The racism disclaimer is back, either because there'll be clips of bigoted behavior from the past week edited into tonight's show, or because God knows what Aaryn or Spencer or someone else will say on live TV. After it's over, Julie tells us that Jeremy, Aaryn and Spencer each thought they controlled the house last week and now one of them will be leaving tonight. The downside -- and it's a big one -- is that it will only be one of them.
After the previouslies recounting the long and winding road leading to Jeremy's replacement nomination last night, Julie's back in the studio to tell us that it's been an "eye-opening" week. As opposed to most weeks that put us to sleep. There's a flashback to Kaitlin's PoV ceremony shown last night, in which she Vetoed herself and HoH Helen nominated Jeremy in her place, per the plan for the week. Helen is way too excited about this in the Diary Room, saying Jeremy's been the biggest bully in the house and unbeatable in the competitions. Aaryn decides she might have to kiss some butts after all, and Kaitlin is filled with mixed feelings over Jeremy being safe instead of her. Then she kisses him on the cheek, leaving a lipstick brand on his cheek that he proudly wears into the DR. Or he ignorantly wears it in there -- one of the two.
Aaryn and Jeremy are alone in one of the rooms bitching about their current poor fortunes, which Aaryn says are due to the fact that "people hate people who are good at things" and "who are cute." No, Aaryn, it's not that complicated; people hate assholes. Jeremy decides to show people his "softer side," and takes a literal approach to this. By which I mean he puts on the diaper and baby bonnet GinaMarie had to wear while hosting last week's PoV competition and parades around looking like an idiot. Remember when he said he was going to walk out with his head held high? So much for that. Amanda DRs that she was glad Jeremy was campaigning instead of looking to breastfeed (with a look down at her own girls). Indeed, when he approaches McCrae and Amanda and Judd, he makes a pitch for getting to stay and play for them. All I know is that if a six-foot-plus man in a diaper came that close to me, I'd agree to whatever he wanted to make him go away.
Aaryn, meanwhile, is trying to win people over by sharing some of her favorite workout moves. Well, that's not all; she's also transparently sucking up to people every chance she gets. Obviously no one buys it for a minute, except possibly Judd, who tells her she's been a lot easier to be around the past few days. She agrees that it's really hard for her to be nice, and thus feels she deserves to be acknowledged for it. Well, congratulations, Aaryn, on managing to nearly suppress most of the shitty behaviors that are your default responses to almost every situation. Good job being less of a dick.
But of course it can't last. Later, Aaryn joins a group of people that includes her former archenemies McCrae and Amanda as they all complain about GinaMarie's increasing fetishizing of a few items Nick left behind. Since these are things like a hat, a mug and a box of cereal, it's even more ridiculous than it sounds. So they decide to hide some of the stuff from GinaMarie just to mess with her. Amanda's the one who actually does it, but they're all on board. Sure enough, when she returns to her dresser and immediately finds the precious items missing, she starts asking the others where they are getting all disproportionately weepy over their disappearance. Aaryn, of course, denies everything louder than anyone else. After GinaMarie leave the room, Amanda takes pity on her -- ignoring Aaryn's advice to just keep going with it, despite how much it's clearly upsetting one of her few remaining friends in the house -- and brings her back to her room to return the stuff. Aaryn tells GinaMarie, "I didn't do it," which technically she didn't -- she was just the one who wanted to push it further. She DRs how GinaMarie's crying ruined the entire joke and it's impossible to have any fun in this house. In the aftermath, McCrae and Aaryn talk about how mean Aaryn really is, and McCrae decides that he actually wants her out. Way to ingratiate yourself with the house, there, Aaryn. Out of curiosity, do you ever wish you had a soul?
Jeremy figures he's got a mere two votes locked: Kaitlin and GinaMarie. To try to rack up more, he goes to Helen and Elissa to make a case for himself, promising to never go against them again. Yes… look how well having Jeremy on their side worked out for the Moving Company. He even agrees to put up Kaitlin and Aaryn if that's what Helen and Elissa want. Helen demands a change in Jeremy's attitude, which he promises to deliver. "I'm growing more in this house than I've grown in three years outside this house." He wants one week to show his arrogance is gone. Helen and Elissa don't seem entirely closed off to the possibility. Which I would normally be horrified by, but on the other hand it increases the chances of Aaryn going home tonight.
Back in real time, Julie gets on the living room viewscreen with the houseguests for the group Chenterview. She starts with Elissa, who is enjoying her first week of not being nominated. Julie asks Candice how things are now after all the drama earlier this week, and Candice says they've moved on. She then asks Kaitlin about her heart-wrenching PoV, about which Kaitlin says, "This too shall pass." Julie then asks Howard about his Christian beliefs conflicting with his gameplay, and he says his conscience is better now. Like he's going to say anything else.
Someone has decided to get the reaction of Amanda's and McCrae's families to their relationship. In the northern suburbs of Minneapolis, McCrae's family watches from home and his dad talks proudly about how his son scored someone not just out of his league, but out of his sport. His mom is even more surprised, watching a clip of Amanda inviting McCrae to move to Florida and become her trophy wife. Meanwhile, in Florida, Amanda's parents talk about how she's dated a lot and usually gets what she wants. McCrae's parents don't disagree. Amanda's mom hopes McCrae is secretly a CEO, and we see some clips of Amanda and McCrae in bed, both of them wondering why she likes him. They're not the only ones.
The voting is about to start, preceded by the nominee speeches. Jeremy starts it out, saying they all know what's about to happen. Jeremy insists he's a champion when "I eat, sleep and poop." Julie calls TMI and tosses it to Aaryn, who stands up styled for the Oscars and thanks everyone for allowing her to be here. Spencer gives a shout-out to his homies and hopes for it to continue. Well, those speeches removed all possible suspense, didn't they? But let's go through this anyway. Candice is the first to go to the DR to vote, and she votes to evict Jeremy. So do Andy, Howard and Jeremy. Kaitlin votes to evict Spencer, for all the good it's going to do her. Even GinaMarie votes to evict Jeremy, as does Amanda, maturely calling him "Germy" to Julie That's enough to boot Jeremy, but McCrae also votes him out for eating the last pizza in the house. Jessie evicts "my fellow Texan, Jeremy." So does Judd, in case anyone cares what Judd does.
Julie comes back after the ads and tells us the vote was 9-0-1 for Jeremy leaving. Then she tells the houseguests, beginning with the news that Aaryn got zero votes and concluding that Jeremy's nine votes mean he's evicted. He hugs everyone goodbye, kissing Kaitlin goodbye last and heading out. Nobody seems nearly as upset as they were last week, including Jeremy. Even Kaitlin's holding it together pretty well. Out in the studio, Julie asks Jeremy whether his cockiness led to his being here. Jeremy admits it and says he just can't help being a winner. Well, the important thing is that he's learned something. Julie points out that Mister Winner Winner Chicken Dinner just lost the game, but Jeremy says he's changed a lot in the house, largely thanks to Kaitlin. Julie mentions that some people in the house considered him a bully. Jeremy says he's not really like that, but comes off that way due to his size and intimidating appearance. "I got an amazing profile," he sighs ruefully. Julie brings up his comment about having grown, and he says he's had to see things from a different perspective as a result of being stuck in a house with sixteen crazy people. Too bad for him he never did anything about it.
In the farewell messages, McCrae blames Jeremy for his arrogance. Elissa says she's glad he's gone. Helen says she's sorry he's gone and could have won if he'd been who he was during the last few days. Kaitlin says he's her best friend in the house but can't wait to see him again. And Jeremy agrees, telling Julie that he hopes Kaitlin doesn't forget about him. Since he didn't say anything about me, I'm going to start working on that right now.Apparently someone behind the scenes has agreed with me that it's starting to get boring watching Elissa be the MVP every week, so Julie tells us that the MVP is already chosen. It's the player we all know as… Aaaamerica. Yes, we get to pick the third nominee by voting. But what if the HoH nominates someone we already picked? I guess they'll figure that out when it inevitably gets screwed up, like the whole MVP concept already has. Actually, the announcer goes on to say that the HoH can't be nominated and if a nominee gets the most votes then the MVP nominee is the non-nominated person with the highest number of votes. I'm surprised someone actually thought of that in advance. That shows an uncharacteristic amount of foresight for this show.
Time for the HoH competition. It's another game show one, with outgoing HoH Helen off to the side, sitting on a throne and wearing a crown. Julie explains that America has been voting on different houseguests to fit random royalty-style titles. For the first question, is the Earl of Egotism Aaryn or Jessie? Everyone gets that right, including Aaryn, because obviously it's her. Would the Lord of Laziness be Judd or McCrae? Most people guess McCrea save Andy, Amanda, Candice and Elissa, so those four are out. Nice try, Amanda. Should the Baron of Boneheads be Spencer or GinaMarie? Everyone goes with GinaMarie on that, including herself. Everyone correctly guesses that the Knight of Naughtiness, between Amanda or Kaitlin. For the fifth question -- should the Duke of Dork be called Andy or Helen -- the votes are actually split on that, and Aaryn and Jessie are out. That leaves Judd, Kaitlin, Howard, McCrea and Spencer to answer the last question: should the Sultan of Sexy be Elissa or Howard? Judd, Kaitlin and McCrae guess Elissa and get it right. Sorry, Howard, you are both wrong and widely considered to be less sexy than Elissa.
So the final three have to guess how many gallons of milk it would take to fill all three of the big vats that Howard, McCrae and Spencer had to stand in for this week's Have-Not competition. Judd guesses 650, Amanda 410 and McCrae 600. Turns out the correct answer is higher than all of those, so Judd's the new HoH. Helen runs over and puts the crown on his head. Wait, who's Judd again?
Coming back, Julie gets on the living room viewscreen with the reassembled houseguests and congratulates Judd for being HoH. She reminds him he'll be nominating two people for eviction this week, and a "secret MVP" will be making a third nomination. "But this week," she adds, "you just might want to expect the unexpected." Well, now she's gone and told them, hasn't she? She wraps it up with the usual lengthy pitch of all available Big Brother-related content that will be available to us over the week, and tonight's eavesdropping sequence is a lot less intense than last week's. Everyone seems to be relaxed and happy and not at all worried about what Julie just hinted at. There's just one thing: Judd should probably take off the crown now.
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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