So here we are at the start of the nineteenth episode, with eleven people still in the house. But Julie promises to fix that tonight, as it's Double Eviction week. Always my favorite point in the season, much as the nitrous oxide is always my favorite part of a root canal.
After the credits, a completely reasonable-looking Julie adds that starting tonight, evictees will be going to the jury house. That's going to be a big jury, then. But first! We flash back to GinaMarie naming Spencer as the replacement nominee after Jessie Vetoed herself. Spencer's confident as long as he doesn't screw up, which means that he's way too confident. Candice Diary Rooms that people are starting to eye Amanda as a possible target, and Amanda decides that "it's time to play Nice Amanda." I bet she's really bad at that.
And then we see her trying to patch things up with Jessie, trying to downplay their fight from earlier in the week. The editors resoundingly do not have Amanda's back on that, showing a clip of her yelling at Jessie. Now, however, Amanda tries to tell Jessie that she wasn't part of Jessie's nomination. But even Jessie isn't dumb enough to buy this crap.
Then Amanda lounges with McCrae, Judd, and Andy to reconfirm their bond. We find out that they made a final four deal two weeks ago, which would have been good to know at the time. Judd advises Amanda not to have any more "emotional outbursts," but Amanda doesn't trust him anyway because she thinks he's MVP for no reason at all.
Elsewhere, Candice and her clownitard lie in bed talking to Elissa about how she doesn't understand how she's more of a threat than Spencer and Amanda. Which she isn't -- it's just that GinaMarie and Aaryn don't like her. There's more than one reason to lose this game, Candice. You can lose for being bad at it, being good at it, being liked by people, and not being liked by people. There have been maybe two or three people in history that actually knew what they were doing in this game. It is essentially a three-month-long experiment in chaos theory. Anyway, eventually Jessie takes Elissa's place in the conversation and agrees with Candice that people need to figure out that Amanda needs to go.
The morning, Jessie finds Helen to try to convince her that it's time to take out Amanda, "the queen." That's actually a smart line from Jessie, because the only thing that would upset Helen more than telling her she's in charge would be telling her she's not. And it works; Helen decides to see if she can line up all her allies.
Meanwhile, Jessie starts with Judd, saying that if Candice goes home this week, Jessie will go home week. She tells him that Helen, Elissa, and herself are in, and they need Judd. Of course Judd is torn, so he needs to check on some stuff. And give Jessie some awkward hugs and kisses, apparently.
Helen is the one who approaches Andy, saying that this may be the time to make their move on McCrae and Amanda before it's too late. Andy's stressed out about this, saying it's too early.
Later, Helen and Jessie lounge with Candice and talk about the need for Amanda to go. Helen wants Candice to make her own case against Amanda, and when Candice says Helen's the one with the juice to get things done, Helen denies being able to round up the votes. And soon enough, Helen is defending Amanda, saying she'll go when the house wants it. Which means Helen couldn't sell it. Of course, in the DR, Helen reveals her real reason for wanting to keep Amanda a while longer, which is that if a big target like Amanda goes home, the target will be Helen herself.
Enough backstory. Julie gets on the viewscreen and tells them that there will be a jury of nine this season. Which of course means none of these people is going to see their families for another month and a half, but they all react like it's good news. So Julie delivers the bad (for them) news, which is that it's Double Eviction night. And she adds, "Just because you're on the jury doesn't necessarily mean you're out of the game." Thanks for saying nothing there, Julie.
Anyway, it's time for the nominee speeches. Candice is looking as glam as she can manage with her hair hanging down below her rainbow wig, talking about GinaMarie making it personal with "defamatory" comments during her nomination speech. GinaMarie keeps it classy, trying to talk over Candice's sanctioned speech, and soon it's a shouting match between them that Julie has to try to defuse.
Spencer is only too happy to shut this down by standing up and taking the floor, thanking the Union Pacific railroad and everyone inside the house "except for Andy." Amanda rattles off a bunch of names of peeps back home and does a shorter version of her speech from last week.
Voting begins, and McCrae is the first to enter the Diary Room. He votes to evict Candice, as does Aaryn. Helen also votes to evict Candice, meaning she wasn't able to rally the votes against Amanda. Jessie feels forced to vote out Candice, which means she'll be talking to Julie in her clown outfit shortly. Elissa is sad to evict Candice, but "everyone else did." Andy votes out Candice before Julie's even done asking him for his vote, and Judd makes it unanimous.
Julie gets on the viewscreen and tells the houseguests, like they don't already know. Candice takes off the rainbow wig and hugs everyone but GinaMarie, whom she tells to go back to her mom's house. "At least my mom likes me, not like yours," GinaMarie says. And that's the last thing Candice the adoptee hears in the Big Brother house. Lovely.
We hear Candice apologizing to Julie in the studio, but there's not a sound inside the house. Candice gets set up pretty quick, and Julie asks her why she went after GinaMarie when she was trying to get votes. Because that's a pointless charade every damn week, Julie? Indeed, Candice says she knew it was already a foregone conclusion, and she decided to use her time to get back at GinaMarie for the shit-talking.
Julie brings up the fight with Amanda and why it didn't end up costing her instead of Candice. Candice attributes that to Amanda's place in the tribe and her protection. Julie asks Candice how hard it was to ignore the racism in the house per Howard's advice, and Candice says it was "very difficult for sure." Julie tells her "goodbye for now, but there's still a lot of summer left." And enjoy your incarceration in the jury house.
The night's first HoH competition is quiz-show style, with the nine non-GinaMarie houseguests in the cubicles. It's going to be Big Brother trivia, with the answer to each question being "more" or "less." The first question is about the number of airplane seats in the Have-Not room. A couple of people change their answers while Julie is talking and she gets pretty pissy, but Elissa's the only one to officially get it wrong. Julie also snaps at everyone to "settle down" on the second question, about the number of popsicle colors in the first HoH competition. Andy and Jessie are out after that one.
Everyone gets the right answer about the number of black balls in the fireplace, but only Aaryn gets the fourth question right, so she's HoH for the third time this year. How does this keep happening?
After the ads, Aaryn's holed up with a bunch of people whispering about her move. She's pretty stressed out, and she doesn't know what she wants to do. For some reason, she and Andy are all worried about Spencer going home. Since when do people care about Spencer? Julie summons everyone to the living room, does a quick headcount, and tells Aaryn to have a seat. Julie announces that the MVP twist is over, without saying anything about who it's been, ever. Besides, that twist was over the second time Elissa won it. Anyway, Aaryn nominates Jessie and Spencer by what she says is a "unanimous decision." I don't think it was unanimous on Jessie and Spencer's part.
Time for the Power of Veto competition. Judd, Andy, and Amanda have been randomly selected to play against Aaryn, Spencer, and Jessie. Each player has a workbench with a Veto symbol design on it, as well as a series of holes. They'll need to dig through their bin of large nails to find the one nail that fits each hole, and the first one to succeed wins PoV. If they signal they're done and it's wrong, they're eliminated. Julie tells them to go, and engages in some weak play-by-play (she mistakes Judd for McCrae… and McCrae isn't even participating) while the houseguests race to get their nails in the right spots. Aaryn ends up winning her second competition tonight, and given that she just made the nominations a few minutes ago, I doubt the Veto is going to be an issue unless something totally stupid happens.
We get to watch some live yammering in the house about what's going to happen , which looks like it pretty much amounts to everyone saying goodbye to Jessie and then leaving her to sit alone on the couch. The ten remaining houseguests gather again in the living room, and Aaryn tells a shocked Jessie she's off the block. "And I have to put this person up because they have been playing me and thinking I would not realize that this is happening. Judd?"
Wait, what? And judging from the audible reaction of the audience, I'm not the only one who's confused. I assume Judd is confused as well, because he always is. Aaryn says she'll go home if she doesn't do this, so it's Spencer and Judd on the block. Which is especially tense, because Judd is wearing his grizzly bear shirt. Whatever will the rest of the houseguests do without it?
Before the second vote of the night, Spencer gives his second nominee speech, asking everyone to find room for him in their long-term game. Judd stands up and desperately tells everyone that he's loyal, saying that things that have been said that aren't true and asking people to change their votes. I don't have any more idea what happened here than he does, and possibly even less. Amanda, who was crying in the living room, is the first to be sent to the DR, and she votes to evict Judd. McCrae votes the same way, as does GinaMarie, tearfully. Andy is also very sad as he votes out Judd, so Judd is done. Helen acts sad, but sings out her vote to evict Judd, which makes me think this was all her idea. Elissa votes with everyone else, as does Jessie. Seriously, what the hell just happened here?
Julie gets back on the viewscreen, and the nominee's body language says it all. Spencer lounges back in his chair with his legs crossed like he's not going anywhere, while Judd sits on the edge of his cushion like it's a starting block. Julie "breaks" the "news" to the house about the unanimous vote. As Judd runs to grab his hat and then hugs everyone goodbye, Elissa loudly says, "Judd, this has nothing to do with me." Well, now it does. He's off, leaving behind a house full of weepy, hugging, gullible idiots.
Out in the studio, Julie speaks for a nation when she says, "Uh, Judd? What just happened?" Judd says he got "the good old blindside tonight." He doesn't have any more idea what happened than anyone else, but he suspects that maybe he shouldn't have trusted Amanda and McCrae so much. Julie wonders who's in charge inside the house, and Judd says Amanda and Helen. Even he knows that. Judd runs down way too many names of people he was loyal to, and Julie sends him off to the jury house. Then she's got another week of shows to plug, and she signs off. But not before some customary eavesdropping. Even after that, these people are going to have some explaining to do on Sunday night. Too bad I'll miss it.
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.