We rejoin the houseguests freaking out over the storage room -- with all their food stores inside -- turning up locked after a suspicious blackout on Day 1. As you may recall, Andrew made wise use of that time in the dark to mess with people's heads for no reason, but luckily for him he's safe for the week as a result of having chosen to sit out the Head of Household competition. There's some finger-pointing at Brendon, who of course thought Big Brother just wanted to see what he looked like brushing his teeth in night-vision, and Enzo astutely Diary-Rooms that people are happy to blame others if it keeps them off the radar. Andrew is the first to announce he's going to bed, which reminds me of The Usual Suspects -- put a bunch of criminals in a cell overnight, and the one who sleeps is the killer, because he's the only one who knows the others aren't killers. But of course Andrew was too busy being stupid during the blackout to actually be the saboteur, which means he's probably totally the saboteur.
Andrew and Enzo have a whispered conversation. They seem to trust each other, but suspect Brendon. Meanwhile, Hayden and four of the women seem to suspect Andrew and Brendon, for reasons we've already been over.
"Who wants to see my HoH room?" Hayden asks/announces. Nobody says no, because nobody ever does. Ragan's glad to see no photos of Hayden in hyper-masculine poses. Sure he is.
Outside in the hammock, Brendan, deciding that he's among intelligent friends, tells Rachel and Annie about all his various degrees. Rachel, despite being ID'd by the subtitles as a "VIP Cocktail Waitress," also DRs that she has her chemistry degree from Western Carolina University. I was all ready to make jokes here about how her chemistry background is limited to mixing her red hair dye, but it turns out she studied pheromones, which is better than anything I could have come up with. Then the music gets all romantic (read: porny) as Brendon and Rachel compare nerd credentials, while poor third-wheel Annie's still sitting there all, "I'm wearing glasses...?" She has no idea what they're talking about, but compares it to watching her parents have sex. If that's literally true, I have some questions as to how Annie got here into the world.
A think tank composed of about half the house meets in HoH to talk about the saboteur stuff. Kathy is the first to contribute something new: she's building a profile where the saboteur is a popular girl. But as they all realize, it's not like there's anything they can do about Andrew this week anyway.
Annie quietly comes out to Ragan. "I actually have a girlfriend," she whispers. He hugs her happily, and now they have a secret opposite-sex bond of same-sex love. If they have sex to celebrate, we don't see it..
Brendon and Rachel soak in the hot tub together and talk about science and education. Watching from across the yard, Hayden seems to disapprove of this showmance in the making. Or maybe he's just jealous because he's supposed to be having a showmance with Kristen and she's not getting any screen time at all.
Hayden and Enzo, meanwhile, start an alliance of their own, apparently because they both seem to like working out. Although they have decided it's too hot to work out right now. Enzo rattles off a few names of other potential allies, who are all dudes. Try to look surprised. Their first recruit is Matt, for his brains; and Lane, ostensibly because Enzo knew where he was during the blackout so they know they can trust him. That's really all it takes? Matt DRs that he's leery of getting into an alliance this early, but calls this "the strongest alliance in Big Brother history." In case you've forgotten who Matt is, he's the one in Mensa.
Enzo is already up in the in the HoH room with Hayden and Matt, calling himself the "organizer" and "mastermind," and when Lane joins his little mafia (his word, not mine), he bestows nicknames on everyone: the Beast (Lane, who Enzo wants for his muscle), the Animal (Hayden, I guess because dude needs a haircut), and the Brains (Matt, because whatever). As for himself, Enzo calls himself the "Meow." Well, at least nobody can accuse him of giving himself the coolest nickname. They decide to be "The Brigade." Ugh, I hate it when alliances give themselves names. Especially when they do it before actually accomplishing anything. It's like bands who think up album titles and pose for photos before having anything like songs. But at least now Hayden knows who to put up: Brendon, because he's a saboteur suspect; and Rachel, because she's closest to Brendon. Enzo seems to think they've already won. Dude, wait for one eviction before you declare victory, will you please?
Hayden announces the first "have/have-not competition." He says the rest of them will be divided into three teams of four, and one of those teams will be the have-not team for the week -- which means slop, cold-showers, and sleeping in the have-not room. Andrew is worried about this, because the slop is not kosher. It's not, seriously? That's so stupid I can't decide whether I'm angrier at Big Brother (because how hard could it have been to make slop kosher?) or Andrew (because why risk having to eat non-kosher food for long periods of the summer?) right now.
The teams head outside, and Big Brother has gone back to the well of the "giant popcorn" them for the competition once again. When the teams are all lined up, Hayden comes dancing out in a tooth-fairy costume. Big Brother is seriously reaching for a dental theme here for some reason. He explains that one at a time, someone on each team will have to crawl through a pool of caramel on their way to the big Dumpster-sized bin of popcorn, where they'll have to find a big fake tooth. Lane DRs that getting food privileges back is life or death for him; "I think one of my pinky toes has just sucked in."
The first runners step up: Brendon on the green team, Monet for pink, and Matt in blue. Crawling through the caramel pool is even more slow going than they suspect, and Brendon's shorts get pulled clean down off his ass. Matt admits in the DR that he's not as tall or athletic as the others, but "what they don't have on me is that I'm totally super awesome." Sure enough, he's the first to return with a tooth, so blue is in the lead. Kathy goes in after him while Brendon and Monet are still digging, and Brendon makes it back without ever managing to get his shorts pulled up. Monet makes it through in third. Annie on the green team steals the lead from the blue team, losing a shoe on the caramel pool in the process. Kathy's pretty slow in the popcorn, but Britney's even slower in the caramel. This continues roughly forever. Rachel does demonstrate some knowledge of physics, explaining that they way to get through the caramel is to minimize your contact with it. Indeed, we see her zooming over the pool past a bogged-down Britney. Kathy gets completely stuck on her second round, and on his second time through, Enzo on the pink team stashes an extra tooth for his teammate Britney to grab on her way in. Even so, green comes in first, which leaves it down to pink and blue. To bad for blue that Kathy appears to have checked into the world's largest Roach Motel. To add injury to insult, Britney kicks her in the head on the way out. Kathy's still there when Lane finds the eighth tooth for the pink team, meaning the blue team (Kathy, Ragan, Matt, and Rachel) will be the have-nots for this week. Now Matt suspects Kathy of being the saboteur, because it's all about Matt. The competition over, Hayden brandishes the bolt cutters that will get them past the padlock to the storage room. Damn, I was hoping that lock would stay there all summer.
After getting hosed down in the yard, everyone comes in to check out the have-not room. You may recall that last season it was a Spartan white cube, but at least it looked clean. Which, unfortunately for every have-not of this entire season, is no longer the case. Now it's decorated like the set of a gross challenge on Fear Factor. There are jars of smelly maggots, and dirty chaises longue instead of beds. I think I need a tetanus shot just looking at it.
Before bed, Kathy is talking to Annie, Ragan, and Britney about the challenge. Kathy points out that she didn't have anyone on her team helping her out like Britney did. She tells Britney how much she sucked during the challenge, which is richer than that pool of caramel Kathy lay in for twenty minutes. Britney keeps her cool during the conversation, but in the DR, Britney understandably takes exception to being called out by the Least Valuable Player.
Andrew appears to be the first one up the morning, and there's something odd about the memory wall: Britney's and Kathy's faces are X'ed out with green tape. Not that Andrew notices this before he's settled down for his cereal. "Oh, man," he says. Just what Andrew needs, is to be the person who saw this first. Not that he's smart enough to realize he's Suspect Number One right now. So he scampers right up to the HoH room to notify Hayden that it looks like the saboteur has made his nominees. Hayden is only more convinced that it's Andrew after this. One by one, people wake up and take it in. Kathy plays it off and shrugs for everyone else's benefit, although she admits in the DR that her mind is racing. Put your mind in caramel, Kathy, that will slow it down. Britney, however, takes the tape off her face and wonders what she did. "Don't react to it," Annie advises her, a bit belatedly.
Now there's another one of those scrambled video messages from the saboteur on the living room TV. It's mostly empty clichés, but there may be a clue in this: "Sometimes the smallest competitor can be our fiercest competition." Ooh, are they bringing the hamsters from BB9 back? My money's on them.
Seeing a need for some damage control, Britney takes it upon herself to have a one-on-one with Hayden, who agrees that she got pulled in. Britney says she knows what she would do, but doesn't volunteer the info until he asks, because she's smooth like that. She says Brendon and Kathy, and promises to vote however Hayden says. So now Hayden DRs about how the decision between putting Rachel or Kathy up against Brendon could "make or break me in this game."
Time for nominations. Hayden reminds everyone that he had to nominate two people, and that Andrew is safe for sitting out HoH this week. After handing him his key, the first key Hayden pulls is Annie's from there, the rest of the safe people are Ragan, Enzo, Kristen, Britney (suck it, saboteur), Matt, Monet, and Kathy (suck it, Britney, and suck it again, saboteur). That leaves Lane, Brendon and Rachel up, and you know Hayden isn't going to cut off an alliance member. So of course the nominees are Brendon and Rachel, just as Hayden said earlier. By way of explanation, Hayden tells Brendon he's a suspect, and then accuses Rachel of not "trying to connect with me at all," like that's an evicting offense. Rachel DRs that she's shocked, and she's going to make sure that she and Brendon stay. Brendon says Hayden made a mistake, and Hayden assures us that Brendon is the target, with Rachel as collateral damage. But what about Enzo? "I'm a genius right now," he declares. "I'm like a mastermind." It's like he wants to go home first.
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.