I'm back, with thanks to Jacob for covering for me this week. It's like returning back to a job painting hotel-room landscapes after Picasso spent a couple of days doing it for me.
Flashback to Brendon's eviction. Jordan says in the Diary Room that feels bad about it, but Daniele really doesn't, adding that she's ready to send Rachel out . There's a flashback to Brendon's whispered, his-version-of-encouraging goodbye to Rachel, and Rachel's devastated reaction in the DR. Jeff is most concerned with keeping the target on the newbies to protect himself. Lawon DRs about showing the veterans "We are here to play!" Every time he says that he becomes more irrelevant.
Flashback to Kalia's HoH victory and subsequent happy-cry. Daniele DRs that she's proud of her "little protégé," and happy about being safe herself for a week. Rachel DRs that from her point of view (as if any others are valid), Kalia is the worst person to have gotten HoH, but Jeff is also paranoid, given how Porsche randomly put Jeff and Shelly up against each other in the HoH competition. He's reading everything he possibly can into that.
After the HoH competition, everyone goes inside, and Rachel starts sobbing again as she passes the memory wall. Kalia has a little one-person celebration of her victory in the storage room, which is just about the saddest display of sincere happiness I've seen on this show. And Rachel buries herself in her hoodie and blankets and settles in to a nice long cry-coma.
Porsche comes to tell Daniele and Kalia that Jeff and Jordan are mad at her for her HoH brain-fart, so will Porsche be allying with a new veteran this week? Does it matter?
Rachel's still crying when Porsche goes in to comfort her. "Thanks for being my friend," Rachel says to Porsche. Jordan also joins the pity party to encourage Rachel about how fast six weeks goes by, adding that she probably wouldn't have won anyway. As soon as Porsche leaves, Jordan brings up Porsche's matchup of Jeff vs. Shelly, so Porsche's officially out of the veterans' need-to-know circle now. They also discuss the twist with the returning houseguest, and what it means for their strategy this week.
Kalia brings everyone up to see her HoH room, and cries almost as hard as Rachel did when she sees the pictures of her family. Shelly's also emotional, missing her own daughter, who's apparently going to start school on Monday. Rachel smiles at Kalia's tears, because at this point she'll take what she can get.
Up in the Hoh room, Daniele is privately advising Kalia to just listen to people's offers and efforts to sell each other out before committing to anything. Rachel comes in with a very large, nearly empty wineglass to talk about how much she misses Brendon. Then she basically dismisses Daniele from the room. Rachel bullshits that she's excited for Kalia and respects her as a competitor. She promises not to nominate Kalia if Kalia doesn't nominate her this week. In turn, Kalia admits that she has no idea who she's going to nominate (leaving out the words "besides you"). Kalia DRs that she's tempted to work with Rachel, just because nobody would expect it. But she also basically admits that the reason that nobody would expect it is because it would be STUPID. "Humble pie, it tastes good, doesn't it, home girl?" Kalia gloats to herself after Rachel leaves the room. Whatever, Rachel's just feeding it to the dog under the table.
Big Brother Cornhole Game?!
Shelly and Kalia hang out and chat in the purple room about Kalia's personal history. Adam calls everyone to the living room to watch him de-elf. More Sunday night filler. Kalia naps in the hammock, and Shelly dares herself to crawl under and grab her leg while everyone else watches from the patio, but Kalia wakes up with Shelly underneath her. That's about it for tonight's Sunday night filler crap.
Kalia is having another chat with Daniele about whom to nominate. Which, basically, is, "Whom do I nominate?" Kalia's thinking Rachel and Jeff, saying she'll make sure to assure Jeff that he's not the target. Which won't work, because Jeff thinks he's the target even when nobody's even thinking about him. Daniele warns Kalia that she'll need to convince Jeff she's not against him. Daniele also brings up the twist with this week, and assures Kalia, "This week's going to be great no matter what." Daniele clearly isn't watching the show.
Have/Have-Not Competition. Everyone splits into teams of red and blue and, for some reason, horn-rimmed glasses, and heads out to the back yard, which has been decorated as a retro cocktail lounge. One member of each team will go behind the bar, out of sight and mix up a smoothie out of three gross ingredients from the menu and milk. Then the two players will taste each other's smoothies and try to identify as many ingredients as they can. The one who guesses the most wins the round and a point for their team. Team with the most points is Haves for the week. Jeff and Lawon are the first matchup. Each of them correctly guesses two of the ingredients in the other's cocktail. The tie-breaker is a "chug-off," which Jeff wins, even though Lawon is HERE TO PLAY.
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Porsche's up against Shelly , and puts in onions because she doesn't know what they taste like. I'm thinking that if Porsche makes a habit of basing her actions on things she doesn't know, she's going to be a very busy girl. Shelly's main challenge is that Porsche's mixture is too thick to actually drink, but she correctly guesses that carrots are in it. Porsche correctly guesses beets and dill pickles, so she beats Shelly, even after Jeff gave Shelly a correct answer that Shelly ignored.
The last round is Jordan vs. Daniele, although first it's a battle between Jordan and Jordan's gag reflex. Daniele and Jordan both get one right, so it's another chug-off tiebreaker. Daniele wins it, so the Red Team of her, Porsche, Adam, and Lawon are haves, making Jordan, Jeff, Rachel, and Shelly the Have-Nots. Jordan looks pretty sad about it, mainly as a result of feeling like she let her team down, but Shelly is smiling contentedly like this was her plan all along. Who the hell throws a H/HN competition, though? The Have-Not menu turns out to be coconuts and catfish, which they're actually relatively happy about. Except Jordan, who's still a weepy, red-faced mess.
In the Have-Not room, Jeff tries to buck up Jordan, who's getting bitter about how people like Porsche and Lawon are just coasting along. Well, why the hell shouldn't they, if everyone else is fighting amongst themselves? Wait for the dust to settle. Jordan figures she, Jeff, and Rachel are the only real players, "And you and Rachel are just gonna get picked off." Love the implicit assumption that she's safe because everyone loves her, which probably isn't wrong. And then all her sadness about their long-term prospects in the game comes back around to "I should have known sauerkraut."
Kalia asks Shelly to come upstairs to the HoH room to figure out who Shelly's playing with. Shelly says she wants to play with Kalia, which would be a lot more convincing if she didn't have to be dragged up to HoH to say so, and adds that she won't put Kalia up if she wins. Shelly even floats the idea of going to final three with Kalia and Daniele, and then in the DR says she's doing that with Jeff and Jordan, but Kalia and Daniele are her backup plan. This can only spell doom for Kalia, Daniele, Jeff, and Jordan. That Hunting Mom is radioactive, and nobody even knows it.
Jordan and Jeff visit Kalia in the HoH room, and Kalia says neither of them is her target, but she wants a strong player to go up against her for PoV to make sure Rachel doesn't win it and save herself. Jordan goes off on Kalia, reminding her that if she nominates Jeff and Rachel, both of them are going to come after her, whichever one comes back. Jordan storms out, and Jeff says that if Rachel wins, he's going home. Jeff also tells Kalia that she's his target now, whether he wins the veto, loses it and stays anyway, or loses it and gets evicted and comes back, plus Rachel will also be after Kalia, not to mention Jordan. Jeff even repeats a little about what Jordan was saying earlier regarding all the people in the house who haven't been doing anything, like Kalia's going to turn on any of these defenseless newbies. After chewing her out good and proper, he stomps out as well, leaving Kalia flabbergasted. Well, that went well. How did she think he was going to take it?
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America's Vote as to whether we want Keith back, Cassi, Dominic, or Brendon back. Alas, there's no "none of the above" option.
It's nomination day. Jeff DRs that he's sure he'll go on the block, saying he doesn't think he got through to Kalia. Shame to think of all that charm and finesse going to waste. Jordan whines in the DR about being a target for the perpetuity in the game, like she thought she'd be able to come in as a winner and fly under the radar. Her whining is even more rich given that that's more or less what she's doing. Rachel mocks Kalia in the DR about how "you can't even barely compete with me." As for Kalia, she VOs that she's torn between not being bullied and doing the smart thing. Can't she do both?
Kalia convenes the nomination ceremony. Rachel obnoxiously sits down to Daniele, who scootches away. Rachel follows, almost literally like, "I'm not touching you!" Kalia comes into the room and starts pulling keys. Adam's first again, this time in honor of his birthday. Also safe are Porsche, Daniele and Jordan, who declares out of turn that she'll be the replacement nominee before going ahead and pulling Lawon's key. The last key pulled is Shelly's, so Jeff and Rachel are indeed the nominees. Kalia says, "The last week has been hell for a lot of reasons...the cattiness, the talking behind people's backs." She says the people in the pictures up in the HoH room taught her to be strong and make her own decisions. Which I'm sure will convince all the people in the house (and the world) who think Kalia's only doing Daniele's bidding.
Getting up from the table, Rachel snottily asks Daniele how she's doing, and offers to talk. "I don't even want to look at you," Daniele says. Daniele DRs that Rachel's a train wreck and needs to go home, and she wouldn't be unhappy if Jeff went home either. Kalia DRs that Jeff's yelling at her didn't work: "It's time to dance, you get on the floor and make it happen." Rachel says she'll fight tooth and nail to come back in and go after Kalia, saying she miscalculated her HoH. And if anybody knows anything about overplaying HoH status, it's Rachel. She's done it like a dozen times.
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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