It's getting to the point in the Big Brother season when things will either become a lot more predictable or a lot less. Unfortunately for this season, predictable seems to be the theme. If ever a Coup d'etat or a Pandora's Box were needed to shake things up in this house, it would be now.
Live Feed Spoilers Ahead! - Including who won Head of Household, who was nominated and who won the Veto.
Ok, you've been warned. Here's how things have gone down since Thursday night's episode:
Head of Household - Caleb won.
Holla! - Derek went for the $5k during the HoH and won that plus the shoutout "punishment."
Nominated - Christine and Nicole.
Won the Veto - Christine.
Used the Veto? - Veto Ceremony hasn't happened yet but obviously Christine will use it to save herself. It's likely that Victoria will go up in her place and Nicole will be the first eviction on Thursday. But it's not a done deal yet.
You hear that, Big Brother? It's not a done deal yet! Now's a good time to throw in one of those amazing game-changer twists that border on shenanigans/interference but don't actually cross the line. Meaning, something someone can legitimately win that they can use to make a big move that drastically shifts the direction of the season, because they're not doing that on their own. Is it too late for that? Not entirely. But the feeds are getting seriously boring. You know it's bad when the ridiculous "Holla" shout-outs are not only the most entertaining thing happening on the feeds most of the time, but even Derrick doesn't consider them a punishment. He actually said today that he kind of looks forward to them.
In terms of what's happening this week, the Veto ceremony is tomorrow and it sounds like the plan is to put Victoria up and send Nicole out. If anyone has any last-minute plans to convince Caleb to nominate Frankie or someone else with an eye to backdoor them this week, we haven't seen much action on that front. But there's always the chance. If Nicole has any chance of staying, it would probably be to put the fear of the Double Eviction in people's heads. I don't know if they know for sure that it's happening on Thursday, but they know another one's coming. If Nicole were to assure Caleb that he's at the bottom of her target list, he might set his sights on someone else. But I can't imagine who that would be, if not Frankie.
The problem for Nicole is, she's never been able to convince anyone of anything. She's been accused of lying. People have blamed things on her and put words in her mouth. And she's treated by the big alliance as some big evil schemer for her efforts to play the game. Case in point, today, Derrick casually brought up the subject of Nicole possibly making a pitch to stay and Christine's reaction was "She'll make something up," as if this is just something Nicole does on the regular. She's accused of it a lot more than she does it, anyway. I can't tell if they're all seriously convinced Nicole is this horrible liar who just makes stuff up, or if they've all just silently agreed to make her the enemy to keep the shade off their own backs.
Nicole has actually pinpointed the problem with this season, and that it's that no one's really playing the game. At least, not the way we've seen in previous seasons, where people play group and individual games. I mean, on the whole, they are kind of playing the game. At the very least, Frankie keeps saying "It's time to start playing Big Brother," and in terms of strategy, Derrick has most definitely been playing the game all season. But people aren't making big moves.
The Bomb Squad-detonator-whatever alliance has clung to each other all season, which in itself is a strategy and one that's been effective for them. But it's seriously boring. And it's a failing strategy for every one of them who doesn't make the Final 2. All of the credit for this alliance will fall on the two people who make it to the end. Or at the very least, because they're so sure she'll never win a competition that it makes no sense to get her out before stronger players. It would be incredible if Victoria won HoH this Thursday night.
Beyond there effective strategy to work as a group (excluding keeping Amber, Devin and Zach), I don't even have it in me to credit them for loyalty, as I think any one of the remaining Detonators would sell any of the others down the river in a heartbeat if/when the opportunity arose. Watching Caleb, Frankie, Derrick, Cody and Christine on the feeds, it seems like their union is more about strength in numbers than it is about loyalty.
And for Caleb, it's about getting this Five-some to the Final 5 so they can beat the Brigade and go down in Big Brother history, which he's certain is a big deal.
In the meantime, this strength-in-numbers strategy does nothing for players like Donny or Nicole, who had plenty to offer the game -- loyalty, competition wins, likability -- but never managed to get inside that core group. Now, I'm not saying the other houseguests have to save Nicole or should have saved Donny just because we like them. But it would've been a lot more interesting if one or two of the Bomb Squad people had tried to protect them for their own games. The closest thing we've seen to that is Derrick's friendship with Victoria, but I suspect every single person in that alliance is secretly keeping Victoria around because they want to take her to the end.
Meanwhile, players like Hayden, Donny and Nicole have been evicted because they've been deemed expendable. And while that's the nature of the game, I'm afraid it's all building up to some seriously uneventful last few weeks, where we all count down the days to the finale and root for the least unlikable person to get to the end. At this point, Derrick remains my pick to win.
If things go predictably, Victoria will be the replacement nominee put up at the Veto Ceremony and Nicole will be the first eviction. But Caleb has talked (as recently as while I'm typing this) about Frankie being unpredictable. So maybe, just maybe, he'll go for a big move and put Frankie up next to Nicole. In which case, at the very least, there would be drama in the house.
In other news...:
Frankie made TMZ for some off-color joke he made about Victoria.
Nicole and Derrick had a seriously sweet heart-to-heart the other night. Both of them are Have Nots, so they're stuck in the freezer room together. I don't think it did anything to help her game, but it's nice to see she has someone to talk to. She's also buddied up with Victoria.
There's been no new Team America mission, but from what Derrick told Frankie, it sounds like that "twist" might not be done yet, despite Donny being gone. Maybe we'll get something to vote on after tonight's episode.
Finally, Cody won a Dinosaur costume that he has to wear all week. See pics of him in that after the jump...
