what you don't know can hurt you

In the house, the conversation today was still all about whom should go up as the repl-nom. It seems like Elissa has pretty much settled on Nick, in large part because when she asked him if he would vote out Kaitlin over her, he balked a bit and said he was close to Jeremy. That along with the fact that Spencer and Howard have started pushing for Amanda, have brought out a lot of suspicion that Nick, Spencer and Howard are all somehow aligned with Jeremy. McCrae's also drawing suspicion because he's clearly not on board with keeping Elissa. Basically, the people not in the Moving Company are starting to put together various pieces of that alliance. But no one has really put them all together. And each guy's side alliance is comfortable with their own deal, even if they're suspicious of the other MC members. In other words, the MC is still pretty much running the game.

And since Elissa doesn't know that the 5 guys are aligned more strongly than anyone else, she pretty much has no hope of staying over Nick, even though a lot of people don't trust him. The only way for Nick to go would be to get almost every non-MC in the house to vote against him. Since no one's going to vote against Helen, it will take 6 votes to kick someone. Even with Nick on the block, the 4 MC members will only need 2 people to save him. GM is a lock of course, as is Kaitlin. Elissa's only hope would be to get the girls to believe the guys are playing them. Stranger things have happened, but it seems like a very long shot.

A few notes on the show. First, as a pretty random comment, I didn't notice it on the feeds, but on TV the spilled BBQ sauce in the HOH comp really looked like blood. The comp itself was, of course, old news. The best part of the show was that they actually did sort of address the racism and homophobia we've been seeing on the feeds. They really couldn't air the worst things that have been said, but at least they didn't ignore it as they've done in the past. Of course, there really was no choice. The story has been all over the mainstream media, so something had to be said. I did notice that they let Jeremy and Spencer off the hook. Their comments have been just as bad as Aaryn and GM's, but I have a feeling the MC gets a pass. The stalker-Jessie storyline was both amusing and uncomfortable at the same time. It as unfortunately pretty accurate.

The way things end up going this week all depends on who knows what. Or rather how strongly they believe what they think they know. If the MC stays as loyal and as secret as they have been, I'm afraid they're going to run the board the same way the Brigade did. If, on the other hand, the women start talking to each other and realize that they can't just let the guys control the game, things could get very interesting. Helen has been planting some seeds today, even talking to Aaryn. She didn't come right out and say they should keep Elissa, in fact she told Aaryn that she was hearing that everyone was voting Elissa out (not true, quite a few are on her side) because they're afraid of Jeremy. I'm not sure, but she might have been laying groundwork to come back later and work the angle that the guys are ganging up on them. Elissa's also spent some time with Amanda, letting her know that several people suggested Amanda go up as the repl-nom. And when Amanda notices that McCrae's supporting those same people (namely MC members) she may just realize that her number one ally isn't so much on her side.