Are there still seriously sixteen people in this house? Isn't that about ten too many?
We're reminded of how there will be three nominees each week -- two regular HoH nominees and one nominee named by the MVP, who doesn't have to reveal him or herself to anyone. This reminder takes the form of a flashback from Wednesday night of Julie claiming to the houseguests that MVP will be determined based on America's votes for "who is playing the best game," but Aaryn DRs that she figures she'll get it more than once, because she's already figured out that America's more likely to vote based on the hottest headshots and nobody's going to stop them.
In the living room after Julie's announcement, Jessie blares how this presents a bigger challenge for the HoH (McCrae this first week) than for anyone else. In fact, McCrae seems to agree. Andy DRs how the new MVP thing makes the game so much harder, because in the old days you could just suck up to the Head of Household, "And now you have to suck up to everybody!" Nightmare. How are these people supposed to get through the week without knowing to whom they can openly be jerks?
Jeremy and Judd lounge in what used to be the arcade room and speculate on how the girls are going to end up as MVPs, namely Kaitlin and Aaryn and GinaMarie and Jessie for being cute. So Jeremy DRs that he's got no strategic choice but to have a "snuggle-session" with every attractive lady in the house. Do what you need to do, champ. Or what they'll let you, as the case may be.
In the bathroom, Aaryn, Jessie, and Kaitlin are doing their makeup when Nick wanders past, lingering just long enough to make his inoffensive presence known but not enough to be creepy. After he's gone, they talk about Nick and the other guys and Kaitlin says they need to establish code names. For instance, idiot lifeguard David is "Ken," Nick is dubbed "Manhattan" and then "Big," and Jeremy is "The Sailor." Nobody will ever be able to crack any of these, I'm sure.
McCrae makes the first ceremonial invitation for everyone to see his HoH room. Someone remarks on the music cue that's probably playing at this point, which doesn't stop the editors from playing it. The HoH room has been redecorated in a cityscape theme, but McCrae promises everyone that he won't get "HoH-itis." They'll believe it when they see it. That segues into some serious mocking of former HoH Rachel and the famous "Floaters, better get a life vest " comment she made after a key HoH win a few years ago. Of course, few of them are aware that Rachel's sister is there in the room with them. "It's pretty weird," Elissa DRs. She knows that if people figures out she's Rachel's sister it'll make her a target. Which is a stupid reason to target her, so she's probably right.
McCrae makes the first ceremonial invitation for everyone to see his HoH room. Someone remarks on the music cue that’s probably playing at this point, which doesn’t stop the editors from playing it. The HoH room has been redecorated in a cityscape theme, but McCrae promises everyone that he won’t get “HoH-itis.” They’ll believe it when they see it. That segues into some serious mocking of former HoH Rachel and the famous “Floaters, better get a life vest ” comment she made after a key HoH win a few years ago. Of course, few of them are aware that Rachel’s sister is there in the room with them. “It’s pretty weird,” Elissa DRs. She knows that if people figures out she’s Rachel’s sister it’ll make her a target. Which is a stupid reason to target her, so she’s probably right.
Jeremy invites Nick out to the backyard for a hacky-sack session, which is of course just a pretext for strategizing. Nick speculates to Jeremy that Spencer and Howard could be good allies, unaware that those two have already made a secret alliance with Jeremy. He also mentions bringing in McCrae, probably because McCrae is HoH right now, but Jeremy just smugs in the DR about how alliances are coming right to him. Jeremy says they need a girl too, but Nick dismisses the entire gender as “floaters.” Aw, and when I was thinking I might not hate Nick.
So now Nick starts sitting down one at a time with his with his other recruits — Spencer and Howard — and finally approaches McCrae in the HoH room. Before Nick names any names, McCrae correctly guesses the entire rest of the alliance, so he’s clearly not out of the loop. Well, that, and he’s got a creepy monitor in his room that allows him to keep tabs on every corner of the house. After the other three join them in the HoH room, and Nick closes the deal for their team of five. Nick says David’s their only potential physical threat (so it looks like Judd’s “strategy” of “throwing” the HoH competition worked), and they discuss nominating two girls against each other. But of course all this is secondary to the real business of any alliance: its name. Spencer suggests the “Moving Company” since they’ll be moving people out of the house. And now I hate Spencer too.
David and Aaryn lounge on the hammock together. Aaryn asks David to keep her safe, and David’s only too happy to sign on, because he is an idiot and doesn’t seem to understand that an agreement generally goes two ways. Unless he just figures that his reward for doing all the work of keeping her of the block is continuing to get to look at her.
Meanwhile, in the bathroom, Jessie tells Amanda that she’s torn between Nick and Jeremy. “I’m like Bella, and it’s like Edward, and…” Shut the fuck up, Jessie. She wants Amanda to scope it out for her, and Amanda DRs that it’s “like being trapped with a little girl at a Justin Bieber concert.” Amanda does a pretty good job of not looking completely disgusted with Jessie to her face, though. Instead, she jokingly suggests Jessie sleep with McCrae, which is her subtle way of saying, “Shut the fuck up, Jessie.”
McCrae shows up in a scoutmaster uniform to announce the first Have/Have-Not competition of the summer. Everyone else grabs a different-colored bandana to divide into three teams of five (including Jeremy with his Never-Not pass, I guess to keep the teams even) and heads out into the back yard, which is all made up like a cheesy-ass KOA campground, only cheesier. McCrae is the host for the competition, which is called "Cooler and the Gang." As he explains it, houseguests from each of the three teams will need to take turns paddle across the fake pond on inner tubes, then jump into a dive-in cooler to retrieve a soda can from the freezing water. Then they'll bring it back across the pond and use it and subsequent cans to construct a pyramid of fifteen cans on a platform. The trickier part is that this board isn't a table, but a small square board with ropes at each corner. Each rope will need to be held by one teammate, which is where the teamwork (read: cause for drama) comes in. If the board tips and the pyramid collapses, they have to start over. What am I saying, "if"?
When the competition starts, Jeremy takes an early lead for the blue team, while Jessie races for the yellow team and Howard proves completely inept at navigating an inner tube for the red team. "Just because you have a body and you work out, it doesn't mean you're going to do great in every competition," DRs Howard, who also forgets to hold his breath when he dives into the cooler. So far he's not really living up to his reputation as a "physical threat." His Red team continues to fall behind, with Judd sucking as badly as Howard. As Judd explains, this is totally different from all the times he's paddled down rivers on an inner tube.
Meanwhile, over a the Yellow team's lane, Aaryn is completely goggle-eyed at the flexing of David's swimming muscles as he makes a run. Which is lucky for him, because it's not like he has anything going on above the neck. Also on the Yellow team, Kaitlin and Aaryn are getting frustrated with Candice and the way she's holding her rope, but the Red team is the first one to topple its pyramid. The Blue team (Spencer, Nick, GinaMarie, Amanda, and Jeremy) finishes first. Yellow is close behind, but when David tries to take Kaitlin's rope without getting into position first, their pyramid topples as well. "No one comes in between me and my hot shower," Elissa DRs for the Red team, as though she wants us to hate her as much as we hate her sister.
As the competition continues, Yellow (Aaryn, David, Candice, Jessie, and Kaitlin -- who pulls it out despite dropping what should have been the last can) comes in second. David's favorite part is how Aaryn jumped happily into his arms at the end. That leaves the Red team (Howard, Andy, Elissa, Judd, and Helen) as the Have-Not team for the week. So it's time to check out the new Have Not room, which is something that a lot of viewers can actually relate to: a fake airport departure gate, with no beds -- just rows of airplane seats that don't even recline. Oh, man, fuck that shit. I think the Have Nots will be sleeping on the floor most of this summer.
Outside that night, McCrae and some of the others are hanging out and snacking under blankets. Andy makes fun of Judd's paddling technique during the competition (Judd is not present, of course), and Amanda announces that she wants to vent, even though she's not the one who lost. Kaitlin is the one who vents, though, complaining about Candice's lack of team spirit during the competition and how "she's got to go." At this stage of the game, any reason is a good one to get rid of someone else. Or any other stage, really.
America's Vote! Don't worry, it's not anything exciting; just the usual alliterative but disgusting options for Have-Not meals. Wasn't there going to be something about an MVP? Has anyone actually voted for that?
After the ads, Amanda's visiting McCrae HoH to talk about nominations. She DRs about how she's doing this so it'll go the way she wants, while McCrae tells her that he wants the house to tell him what to do so they won't be mad at him. They discuss the safest way to play, and Amanda suggests that nobody likes Jessie. Plus she thinks Jessie has a better ass, which makes Amanda jealous. Jessie certainly is more of an ass.
McCrae's visitor is Elissa, who figures that her secret's coming out anyway, so she might as well come clean. She comes out and tells McCrae that she is "related" to Rachel. He actually kind of digs that, being a fan of the show and all, but he's worried that the house might screw him for not going after her.
Later David, Jessie, and Aaryn show up, basically just intimidating McCrae by lounging around all hot-looking in their swimsuits while they pitch their idea to nominate Elissa and, of all people, Helen. Aaryn is totally convinced about Elissa's relationship to Rachel, and pissed off that she'd think they're too stupid to figure it out. Aaryn also suspects that Elissa is in the house not as a regular player but as some kind of mole or saboteur, prompting every person in the control room to smack their heads and say, "Why didn't we think of that?" McCrae DRs he wants to do what the house wants, "but the bottom line is, I gotta play this game for me." I think he only came to that conclusion after realizing that the house doesn't seem to know what it wants.
So what counts the most, of course, is what the "Moving Company" wants. Specifically Nick, its self-appointed leader. He takes McCrae aside in the former arcade room and says the safest move is to ding two girls. As far as specific individuals, he doesn't really care, even when McCrae says Elissa's got "Rachel blood." "Let's just start moving bods," whispers Nick, to whom everything without a Y chromosome is apparently an undifferentiated mass of protoplasm.
We don't even bother with the time-wasting filler of McCrae pondering his impending nominations in voice-over -- he just calls the nomination ceremony. Everyone gathers around the dining room table and McCrae hauls the giant key box out. He starts the key-pulling, and the first safe person is Nick. Way to keep that alliance secret, Mac. Nick pulls the key (Jeremy), and the rest of the people who are safe this week are Jeremy, David, Aaryn, Kaitlin, GinaMarie, Elissa, Helen, Amanda, Andy, Howard, Spencer, and finally Judd. Damn, that went on forever. Are there still people left after that endless litany of names? Well, yes; Candice and Jessie are the nominees. McCrae gives them both some lying, unoriginal flattery, telling Candice he wants her to play for the Veto and Jessie that she's "socially savvy," which nobody believes but Jessie. It doesn't placate her, however, as she promises in the DR to win PoV and come after McCrae. Elissa's relieved, despite the fact that her persecution complex seems to be germinating nicely, and Candice is already crying in the DR, saying she plans to win. McCrae says his only goal was to nominate unpopular people and let the MVP do the dirty work. Whoever that ends up being. We'll find out Tuesday. If anyone cares.
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.