Previously: Julie acted like there was some big twist, but really the twist was that they are playing Big Brother. Everybody is so crazy by this point that they acted like that was an actual twist. Ye old Julie Chen bait-and-switch, like when you realized that the Diamond Power of Veto was actually just Regular Veto plus Math.
Rachel is still the definition of petty, Adam is still Desperation Personified, Brendon is still a human piece of bologna, Jordan still lets Jeff pretend he's the smart one, and Daniele is HoH. Jeff & Jordan took Daniele's week of safety deal, and Daniele put Rachel & Brendon, who never met a PoV they couldn't crush between their gross fake breasts, on the block. But will Daniele's Big Move blow up in her face like usual?
COLOR! DAY 28
Brendon: "My idiosyncratic version of masculinity dictates that I take Rachel off the block."
Jeff: "Even though I wouldn't shut up about how Daniele was going to fuck me over because it's all personal and it's all about me, now I can say that I knew all along I'd be safe. Unless she backdoors me, in which case I am going to say I knew she'd do that."
Adam: "I wish I knew what having friends was like."
Rachel, already crying: "Guess what girl, I've got news for you. Guess what, I'm the future King of England. Guess what, I have no idea what I'm doing. Ever. Guess what, I am the fucking worst."
POWER COUPLES MEETING
Brendon: "Even though I'm obviously the target, I'm going to take you off the block when I win PoV. That's just what a man does for his despicable lady."
Rachel: "I can't help thinking this is because I'm pretty."
Jordan: "I can barely contain my feelings of satisfaction at this juncture."
Rachel: "Jeff, your paranoia rivals my own. Let's say this is all about getting you or Brendon out of the house."
Jeff: "Even though we made a deal and Daniele followed through, I will take that bait."
Rachel: "As long as we understand that this is mostly about me."
Kathy: "Hey guys, anybody need their shoes shined?"
Power Couples: "Nah, Adam already licked them earlier."
Brendon: "We demonized Kalia, and her nonexistent threat was neutralized by my hulking misogyny. We demonized Cassi and Dominic, and they were so grossed out by us that they practically left of their own accord. Now, the enemy is Daniele."
Rachel: "I know. She's so stupid."
Brendon: "At least we're still getting married, Rachel."
Earth: "Please don't remind us."
They get that grody look in their eyes and everybody runs screaming from the room.
Brendon: "To reiterate, everything I just said."
Brendon's Diary: A weeping, retarded mess. Mostly he names periods of time, like an hour or a day or a month. It's all very meaningful.
Brendon & Rachel: "Only our bizarrely incomplete knowledge of Science can accurately describe our made-up feelings for each other."
Brendon & Rachel: "It's because we are scientists."
Brendon & Rachel: "We have really weird ideas about gender, also."
Brendon: "Even if I'm not gay, I might as well be gay."
Kathy: "Right there with ya, buddy."
Rachel: "I can't wait until you cure cancer. Using Science."
Jeff & Jordan hang out, acting totally normal. To Rachel & Brendon this is like the Bat-Signal so they immediately rush into the room to badger them about nothing whatsoever.
REASONING WITH RACHEL
Daniele: "Requisite petting your hair and telling you you're pretty, okay?"
Rachel: "I don't take this game personally, EVER. That's why I'm acting suicidal right now."
Daniele: "Okay, but like it really wasn't personal."
Rachel: "When you talk to me like an adult it's like I can actually hear my insane inner monologue get louder and louder until I can't hear you at all."
Daniele: "I realize that. It's why I don't take our conversations seriously."
Rachel: "I can't help feeling like this is because you are jealous of how pretty I am and how I have a fiancé who is a Scientist."
Daniele: "The thing is that you cut deals with absolutely everybody, because you are the definition of 'floater,' that word you're constantly misusing, but you don't remember any of this after the fact, because you are so self-centered and nuts."
Rachel: "Well, now you have your revenge. Because you are literally cutting my body open so my blood and guts spill out into the Big Brother house."
Daniele: "See, it's not about revenge? You're the threat, you physically intimidate people during competitions, and Brendon physically intimidates people -- well, women -- outside of them. How can you not see that? How is it that you literally cannot hear the words coming out of my mouth?"
Rachel: "I think it's because you're so jealous of me and my fiancé and you want to destroy our lives, starting with this game show."
Daniele: "It's a game move. This is a game."
Rachel: "I understand that. I'm not crazy."
Rachel's Diary: "I don't understand it! Because I am so crazy! I hate women! Especially Daniele! And myself!"
Daniele: "Like I'm just playing a game, you know?"
Rachel: "I know. Isolating the biggest fighters in the house during the first week of single play is a really good move. Plus it will get everybody on your side, because we are gross."
Rachel's Diary: "She's so bad at this game! She plays so personally! Well guess what, I hate floaters!"
PoV
Players: Daniele, Rachel, Brendon...
Jeff, kind of surprisingly: "I want to be on this PoV so I can screw Rachel & Brendon."
Daniele: Fishes out Jeff, delighting them both.
Rachel: Pulls Adam, which is a relief for everybody involved.
Brendon: Gets Porsche, which who cares.
PoV Host: Lawon. So very entertaining.
Then instead of playing the Veto, everybody goes to bed. Jeff & Jordan discuss how they are sticking with their Daniele plan until week, when they get rid of her. Ugh.
Jordan: "How about you backdoor her so you don't come off like a total cocksucker?"
Jeff: "Oh, I just had a great idea. I can backdoor her, so I don't come off like a cocksucker."
The PoV is a Greatest Hits of five past competitions, from the bubblegum to the milk pool, that is an obstacle course.
Jeff: "Please just don't make me spell things."
Lawon: "[Screaming about some lunatic dumb thing or another.]"
The trick is that you write down how long it'll take you to run each thing in the obstacle course, and then it's closest-or-over, and the biggest braggart puts their money where their mouth is, and have to prove it. The person with the slowest bid gets knocked out instead, if they succeed, so somebody gets eliminated with every task.
Everybody But Adam: "I need to win this Veto because this is a game show."
Adam: "However pathetic you think I am, trust that I dislike myself even more."
Task One: Simplified balance beam gumballs. The fastest time is Rachel, the slowest time is Adam, which is realistic of him. He is generally pretty realistic about how bad he is at everything. Rachel's boobs and Brendon lunkheadedly cheering her on. Kalia riffs on how his dumb voice encouraging her to keep doing a good job is disgusting to think about them doing it. ("Joke's on you guys! Our sex life is mostly just us using each other's bodies to masturbate because we have deep sexual issues!") Rachel beats her time by 11 seconds, eliminating Adam. At least he did it by math instead of sucking. That's something.
Task Two: Simplified superhero puzzle. Thereby removing one of the finest things of this whole season, which is Jeff and Brendon dressed up like superheroes. Rachel takes it again, with such a short time that it pisses Brendon off. She's got to do basically the whole puzzle in like 34 seconds... I bet she'll do it. She's really dumb, but she's also kind of smart too? Oh, nope. Nearly but not quite. Rachel is eliminated.
Task Three: Scary hair foot. Jeff is afraid of spelling, because he is a total moron. Daniele is excited by the idea of Brendon attempting to spell any word, but knows that he'll underbid himself. Sadly, she takes too much of a shot and ends up with 29 seconds to do an eleven letter word on the foot hairs. Brendon, of course, takes the opportunity to tell us that he spelled a thirteen-letter word during this originally. The fact that he remembers that is the saddest thing of all. Well, and then Daniele gets eliminated.
Task Four: Cows on the Moon. The most insane shit I have ever seen on this show besides the Rachel/Regan or Janelle/Cokewhore fights. Rorsche bunts, of course, and Jeff undercuts everybody by a whole lot. 54 seconds for Jeff to conquer the moon milk. It's harder when you have to squeeze your own self, for sure. Kathy counts down the seconds, since she can't actually carry Jeff back and forth on her own ass-kissing back, and it's still the grodiest competition of all time, and then... Break. And then the milk jug overflows! But not before the buzzer buzzes, which is dumb. The milk was in the tube, but it... You know what, not going that way. Not going to get driven crazy again by the creepy milk thing. Jeff is eliminated, the end.
Task Five: Brendon has 33 seconds to play mini golf and get one ball into this hole on the slanty green. The second ball almost makes it, but then the last one does! So Brendon gets PoV. Gross.
Brendon's Diary: "Daniele, you think you're smarter than me? Well, I am a scientist."
Then he literally sticks his tongue out.
Daniele: "Worse than him getting the Veto is watching them kiss in celebration."
Jeff: "...So at this point probably I'm going to get backdoored, because it's about me."
Daniele: "Yeah, this sucks. I don't need enemies."
Aw, fuck that. Kathy is a quisling, she does nothing. Porsche is a human vote receptacle. Lawon belongs in the care of the state. You don't want enemies? I guarantee it's worth losing one of those bastards. Hell, put up Adam and watch Rachel campaign against his worthless ass. It's like killing three puppies with one stone.
Brendon: "I hope nobody realizes that I'm going to save Rachel with the PoV. But I'm going to, because that's what a heterosexual man in love with a woman does."
Rachel: "Just use the PoV on me. I've been taking your bone marrow every night anyway."
Jeff: "Jordan, I'm confused about basic shit again."
Jordan: "Sweetie, one of them is staying, because this was Veto. You probably won't even get backdoored."
Jeff: "I am so angry right now, just generally."
Jordan: "What a shock."
HoH ROOM
Kathy: "Daniele, who should I vote for to go home?"
Daniele: "Kathy, it's not time for that yet. He hasn't used the..."
Kathy, lookin' real coked up right now: "I'm just asking you what you want right now and which one of them you are targeting. This is for my own personal information."
Daniele: "Kathy, what are you even doing. I don't care. My part is done."
Kathy: "But you are my liege! Tell me who to vote for! Or really who you want me to vote for!"
Daniele: "Kathy... Kathy, it's... We don't know who's on the block right now. Because of the PoV? That just happened?"
Kathy: "But which one do you want me to vote for?"
Daniele: "Of the two people that we don't know who they are?"
Kathy: "YES."
Daniele: "Okay, fuck it. Um, Brendon...?"
Kathy: "Okay. Just don't put me up. BYE!"
Oh, Kathy's name is Shelly. My bad. I've been watching all season and I honestly thought her name was Kathy this whole time. Kathy The Lesbian That Married A Man. But instead it's Shelly, apparently. Good on ya, Shell. I was closer than I might have been.
Kalia & Daniele: "What the fuck was that."
JEFF & JORDAN VISIT DANI
Daniele: "Here's the deal. I made a deal with you and that deal continues to go on. But I'm hearing now that Brendon is taking himself off."
Jeff & Jordan: Fake lying wide eyes.
Daniele: "Hey, why don't you guys go figure this one out since it doesn't matter anyway and none of this matters anyway."
Daniele's Diary: "You know Brendon's stupid ass is taking Rachel off. Come on."
Jordan, knowing it won't ever come to this: "Use me as a pawn, who cares."
Daniele: "Thing is, Rachel is a fucking liar so if she stays up we're dead."
Jordan: "And then you've got Porsche and Rachel coming for you in HoH when you can't compete."
Jeff: "It just occurred to me that Porsche and Rachel will be coming for you in HoH, too."
Daniele: "Yeah, for real."
HOW THAT GOES
Jeff: "Brendon, are you going to keep Rachel in?"
Brendon: "No. It's me that's coming off."
Brendon's Diary: "Just kidding, I'm using it on Rachel. I am a mastermind!"
Jeff & Jordan: "That was... Inconclusive."
BRENDON & RACHEL VISIT DANI IN HER BIKINI
Brendon: "I am taking myself off the block. I am not lying!"
Daniele: "Sure, whatever."
Brendon: "So let's cut a deal!"
Daniele: "But um, right now it's before PoV. I don't have any power."
Rachel: So much crazy eyes right now. She looks like she wants to eat Daniele's unicorn.
Brendon: "You should replace me with Lawon. That is the power play."
Daniele: "I... See your logic?"
Brendon: "Also, I will destroy you from inside or outside the house, so you'd better put it all behind us and trust each other and make a deal."
Daniele: "Sure, Lucy. I'll totally kick that football."
It's so fucking dumb. They're so stupid. Oh, suddenly it's about deals and trust, just like every time your brutish bodies and even more brutish bullying don't get you what you want? I don't understand how they didn't team up against these assholes in the first week. It's not even that they're awful, it's that you're there to play a game and they're... Not. They think they are, but they're not. They're there to react to sounds and light and whatever is in front of their stupid faces right now. It's like, How many times does your brother have to knock over the Monopoly board before you go, "You... Are not good at this game. It's not fun. I am not going to play with you anymore. You are evicted from this game."
Daniele: "You're not even going to remember having this conversation anyway, so fuck it. Sure."
Rachel: Begins to gnaw on her own arms and hands.
PoV CEREMONY
Brendon: "I have efficiently destroyed Daniele's entire game. It is going to be so awesome how I turn this house upside down. Everything that ever happens is the biggest thing that ever happened in Big Brother History. As long as it happens to me."
Daniele: "I hate that Brendon's taking himself off the block. Good thing I don't have to name the replacement nominee before he pulls his big ridiculous drama queen game-changer where he proves once and for all what a fucking idiot he is."
Jeff: "I am not really clear what's going on at this time."
Rachel: "Brendon, your slavish devotion to this weird mental construct of me that bears me zero resemblance fills a hole deep inside that I know will never be filled by sex, because I view myself and my body completely as an object."
Brendon: "Rachel, I fell in love with you the first time I saw you, because if I am not stalking a woman at all times I will turn gay. Being with you is a never-ending cresting wave of reps, each of them making me stronger and more manly."
Rachel: "Brendon, keep yourself in this game. I refuse to sacrifice you for my own gameplay."
Brendon: "I will not. Rachel, you are safe."
Daniele, Jeff, Everybody: "This is the stupidest thing that ever happened. God, they are ridiculous people."
Rachel: "I can't believe how romantic this is. I have weird ideas about romance."
AFTERMATH
Brendon: "Now what? Now that I have totally blown your mind, what will you do?"
Daniele: "Fine. Jordan, you're the pawn."
Rachel: "Everybody, look at me crying! I am so alone and sad and surprised and oh my God."
Brendon: "That is motherfucking science, Daniele, because I am the smartest person in the world. I give myself a boner. With Science."
Daniele's Diary: "God, you're a moron."
Jordan: "God, he's a moron. Now I'm the effing pawn? Lord, these people."
The House: "I'm so sure, Brendon is the worst."
Rachel: "It's like I'm the star of a special movie all about me where I get to cry, but I'm also incredibly special. Watching my halfwit fiancé throw his own stupid ass under the bus for me -- far from being a sign of his dangerous mental imbalance and impairment -- just goes to show that I am the queen of the universe."
So now what? Rachel v. Jordan. Jeff will get flipped, somehow, because that dolt can't even make it three days without forgetting whatever deals he's made, and they're going to work his paranoia, and all four of them are going to bitch and moan about how, even though they're not taking this game personally, it still really feels like Daniele is trying to ruin their relationships, take their fiancées away, whatever whatever. I just want Brendon gone. And not just because he hates women almost as much as Evel Dick and it's really scary to watch, but because once he's gone, Rachel is gonna go Full-On NUTS. And I think we have, at least, earned that.
I'm doing Thursday, and then it's back to our regularly scheduled recapper. Hope you had fun, I know I did.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps True Blood, Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and Desperate Housewives for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook. IRL work appears in BenBella's SmartPop series of anthologies, most recently A Friday Night Lights Companion.