Sometimes when I’m watching an episode of Big Brother, I find myself staring curiously at the houseguests as they sit in the diary room talking about their thoughts on the game and I notice the most random things. For example, did anyone else spot Jessie wiping his armpit and then wiping his face immediately afterward? And how cute does Jeff look in glasses?
Ok, enough with the random observations. Tonight’s episode started with the Head of Household competition, which began during last week’s live show and left us (and the houseguests) hanging. I love endurance competitions. They bring out the best and worst in the houseguests. While we were treated to the sounds of Natalie dry-heaving as she attempted to stay up on her swing, we also got to see Chima being tossed around like a rag doll every time the big foam diploma came out and the houseguests knocked into it. Big credit to the girl for hanging on as long as she did. Kevin and Lydia were the first one’s off. Floaters don’t need to win competitions. They don’t want to win competitions. It’s much easier to drop early, win a prize and hope that whoever does win will keep them safe. “Graduation Gifts” were given to the first five eliminated houseguests. Kevin won cash, Lydia won a flat screen TV, Jordan won the chance to pick the have-nots for the week (not much of a prize if you ask me) and Ronnie and Natalie won empty boxes.
Chima and Michele dropped next, leaving Russell and Jeff to duke it out as the big wheel continued to rotate. While both complained later about three and a half hours they spent on the swings, neither did much to let on that they were hurting while they were actually up there. As is always the case in endurance competitions, once it came down to two people a deal began to form. Now, if you’ve been watching this season from the beginning then you’d know that Russell and Jeff aren’t exactly BFFs. In fact, they had a screaming match early on in the season and though they were in the same clique, the two stayed away from each other for the most part. All of that changed at the end of the endurance competition. Russell gave his word on his father’s life that he wouldn’t put Jeff or Jordan up if he was HoH. Jeff decided to take Russell’s word and let him win the competition.
Jordan made the wise decision to choose the three have-nots by a random draw. She picked names out of a hat and Jessie, Kevin and Natalie all ended up in the have-not group this week. While Natalie has a slop-pass that redeems her from having to feed off slop and the squash and squid prize America decided on this week, she'll still be stuck in the have-not room and taking cold showers.
While Jeff seemed confident that the deal he made with Russell was secure, that was later affirmed when Russell read the letter his father wrote to him, which was waiting for him in his shiny, new HoH room. Russell’s dad, who is recovering from neck surgery, had some words of wisdom to his son, most of which pertained to his behavior in the house. Among them, being a gracious winner and presenting himself well were part of what his dad wanted him to remember. It’s entirely possible that we might have seen the last of mean-Russell, at least for a while, anyway.
Now that Russell’s HoH, the rest of the houseguests were wondering who he would target. Lydia went up to his HoH room to sweettalk him as she had with Jessie. She not only attempted to make herself sound weak by admitting she can’t win competitions but she also threw Jessie, Natalie and co. under the bus, claiming they all said they wanted to come after him. Of course, Russell took this conversation to Jessie, Natalie and Chima, all of whom denied that. I’m thinking even if they did want to target Russell, none of them would’ve had any reason to tell Lydia that bit of information but I’m not as up on the live feeds this summer, so it’s possible she was telling the truth. Possible but not probable. Lydia’s obvious floating hasn’t gone unnoticed by anyone and while admitting she sucks at comps might make her seem like less of a threat to him, it also doesn’t give Russell much of an incentive to keep her around. After all, what does she have to offer him if she can’t win competitions?
Jeff stopped in to re-secure his deal with Russell. He went on to say that after hearing his father’s letter, he knows Russell’s a man of his word. Russell, who’s in a great position to bargain, proposed a secret alliance between himself and Jeff. They agreed to put their alpha-feud behind them and work together in the future. It’s a pretty solid alliance if both of them actually stick to it. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there’s a good chance Jeff will win this coup d’état. I have a feeling he’s pretty popular among the American voters and if that’s the case, he could really screw things up for Russell if he does win it and use it this week. That said, Russell put Lydia and Ronnie up on the block and I doubt Jeff would have any interest in saving either of them unless it was to target someone else, like Jessie. Still, he could always do that next week and let the rest of the house get Ronnie out this week.
Russell seems to want Ronnie out over Lydia, though I doubt he’d be all that disappointed if Lydia went home. Still, his nomination speech about snakes and mongooses was entirely directed at Ronnie. Whether or not Ronnie will be able to manage to slither himself off the chopping block either by winning the Veto or else, getting the votes to stay remains to be seen.
