Well, this has to be my least favorite episode of Big Brother yet. Not only were two of my favorite houseguests on the block -- and one of them was evicted -- but to use a word overly used in the Big Brother house this season, my eyes literally glazed over during that football segment. Between the NFL outing in tonight's episode and the golf-induced delay on Sunday night, I've watched more sports this week than I probably will for the rest of the year. But for football fans: CBS. Thursday Night Football. This Fall. CBS. Football. Literally.
That's the last I'm going to complain about the promotions. In truth, the houseguests haven't had many luxuries so far this season. We haven't seen a Pandora's box and even Team America isn't collecting any money. Speaking of which, is anyone buying that Derrick's reason for keeping Donny is because he's Team America? A) Is that even a requirement? Do they all need to be in the house for them to do the missions? And B) They don't do the missions. They've completed two and have basically ignored the last three. Why are they still being given new tasks? Why not stick them with the same one until they complete it? Regardless, I don't fault Derrick for wanting Nicole out if that was the choice he made for his game. I just don't get the "Team America" reference when he casts his vote. It just draws attention to the fact that they're not doing the missions.
On to more relevant matters than the fizzling twist, Nicole was evicted unanimously tonight. Feed watchers saw that coming since Monday when Christine put her up. Nicole made a valiant effort to campaign to stay. She worked Christine, Cody and Derrick for votes, already having Victoria's support to stay. Those four might have been her best shot and they didn't want to keep her. It was probably a long shot anyway.
Nicole exited the house to cheers, which hopefully eased some of her anxiety that people might be upset with her for being at odds with Frankie. And all of her responses to Julie were typically adorable and real, with a side of nervous. It seemed like she was close to tears when she listened to Frankie's goodbye message, but she kept it together, and gasped with glee when Julie told her she might go back into the house.
It's disappointing that Donny and Nicole were on the block to begin with, but this is how the season's been going all along. The Detonators have picked off non-Detonators one by one and she was next. So what happens now that Frankie and Derrick are Head of Household? Do they conspire to send Donny out? That seems like the obvious play. I disagree with Cody that Donny has been "skating by." In my book, "skating by" is when you never get nominated and you don't win much. By the math, Cody's been doing more skating than Donny, the latter of whom has been nominated five times, and has won three Vetos and a Head of Household. Cody won one HoH and has never been nominated, so who's skating by here?
Having a big alliance has merit. We have to give the Detonators credit for getting as far as they have. But I'm ready to see how these players do once they no longer have each other as a group, and there's a very good chance we're going to see that this week. Assuming the Detonators aren't able to smoothly shove Donny out the door next Thursday, I want to see who turns on who. Will the alliance split down the middle, with some of them pushing to get one person out and the others trying to get the other person? Or will they all gang up on one person? Based on how they've been playing all season, I'm thinking people will do what's in Derrick's best interest.
As for who's coming back, there's been no word of an America's Vote to decide who should return, and it's been a while -- like, since the first competition -- since they've had an endurance competition. So I'm going to guess that they're going to do what they did last season and use the Head of Household competition to determine which houseguest gets to come back in. They might even make that houseguest automatic HoH, and let the rest of the house square off for the second HoH. We'll have to wait and see.
