Wearing a red dress with one wandering lapel, Julie tells us that a "betrayal" put the newbies in power, but greed may be their downfall. So I think we know whose side she's on.
After the previouslies, Julie's redundant intro, and a second replay of yesterday's Veto meting, it's Day 59. Shelly says in the DR how she's doing everything she can to save herself, and Adam talks about how he needs to kiss some ass. Or he could just continue to be everyone's lowest priority for as long as that takes him. Rachel and Jordan sit in the DR together gloating obnoxiously (mostly Rachel). Porsche's feeling pretty bummed about how her week as HoH went, for obvious reasons.
Shelly decides to have a little "me" time in the purple room to plan her move. She thinks the fortune teller machine in the room just moved, so she goes over and presses the button on it, which makes the machine move again and its eyes light up. So Shelly's move ends up being hanging out in there for three hours waiting for the machine to do give her a clue or reward or something. Of course, all she gets is three hours older.
And after coming up empty, Shelly makes a case to Rachel that she'll be a useful pawn to keep in the game, undaunted by Rachel's shitty poker face indicating her obvious disbelief. Rachel claims to respect Shelly's game moves, but doesn't feel like she can trust Shelly not to backstab her as well. Which, valid. Shelly's so desperate she even offers her diamond ring as collateral. Rachel's not going to take it, because there's a point at which even she is capable of embarrassment, but she seems to be hearing what Shelly's saying. Except of course, the part where Shelly says in the DR that the ring is a cubic zirconium replica. Of course. Even Shelly's Hail Marys are bullshit.
Adam barges in on Rachel and Jordan while they're having a discussion, so he can try to convince them to keep him. He promises his loyalty, which they all know is worth the nonexistent paper it's not printed on. After he leaves, Rachel says she thinks Adam's playing everyone, which is giving Adam an awful lot of undeserved credit.
morning, Rachel and Jordan have a talk with Shelly about keeping her, I guess because they have a lot of hours to kill, and Rachel DRs that it might be wise to keep a bigger target in the house. Shelly makes all the promises she can think of, and when Jordan asks if Shelly ever threw a competition, she says she only ever threw the very first competition, although the editors remind us that she threw the fembot Veto competition two weeks ago. To be fair, it's hard to say whether Shelly is actually lying or simply can't remember. Jordan and Rachel talk about their upcoming decision as though they really haven't already made it.
Group Chenterview. Julie starts by asking Jordan what it was like to be partnered with Rachel. Jordan says she never gets bored, which is pretty diplomatic of her. Julie's question is to Kalia, about her reaction to Pandora's Box. Kalia says she originally hoped it was worth it for Porsche, but of course doesn't mention that she got a chunk of cash out of it too. Julie asks Shelly what her week was like, giving her a chance to filibuster about how much she hated hurting Jordan. Finally there's an extra-insipid question to Adam, who says he's fine hanging out with all the girls, and only misses his appletinis and . And after an even more boring answer from Rachel about what she thinks Brendon's reaction to Daniele's arrival at the jury house will, we're at the jury house, watching Brendon for ourselves.
So we get to see Brendon, clearly going even more nuts in the house alone for a week, playing ping pong by himself (which is not a metaphor as far as I know) and hoping Daniele will show up . Which she does. They hug, and sit down so Daniele can tell Brendon how Jeff won HoH and backdoored her. They sit down and watch the DVD of last week's Veto competition with the Zingbot (you know, the one Shelly threw), followed by Daniele's eviction. Brendon asks Daniele if she wants Jeff to show up . While waiting for the evictee, Daniele tells Brendon that she hopes it's Adam, because of how much he sucks up to Jeff, but we all know who's . "Shocker!" Daniele catchphrases when Jeff joins them in the kitchen.
We come back to the jury house and see Jeff's arrival. He and Daniele bicker about which of their evictions was karma, and then Jeff updates them on how it was a double eviction and Shelly voted him out. Daniele gloats, "I love my alliance. That's rad." Brendon says that maybe their alliance could have done better if they'd stuck together, Daniele.
So then they watch the DVD of Kalia winning HoH and then nominating Jeff and Rachel. And then they watch the PoV competition, in which Jeff threw one of the clown shoes he was looking for clean out of his bin without ever seeing it, which cost him the competition. Then they rewatch Jeff's eviction. "Well, I was feeling better," he says. Clowns have been (more) ruined for him for life, so I think we can probably look forward to Jeff's bitter future looking like Ben Stiller at the end of Dodgeball. Jeff's still pissed at Shelly for backstabbing him, and the three jurors speculate about who won HoH after Jeff's exit, and who will be the to join them. Which of course we already know. It's like dramatic irony without the drama.
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Julie interviews Porsche via the HoH viewscreen. Obviously the first question is about whether Porsche regrets opening Pandora's Box, which of course she does. As for the final four deal that we saw Rachel and Jordan offer her and Kalia, Porsche says that was before Pandora's Box, which is contrary to what the editing told us. Way to pull back the curtain, Porsche. She says if she makes it to the end, she hopes to be sitting to one of the newbies so it's not between newbies and veterans for the final vote. At which the producers are like, "Hey, good idea! We need to set that up!"
It's almost time to vote. Julie lets Shelly be the first to plead her case. She starts off with a shout-out to her family before directing her entire speech to Rachel and Jordan, talking about how she's with them one hundred percent while Kalia (who also gets to vote, in case you forgot) and Porsche sit there with WTF looks on their faces. Adam basically asks them to hit the snooze button on his dream and sits down.
Kalia votes first, and she's looking pretty thoughtful as she heads into the DR. "Apparently it doesn't count, but I vote to evict Adam, sadly," she says. Rachel's vote is to evict Shelly, although it looks like she had to think about it. That leaves Jordan as the swing vote, and she claims it's a tough choice to vote to evict Shelly. Shocker!
So then Julie breaks the news that it was a 2-1 vote and Shelly's evicted. She hugs everyone, telling them all "good job" and heads out. Inside the house, there's a lot of talk of the number five and a long, long shot of the fish tank.
Out in the studio, Julie's first question to Shelly is, "What do you think went wrong?" Uh, everything Shelly did since week one? Shelly says she tried to make a big move last week, and Julie asks why she did it so early. Shelly thought that was her last chance, but now admits, "It wasn't so big." She still thinks that if she'd waited, she'd be in the final three with Jeff and Jordan and doomed to be out in the cold for the final two. Which is true, except for how she was never going to make it to the final three no matter what she'd done. Julie reminds Shelly that she's about to see Jeff again, and Shelly admits that she's worried, but wants to stay friends with him and Jordan, and claims she wouldn't have done it again. Which I'm sure would also be true if she were to win the half million. Julie reminds Shelly about how she said her daughter Josie's punishment for lying is to write sentences, and zings, "How big of a wall do we need for sentences for you?" Shelly starts to say something about adult decisions, but says Josie can pick the number. Maybe let Jeff or Jordan pick the number, because they probably can't count as high as Josie can.
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Farewell messages. Adam says Shelly was a great player, but played herself out of the house. As opposed to Adam, who made the final five by doing nothing. Porsche says she doesn't know how the house will stay clean with Shelly gone. Kalia gives a heartfelt speech which she's probably rethinking right about now. Rachel says Shelly's ring isn't worth half a million dollars (which Rachel knows because she's engaged) and mocks Shelly for being evicted. Jordan talks about how Shelly opened her eyes, which is why she got so mad. "I never disrespect my elders," she adds, and concludes, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." I bet she gets shamed on a lot. Shelly has no regrets, because she was lucky enough to play the game at all (which wasn't what she was saying last week), and looks forward to seeing her family again, even though they're going to tell her she was an idiot. Julie reminds her she'll be back for the September 14th finale. I'm looking forward to that day too. But the day after that even more.
Time for the HoH competition. Everyone's in the backyard, with outgoing HoH Porsche sitting this out and Adam, Jordan, Rachel and Kalia standing around wearing colored t-shirts tucked into dorky high shorts for some reason. The competition is basically a race back and forth through a messy obstacle course to retrieve one donut at a time and stack them on a pole. Whoever has the most at the end of 13 minutes wins it, so I don't think we'll be learning the winner during this broadcast. Rachel takes an early lead, for what it's worth, with Adam in second, Jordan in third, and Kalia last, but we're only half a minute in with one donut each. Julie signs off with them when they have twelve minutes left, so stay tuned. Or not. It won't make much difference.
When we come back, they're still at it with nine minutes left, and looking pretty sticky. Julie tells us there'll be a return of Pandora's Box and a "celebrity twist" on Sunday, a "special eviction" on Wednesday (they're all special, Julie), and the beginning of the final HoH battle on Thursday, setting the stage for the climax of every season: the final-two clip show. Can't wait for it all. And then we get to watch the already exhausted players slogging through the goop some more. I don't think they're all going to last 13 minutes, to be honest.
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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