If things go down as they're shaping up to go down in the Big Brother house this week, Thursday night's live episode has the potential to be pretty epic. We have big spoilers about who was nominated, won the Battle of the Block and who won the Veto, thanks to more hours staring at the live feeds over the last few days than I'm comfortable admitting to. No complaints there. It's these big game events that have me addicted to this series every summer. And with that...
Big Brother Live Feed spoilers ahead!
Ok, here's how the competitions went down since Thursday:
Nominations: Derrick nominated Christine and Donny. Frankie nominated Caleb and Cody.
Battle of the Block: Donny and Christine won (no thanks to Christine). Derrick was dethroned.
Head of Household: Frankie is the reigning HoH. Cody and Caleb remain on the block.
Veto: Zingbot returned! Frankie won the Veto. He has not used it yet. Veto ceremony is tomorrow.
In danger: Cody (nominated), Caleb (nominated), Zach (eligible to be nominated), Derrick (eligible to be nominated), Victoria (eligible to be nominated).
Ok, first let's talk about the Battle of the Block. Before nominations, the Detonators discussed their options to figure out a way to get Donny out this week. It came down to them using Skittles to determine who would go up on the block with Donny and attempt to throw the Battle of the Block competition to force Donny's nomination to stick. Christine won that duty and then failed at it.
We don't see the competitions, so we won't know exactly how the BoB competition went down, but from the conversation in the house, it had something to do with Donny, Christine, Caleb and Cody crawling around in the dark, getting stuff all over their clothes, looking for "bones" to fit into a puzzle. From the sound of it, Christine not only tried not to find any bones for herself and Donny, but also got caught handing off one of the bones she did find to Caleb. Or he took it from her. Or both. Either way, she was told not to do that anymore. And it sounds like Donny pulled a Frankie and ended up winning the competition all on his own, because he's awesome.
So, that's two weeks in a row that someone tried to throw BoB and failed. Caleb and Cody remain on the block, Donny and Christine are safe. It sounds like some of the houseguests could hear people behind the walls cheering for Donny. I'm assuming it was production people, but we don't know for sure. Either way, Christine came back into the house thinking America hates her. And to make matters worse for her, it seems like Donny might know that Christine tried to throw the competition. Frankie said he said something to him like "Now I know how you felt last week."
So, with Donny safe, the Detonators had to set their sights on a new target. And Victoria seemed like the default target, but it was obvious that Derrick was trying to plant the seeds for another option. Anytime the conversation of putting Victoria up came up, he'd say something like "Yeah, I mean, it's a wasted week but we have to do it." So, Derrick was acting supportive but at the same time, being negative about it in a way that didn't suggest he cared one way or the other if Victoria was evicted. I could be giving him too much credit here, but all evidence presented from his game-play this summer suggests he's playing it cool and biding his time until the Veto was won.
Everyone but Zach and Derrick played for the Veto. The Zingbot returned for its annual appearance, and Kathy Griffin also dropped in for a guest appearance. From the sound of it (based on post-Veto conversation), the Zingbot got in a joke to Frankie about living in his sister's shadow. Zingbot also apparently made fun of Derrick's looks, made a crack at Victoria about looking in the mirror and made some kind of crack about Christine and Cody's very close-and-cuddly relationship, which left Christine upset and shaken up because she's married.
Frankie won the Veto and though he hasn't used it yet -- Veto ceremony takes place on Monday -- it sounds like he's mostly decided to use it. Find out who he might be sending out the door after the jump!
Not long after Frankie won the Veto, talk started to circulate about him using it to save Caleb and put Zach up on the block. The speed at which this plan formed and circulated makes me think that no one really wanted to "waste" this week on Victoria, they all probably just wanted to have Victoria as the option in case their own name came up at the top of the list of people to be backstabbed by their own alliance member. Once Zach's name started to get around, everyone was on board. It's a mark of the seeming loyalty of this alliance. It was all about strength in numbers and hiding within the group.
This big-alliance game-play certainly isn't bad strategy. It worked out well for the Friendship in Season 6 and it worked for the Detonators once they lost Devin. But within that group-strategy, we're still seeing different kinds of game play, particularly as we might compare and contrast how Frankie and Christine have used it -- and how they have treated their supposed friends (Nicole, Zach) -- versus Derrick, who has been just as manipulative, if not more, but seems to be able to do it without hurting people's feelings. It's all in the attitude, his lack of smugness, and his ability to not make it seem so personal. I would be very curious to see how the jurors voted if it came down to Derrick and either Frankie or Christine.
In terms of this week's plan, Frankie likens the move to backdoor Zach as "euthanizing" him, basically having the attitude that they're being merciful with this move and will break it to him gently (possibly today, though it hasn't happened yet) and try to ease him out the door with a "slow drip," as Frankie morbidly put it.
Zach thinks Victoria is going to be nominated and sent out. To my knowledge, everyone but Zach knows about the plan to backdoor Zach. Donny was typically out of the loop, but Derrick told him about the plan not long ago.
I'm not sure why Frankie thinks he's better off backdooring Zach. It's sort of the same situation that Christine was in last week, where she was basically worked over by her own alliance to get Nicole out, when she could have benefited from Nicole being in the house. Granted, Frankie and Zach's relationship has been a bit rocky since they almost evicted him. Zach hasn't entirely let that subject drop, and I get the sense he knows he nearly got majorly backstabbed by Frankie. He might even secretly wonder if he's in big trouble this week, but openly, he seems to think Victoria's on her way out.
Where the situation stands to get even more epic is if Thursday night's big returning houseguest twist works the way it did last season, wherein the four evicted houseguests (in this case: Jocasta, Hayden, Nicole and ________) are set up to participate in an endurance competition alongside the competing houseguests and the last juror standing earns their way back into the house. If that's the case and Zach is evicted, that could be very entertaining. Zach's proven to be a loose cannon in the game, so we can only imagine how he might behave post-eviction, with the opportunity to come back into the house. I wouldn't pick him over Hayden to win an endurance competition, if we were placing bets on the situation, but I'd love to see how Zach handled himself if he were up on that wall and bitter over being sent out the door.
This is all assuming anything happens the way it could happen. As we mentioned, the Veto ceremony hasn't taken place yet. And more importantly, Frankie hasn't broken the news to Zach yet. He might do that today, and if he does, I don't think there will be any turning back. It's possible Zach will find a way to talk him out of it. But it's also possible Zach will freak out and Frankie won't have any choice but to put him up and try to get him out of the house. Either way, if Frankie puts Zach up, he's going to be covered in figurative blood from it. Because this is a direct alliance betrayal. He might think he's doing this to appease the other members of the alliance, but the truth is, if he were loyal, he'd nominate Victoria. He has the option. That was the original plan. He's choosing not to do it.
Now, I wouldn't fault Frankie for not targeting Victoria. She's harmless and not a huge threat to him. But if he's going to betray someone in his alliance, it shouldn't be Zach. He should be targeting Cody and Derrick. Cody doesn't win much, but he is support for Derrick. But either Frankie doesn't see that Derrick is running this game, or he feels threatened by Zach for some reason, or he thinks doing this favor for the alliance will earn him their protection next week. That seems doubtful, but we'll see.
