better watch the backdoor

Just when we thought we knew what was going on, things finally started to get a little surprising.

As soon as Brendon won HOH, I figured it was going to be some combination of Matt/Britney/Ragan to be nom'ed.  My guess was Matt/Ragan would be nom'ed and Brendon's plan would be that if either of them won POV, Brit would be the repl-nom.  And if Britney happened to win POV and was thinking of pulling one of them off, someone like Lane would be the threatened repl-nom.  Remember, that's how Rachel got Britney not to use the veto on Hayden/Kristen, by saying she'd put Lane up.

So Brendon has his HOH revolving door meetings, and imagine my surprise when he offers Matty a deal: he won't be nom'ed or repl-nom'ed in return for promising Brendon the same for next week.  Matt, being Matt, didn't agree to nuttin' but I'm not convinced Brendon noticed.

Next thing we know Brendon's telling everyone that he's going to nom Britney and Lane.  Lane?  Where did that come from?  I mean, yeah he thinks they're "a pair," but isn't he looking to avenge Rachel's eviction and go for Matt/Ragan?

Meanwhile, things are starting to fracture in Bro-gade land.  Enzo and Hayden are getting increasingly suspicious of Matt's closeness to Ragan, and beginning to wonder where his loyalties truly lie.  And Matt's not really helping matters by being super-encouraging to Ragan.  He's even gone so far as to tell Ragan not to worry about Matt if he gets nom'ed, that he'll "get the votes."

So Brendon tells Matt that he's going to nom Lane and Britney, but that he doesn't want to "blindside" them so he's going to tell them.  Now Matt knows perfectly well that you're not allowed to do that, but doesn't bother to point that out.  Brendon then goes and tells Brit that's he's going to nom her.  Before he can tell Lane, he gets called to the DR.  When he comes back, it seems he got his hand smacked, and now he's off the nom-Brit plan.  I really have no idea if the DR told him he can't nom her b/c he told her he would or if he legitimately changed his mind.

In any case, they go off to trivialand and when they come back it's Lane and Ragan on the block.  It makes no sense to me, until they start saying it's a clear b-d plan.  Brendon sees Brit/Lane and Ragan/Matt as the 2 pairs, and the ultimate plan is to get Matt or Britney on the block.  But then again, I'm not sure Brendon's that bright and this is actually DR-manipulation.  More on that later.

So next they pick players for the POV.  In a further watch the backdoor twist, it ends up with Matt and Brit being the only 2 not playing.  Sounds like Brendon drew Enzo, Ragan got Kathy, and Lane got HG choice and picked Hayden.  That raised a little suspicion about why didn't he pick Brit.  The Bro-gade boys are spinning this to Brendon as maybe Brit/Lane aren't really that close. When we've got Hayden saying things to Brendon like "dude, he picked me over Britney?  That's just weird" and Brendon's responding with "yeah, it's not like you two are close" it just goes to show you how undetected the Bro-gade is.

There are so many competing plans in the house that it's too complicated to line them all up, but here's what I'm thinking the prods want.... For them it's all about getting Matt to use the D-POV.  With Lane/Ragan on the block, if Ragan vetoes himself and Matt goes up, he'll surely use it.  

In other news, they got Eggplant and Escargot as their alliterative add-on food, and they got the mid-size table.