Mystic Gemini's BigBrother POV
Before they even got to the liveshow today, Rachel had another little meltdown, complaining to Shelly (or at least in Shelly's general direction) that Big Brother has ruined her life. From her depths of despair, Rachel had concluded that the only way to succeed in BB was to not try, to float along, do nothing and escape notice. Of course that is everything that is not Rachel, so it really got Shelly riled up to hear Rachel saying she was just going to give up and float through the rest of the game. But as soon as Shelly started to point out how stupid that was, Rachel turned it around to saying that it wasn't really about BB, but rather about how she gets treated outside of the house. She mentioned not getting jobs because potential employers didn't like the way she'd acted, said her family won't talk to her, she'd lost all her friends and had no one but Brendon. If that's all true, that's horribly sad. Shelly tried to cheer her up, and then as Rachel got more and more mopey, Shelly got louder and tried to snap her out of it, as Jordan and Lawon eavesdropped.
We got lots of sap on the show...I could barely stand to listen to all of it. For some reason, they didn't even mention the trashbag wedding, so observant TVOVs were probably confused as to why the heck Brendon was suddenly wearing a "wedding band." More sap for the eviction speech, and the first "Jordan....you are safe" misdirect from Julie. I think Jordan actually believed it for a second. But the spin was kind of cute, and Brendon managed to walk out with a certain amount of dignity.
After a quick chat with Brendon, Julie tells us about the twist. With the leaked pages yesterday, livefeeders and other 'net dwellers knew what was coming. We get to pick one of the 4 kicked HGs to go up against whomever is evicted this week to get back in the house. So, it may well end up that it doesn't matter who we pick. But fair warning avoids the outrage some of us felt when they pulled that trick with BB9 James. And then before the HOH comp, half the twist is revealed to the HGs...whomever goes this week could well come right back in. Giving them fair warning before the comp avoids a total blind-side of a wasted HOH like what happened with BB11 Chima after the coup d'Jeff. And after the leaked page, the typo on the temporary placeholder page made my night (credit to hamsterwatch for catching it).
They've been predicting a knock-out HOH comp. all week, and they got it. Daniele had coached Kalia last night to listen for "key words" in the questions to be able to answer quickly, and it served her well. Whether or not Shelly or Adam really wanted to win is unclear. Both have been saying they really want HOH (Shelly for the family stuff, and Adam b/c his 40th b-day is this week) but neither would be really well served by having to take a stand at this point in the game. And they're both smart enough to realize that the twist makes this not a great HOH week. On the other hand, one of the two audio drops was on Adam. The other, of course, was on Rachel who did want to win. It's been pointed out that this was only the 2nd HOH comp Rachel has played in and not won in 2 seasons.
So Kalia's HOH, and there's big hope for drama. She'll almost surely nominate Rachel, the big question is who will be sitting next to her. Porsche was an early contender, but she's been scurrying around trying to do damage control for having Jeff and Shelly face off in the comp, rather than putting one of them against Kalia. It's got a number of them thinking that Porsche's got a deal with Dani/Kalia, which she does. But she also voted to keep Brendon, making others think she's got a deal with Rachel, which she does. Jeff's another distinct option, given Kalia's conflict with him 2 weeks ago. And JeJo have been trying to comfort Rachel, which is making Kalia/Dani click-whisper about how they're clearly on her team and against them. I honestly think they're just trying to be nice to her on a purely personal level. Sure, they're protecting their game, but it's not all about that. Kalia's also talked about Shelly as a nom, but she'd have a hard time explaining it unless she went with "you're a pawn to ensure Rachel goes."
Oh, and Dick's bit on the show? What was up with that? Maybe the TVOVs care what he thinks of how Daniele is playing, but I really don't think the rest of us do. And talk about awkward.... what kind of parent isn't completely supportive of their kid? Well, I guess the kind that ends up with their kid not talking to them for years on end. But it was kind of fun seeing the highlights from BB8.
