeff suspects a catch, and goes inside to investigate, the pockets of his cargo shorts full to bursting. And not just the pockets, if you know what I mean, according to some TMI he gives us in the DR. Since Jeff is looking for the catch, Kevin is happy to make one up for him, and he yells through the door, "The only way you can keep the money is if you find a key in the house!" Jeff agrees to go search, leaving a trail of ones everywhere he goes. Finally he finds the key under a throw pillow on the couch and heads...back outside, planning to release Kevin as soon as he gets some more money. "This house is filled with some greedy folks," Kevin DRs.
So here's the final tally: Jordan gathered up $1,726, Natalie $1,904, Michele $2,563, and Jeff a whopping $3,181. Never be without cargo shorts. Finally Natalie heads back upstairs, but she's still not in a hurry to release Kevin. "What are you not telling me, Kevin?" she demands, as though he's the one being sneaky and grasping here. He tells her to steal the key from Jeff and she'll get the money. Natalie rejoins the yard and follows Jeff up the stairs, yipping around his ankles like a little dog. Finally Kevin is freed by Jeff, and he joins the hunt. Kevin learned a little something from the whole experience -- everyone's in this for themselves and he needs to be too. Spoken like someone who scored a paltry $626.
Time for the Veto competition, and it looks like it's going to be one of those ones where they play one at a time. They all have to get into Mylar jumpsuits and wait in different rooms. Kevin goes first, saying he has to win the PoV for himself, now that he knows he can't trust Natalie. He's just now realizing this?
Kevin goes outside to find the backyard transformed into a cheap 1950s sci-fi set. What they'll have to do is look at digital mash-ups of pairs of houseguests' faces (and then painted green and with antennae grafted onto them) and figure out who they are. The one who gets six right the fastest wins PoV, plus a high-end home entertainment system. Kevin gets through it fairly quickly, with a few mistakes. When Natalie's turn comes, she thinks she's safe unless Jordan wins the Veto, but she's confident she won in any case. There's a first time for everything. Jordan's strongly motivated to win so she can save Jeff, but she doesn't seem to do so great. Michele, certain that if she loses she's going home, adopts a novel strategy: each time she hits the buzzer, she runs right back to the game board to wait there for the picture, so she can make her guess more quickly. She seems to get through it with few mistakes, but promises to "curl up and cry" if she lost by two seconds. Good to have a plan B. Jeff is of course calling it "do or die time," but gets hung up on the one that's a merger of himself and Jordan, saying he needs to spend more time looking in the mirror. All he can do is wait for the results. And realize, looking at a digital combination of his and Jordan's faces, that they must avoid procreating at all costs.
Time to reveal the results. With everyone assembled outside, a board shows everyone's times. Kevin finished in three minutes five seconds. Natalie beat him by ten seconds. Jordan came in at 5:09, which is piss-poor. Jeff curses under his breath. At least he's looking heroic in his spacesuit. Michele's time was a very impressive 1:52. After waiting for roughly that same amount of time, Jeff's results are revealed: 3:01. That's another PoV win for Michele, plus an entertainment center she'll never get to use. Still, she's feeling pretty good about it. "I've just gotta win competitions and take myself to the final two," she DRs. Jordan realizes that she's going up against Jeff, so that's one showmance whose days are numbered. Michele tries to give Jeff a sympathetic hug, but he mutters, "Get away from me." He DRs that he's got to deal with the consequences. Which I guess is why he was just so classy with Michele.
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Jeff pouts inside the house with a glass of wine, until Jordan comes in to stare at him and apologize. Jeff insists in the DR that he blames nobody but himself, although we don't see him saying that to Jordan.
Up in HoH, Kevin and Natalie agree that this is actually to their advantage: Jeff is leaving and it's out of their hands. Now the order of business is to get Michele out. "The bitch is strong," Natalie says. She promises to win HoH week, which even Kevin doesn't believe at this point.
Jeff and Jordan pout out in the backyard, recognizing it's over for them as a team. Michele joins them with drinks, and then Jordan picks up her wine and leaves. Michele tells Jeff that she's going to fight for him to stay, by trying to change Kevin's mind. Why is Michele bothering? She DRs that having Jeff on her side will help her get to the final two, as though Jeff will take anyone with him other than Jordan. Except Michele's ahead of us on that, as we're about to see. Jeff doesn't see how Kevin is going to be convinced to nominate Natalie, and Michele's like, "Nope." Jeff catches the snap: Jordan has to go, and he's willing to ask Michele to sound Kevin out on this. Aw, true love.
Jeff rejoins Jordan inside and watches her cry and feel guilty for failing him. "You deserve to be here over me," she tells him. Jeff offers to throw her under the bus, if that's how she feels. Although he immediately claims he wouldn't actually do that. Even though he just discussed it with Michele. Jordan promises to tell everyone to vote for him to stay instead of her. Jeff appreciates it, and is even nice enough to not tell her to bother because she's likely just screw it up anyway.
Out by the Jacuzzi, Michele makes her move with Kevin. She floats the idea of herself, Jeff, and Kevin in the final three, saying that Kevin doesn't want to be up against Natalie in front of a jury that's already stacked with her friends. Kevin admits that a scenario with Michele seems better than one with Natalie.
Veto day. Neither Michele nor the editors try to create any suspense about what she's going to do. Jordan is disappointed that it looks like she and Jeff will be split up, as is Jeff. Kevin says that it's going to be up to him to put up either Jordan or Natalie as the replacement nominee, and whatever he decides will affect his future in the game. What, no do-overs?
Michele calls the Veto meeting, and Vetoes herself with little preamble. Kevin has even less ado: "Jordan, I'm sorry," he says. Meeting over.
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Michele DRs that she has turned things around for herself, and that Kevin is her target for week. Natalie DRs about how she's getting revenge on Jordan and Jeff for having to be on the block with Jessie. Although that only lasted for five minutes, as opposed to the days that Jeff and Jordan will have to spend pouting at each other. Jordan says it "stinks," but she wants Jeff to stay. Jeff agrees that this is his worst-case scenario, and if he stays, Kevin needs to look out. As for Kevin, he says, "Historically, us gay houseguests haven't made the best decisions. So I wanted to make sure that when I have the power, I just make the smartest decision." He's already doing better than Marcellus.
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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