We're starting roughly where we left off on Thursday, with the barrel-walking endurance competition for HoH already underway. Howard's two closest allies, Spencer and Candice, each Diary-Room about how they're alone in the house now that Howard is gone. Too bad they hate each other. Amanda is glad to see Howard gone, but I can't imagine what her purpose is going to be now that she's finally accomplished her entire life's one goal. On Day 42, with eleven people are left in the house. Spencer DRs that he would have liked to vote to evict Amanda, but there are some bridges even he won't burn. We flash back to the moments between the eviction and the beginning of the HoH competition, when it was all hugging and mending fences. Supposedly.
Seventeen minutes into the competition, everyone's still in it. Helen is struggling, but McCrae's coasting, claiming that he's got carny blood. Which explains a lot. The cylinders themselves are starting to lose their covering where the players have been walking on them, so, top-notch equipment there. At some point the cylinders speed up, then after a while they come to a brief stop and reverse the direction of rotation so that everyone has to walk backwards. Spencer quickly loses his balance, then angrily and deliberately smashes his bull's head into his china cabinet.
Candice drops shortly thereafter, figuring (incorrectly) that Spencer was her only real threat and that she doesn't have to worry. Helen is the to fall, hard, and then down go Elissa and Amanda. With his allies dropping, McCrae becomes more motivated to hang on. 32 minutes in, there are still five people up there, until Judd loses. And then so does Andy, but when his bull's head fails to hit his china cabinet, he pushes it over with his hand. So the destruction of the china must be, like, a rule or something. Andy doesn't seem like the type to smash things out of spite. Also, who cut Andy's hair recently? It looks pretty good.
Outgoing HoH Aaryn reminds the houseguests (and me, because I had forgotten) that the first three people to fall got to open the boxes waiting nearby. As the first to drop, Spencer opens the first box, which turns out to contain a bullhorn. And everything he says, from now until after the nomination ceremony, must be spoken through this bullhorn. That's actually pretty funny, in a house where private conversation is often at a premium. "GOOD JOB, GUYS!" he bullhorns to the remaining players. Candice opens the box, which contains the five thousand dollars. The third box tells Helen that there's going to be a barbecue in the backyard for her and three houseguests of her choice. Considering she was expecting the unitard, she's pretty excited. That'll go away.
Jessie is the to fall, leaving GinaMarie and McCrae up there alone. She starts making offers to McCrae if he'll let go. McCrae is not making any deals, though.
We come back from the ads with the two of them still at it, 59 minutes in. The competition is continuing, with people on the sidelines rooting discreetly for their allies. They're less discreet about it in the DR -- especially Spencer, who even has to use the bullhorn in there. GinaMarie wants her hair dye pretty badly, and the more she talks about it, the more her roots are showing. She offers to let McCrae pick one of her nominees if he lets her win, but he refuses to give in. Instead, he ultimately falls and his cabinet goes crashing down, without his having secured any kind of assurances from GinaMarie. She's beyond thrilled, as is her closest remaining ally is Aaryn, but reactions among the rest of the house are mixed, because nobody quite knows what she's going to do. But everyone pretends to be happy for her after the competition, because she's the HoH now, after all. Especially Helen, who realizes that she's got to be nice if she wants to continue running the house. Unlike some people.
Later, Amanda tries to assure McCrae that they'll be fine, but McCrae has reasonable concerns that this might be the time when GinaMarie and Aaryn decide to make a move. Unlike Amanda, he knows enough about the game to realize that when things are going well, that usually means they're about to come crashing down.
Spencer tries to start a private conversation with Amanda, which of course is impossible with a bullhorn amplifying his every word. He jokingly says Andy's , and mimes to Amanda a question about whether they're good. Which they are, for now. They even DR independently of each other that their truce is sincere. So it must be true.
GinaMarie and Aaryn are already talking about their plans for the week, and they both decide that Candice has to go. Because of Candice's annoying voice, the drama Candice causes, and the way Candice picks on Aaryn. And no, I didn't get Aaryn and Candice's names reversed in that paragraph.
GinaMarie invites everyone up to her HoH room in a voice that drowns out even Spencer's bullhorn. Her accoutrements include a picture of her with Nick from inside the house, which only she is happy to see. The hair dye is there as wall, as Andy DRs about all the crap for 15-year-olds in 32-year-old GinaMarie's room. Which doesn't explain GinaMarie's 50-year-old voice.
Helen, Jessie, Judd, and Spencer hang around talking about the barbecue Helen won for herself and three other houseguests. Helen hasn't decided on the third person, but says she's inviting her closest ally Elissa, and Aaryn. Jessie wonders why Aaryn of all people gets an invite, and Helen explains that it's for keeping up her end of the deal last week. Just then Aaryn steps inside just long enough to make everyone uncomfortable, then reports this to Andy, Amanda, McCrae, and GinaMarie, talking about how awkward it was to walk in on this conversation. But then they get to experience it for themselves when Jessie walks in and a brand-new awkward silence falls.
Later, Jessie is complaining to Amanda and McCrae about Aaryn's invitation. Andy joins them as Amanda points out to Jessie that Helen wanted to reward Aaryn for her obedience, but Jessie isn't willing to let it go. As though Jessie would be on the list anyway. I'm not sure Jessie is even in her own top three. In the DR, Amanda points out the hypocrisy of Jessie complaining about disloyalty: "Just sit there, shut up, and look semi-pretty."
But Jessie is not prepared to let it go, and continues complaining to Amanda about all the "fakeness" in the house, just because she might not get to go to a party. But since Amanda happens to already know all about a campaign Jessie joined to flip the house on Amanda the night before eviction -- which we see unfold in a high-speed montage of flashbacks, including Andy reporting Jessie's overtures to her and McCrae -- she calls Jessie on it. They eventually end up in a shouting match, until Jessie gets up to stomp into the Diary Room. Amanda goes to tell some of the others about Jessie's shit-fit over the barbecue, to which Helen shrugs that Jessie can just have the third spot if she's going to cry about it. Which, in the DR, Jessie is literally doing.
It falls to McCrae to follow up with Jessie on this, lecturing her about timing and diplomacy and her current lack of credibility on matters of loyalty. He insists that he and Amanda don't control anything; they just pick their battles wisely. Andy joins the conversation, as does Amanda in her underwear, and Amanda ends up yelling at Jessie. As is often the case, they're arguing about two different things, with Amanda telling Jessie she blew it and Jessie protesting that she wanted to make a game move. What Jessie doesn't get is that this isn't a game where you make moves just because; they're risky enough that people only attempt them when they have to, or when they know exactly what they're doing, which Jessie never does.
Neither woman is coming off great here. Jessie is both denying having done anything wrong and maintaining that she had good reasons for doing it, while Amanda refuses to content herself with beating the much weaker Jessie and insists on destroying her. Amanda tells Jessie that she's blown it for herself and calls her attention-seeking. Jessie retorts, "You're in your underwear!" Jessie calls her a bitch, which Amanda doesn't exactly prove her wrong about when Amanda tells her she's all by herself and will be going home this week. McCrae looks like he'd rather be delivering pizzas, probably because Amanda just totally undercut his earlier claim about picking their battles.
Later, McCrae tells Amanda that she didn't exactly make herself look good with that outburst, and wants her to smooth things over. She's pissed that McCrae doesn't have her back, but he's worried that she's making herself a bigger target, and him in turn. "I'M JUST GONNA BRUSH MY TEETH AND GET OUT OF HERE," Spencer says when he comes in. Thanks for cutting the tension, Spencer's megaphone.
The day, Jessie goes to GinaMarie and points out that since Candice is the target this week, GinaMarie will probably not want to put Jessie up to her and risk sending Jessie home instead of Candice, given Amanda's influence in the house. Which is actually a pretty smart argument. In fact, that may be the second most astute thing I've heard Jessie say, after "You're in your underwear!" The question is whether this logic is too convoluted for GinaMarie to follow.
There isn't much DRing before the nomination ceremony -- just GinaMarie talking about how she has the power. After everyone is gathered around the table, GinaMarie starts pulling keys, and of course the first person to be safe is Aaryn. Also safe are Helen, McCrae, Judd, Amanda, Elissa, Spencer, and "ANDY." So the nominees are Candice and Jessie after all. GinaMarie questions Candice's "loyalty" and calls her a "tattletale," a "drama queen," and a "rat," none of which make any sense, and goes on so long that the music cue has to be paused while some of the houseguests crack up right there at the table.
She goes on to tell Jessie that she's a flip-flopper, which GinaMarie thinks is worse, while the church giggles spread around the table. Candice DRs about her shocked reaction to GinaMarie's wild accusations, but says she'll play it cool. As long as Spencer doesn't join in, presumably. Speaking of whom, Spencer DRs that he's glad to be safe, and Jessie says that people will respect her for standing up to people. That always wins people the half-million, too. As for Amanda, she has her new replacement vendetta in full effect, as she DRs that this is what Jessie gets, comparing her to a child in time-out. She's pretty confident that she'll be sending Jessie home this week. Of, course confidence is poison in this house; sometimes it just takes a little longer to work.
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.