It's been an interesting couple of days in the Big Brother house. Following up on Nick's eviction, the house was divided between the few people who voted for Elissa to go, and those who sent Nick packing. And Howard, who cast his vote against Elissa but counted himself among the people who evicted Nick. That one vote was the topic of a lot of conversations, and Helen was determined to figure out whose it was. She was a lot more successful in obtaining that information - and a whole lot more - than Aaryn was during her own turn as Head of Household.
Live feed spoilers ahead, including who was nominated, who won MVP and who the MVP nominated.
There have been a lot of conversations in the Big Brother house, including a cool-down period after Bed-gate and the racially charged altercations between Candice, Aaryn and GinaMarie. It seems like people are trying to mend some bridges after that and the other sources of tension in the house. Jeremy, of everyone, seems to be going out of his way to play nice and show an attempt to fix this mistakes he and his ego have made now that Helen is HoH.
Helen spoke with everyone individually, and though I didn't catch all of the conversations, it sounds like either McCrae told her about the Moving Company or McCrae told Amanda and Amanda told Helen. Either way, it seems like the MC alliance was exposed by one of them not long before Jeremy sat with Helen and revealed all of that information to her in the HoH room. In a rare but amusing "oops" moment, Candice was in the HoH bathroom taking a shower during Helen and Jeremy's conversation and neither of them realized it until Jeremy ducked in there to hide when someone came to the HoH door, so Candice heard at least some of their chat. But I don't think that was game-damaging, as Helen pretty much told everyone about the MC (she let McCrae reveal it to Elissa).
From what i gathered in the conversations between Helen and the people she actually seems to trust, Jeremy is the target this week, with Aaryn as a back-up and Howard as the third option. The plan is to backdoor Jeremy, so Helen nominated Aaryn and Kaitlin. Before nominations, Helen told Kaitin that Aaryn was the target, and Kaitlin put up no objection to that. If anything, it sounds like she's in support of Aaryn going, as she says (paraphrasing) she thinks Aaryn's a bad influence on her. But I really think Kaitlin's just trying to protect Jeremy and willing to throw Aaryn under the bus if it means Jeremy stays this week. She even went as far as to suggest herself as a pawn, probably hoping that if Jeremy does get to play the Veto (assuming his name is drawn), he can win and take her off and they'd both be safe. As far as Aaryn knows, Helen told her she's not the target and I think Aaryn's aware that Jeremy is. Or maybe Howard.
As for why Howard's on Helen's radar, Helen pretty much knew that he was the only person on their side who voted to evict Elissa. She also knew he was involved in the MC. When she pulled him aside, he first tried to lie about his the hinky vote, even as Helen basically urged him to be honest with her because she's making decisions based on honesty. Finally, Howard admitted that he was the one to vote to evict Elissa. I think the reason he did that was the same reason Spencer told Candice to evict Elissa last week. They wanted there to be a weird vote that they could use to deflect blame on them if it came down to it. But considering Helen knew that Spencer did that to Candice last week, there was no way she was going to not see it when it happened again this week. So Howard admitted to that but - not realizing she already knew about the MC - he denied any involvement in a male alliance, even when Helen literally listed off all of the members of the MC to him and said she heard there was an alliance.
So Helen doesn't trust Howard anymore, and neither do some of the other people on that side. It seemed like the plan was to put Kaitlin and Aaryn up and then have Elissa put Howard up as the third nominee. And they'd try to backdoor Jeremy, but if he still managed to play for the Veto and won, or somehow someone wins the Veto and doesn't use it, they still have options. Only it sounds like Elissa deviated from that plan when she became MVP again, and nominated Spencer instead of Howard.
It's possible there's a conversation I missed about why Elissa went against the plan to nominate Howard. Maybe Elissa just decided to make her own choice. She did tell McCrae and Amanda earlier that she thought Spencer was the hinky vote, but both of them assured her that Howard has admitted to voting to evict her. But Elissa wasn't around for a lot of Helen's conversations, particularly the pow-wow with Andy, Helen, McCrae and Amanda, and she might have felt left out enough to do what she wanted to do and not what the group wanted her to do.
It's an interesting situation, because it really is MVP's choice. Viewers keep giving MVP to Elissa, which is why her group is keeping her around. But her group can't make her nominate who they want her to nominate. It's her choice. And Elissa needs to do what she thinks is best for her. But she might also want to work on securing alliances that extend beyond her MVP status, because if she proves to be unreliable as the MVP then those people who saved her twice already might conclude that she's outlasted her worth and they'll send her packing.
I'm still getting caught up on conversations I missed last night, but at this point, from what I can tell, Kaitlin, Aaryn and Spencer are nominated, but Jeremy is the real target. And Jokers says Candice and GinaMarie are also playing for Veto, in addition to Spencer, Helen, Aaryn and Kaitlin.
UPDATE - Feeds were out for hours while the houseguests played for Veto. I haven't listened enough to figure out the details about the competition other than that it sounds like it was timed, but Kaitlin won the Veto. The question is, will she use it? She probably at least suspects that Jeremy will go up if she does use it. And she might suspect that if she doesn't use it, Aaryn would be the next target. But it would still be a huge risk not to use it, and not using it might annoy people enough to vote her out. So we'll have to wait and see.
