Wearing a cobalt blue dress accessorized with a necklace made of the currency of an island tribe of toddlers, Julie welcomes us back to Day 48 and all but says this week was a rerun, with HoH Daniele trying to get rid of Brendon yet again. Except for how he's up against Shelly this time, who has pissed people off plenty since then. As you recall, Daniele replacement-nominated Brendon after Adam Vetoed himself. "Nobody's going to be able to evict me twice in the same summer," Brendon boasts in the Diary Room. What are you going to do about it, stud? Shelly DRs that she's confident she's not the target, Daniele basically says she has to clean up after Kalia's disastrous week as HoH (like it's her fault Lawon's an idiot and the producers screwed everyone), and Rachel claims that Daniele is "intimidated" by Brendon, and it's stupid of her to try to get rid of Brendon and make enemies again. Well, it is a summer of remakes.
After the nominations, Brendon and Rachel go into the Have-Not room so she can whine and he can buck her up. As usual. Rachel asks what they can do about Jeff and Jordan. That's firmly in the area of About To Not Be Brendon's Problem Any More, but he makes some reassuring noises. In the DR, he figures he's got Rachel's vote and hopefully Jeff and Jordan's, so if he can get Adam's or Porsche's that's enough to stay. Good luck to him. I don't actually mean that.
Out in the backyard, Shelly and Daniele talk about Rachel's (venomous but surprisingly quiet) reaction to the replacement nomination of Brendon, while the camera keeps cutting to Jeff, soaking in the pool and soaking in the gossip.
Later, Brendon and Rachel make their overtures to Adam about what it'll take to vote to keep Brendon. Adam's main contribution to the conversation is how women have been winning HoHs and men have been winning PoVs all season. Thanks, Superfan. It's always the historians who set themselves apart in this game. Brendon argues that Daniele wants all the men out of the house before offering to have Adam's back and remain as a bigger target. As if it's possible to be a smaller target than Adam. Figuratively speaking, of course.
Rachel approaches Porsche alone to talk about the upcoming vote. Porsche admits that she doesn't love Shelly, but Brendon is hard to beat, and thus inadvisable to keep. Rachel claims that Shelly said she was going to nominate Porsche if she won HoH, which is such a bald-faced lie that only someone as stupid as Porsche would believe it. And even she doesn't seem to. Porsche points out that she got burned voting to keep Brendon last time, so she hasn't decided. "Don't be all boo-hoo face, though," she advises Rachel when leaving the room. Rachel obliges, but as soon as Porsche's gone, she switches to "apoplectic-Nellie-Oleson-face."
In the backyard that night, Jeff asks Shelly, "Ready to go home?" What she doesn't know is that he's only half kidding, because he still hasn't made up his mind whether to keep her. And he knows it's a game-changing decision for him this week, one that he'll look back on. Shelly says her Trojan Horse bit is done, both to him and to us in the DR. As for Jeff and Jordan, They just want to make sure Shelly's "on the same page," meaning having to keep Rachel. Shelly says she is, but her eyes roll all the way into her brain.
Later, Daniele takes Shelly's place with Jeff and Jordan to talk about their status. She admits she tried to backdoor Jeff three weeks ago and apologizes, but Jeff and Jordan seem more upset at having it brought up. Now it's Daniele sucking up to them, because she doesn't want anyone after her week. Specifically Jeff and Jordan. Jeff admits that nobody would expect them to have an alliance, so it may be to his and Jordan's advantage. Which, unfortunately for Jeff, would mean evicting Brendon. "This week sucks!" Jeff says.
The morning, Rachel approaches Jordan to confirm that she and Jeff are voting to keep Brendon. Jordan says she is, but says that if Brendon doesn't have the votes, she and Jeff would be making themselves targets if they voted against the rest of the house. Basically she says they'll vote to keep Brendon if he can secure other votes, but only then. Rachel bitches in the DR about what cowards and sheep Jeff and Jordan are.
Jordan reports back to Jeff, who decides, "I'm going out there, let's see if they try to bully me." When Jeff sits down with them, there's a lot of scowling and glaring, and Jeff points out that it's not up to him and Jordan anyway; Brendon's going home either way, as things currently stand. Rachel lies that she's cool with that, even as she pouts extravagantly at Jeff. Jeff takes offense and tells her if that's going to be her attitude, they'll have a problem going forward. So good job winning hearts and minds there, Rachel.
Group Chenterview via the living room viewscreen. She starts by letting Shelly go on about what it meant to hear from her family. Shelly felt like she won that day. Which is good, because she may lose today. Julie then asks Jordan if it was worth trading that to Shelly for the Humilitard, and Jordan says it was, especially since she has Jeff in the house to talk to. Then on to Brendon, whom Julie asks why America voted him back in. Brendon of course takes the opportunity to suck up to himself about how America loves a strong competitor, blah blah blah. In this case, Brendon, as in many many others, America loves a douchebag. When it's Rachel's turn, she says it's been a roller coaster, but she's going to hold up no matter what happens. Julie announces that whichever of them gets evicted tonight, they'll be going to the jury house as the first juror. So, you know, just putting that out there.
Time for a Shelly profile. I hate these so much. We see her talking to Jordan about her family one night in the backyard, and then we cut to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she (usually) lives with her husband of ten years, Tony. He says she was voted homecoming queen and is a wonderful mother. We see Shelly telling Jordan about how her daughter Josie is less spoiled than some of the people in the house (like that's hard), and then we get to meet Josie herself, eight years old and just having started third grade. Her whole gymnastics team is having a viewing party in the living room. Josie says that she wants to say to Shelly, "What are you doing, Mom? You're going to get yourself kicked off!" The honesty of youth. They watch clips of Shelly's remorse over the lies she told early in the game that led to Cassi's eviction. "Be careful missy, I've got my eyes on you," Josie warns the TV. She also tells us that her mom needs to "quit lying and pick a side." Josie even covers her eyes watching clips of Shelly throwing her various wobblers, and Tony agrees that the house is getting to her. Josie takes another crack at saying the one thing she could tell her mom right now: "I love you." Yes, that too, of course.
Time for the private Chenterview with Daniele in the HoH room. Julie asks Daniele what it was like to get so thoroughly screwed by the producers last week (although those aren't her words), and Daniele blames it on Adam for changing his vote last week. As for her nominations this week, she says she needed to guarantee Brendon would leave, and nominating both him and Rachel would have resulted in at least one of them getting Vetoed. Julie asks if Daniele considered agreeing to Brendon and Rachel's offer of a truce. Daniele says yes, and even says that since they never talked about replacement nominations, she's technically in the clear. I'm sure Rachel will agree.
Back to the living room. Shelly makes her speech first, talking about what a crazy week it was, then moving on to the nice things people have been doing for her all week. Brendon gives a shout-out to his UCLA department and cancer research (which I wish he'd get back to already) and reminds them all that as the first juror, he's going to vote for the strongest competitor. Finally, to Daniele, he Jerrys, "You will always be Judas to me." Julie reacts like she doesn't remember that at all, which she probably doesn't, and says it's time to vote. Rachel votes first, because her decision is the least suspenseful. Sure enough, she votes to evict Shelly, "unlike the other cowards in this house." Thanks for giving it away. The second-least surprising vote is from Kalia, voting to evict Brendon, and we leave it on a 1-1 tie before we find out what Jeff and Jordan decided. Find out from them, I mean.
After the ads, the voting continues, and Porsche votes to evict Brendon. Adam votes the same way, as does Jeff, so that's Brendon's third (and let's hope final) eviction. Jordan goes through the motions of voting Brendon out as well. Back in the living room, Julie tells Brendon he's been evicted 5-1. He gets up and says goodbye to Rachel, saying he's used to this now. Rachel acts strong, saying she's here to fight and win. I'm sure she'll do one of those things a lot.
Brendon exits to a very excited crowd, loud enough for them to hear inside the house. Once Brendon's set up with Julie, she asks if Brendon would have kept up their end of the deal if Daniele had kept hers. Brendon gives the non-answer that he and Rachel were playing on their own. But their move is for Rachel to win HoH and mess with everyone. Solid plan. And if that doesn't work, she'll keep sucking up to people. I think Brendon just made up that backup plan sitting right there.
Farewell messages. Daniele says, "I swear to God, if you come back again, I might have to evict myself." Kalia says she doesn't know why America voted him back, "But the good news is you're leaving. FOR GOOD!" Brendon just shakes his head at how much more petty and immature than him everyone else is. Jeff promises, "I'll look after Rachel for you as much as I can stand her." Brendon keeps shaking his head until Jeff remembers to tell Brendon he loves him. He's probably still a homophobe. Rachel acts strong and brave, even going so far as to say, "Don't hate because I'm gonna make it farther than you did last season." Brendon tells Julie that she'd better. She won't. Brendon says it sucks being evicted twice, "But I get to decide who wins half a million dollars." Yes, all by himself. Or at least he thinks so. If nothing else, he probably figures he can browbeat and intimidate the other jurors into agreeing with him. Which is pretty rich, considering he's so popular that he came in ninth and eleventh in this game. Add those numbers together and he's the first person in history to come in twentieth.
HoH competition. Daniele's sitting this one out, obviously, as outgoing HoH. The other seven will carry cups of liquid soap across a slick plastic surface, each racing to fill up a large fishbowl until they can reach in and retrieve a ping pong ball floating inside. And that's it. Everyone starts skating across the plastic along their respective lanes, and you know how some competitions work well live and others need plenty of editing? This is the latter. And it's clearly not going to be over for a while. After a minute or two, soap suds drop from the sky like it's a foam party, just to add to the difficulty level. Particularly for Jordan in the center lane, where most of the mess lands. Julie plugs the week's worth of shows, including a double eviction on Thursday. I love double evictions. One less idiot each Thursday is never quite enough for me. Julie goes back to the back yard and says it's time for the rinse cycle. Cue the rain, naturally. We're out while it's still too early to see if anyone's got a lead. Or the opposite of a lead. Which I think I'll start calling an Adam.
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.