McKayla is Not Impressed, and We Don't Blame Her

S14E27

Julie welcomes us to the studio, telling us that since it's Wednesday, "the houseguests have no idea that I'm here." Unless, like me, they assume Julie lives there, only venturing over to The Talk set for limited intervals. The point, though, is that there's going to be a surprise eviction tonight. Welcome to Calvinball! I mean, Big Brother.

We're down to five houseguests: Jenn and the surviving four members of the Quack Pack, who are Dan, Ian, Shane, and Danielle. Ian nominated Jenn and, against all reason, Shane opposite her rather than Dan. Julie comes back to tell us it's Day 68, and we see inside the house, where everyone's just hanging out doing nothing (live!) until Julie calls them all into the living room from the viewscreen. They all rush in, distinctly un-camera-ready, Shane pausing to put on his pants. That fire drill was just pretext for Julie to let them know that there's going to be a live eviction tonight. She cuts them loose to scamper around trying to prepare while she gives us an additional recap of the last week's worth of stuff we already know from the previouslies.

Back to the past once again, showing a flashback of Ian's nomination meeting. Jenn Diary-Rooms her amazement at Dan once again failing to get nominated, Shane confidently DR's that he's the pawn, and Danielle is much less confident of same. Dan is just happy to be safe and in position to take another crack at Shane, who still thinks he's his ally.

After the meeting, Jenn tries to freeze Dan out, which is just what he wants; her acting upset sells the idea that Shane's the pawn, plus he gets to earn her trust by bucking her up and promising to be on her side. He ends up getting a hug and everything.

Later, Danielle and Jenn talk about Shane's reaction to his nomination. Danielle steers this into more moaning about her moribund showmance, as one might expect, but she actually has some strategy in mind, helping fool Jenn into thinking Shane's doomed. I think that might have been an actual slick move on Danielle's part.

The veto competition is set up. It's a puzzle race, but with a couple of nice wrinkles. One is that it involves two platforms. One platform holds the vertical puzzle space, and the other holds a button they'll have to hit, which will magnetize their puzzle board for twenty seconds. Of course this means they'll have to swing back and forth to hit their button every fifteen seconds or so, or all their progress will be lost. If that happens, they have only ten seconds to hit the button again or they're out of the game entirely. Not bad. The other nice wrinkle is that the puzzle is a mosaic of melting Salvador Dali clocks, which as an added bonus, Ian correctly identifies in the DR. First person to finish their puzzle and hit their buttons one last time wins not only PoV, but a "special luxury prize." Sure, we know what that is from tonight's preview, but I don't recap the previews.

But then, coming back from the last ad break, Julie reminds us that it's really all about the PoV at this point, which we'll see tomorrow before another live eviction. The finale's a week from tonight at 9:30 Eastern, and dare I hope that not only is there no pointless clip show on Sunday, but a half-hour finale? Could any of us be so fortunate?

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.

Shane is hoping to win to protect himself, Dan is hoping to win to get rid of Shane, Ian is hoping to win to get rid of Jenn and keep the Quack Pack together to the bitter end, as though Dan has any intention of letting that happen, and Jenn is of course just hoping to save her ass. The competition begins, and there are widely divergent strategies. Shane is trying to solve his puzzle in the provided tray, Dan's trying to solve his in his head from the greater distance of his button platform, Ian keeps running out of time, and Danielle is whining about how much harder this is than a regular old puzzle on the ground.

The clock totally defeats Ian, who forgets about the ten-second grace period and gets eliminated while he's just standing there. Boy genius, indeed. But now he's free to kibitz from his own button platform, giving Shane some much-needed coaching. And that's what it takes to get Shane the PoV win, which is heralded with a bell and all the other players' puzzles falling down. Shane happily DRs about his fourth PoV win after a long break, but he's in the final four and looking forward to the luxury competition. Back in the studio, Julie obviouses that Shane will save himself, but the question is who will replace him on the block. Well, we know it'll be someone whose name begins with a Dan.

Okay, so the show has been teasing the appearance of the U.S. Women's Gymnastics team all episode, I might as well tell you (since Julie just did). Shane gathers everyone into the living room to read a card hinting at how the Veto winner gets to meet some people from one of the summer's biggest events, and announcing that he gets to pick one houseguest to bring along. Shane picks Danielle, and the thing we see is the two of them all dressed up, getting into a limo in the CBS backlot, and being excited to see such exotic sights of the outside world like cars and strangers.

Soon they arrive at an arena, where they find the green room and Danielle reads a card about the Fierce Five. The gymnasts come in, and it appears to be actually them, even though it could have been any five teenage girls in matching warm-up suits holding boxes of Corn Flakes and neither Shane nor Danielle would be any the wiser. As is shown when they have to introduce themselves to the houseguests. Shane and Danielle dodge the question as to whether the two of them are dating (which even the teenagers in the room realize means no), and Shane asks if they know the show and who's their favorite. "You," deadpans McKayla Maroney, even though she is clearly not impressed. Especially when Shane compares Big Brother to gymnastics.

By M. Giant

They all pose for a group photo making McKayla's famous "not impressed" face together before Shane and Danielle get to watch what looks like a dress rehearsal of their show from the suite level. They don't even get seats? They snuggle in the limo on the way back to the house in the dark, and Danielle is loving the date, not least because Shane is actually acting like her boyfriend for once. They share a quick kiss in the back of the limo, but it stops faaaar short of No Way Out. Then they get to go back to the house with their promotional towels and Corn Flakes and tell everyone else about it. Some of the other houseguests are not impressed.

Dan pretends to have been bereft without Danielle in the house, hoping to confirm their alliance, but after their "date," Danielle is torn between her head and her heart when it comes to Dan and Shane. Or her head and something lower than her heart, as the case may be.

Shane contemplates the memory wall, looking absolutely adorbs in his pink shirt tucked into plaid shorts, saying he's got to look out for himself, even though his replacement nominee will have to be a fellow Quack Packer. Dan is hoping Ian will put up Danielle in Shane's place, making Dan a lock for the final four. Shane calls the Veto meeting and saves himself, then calls upon Ian to pick the replacement nominee. Who is, believe it or not, Danielle. So much for the Veto meeting. Then we're back live, and Julie asks us from the studio whether it'll be Danielle or Jenn going home. Then there's an interminable America's Vote segment telling us we can text our vote for America's Favorite Houseguest, who will win $25,000. Fifteen is a lot of numbers to have to sit through on TV, y'all. Fifteen? Yeah, there's no mention of Willie whatsoever. I guess because they have to give the others a chance at the prize.

She marches out high-fiving the audience and hugging Julie in the studio. Julie asks Jenn why she's out here instead of Danielle, and Jenn actually blames herself for not winning the PoV rather than going on about what a threat she is. Not that Danielle won the PoV either, mind you. Julie charitably calls Jenn's game "low-key" up until the point when she saved Dan. Jenn maintains that she has no regrets, and figured if she couldn't beat Dan (which she couldn't), she had to join him (which she also couldn't). Julie remembers that Jenn has been on slop for the last four weeks, and presents her with the oh-so-luxurious post-eviction feast of a PB&J on a plate, which Jenn tucks right into in front of God and everybody. Good for her, man. I mean, at this point, who gives a shit?

Back from the ads, Julie tells us that the houseguests got some pictures of their time in the house so far, which brings us to tonight's HoH competition. The photography theme allows Julie to make an auto-advance pun about the final three that even she may not be aware of, just as a bonus. In the backyard, which has a photo-shoot theme, Ian's sitting in the art director's seat on the sidelines while Dan, Shane, and Danielle are standing on the old, familiar True/False rings, separated from each other by high dividers. Julie explains that they'll be asked seven true-or-false questions about the photos they saw earlier, and the one with the most points at the end gets to be the new HoH. After the usual tiebreaker, presumably.

Anyway, we never saw these photos before now, and the details Julie's asking about are so banal as to force the players to straight-up guess at the answers, so there's no need to describe them. Everyone gets the first question right and scores a point. Same with the second one, but Dan's the only one to get the third question wrong. Only Danielle gets the fourth one wrong, so Shane's in the lead. At least until the question, which only answers correctly, leading to a three-way tie. Which becomes a two-way tie when Dan and Danielle get the penultimate question right, meaning they go into the last question neck and neck. And of course they all get the last one right, so we're going to a tiebreaker, as usual.

Shane's out, but Dan and Danielle have to grab their boards to guess how many seconds the "Time Flies" PoV competition took. I don't know, but I've noticed a lot of bandaged fingers in the house since it happened. Dan guesses 626 and Danielle 155, but the correct answer is 584. Yes, Dan was closer, but he went over, so Danielle is the new HoH. Bye, Ian!

By M. Giant