So we rejoin the Christmas tree-decorating HoH competition already in progress, and it's not any more interesting than what we saw on Thursday. Everyone Diary Rooms about how this is the most important HoH of the season, especially Britney, who says she's on her own now that Ragan's just been evicted. "The Brigade is in here three deep against Britney," Enzo DRs, "so we'll see what happens." Which is the least cocky I've ever heard him.
Back to the competition. Lane is acting as announcer, because Julie goes home every Thursday right after the closing credits I guess. Hayden has two ornaments in place, with Enzo and Britney not even on the board yet, and Britney keeps getting frustrated and dropping them. Hayden DRs that his "soft hands" training from baseball is serving him well (just like with the ladies, I'm sure), while Enzo is actually getting thrown by the fake snow falling on him. As if it's not enough of a handicap in these competitions to just be Enzo. Britney (who admits in the DR, "I've been called a ball-buster before," which means Britney and I have made the same joke, a fact which deeply shames me) keeps dropping ornaments at such a high rate that Enzo thinks he's in Newark, hearing all the breaking glass. Hayden is extending his lead, but Britney passes Enzo and when Hayden abruptly turns into a butterfingers (at least according to the editing), it almost turns into a race between him and Britney. But he wins easily, making him the new HoH and a lock for the final three. Enzo's not thrilled to have lost yet another HoH competition, but at least his Brigade represented. And Britney's getting a little teary about feeling all alone in the house. Well, you could have helped Ragan out a little, maybe. I don't know that she didn't intervene on Ragan's behalf with Lane, but I think we would have seen it if she had.
Enzo, Hayden, and Lane congratulate themselves on the success of the Brigade, especially Enzo, for being the one who started it. Yes, I have to admit, even though I've been mocking them all season, they have had a remarkable record of seeing their collective toast land butter-side up. Enzo even gets up and mimes turning Britney's photo on the memory wall monochrome. Hayden knows he'll be nominating Britney, but doesn't know which Brigade member to put up against her because he doesn't want to show more loyalty to one or the other. I know what Enzo's position will be.
>Britney, meanwhile, is crying about having to be the "weird outsider" who "naps all day on their own." Which doesn't seem to stop her from napping on her own and acting like a weird outsider.
Hayden's third HoH room. Nobody cares, except that Lane disapproves of the "frou-frou hair shampoo... it's blue. I don't like it." Letter from home, blah blah blah.
Lane is trying to start the gas grill. All the rapid-fire clicking has Britney convinced it's going to blow up. Which is does, a little, but fortunately Lane had the lid closed so all that happened was some mild shaking of the nearest camera mount shook. Too bad; this show needs more explosions.
Everyone comes back inside, to find a new, smaller "final-four" table in the dining room. Lane is excited, because now he has a one in three chance. "Or is it four? Do I count myself? Because I can beat myself." Indeed, he's doing it right now.
Lane congratulates Hayden on winning HoH, but Hayden's worrying that being seen as a strong competitor is going to make others reluctant to take him to the final two. He and Lane quietly agree to take each other. And then Lane quietly goes and tells Enzo, "Will you win another competition please? And then you can take me to the final two." Enzo promises to take him if he wins, and Hayden offers to throw him the PoV. Sounds like a deal.
The houseguests are allowed into the backyard to find a table with a big pig with a gold medallion around its neck, as well as some big fake coins with one of the final four's names on each one. Hayden reads the card addressed to HoH, which tell them they're about to compete in a luxury competition, which it's really not. They'll each have 90 seconds to run into the house and hide their coins one at a time. Then everyone will run in together to hunt the coins, and whoever's coin gets found last will win $10,000. Enzo hides his behind some wall decorations, Hayden tucks his into the bottom of an unopened cereal box ("Genius," he declares, which, if he hasn't figured out by now that every time he says that he jinxes himself he never will), and Lane puts his in the recycling bin, under the liner, since none of his housemates use it anyway. Britney uses the kitchen trash can for the same reason, tucking hers inside an empty cereal box and then pouring some "filth" in on top of it. If you can't hide it, make it gross. Which I think is, coincidentally, Rachel's philosophy regarding her personal aesthetic.
The search begins, and the place is immediately ransacked. "How much worse can the house really get?" Britney rhetorically asks in the DR. Pretty bad. At least Hayden brings the kitchen trash outside instead of dumping it all over the floor. His coin is the first to be found, by Enzo of all people, so Hayden's out of the search, although he pretends to be cool with not having a target on his back. After all, nobody knows he scammed five grand in the PoV competition that was supposed to turn Brendon a couple of weeks ago. Enzo and Lane are playing the strategy of "searching" near their hiding spots to scare everyone else away, which is not going to help either of them find anything. They're about ready to give up after a long search. "It's like waiting for the ending of one of the Harry Potter movies, "Lane complains in the DR. Goddamn you, Lane, don't even talk to me about waiting for the end of something. Enzo nearly finds Lane's in the recycling, and then so does Britney, but first she finds Enzo's on the wall, prompting him to actually bite his knuckle in the DR. Now that he's out of the competition, Britney and Lane keep searching, with her repeatedly rooting through the recycling bin while Lane watches her out of the corner of his eye. Finally she lifts out the liner and finds Lane's coin, so she's $10,000 richer. "She's gonna use that for lipstick and leggings!" Lane DRs bitterly. And he was going to use it on beer and muscle milk. "You just won a vacation to the jury house," Enzo sour grapes to the DR after Britney shows where hers was hidden -- inside a cereal box in the trash, where no one thought to look. Or was too grossed out to look, which with these dudes is saying something.
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And now, tonight's episode of "These People Have Gone Stir-Crazy Theatre." Britney is tired of everyone sleeping all day, so she instigates a pillow fight in the backyard. Those things fly surprisingly straight, it turns out. Afterward, Hayden goes back to bed. Mission accomplished!
In the HoH room, Britney whines to Lane about wanting to go home and find out if she's even still engaged. Lane, of course, already knows that Nick's not the one for her -- he is. So he gets her to tell him the kind of guy she wants. Not that he's going to be that way.
Hayden and Enzo lounge on the HoH bed talking about how they need to get Britney out, because otherwise she'll win it all. But then they realize that Lane's in a pretty good position, so maybe they should get rid of him instead. And as Enzo remarks, given what happened with Matt, it wouldn't be the first time the Brigade flipped on a member. So what's it good for, again?
Now Britney's in the HoH bed with Hayden, who realizes that he has to maintain relations with Britney lest she wins PoV this week. Which, pointing out that she just won $10,000 may not be the best way to do that. On the other hand, even though Britney says she'd rather stay than have $10,000, she doesn't offer Hayden the money to not nominate her.
Nominations. Britney's expecting to get nominated, because she's cheap. Lane's hoping Enzo will be up against Britney, but Enzo says he doesn't want to be the pawn again, and expects Hayden to put up Lane opposite Britney so he and Hayden can decide which of them to take the final three. Man, I do have to give Enzo credit -- I've never seen anyone pimp out other people's coattails so effectively. And Hayden's strategy for deciding between Enzo and Lane -- the two people he's made final-two deals with -- is "who's gonna be less pissed about going up as a pawn." We're about to find out.
Hayden calls the nomination ceremony. The giant key box with its one key isn't much smaller than the new table. And the key Hayden pulls is...Enzo's. So that's Lane and Britney on the block together, just as I predicted. I don't get my predictions right very often, so I have to crow a little when I do. Hayden tells them it's not personal, and that they all have a chance to play for the Veto. Which, whoever wins it, will unilaterally decide the evictee. Unless, ironically, the PoV winner is Hayden, in which case it'll be up to Enzo. As it is with most of Hayden's decisions. Britney DRs that it's a do or die PoV for her. Lane says he needs Britney with him in the final two, which means he needs to win that veto and send Enzo home. And Enzo astutely says he needs to win the veto, or he's going home. It's every dude for himself, now. Which must be a cold, hard realization for someone who got to the final four by getting three other people to protect him for absolutely no reason.
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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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