Replay of the nomination ceremony, reiterating that HoH Kalia flew in the face of Rachel's desperate bargaining and Jeff's threats and nominated them both for eviction this week. We're back in "real time" on Day 35 as Shelly tries to reel in Rachel from going after Daniele. Rachel is convinced in the Diary Room that Daniele is the one who wanted her nominated, but Kalia basically DRs that nobody needs Daniele to want Rachel out of there. Jeff tells an imaginary Kalia that she's called down a double whammy on herself, what with the evictee getting a chance to come back. "I hope Daniele's happy," he adds. Well of course Daniele is, as she says for herself in the DR.
Shelly drags Rachel into another room to try and calm her down. "You have more class than this," she lies. Rachel thinks Daniele has turned everyone against her, like people can't hate her independently. I hated her last year without even watching Daniele's first season. Rachel declares that she's going to go home. Like, right now. Good plan!
Rachel heads into the Have Not room and makes Jordan talk her down , and it's obvious that the last thing Jordan wants to have to do is sit here and listen to Rachel's keening about Brendon and how they've been split up and waaaah. Jordan DRs that since Brendon's gone, it's now pretty much fallen to Jordan to keep Rachel out of her tree. Oh my God, Jordan, it's so not worth it.
In another bedroom, Porsche and Daniele cackle quietly about Rachel's noisy meltdown, so it's obvious that Porsche has finally figured out how toxic Rachel is. So that's another newbie on Daniele's side, looks like. For all the good Porsche ever does anyone.
Daniele commiserates in the HoH room with Kalia about the mixed blessing of being HoH. Kalia talks to Daniele about being here to play, blah, blah. They notice on the HoH monitor that a small powwow is going on down in the kitchen and Kalia tries to listen through the door.
Fortunately (or not), we don't have to do that, because we can clearly hear Jeff exhorting the other players to pick teams and make decisions and go to war, comparing the Big Brother house to Vietnam. Probably not a good example there. Kalia relays this to Daniele, and suddenly feels so defeated she breaks down crying: she made this big move, and everyone credits it to Daniele, but Jeff plans to go to war against Kalia for it. Lose-lose for her, unless, as she says in the DR, she can convince Jeff that he's not her target. Good luck, because Jeff is perpetually convinced that he's everyone's target.
Kalia announces to the house that it's time to pick the Power of Veto competition players. Kalia, Rachel, and Jeff are automatically playing, but the other three will be randomly selected. Jeff and Rachel are both determined to win for themselves, of course. Kalia draws Adam, Jeff draws Shelly, and Rachel draws Houseguest's Choice and picks Jordan for some reason, probably because that's who Jeff would have picked. I guess even she's figured out that Porsche's not in her camp any more. Then Kalia picks Porsche as the host. Where are my earplugs?
Shelly goes into the Have-Not room with Jeff and Jordan to try to buck them up and make sure they're all on the same team, since they'll be playing in the PoV together. Jeff and Jordan start to say something about wanting to be sure she's on their side as well, but she gets all huffy and stomps out because they don't appreciate her loyalty enough. It's enough to make Jordan cry, which prompts Jeff to make a charming comment about periods. Now Jeff feels like he has to go patch things up with Shelly.
Which he does by stomping into the room where she is and saying, "You're such an idiot!" Shelly starts going on about all she's done for them, and he pinky-swears that they're in it together. "Should we make out?" Jeff offers. Shelly declines. Firmly.
For the PoV competition, everyone goes out dressed in cheap togas into a backyard that's decorated like a Greek garden, if the ancient Greeks were also cheap. There are also long, two-sided ramps on columns, covered with Plexiglas shrouds. Rachel brags that she knows exactly what they're going to be doing, but refuses to say. And she wonders why nobody wants her around.
As host, Porsche explains the game: every player gets a gold croquet ball to roll up one side of their ramp, then run around and catch it on the other side and roll it back. For every time their ball goes over the top, they get a point. The first to get to 300 point wins. But what if they drop the ball? Well, their score goes to zero. Wow, this could turn into an endurance PoV competition that goes into the episode. I've always wanted to see one of those.
DRs from everyone about why they need to win the PoV, and the competition starts, complete with a second full explanation of it in the DR, this time from Adam. The game proceeds, and to my shock, Adam takes an early lead, with Jeff close behind. "As of right now he's got more balls than Jeff," Jordan DRs before realizing what she just said and covering her mouth. Rachel, meanwhile, is mainly panicking and dropping her ball a lot. Jordan's almost as bad. Seeing Jeff's lead on her, Kalia forgets why she needed to win the PoV in the first place and takes a break. Which will make sense if Jeff drops his ball soon, but otherwise not. He's up to 192, to Adam's 197. Shelly drops her ball, losing her 98 points and pretty much giving up. The game continues, with Jeff and Adam still close together as they get to the mid-200s. Over at the viewing couch, Daniele mutters to Porsche says she doesn't want Jeff to win because she doesn't want Kalia to have to make a replacement nomination. Kalia, however, is cheering Jeff on, which irritates Daniele. Adam, in the mid-280s, thinks he's coming into his own in the house, like this isn't some bizarre fluke, but his ball keeps rolling back on him instead of going over the peak. So does Jeff's, though, so we go to ads with this alleged suspenseful moment.
They're both north of 290 when we come back, and Jeff steals the lead at 291. They finish the game in splitscreen mode, and Jeff edges out Adam by 300-298. Wow, Adam was so close to being a factor in the season there for a second. Jeff DRs in the third person about how he's coming after Kalia, and he's pretty happy about his victory. Looking like she was just wheeled into the DR from the recovery room, Rachel says that now she has to "work with Kalia," like that's going to happen, and she has to rely on the twist. Kalia's glad Rachel lost, but isn't looking forward to making another enemy with her replacement nomination. She's clearly forgotten that Jordan is kind of a preexisting enemy.
Now Jordan has to head into the Have-Not room with Rachel and listen to her defeatist whining some more. Jeff comes in and lies to Rachel that she isn't going anywhere, while in the DR he says his five-year-old niece is a better loser than Rachel is. However, he explains that it's nice to have a bigger target than himself around. After Rachel leaves the room, Jeff and Jordan talk about the possibility of Jordan going up as the replacement nominee, and aren't too excited about it.
But then they head up to the HoH room so Kalia can explain that this was her plan all along. Jeff's not receptive, saying Kalia made her move, and he's still pissed because he's convinced that if Rachel had won he'd be going home now. Kalia admits it was a risk, but says she didn't expect Jeff to be as mad as he was. She admits that she didn't see it from his perspective, which is a nice, humble thing to say, but then says she was thinking more big-picture. "What's your picture look like now?" Jeff asks. She babbles and says that all she can do is not put Jordan up as the replacement nominee to make things better. Jeff doesn't seem convinced, but tells her to do what she needs to do.
Adam's turning 40, and he's shaving off his beard for the occasion. He looks like a chubby Bob Newhart without it, but Lawon declares him "handsomified."
Rachel has a convo with Kalia, offering to be on her side, saying that she can bring Jeff and Jordan with her. Kalia basically says Rachel doesn't have the votes to stay, but Rachel thinks the right person on the block to her can save her. Rachel won't go so far as to say she won't target Daniele, and reminds Kalia that she could come back after being evicted and come after Kalia. Kalia sounds in the DR like she's actually considering it, either because someone told her to or she's just tired of people being mad at her.
Kalia reports this to Daniele, in a scene that's punctuated with Kalia saying she needs to play on her own without Daniele. Obviously Daniele doesn't love the idea, and Kalia decides it's time for a breakup speech. Which stops short of the two of them actually breaking up, but just barely. Kalia's thinking in terms of getting the targets off their backs, and Daniele's thinking in terms of getting the hell out of this room before she screams something she'll regret at the HoH on the eve of the Veto Ceremony.
Later, Kalia is musing aloud on the twist to Daniele, Lawon, and Porsche, and how she thinks it could bite her in the ass. Lawon offers to go up, which is the biggest move he's made in the game so far. That way, after Rachel leaves, the replacement nominee doesn't come back off the block pissed at Kalia. Also, he thinks if he gets evicted he might come back with "special powers," like he's Gandalf or something. Daniele loves the idea, because she figures this way she can make a deal with Rachel and hopefully see Lawon come right back into the house after his eviction. Which, Lawon is actually asking to be evicted. Daniele lays it out for Kalia after Lawon and Porsche leave the room: "We're all still after Rachel, we do it again, and if he doesn't come back...whoopsie!" Heh. Poor Lawon. Kalia thinks this is the key to everyone liking her again. Well, that might be going a bit far.
Speaking of the twist, America's Vote is about which of the first four evicted houseguests -- Keith, Cassi, Dominic, or Brendon -- will come back to compete against the evictee to return to the game. I'm just glad none of them is Dick.
Veto time. Jeff DRs he wants Kalia to "be stupid enough to put up one of her own." Kalia DRs that evicting Lawon will win over three of her enemies. Lawon promises the performance of Big Brother history after he's named as the replacement nominee. Rachel just hopes Kalia thought about the deal she offered so she can stay. Jeff calls the Veto meeting.
Jeff obviously uses the PoV on himself, and tells Kalia it's time for her to make a replacement nominee. She goes to the front of the room to make a speech about tough decisions before nominating Lawon. Rachel, Jeff, and Jordan do look pretty happy as Lawon slowly gets up and sits to Rachel, pretending to look sad.
Kalia repeats in the DR how this is win-win for her: "If Rachel leaves and comes back, she's not pissed at me. If Lawon goes, I'm not really losing that much of a threat in the game, but gaining Rachel, Jeff, and Jordan? Sorry, Lawon, it might be sayonara." She's clearly not aware of one possible scenario, which is that America votes for Brendon to have a chance to come back, and he wipes the floor with Lawon (as he inevitably would) and then Brendon and Rachel are back in the house together. Jeff DRs that Kalia is an idiot, like there's anything she could do at this point that would win him over, adding that they have the votes in the house to keep Rachel. Lawon brags that he expects the twist to bring him back, "More powerful than ever. How you like me now?" Good luck with that, Obi-Wan. How powerful would Lawon have to be in order to be more powerful than ever, though? Not very, I'm thinking. Rachel is so happy in the DR that she actually brushed her hair and put on actual clothes to exult about her second chance to stay. And if Lawon thinks a lot of quiet pouting is the performance of Big Brother history, he hasn't been watching very long. The one time he dials it back.
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.