Julie's all in black with a miniature flat screen TV hanging from her neck as she says it's now all about the Power of Veto. Leave it to Adam to win the most useless HoH of the entire game. Only four players left: Porsche, Jordan, Adam and Rachel. I love it when there are so few names left in the credits.
Julie says it's Day 69 with an admirably straight face, which is tested even further when she says Adam is a lock for the final three. We'll soon see his final nominations, and then the final PoV competition will be played and the winner of that will get to pick who goes home. But first, Julie says, "Adam can no longer follow the power; he is the power." Even that's giving him too much credit.
Flashback to Rachel breaking the tie to evict Kalia last night. Porsche says she doesn't have an alliance, and Adam proved that he's "with Rachel and Jordan," who will both now take him to the final two, right? I can only assume that's what he's thinking. Jordan explains from the Diary Room her vote to keep Kalia: it was a "strategic move" to secure Kalia's jury vote, as if there's anything Jordan can do to change who Kalia would vote for in the final two at this point. And Rachel's kind of annoyed with Jordan for forcing Rachel to get blood on her hands, so I totally read that wrong last night.
Flashback to Adam winning last night's HoH for the first time. Porsche is hoping Adam won't nominate her, which is completely insane. And Jordan is regretting not winning, which is completely unsurprising.
"Who wants to see my HoH room?!" Adam metal-roars. The girls coo over his picture of his girlfriend and the one with Tori Spelling, as well as his bacon-themed HoH basket that includes such goodies as gummy bacon and bacon bandages. I have a bacon-loving metalhead friend who has most of that stuff. Because I bought it for him.
It's Nomination Day, and instead of watching the HoH pensively contemplate the memory wall, we get to watch him invite lucky, lucky Porsche to help him carry his shoes up to his new room. This makes Jordan and Rachel a bit nervous. Porsche asks him how he feels, and Adam says it's the best week to be HoH, by which I assume he means that his nominations are going to be as close to meaningless as it's possible for them to be. Adam and Porsche both say it would be nice to have two newbies in the final two chairs, and she reminds him that Jordan just won two years ago, so there's that.
In comes Rachel, who DRs unhappily about having to "kiss a floater's butt." Which she does, which makes Adam feel all awesome about the "three beautiful women" coming to him wanting stuff. I question his math. When Jordan comes up, she's the first person Adam says he might nominate. He won't commit to keeping Jordan or Rachel, and she's disgusted at the possibility that Porsche might undeservedly make it to the final two. Indeed, Jordan DRs about how Porsche gets her way by being charming and cute. You know, unlike Jordan. She guilt-trips Adam, who just stammers until she stomps out. Even as HoH, he can't intimidate sweet ol' Jordan.
Nomination Day again, and Adam belatedly contemplates the memory wall. Jordan DRs that she doesn't trust Adam. Rachel says Adam's a "wild card," when in fact he's more like the instruction card that shows up too late in the game to not mess anything up. Porsche is just hoping that Adam recognizes his need to be up against a newbie at the end. And Adam VOs about needing to make the right decision.
Adam convenes the nomination ceremony, fetching the ladies from a bedroom instead of the backyard as usual. Once they're all in the kitchen with the nearly empty key box, Adam pulls one key -- and it's Rachel's. He tells them he's giving Porsche and Jordan the chance to save themselves like Rachel has done for herself in the past. "Good speech," Rachel says, because she loves a speech that is all about how awesome she is. Even she can't believe she's not nominated, but she's still motivated to win the Veto. And Adam blowhards, "If you want to be in the final three, you have to earn it." Like Adam has.
Casting notice for season, which is the kind of thing that fills me with despair. Because it means there's going to be a season.
Time for the PoV competition, which has a jukebox theme. Each player gets a game board with ten clues on each side, referring to one houseguest. They also get a set of blocks with a different houseguest's name on each side. They have to stack the blocks between the columns of clues so the correct answer is to each clue. First one to get it right wins the last PoV. Rachel wants to win it so she can go to the final three, and Porsche knows it's her last chance to stay in the game.
The competition begins, and Adam is confident of victory. Porsche's strategy is to stage them on the ground before stacking them; that way, in case she screws up, she doesn't have to waste time unstacking. Probably her smartest decision of the summer. Jordan's totally vapor-locking this, of course. Porsche gets all her blocks stacked, but when she hits her button, she gets the "wrong" buzzer. We can see that she only got one wrong because the producers helpfully highlighted the fourth one down on the screen, but she doesn't know that. She starts unstacking again. The others get pretty motivated at someone having buzzed in already, but Porsche fixes her mistake quickly enough to buzz in again before anyone else -- and get it correct this time, so she's got the PoV, and a guaranteed spot in the final three. Suck on that, Jordan. But it's Rachel who cries in the DR. Jordan just says her own chances are looking slim.
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Afterward, Jordan tells a still-crying Rachel that she, Jordan, is the one who deserves to go home after losing all these competitions. Porsche encounters them while Rachel's still losing her shit and gives her a quick hug before letting the two vets go on their way. Jordan is so convinced that Rachel deserves the win more than she does that she tries to convince Rachel to throw her under the bus. "If you get to the final two you will win," she insists. I just got a chill.
Rachel takes Porsche aside to make a case for taking her to the final three, mainly by kissing her ass. Porsche thinks Rachel would bring her to the final two, but also thinks that she herself is more likely to win a jury vote against Jordan. Okay, good luck with that. Nobody's ever won a jury vote against Jordan before.
Final veto meeting. Julie gets on the living room viewscreen with the final four and tells Porsche to make her decision. Porsche doesn't have any trouble deciding to de-nominate herself. Rachel switches seats with her, so it's veteran against veteran. Julie invites Rachel to be the first to address Porsche. Rachel starts by sucking up to Adam and Jordan instead, then turns to Porsche and stumbles on her words while trying to say that she voted to keep Porsche, and so she hopes to stay. Jordan stands and says she knows she's going home, and gives compliments all around, talking about how wonderful Adam and Rachel both are and then telling Porsche, "I know you love wearing bikinis and you love to host competitions." After a quick shout-out to the folks at home (and the one in the jury box), she sits down. Time for Porsche to make her decision, and she evicts Jordan. And after such a heartfelt appeal, too. [Note: And she didn't even get to wear her eviction dress! -- RS.]
Jordan heads out for her first exit Chenterview, leaving Adam, Rachel and Porsche as the final three in the house. "Very surreal," Rachel says, but she's talking about Jordan's picture on the memory wall going monochrome and not what I'm thinking about, which is who the final three are.
Out in the studio, Julie asks Jordan why Porsche voted her out. Jordan admits she "never talked to that girl," so she's not surprised. And furthermore, it was too late to start sucking up on Day 69. Julie brings up Shelly's "betrayal," and asks if she learned anything from it. Jordan basically says she let her guard down. "Even if you're a mom, you still can't trust a mom." Julie asks why Jordan pretty much gave up in the last few days, and Jordan admits that Rachel won a bunch of competitions, and that as a team, they balance each other out in terms of competitions (at which Jordan sucks) versus social game (at with Rachel sucks). So now Jordan says she's going back to school and the salon. "Same old thing." As if she never won half a million dollars at all.
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Farewell messages. Porsche says she couldn't risk taking Jordan into the final three, with her bonds with Rachel and Adam. Adam pathetically sucks up to her, and Rachel apologizes to her for not being able to "save us." She talks about their boyfriends' "bromance" and their "chickmance" and tells her to go to the jury house proudly. Well, Jeff will be happy to see her. Sort of.
Reminder of America's Vote for $25,000 to go to the favorite houseguest. I'm thinking it's not going to be Shelly.
The Final HoH competition is about begin. I just can't get enough of the word "final." The final three are standing on small platforms on what looks like a giant mixer, over a big pool of yellow water. It's going to be one of those "last person standing" things, which means Rachel is going to win it, and get to the final two, and test Jordan's prediction. But for now, we just get to watch them spin for a bit. After a minute, there's a blast of colored spooge from somewhere off-camera, and Julie sends us to commercial while the still-whirling platform is slowly being lowered into the pool until the contestants are about knee-deep. Which is symbolic of this whole season, somehow.
When we come back from the ads, they're all still up there, which is an unprecedented feat of endurance for Adam. Julie reminds us that the live finale airs at 9:30 on Wednesday, when there'll be a final HoH, a reunion of all the houseguests (including Evel Dick, dammit), and the determination of the winner. We go out watching them still spinning around, still knee-deep in the pool. Props to Adam for making it all the way through the credits, at least.
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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