HoH GinaMarie became the first person to nominate Amanda and McCrae on Day 71, because that's what everyone in the house wanted. Except of course for Amanda and McCrae. Amanda tearfully Diary Rooms that she was completely blindsided, and wanted to be the first showmance to make it to the end. McCrae is also really bummed out in the DR, saying that Amanda's important to both him and to his game. Elissa DRs that she's excited that one of them will be going home. Regardless of the results of tonight's Veto competition, presumably. As for Amanda and McCrae, they head right to bed as we saw at the end of Sunday's episode. Amanda tells McCrae that more people than GinaMarie must have been in on this. She also DRs that she's now pissed and crazy. Isn't that her default state lately? She tells McCrae that GinaMarie must be in an alliance with Elissa that also includes Judd and Spencer. Which is accurate, except that it's Andy instead of Elissa in that alliance. So Amanda goes to confront Spencer, who claims not to have any idea what GinaMarie is up to, even as he boasts in the DR about how the Exterminators are running the place now. Just in secret. Amanda suggests that everyone head up to ask GinaMarie what's up. Andy wants no part of this, because whichever of the nominees stays, Andy doesn't want them coming after him for flipping on them.
So Amanda heads up to the HoH room by herself and asks why GinaMarie didn't nominate Elissa. GinaMarie is implacable, blaming Amanda for not being there for Aaryn when she needed them. Amanda reminds GinaMarie that Elissa nominated and ultimately evicted both Nick and Aaryn, so GinaMarie clues Amanda in that Elissa decided to try to evict Amanda last week, which is why she didn't nominate GinaMarie against Aaryn. Downstairs, Judd hears their raised voices and suggests putting together a team to go break it up, which Andy joins but Spencer stays out of. One chicken in the HoH room at a time is plenty. As Judd and Andy enter the room, Amanda is still not getting it, even as GinaMarie insists this was her own decision and not Elissa's. Amanda gets more and more pissed, telling GinaMarie this was a stupid game move because she thinks anyone who wins the Veto will save either her or McCrae and then come after GinaMarie week, along with whichever one of them stays. Which is wrong on several counts. "So y'all run the game then, basically?" Judd pipes up. Amanda says she gets it now, and heads out of the room. Judd chases her through the door, accusing Amanda of having said that he would be nominated. Amanda and GinaMarie end up yelling at each other between the main and upper floors, with GinaMarie sounding like the reasonable one in any exchange for the first time all summer. Amanda ends up whining that she doesn't even want to be in the house any more. Okay, new rule: anyone who says that is subject to summary eviction. "Amanda, please go to the nearest trapdoor."
Amanda's latest pout-fest venue is the Have-Not room. McCrae follows her in there as she cries about how she can't believe people lied to her so well and she had no idea. Amanda counts Spencer and Judd in that, having calculated that GinaMarie wouldn't have done it without the votes. They both know their showmance is over no matter what, but Amanda maintains in the DR that she loves her 24-year-old pizza boy from Minnesota. She tells him that she's ready to go, like she's on her deathbed or something.
Amanda finds Andy in the storage room, thinking he's still on her side. He plays the part, telling her to hang in there and win the Veto. They end up talking about what's going on and Amanda bitches about Elissa's Joker-face… while Elissa is eavesdropping outside the door. Andy joins in, and upon hearing what he's saying, Elissa concludes that Andy actually is still on Amanda's side and not just pretending to be. Because she is an idiot. Spencer happens along on the outside of the door and when Elissa mouths to him who's in there, Spencer's greatest fear is that Elissa might overhear Andy assuring Amanda that both he and Spencer are on Amanda's side. When the door opens -- either by Spencer on the outside or Amanda on the inside -- Spencer enters and Amanda asks whether Elissa was listening outside. When Spencer nods, Amanda performs the remarkable feat of slamming a door open and goes stomping outside. But instead of confronting Elissa, she goes and tattles to McCrae and DRs that she's going to do everything possible to make Elissa the replacement nominee and send her home this week. Good luck with that.
Time to choose the PoV players. Or, since there are seven people left in the house, the one non-player. Nominees McCrae and Amanda join HoH GinaMarie at the front of the room to draw names. GinaMarie draws Elissa's name. Amanda pulls houseguest's choice and picks Spencer, whom I suppose she's decided she trusts after all. Andy's relieved at dodging that bullet, until McCrae draws his name. Which makes him worry that he's going to have to reveal his allegiances after all, and makes stupid Elissa think that Amanda's happy reaction to Andy's selection means that Andy actually is still allied with her, not that Amanda just thinks he is. Also, Elissa, pick a color for your face and stick with it. GinaMarie also announces that Judd and Spencer can ditch their chicken costumes because their punishment time is up. And only 47 hours and 59 minutes after it stopped being funny, too.
Amanda finds Andy in the HoH room and explains to him that the reason she didn't pick him for the PoV was because she didn't want to make him pick between Amanda and McCrae if he wins. Spencer also promises to fight for them, though he DRs what we already know, which is that he has no interest in changing the nominations.
Elissa tattles to Judd that Andy's lying to someone, which he is, but not to who she thinks. She leaves the room as soon as Andy comes in, and Judd tells Andy about Elissa's suspicions. Now Andy has to worry about being in Elissa's crosshairs too. So he heads up to GinaMarie and tells her what he just heard from Judd. GinaMarie says she's not worried about Andy's loyalties, but can see why Elissa would be. Spencer joins them, and they start talking final four for the Exterminators if they can just get rid of Amanda, McCrae and Elissa. Judd joins them after his shower, and they start getting on my nerves by working on their Exterminators hand signal. Aren't the names enough without all the mime crap? They look like the Dorkin Man.
PoV competition time. Everyone comes out into the yard wearing tutus and dancing like the producers clearly told them to. This looks like a combined ballet and bowling theme, with tilted alleys set up. Judd explains the rules: the competition will take place in one-on-one heats, in which each player will try to be the first to knock down the four fake pins at the top of their lane. The trick is that there's a barrier in front of the pins and to lower it, they'll first need to hang from a handle overhead and spin fifteen revolutions, which will lower the gate for fifteen seconds. That's their window to try to knock the pins down after they're completely dizzy. Tricky, no? Obviously Amanda and McCrae aren't thrilled about competing against each other in this. After Judd draws names at random to determine the order, Amanda's name was drawn first, so she picks Elissa as her opponent for the first round. They grab their handles, Judd says go and they start spinning. Seems like the yoga instructor would have the edge on this. She does indeed lower her gate first, but Amanda knocks down two pins in her first fifteen-second window, compared to Elissa's zero. She also gets a third one on her second try, while Elissa only gets her first. Amanda manages to clear the board on her third try, so she's still in it and Elissa's out. Even if Amanda has to sit down and retch afterwards.
It's Andy's turn to go and he chooses Amanda as his opponent. He outlines his reasons for this in the DR: one, he can claim to have thrown it to her; two, he can prove his loyalty to the Exterminators; and three, he can show Elissa that he's not on Amanda's side. Not sure how he's going to accomplish all three at the same time. Especially since Amanda DRs that Andy had to know she wasn't ready for another round right after the first one. When the round begins, Amanda knocks down two of her four pins before Andy has even lowered his gate. She knocks down a third on her second try yet again, while Andy is doing so poorly he might as well have thrown it for real. He hardly could have done worse. Elissa gets on my nerves in the DR by complaining about how Amanda has gotten so much better at competitions after sucking at them for so long. It's not the sentiment so much as the fact that Elissa says "All of the sudden."
GinaMarie is called up, and she picks Amanda. This is going to be one of those things we've seen before, where one player is targeted to play in every round but it backfires because they get better at it every time, isn't it? Of course that's only if Amanda can beat GinaMarie, whose dance background helps her with the pirouetting. But she's much worse than Amanda at the bowling part, knocking down one pin to Amanda's three in her first attempt. And by the second window of bowling, Amanda has thumped GinaMarie as well.
That means it's down to Spencer to beat either member of the showmance, and he's called up to be McCrae's opponent. Skinny little McCrae is able to spin a lot faster than the mango-shaped Spencer, but unfortunately for him that also means he's a lot dizzier when they get to the bowling lanes. He rolls balls uphill blindly, and both Spencer and McCrae end up getting two pins on their first tries. McCrae manages to beat Spencer on their second attempt, though. So the good news for Amanda and McCrae (and the bad news for the Exterminators and Elissa) is that one of them is about to win PoV. The bad news for Amanda and McCrae is that only one of them is about to win PoV and the other one will almost certainly go home. McCrae DRs that it's one of the most tragic things that's ever happened to him, which tells me he's had a pretty good life.
After the ads, Amanda says that she's fighting hard to beat McCrae and expects him to do the same. McCrae is one pin ahead after the first window of bowling, but Amanda soon catches up on the one. By the time they're taking their last spins, each of them has just one pin left to knock down. Even the spectators who hate them both are tense and nervous and finally, McCrae beats Amanda by just a second or two in a split screen photo finish. So he wins, he stays and Amanda is almost certainly gone. McCrae vomits into a bucket while Amanda lies on the ground and hyperventilates. They're not so much together now and McCrae is the saddest-looking person to ever have the PoV medal hung around his neck. He DRs that Amanda is a better player than he is, and this was a no-win scenario for him. Amanda compares it to summer camp, saying they got to spend all this time together and won't ever have that again in the real world. "My game is over. This experience is over." And what have we learned, Amanda?
Inside, Amanda tearfully congratulates McCrae on a job well done and promises she didn't throw it. She still doesn't know why Andy picked her as his matchup, but she's too defeated to follow that thread right now.
Up in the HoH room, the Exterminators -- GinaMarie, Judd, Andy and Spencer -- meet to presumably agree on their replacement nominee. And since Elissa's the only viable option not present, it's probably a no-brainer. Or one would think so, except that GinaMarie is reluctant to nominate Elissa after Elissa didn't nominate GinaMarie last week. She suggests they Roshambo for it, and even though GinaMarie's would be the tiebreaking vote, neither Judd, Spencer, nor Andy are entirely confident. Andy, this would be a great time to both calm Amanda and McCrae's suspicions and demonstrate your loyalty to the Exterminators by taking one for the team. But then courage isn't exactly Andy's style.
Before the Veto meeting, McCrae says that although Amanda hasn't asked him to Veto her, he's considering doing so anyway. Amanda bitches about GinaMarie being HoH in the first place: "It's way too much power for way too small of a mind." Judd calls this the worst-case scenario, which is a bit of an exaggeration for someone who's already been evicted once. McCrae calls the Veto meeting, and he invites Amanda to try and convince him to use the Veto on her. Amanda stands up, takes a long moment to compose herself and says that they both fought hard. "And I kicked everyone's ass who challenged me," she reminds them all. But she's glad the person she lost to was McCrae and doesn't ask, expect, or want him to use the Veto on her. So McCrae stands and sadly says he's decided to use it on himself. "I'm sorry," he tells Amanda, and ritually instructs GinaMarie to name her replacement nominee. Gina starts by saying her replacement is awesome "and does one heck of a chicken dance." That narrows it down to two, and we can see the wheels turning in Amanda's head that it's not going to be Andy, as stripped as those wheels are right now. Spencer's nominated yet again and he takes his seat to Amanda. McCrae adjourns the Veto meeting by performing the usual action of closing the medal box, but with the unusual method of kicking it.
In the DR, McCrae says he let Amanda down and thinks they could have figured something out if he'd used the PoV on her. Amanda incorrectly thinks that GinaMarie's move was personal and motivated by jealousy, "And it just sucks that you have some bimbo ruining my game." Spencer takes his latest nomination pretty well, saying this makes him the record holder for the most nominations in one season. He's not too worried about surviving his seventh time, given that he's facing Amanda. But tomorrow it's double eviction again, so all bets are off. If anybody were dumb enough to bet on this randomness in the first place.
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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