After “Big Brother” went into a rut for July and much of August, things have certainly been shaken up over the past week, with last Thursday’s double-eviction marathon leading to a seemingly huge momentum swing for the Newbies only to see the pendulum sway back again after Porsche’s strategically faulty Pandora’s Box decision, the resurrection of the Duo Twist and Rachel’s clutch Power of Veto win. As this week’s eviction episode begins, the Newbies are suddenly facing the choice between losing Adam or Shelly, based presumably on whether they prefer lumpy jellyfish or over-tanned flip-floppers.
Let’s see how the vote goes down…
9:00 p.m. First off, apologies for the late recap. I had a fantasy football draft that needed to be hideously botched. Priorities, y’all. Priorities.
9:03 p.m. Like I said, it was a busy week and a busy week means a busy episode-opening recap.
9:03 p.m. The hamsters have been in the house for 62 days (not “weeks” as I originally typed, not that these people have anything better to do than spend a year in the House) and a bare-shouldered Julie Chen calls this one of the most tumultuous weeks in “Big Brother” history.
9:05 p.m. We pick up in the aftermath of Adam and Shelly taking their seats on the Block. “My chances in the house should be absolutely slim-to-none,” says Shelly. “I need to start kissing some Veteran butt,” Adam sighs. Wait. Kiss *more* veteran butt? Wow, Adam. Is that even possible? Rachel has coined a new Power Couple name for her pairing with Jordan — decked out in a “Geaux Tigers” shirt in honor of LSU’s upcoming opener. They’re now “Jochel.” Sure they are. “I trained monkey could have done my job,” says a suddenly astute Porsche. I would watch a “Big Brother” season in which the hamsters were placed in a house with two or three trained monkeys.
9:08 p.m. Wow. Shelly sees the Fortune Teller machine start moving and she kneels before it like a graven idol, hoping that the animatronic crone will give her advice or a special power. Because there’s nothing else to do in the house, Shelly spends a full three hours waiting for her chance to wish to be big. “Obviously the joke’s on me,” a disgruntled Shelly says. Shelly eventually decides that she will be her own instrument of deliverance, vowing to be a movable pawn for Rachel. Shelly already told us that she has no real plans to give Rachel and Jordan the $500,000 but in the moment, she offers Rachel her “Past, Present and Future” diamond ring, which Rachel politely declines. The ring, by the way, is a fugazi, a CZ. It’s a genuine as Shelly.
9:12 p.m. The “Big Brother” house is so full of pathetic things each summer that it’s hard to categorize something as “most pathetic.” So when I say that the spectacle of watching Adam suddenly decide to scramble and play the game is the most pathetic thing this summer… Well… Yeah. It’s pretty pathetic. Jordan and Rachel aren’t swayed by Adam and they don’t trust Adam, which gives them a sad, sad Sophie’s choice.
9:15 p.m. Jordan gets the “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” saying right. I’m astounded. This week is forcing Jordan to take off her dunce’s cap and put on her thinking cap, not that either hat is spending much time in place, with al the head-scratching she’s doing.
9:18 p.m. Live conversation time! “She’s a handful and she’s very entertaining and I never get bored with her,” Jordan tells Julie Chen of her ongoing alliance with Rachel. What’s been the most difficult thing for Shelly this week? Hurting Jordan. “It broke my heart. I adore Jordan. I adore her heart,” Shelly says. Adam says that he has lots of female friends, so being the only male hamster hasn’t been hard for him.
9:21 p.m. Off to the Jury House, where Brendon has been living like a king for a week. He’s been studying, working out, picking oranges and playing ping-pong by himself. He’d be OK with a week’s vacation with Rachel, but he’s also happy to have Daniele out of the game when she walks in the door. They plunk down on the couch to watch Daniele’s last days in the game. Presumably moments later, Daniele is saying she wants Adam to join them, when… “SHOCKER!” In walks Jeff.
9:28 p.m. Why does Daniele think Jeff getting voted out was karma for him getting her out? She’s a cackling lunatic. Watching his dismissal episode, Jeff sees that he accidentally tossed a clown shoe out of his ball pit, costing him his “Big Brother” journey. Ooops. “I’m pissed that that clown shoe decided my fate for $500,000,” says Jeff, who vows that his kids will never get clowns at their birthday parties.
9:32 p.m. Let’s talk to Porsche in the Head of Household room. “I guess it wasn’t so bad,” Porsche rationalizes, pointing out that she and Kalia got a little extra money out of her Pandora’s Box gaffe. Ideally, Porsche wants to be in the Final Two with a fellow newbie. Well yes. Given the composition of the jury, that would be ideal, wouldn’t it?
9:38 p.m. Final statements: Shelly panders directly to Jochel, calling them the most important people in the room. The camera keeps finding Kalia looking flummoxed. “Your decision tonight is going to be huge in deciding who’s going to be sitting in those last two chairs and it needs to be the people you want there,” Shelly tells Jordan and Rachel, turning her back entirely on Kalia and Porsche. Adam asks them to let his “Big Brother” dream continue. Maybe if Adam actually woke up, he wouldn’t be such a consistent dunderhead?
9:38 p.m. Kalia, not the most important person in the room, votes first. Kalia would prefer to evict Adam. Rachel, however, votes to evict Shelly. And that means that Jordan is also going to vote to evict Shelly. Indeed, she does. So that’s it. Farewell, Shelly. Float on, Adam. Float on.
9:43 p.m. I’ll say this for Shelly: She played the game. I don’t know if she played it well, but she put a lot of effort into her twisting in the wind.
9:44 p.m. Julie Chen calls Shelly a fighter. What does Shelly think went wrong? “I tried to make a big move last week,” Shelly says. Julie Chen’s having none of it. She asks why Shelly made the big move so early in the game. Early? We’re two weeks away from the finale, Julie. You make the moves when you can make the moves. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but I don’t think Shelly was wrong to break up the game’s power couple with the available opportunity. “I did not think I was going to have the chance again,” Shelly accurately tells Julie. I’m not sure Julie Chen is a very good “Big Brother’ strategist. She just keeps shaking her head over Shelly’s move like a disapproving, over-dressed school marm. Shelly’s looking forward to apologizing to Jeff. I assume that Jeff is looking forward to being sanctimonious.
9:48 p.m. Good-bye messages for Shelly aren’t going to be as vicious as in past weeks. Porsche praises Shelly for keeping the house clean and telling her when her skirt was too short or her bathing suit was too sexy. DAMN YOU, SHELLY! Kalia thanks Shelly for being her “mom away from mom.” Rachel, however, says she didn’t need a mom in the house and guesses that the ring was fake. Jordan’s disappointed in Shelly’s behavior, but doesn’t want to disrespect her elders.
9:51 p.m. Head of Household competition time. Guess what? This Head of Household competition is important. Each of the hamsters will tell us as much in Diary Room footage airing on Sunday.
9:52 p.m. The Duo Twist is over. Again. The competition is called “Rollin’ in the Dough.” They have to run through glaze and a field of sprinkles. They then have to collect donuts. They have 13 minutes to collect their donuts, guaranteeing that the results won’t be revealed in tonight’s episode and viewers will have to tune in on Sunday.
9:57 p.m. Rachel appears to be winning. Jordan appears to be sticky.
9:58 p.m. Next week, we have eviction episodes on both Wednesday *and* Thursday. Woo.
What’d you think of this week’s eviction? Do you agree with Julie Chen that Shelly made her move too soon?