It”s Zankie Time in the “Big Brother” household, with both Frankie and Zach serving as Heads Of Household as tonight”s installment starts. That status will change by night”s end, with the weekly Battle Of The Block and the potential for Team America to force a major verbal battle during tonight”s nomination ceremony. Will The Detonators stick together another week, or will that alliance implode?
Let”s find out what happens on this Sunday (July 27) installment…
8:00 pm EST: Previously on “Big Brother”: Zach shouted so loudly in the confessional room that I heard him in real time off-air. And I live in Boston.
8:02 pm: “Zankie is the new power couple!” intones the announcer. Damn straight.
8:03 pm: No one seems happy about Zach as Head of Household, with multiple people calling him a “wild card.” Meanwhile, Frankie is overcome with emotion at the thought of seeing a picture of his grandfather in the HoH room.
8:04 pm: Zach”s main target: Amber, after hearing about the all-girls” alliance that she”s attempting to form through Christine. Meanwhile, Donnie and Jocasta think Christine intentionally paired them off during “Country Hits” as part of the ongoing plot to continually put them on the block.
8:05 pm: Zach and Frankie hug over their wins. “That was that best hug of my life!” Zach declares, to the delight of Twitter. They quickly discuss strategy, with Zach admitting that he wants to push Amber out. He then discusses the plan with Caleb in order to minimize blowback. Luckily for Zach, Caleb thinks Amber isn”t grateful enough to him for saving her a few weeks ago, because Caleb is a creepy dude who makes my skin crawl.
8:09 pm: Caleb shares the intel with Amber, but won”t give up Christine”s name. Amber deduces it”s someone in the alliance, and threatens to expose The Detonators if she”s nominated.
8:11 pm: HoH Room Reveal Time! “He”s your twin!” declares Derrick, upon seeing Frankie in a photo next to his grandfather.
8:12 pm: Zach asks Christine to be the pawn this week in the Battle Of The Block alongside Amber. She initially refuses. “This happens every season!” she declares. Christine has a point! But Zach can”t see that. All he can see is red from this “betrayal.” Between this and the general anger towards the very concept of an all-female alliance, there is some seriously weird gender politics going on this season. It”s not as overt as the hatred last season, but it”s there all the same.
8:16 pm: We”re now enjoying an entire segment about Caleb”s fear of pickles versus his desire to go on a date with Amber. “Now I”m stuck in a pickle,” says Amber, fully aware of the wordplay involved.
8:17 pm: If there”s an episode of “Stalker” this Fall on CBS that involves pickles, you will know where they got the idea. Caleb lights a candle near the pool and tries to have an adult conversation with her, but holy God is he possessive. Even the sound guys on “Big Brother” call him out with their editing.
8:19 pm: Cody tries to calm Zach down about the Christine situation, but likens the power of HoH to that of The One Ring. He invokes the “D” word (“Devin”) when discussing the level of power trip on display.
8:22 pm: Later, Nicole visits Zach in the HoH room. “I really like Nicole. She”s extremely gullible.” The race for Biggest Jerk in tonight”s episode is fierce, y”all. He plants seeds of doubt about Christine in her mind. Sadly, it”s about as easy as he predicted.
8:24 pm: “Is there anything you wanna tell me?” Nicole asks Christine later on. Christine is terrified that Zach is going to blow up her entire game. She seems to calm Nicole down for now, but it really seems like a matter of time. This won”t really affect the ultimate outcome of the game (as I don”t see either wining it all), but potentially harms one of the generally nicer friendships in the house.
8:29 pm: Derrick and Cody are scheming towards a two-person alliance. He says that Christine is “a floater, but methodical.” (A methodical floater. I think we have a brand new hybrid of “Big Brother” player.) The pair dub themselves “The Hit Men,” because you can”t have an alliance without a name. Those are the rules.
8:30 pm: Donnie finds the Team America challenge in the confessional room. “The thing about it is, with Zach, anything”s possible,” says Donnie. Donnie speaks the truth. It helps that Zach is practicing his nomination speeches in front of The Detonators, which feature verbal Molotov cocktail after verbal Molotov cocktail.
8:35 pm: Amber heads to the HoH room late night to hash things out with Zach. “I”m not going to put you on the block,” he tells the confessional, “But I am going to back door you.” To be fair, if someone woke me up at 5 am to talk shop, I might be mad as well.
8:40 pm: Nomination Ceremony time! Frankie nominates Jacosta and Victoria. Why? Because he thinks they are going to lose the Battle Of The Block and keep him as Head of Household. Zach nominates Christine and Nicole. AND HE RECITES THE SPEECH WE SAW HIM PRACTICE! Then he calls Nicole a “Fruit Loop Dingus.” Nicole starts to laugh-cry all at once. Christine is straight-up angry. Will the fight happen as Team America hopes? Team America fails at part one of the puppetmaster challenge, which means they have one more chance come The Power Of Veto ceremony.
8:42 pm: Zach is a jerk, but he also made the first interesting nominations all season. I don”t know how to feel about this.
8:43 pm: After the ceremony, Christine confronts Zach about ratting her out to Nicole. But Cody seems to have Christine”s back.
8:45 pm: The music playing over this Jocasta/Victoria discussion is amazing. I love the music editors on this show. These strings would be too over-the-top for any actual soap opera. This is musical subtweeting.
8:46 pm: Remember when men were nominated for Battle On the Block? Me either.
8:52 pm: The wedding-themed Battle Of The Block competition involves building a giant cake and then standing upon it for three seconds. There might be a name to this competition, but all I can focus on are the silly helmet/wigs that the four women are forced to wear.
8:54 pm: I love how “Big Brother” takes the time to explains the rules of a competition, then have each player explain the rules once again. Then again, given how poorly Victoria performs in this competition, maybe she could have stood to hear the rules a few more times.
8:56 pm: Both teams “race” to the top, and by “race,” I mean “move at the speed of continental drift.”
8:57 pm: To no one”s real surprise, Nicole and Christine win. That means Zach is back in play. A possible backdoor nominee? I wouldn”t be surprised. “If the house calls for Zach”s head, I might have to give it to them,” says Frankie.
Who should go home this week? More importantly: Who has the best odds of actually winning at this stage of the game?