After the previouslies, we flash back all the way back to the night before Thursday's eviction, because apparently tonight is going to be all about what happened before Thursday night. Rachel goes up to see Jeff in the HoH room and confront him on Shelly's accusation of Jeff's throwing the cornhole game. Jeff isn't about to admit that to Rachel, even though he knows it's true but in the Diary Room, he acts pretty hurt that Shelly, who he's been loyal to all this time, is telling stories about him behind his back.
Then it's two hours before eviction, and Jeff is noticing Shelly's friendliness with Daniele. Shelly in turn asks what's up his ass and he grumbles about "too much back and forth." Shelly claims not to know what's going on, even though she says in the Diary Room that she knows exactly what's going on.
Then it's 90 minutes before the eviction, and Shelly calls Adam into the purple room to ask him what's going on, and accusing him of spilling the beans to Jeff. Apparently Shelly's amnesia with regard to her conversations with Rachel is still in full effect. As for Adam, he's so desperate to preserve his final-four alliance with Jeff, Jordan, and Adam that he gabbles.
At E-minus 75 minutes, Jeff is taking a crack at Adam, who immediately tells Jeff about his earlier conversation with Shelly. Shelly bursts in and gets all righteously indignant about people talking behind her back, claiming she's solidly on Jeff's side and getting in an argument with Jeff that makes no sense, talking about some secret plan to keep Daniele that Shelly now claims to be secretly working to thwart. Or something.
E-minus one hour. In front of Rachel and Jordan, Jeff gets Adam to repeat that Shelly's going to vote to keep Daniele. Again, Shelly barges in to try to defend herself, and she ends up saying that everyone has been talking about getting rid of Jeff and Jordan, all along. This is too much drama even for Rachel, who bails on the argument rather than jumping in with both feet. Who is this woman? Jeff yells at her for exploring other options, and Shelly points out that she's allowed to do that. Jeff can't argue with that, but he does anyway.
Flashback to Daniele's eviction. Shelly is pretty scared about the timing of the double-eviction announcement, Kalia says it's bittersweet to stay in the house and yet lose her best friend, and Shelly says she's burned her bridges by voting to keep Daniele. No shit.
Before Thursday's HoH competition, Jordan says she needs to win HoH to protect her and Jeff. But then Kalia does, which of course she's thrilled about, and Shelly is too, and Jordan is crushed. Adam's pissed at himself for letting his team down. "I blew it. I blew it," he DRs. Can you let down people who expect nothing of you anyway? In the purple room, we see Kalia quickly conferring with Porsche and Shelly about whom to nominate. Kalia says she promised to never nominate Jordan, so Jeff and Rachel is practically a no-brainer. Flashback to Kalia nominating them during Thursday's show. Rachel DRs about how Kalia's scared of both of them, but Rachel also vows, "there's a Veto and I'm going to win it."
Cut to the flashback of Porsche winning the PoV competition instead, completely contrary to Rachel's plans. Rachel is convinced that she's the target. Back in the house, Jeff reminds Porsche that he saved her by vetoing her nomination, but Porsche unrepentantly reminds her that he also evicted Daniele. Porsche goes in and does a little dance in the storage room. Flashback to Porsche not using the Veto during Thursday's show. During a commercial or something, Jeff makes sure he's going to get Adam's vote. Then he goes to Shelly to try to secure hers as well, but Shelly just wants to be a victim about Jeff's (completely justified) mistrust of her. He actually begs her for another chance while Julie's calling them into the living room. Then, after the vote, when Julie announces the two-two tally, Jeff turns to Adam and accuses him of not voting for him. "I did vote for you," Adam says, because Shelly's been babbling so much she actually convinced Jeff she was still going to vote for him without actually saying so. But of course it was Porsche and Shelly who voted Jeff out. And then we get to re-watch Kalia evict Jeff.
Rachel says she's shocked at how now she and poor little Jordan are all alone in the house. Replay of Jeff hugging people goodbye, making snarky little remarks about people's character (keeping it classy), and Shelly says she did this for her family. Jordan says that on an anger scale of 1-10, she's currently at a 20. "Now I gotta go out like a yo-yo in this stuff," Jeff snits, the final insult having to walk out to the live studio audience in his athletic gear, never having even gotten a chance to pack. He rises to it, though, slamming through the door like a five-year-old on Day 55. Inside the house, Jordan and Rachel are at a loss, while Porsche and Kalia rapidly buck up Shelly. Adam admits right away to Rachael that he voted to evict her, which Rachel doesn't care about, because she and Jordan are too grief-stricken. Adam is too, but at least he confines it to the DR.
Jordan, Rachel, and Adam go and hole up in the purple room to wonder what just happened. Jordan is especially mad at herself for trusting Shelly, particularly after giving up her call from home for her a few weeks ago. Yeah, we knew that was going to come up.
Kalia finds Shelly and tells her, "There's no crying in Big Brother." Shelly sobs to her and Porsche about what she did for her family. Meanwhile, Jordan is bitching about Shelly, who of course barges in after listening outside the door, which is becoming her pattern. Well, her secondary pattern, the primary one being the way she keeps blowing up alliances from the inside. Jordan and Shelly get into an actual screaming match, with bleeps and everything, which is not surprising until you consider the fact that when we first met Jordan she was referring to sex as "booger." Rachel physically drags Jordan away, even as Jordan hollers over her shoulder at Shelly the whole time. After finally stashing Jordan in the most distant possible bedroom, Rachel tells her, "Jordan, this is not you!" This isn't Rachel either. Where's the obnoxious chick who gets off on stirring shit up?
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Kalia calls everyone out to the backyard for the second HoH competition. As suggested by the game we saw Adam practicing on during Thursday's episode, there's a long, flat table shaped like a snake, and each player has to wiggle the snake to carefully roll a ball down the length of it until it lands in a hole in the far end. If the ball falls off, it'll land in one of 20 slots, with each slot being worth more points the further down the snake it is. Jordan goes first, and her ball slips off at 18, which is pretty impressive. Porsche only gets to 11, and Rachel gets a 13. Shelly gets a 16, and Adam, for all his practicing, gets a pathetic 4. So the rankings are Jordan, Shelly, Rachel, Porsche, and Adam. But that wasn't for HoH, that was just for seedings. Seriously? Whatever, there's a primitive bracket of sorts for this thing, so Adam will go head-to-head with Porsche for the first round. He gets a ten, and Porsche beats that with a 14, so he's out. Shocker. Now it's Porsche against Rachel, and Porsche gets a 20, which is the highest possible score without landing it in the eye socket. Rachel only gets a 7, so it's all over for her but the crying, and there is going to be lots of crying. For the third round, Porsche is up against Shelly. Jordan is hoping Shelly wins this round so she can beat Shelly in a later round, then become HoH and revenge-evict her. But since Porsche gets an actual snake-eye, that doesn't seem likely. And indeed, Shelly's score of 15 is a loser. Now Jordan gets to compete against Porsche, who's had several rounds to get really good at this while Jordan has been standing on the sidelines eating herself up inside. And obviously everyone in the house is pulling for their side so hard that it causes a commercial break.
After the ads, Porsche gets her second snake-eye, so Jordan has to try to match that. But after a long, long time, she only gets a 16, so her shit day is complete, and Porsche is the new HoH, for the first time ever. Jordan and Rachel pretty much wish they could just get evicted now. Well, ladies, the doors aren't locked, are they? On the other hand, Porsche and Kalia don't work terribly hard to hide their glee, although they do go into a small alcove between some bushed for their happy-dance.
Inside, Shelly makes a big show of declining to tell Adam, "I told you so." Adam says it wasn't personal, and Shelly says, "Yeah, it was, but I forgive you." So of course Adam has decided to switch sides, because he can see which way the wind is blowing at this very second. Meanwhile, Rachel and Jordan cry some more in a bedroom. If they're bothered by Adam's absence or even notice it, they keep it to themselves. Jordan DRs that Day 55 is her worst ever, losing all the competitions and Jeff as well. She says she's cried so much she can't even cry any more. But it looks like Rachel is more than picking up the slack on that score.
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There's no "who wants to see my HoH room?" scene this week, which is just fine with me. Instead, Porsche lets herself into the HoH room, and is pretty happy to see that the Pandora's Box door is set up in there. She opens the first of two cards on her table, which explains that Pandora's Box could release something good or bad on the house or on the HoH. The monitor comes on and shows the room beyond the Pandora's Box door, where two briefcases marked $5,000 are sitting to a bottle of champagne. The second card offers Porsche to take it or pass, and after some deliberation, she opens it up. Because let's face it, nobody ever doesn't open Pandora's Box, and nobody ever doesn't regret it. Inside, along with the two cases of cash (or, more likely, the two cases representing cash) there are also two envelopes. One tells her that she's won the cash, but she's got to split it with someone else in the house. And, she has to take the other envelope downstairs and read its contents to everyone else, without reading it herself first. Yeah, that would be the downside. P
So she follows instructions, and this is how everyone learns the following: the duo twist is back. Because it was so awesome the first time around. It's just for this week, but as in the early stages of the game, the HoH will nominate a duo instead of two individual players, and if the Veto is used, the nominated duo will be taken off the block and replaced by another duo. Except this time around it would be the other duo, because there are only six players left.. Time to pick partners. Porsche picks Kalia, so Kalia is automatically safe for the week. Rachel and Jordan pair off, looking like they just got reprieved, and Shelly and Adam, the two olds in the house, are left together by default. Good thing they made up earlier. Porsche has just one more announcement to make, not speaking for Big Brother: "Well, that sucks!"
Indeed, Porsche DRs about how this was the worst move she's made in the game yet (which means it ranks third), and Rachel is excited about this new chance for her and Jordan to fight together to save themselves. Kalia is mad at Porsche for opening Pandora's Box, as if anyone ever doesn't. And Jordan is full of hope all over again. So I guess that's the happy ending Big Brother was hoping for.
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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