Recap: ‘Big Brother’ Sunday – From HoH to Nominations to a Battle in an hour

When we left things, “Big Brother” had misgauged the attention-paying skills of this season's hamsters and 12 questions weren't enough to crown a Head of Household.

That means that Sunday's (August 3) episode is going to feature an HoH, nominations and Battle of the Block in one tight hour, right?

Follow along…

8:08 p.m. We pick up with a tiebreaker that crowns Nicole and Donny as the new Heads of Household. “Remember how stressed out I was last time I was Head of Household?” Nicole says. Not especially. Honestly, I only remember Nicole in an assortment of funny costumes. We've established that's what Nicole is best at in the game and possibly in the world: Wearing humiliation costumes. On the other hand, Donny observes, “I'm tickled pink that I won Head of Household today.” Zach pretends to be pissed off, making a big show of pretending his math was the problem, but he's actually giddy that he doesn't have to have power, meaning he won't have to get blood on his hands. “Sign me up for the Academy Awards,” says Zach, who probably figures that if Roberto Benigni has an Oscar, anything goes. Derrick is curious what Donny's loyalties will be, while Frankie wonders about the fate of his alliance.

8:13 p.m. Jocasta needs some love from home and she's miserable that she didn't win. Derrick tries reassuring Jocasta that you can't win everything, which kinda presupposes that Jocasta has won much of anything. “I can only see them in my MIND!” Jocasta wails of her children. Donny and Nicole agree that the person they want to trust is Hayden and they also agree that Cody, Frankie and Derrick are the only three people who haven't been nominated. “Graciously,” Zach takes Nicole aside and tells her that she can put him up, explaining to us that this would be reverse psychology. “Last week, I'm a fruit loop dingus and now — What's that? — we're best friends?” Nicole says incredulously. Derrick and Frankie, for their part, think that Donny owes them for both not putting him up and for allowing him to bail on last week's Team America mission. The guys all swarm around Nicole, with Frankie's ubiquity particularly attracting Nicole's ire. Derrick lies and tells Nicole that he's good with backdooring Frankie.

8:19 p.m. Who wants to see Donny and Nicole's HoH room? It's our first picture of both Donny's girlfriend and also of pre-beard Donny. Nicole also has a picture in which she appears to be wearing some sort of humiliation costume. That really IS her true calling! Caleb has found a new obsession in Nicole's bestie Mariah. “Caleb, you're nuts!” Nicole says. The letter from Mariah mentions her new boyfriend, which shatters Caleb's heart once again. More like Depeche Mode Cowboy, amirate? Donny's letter is from his girlfriend and makes him simultaneously blush and cry. The letter mentions kisses, massages and laying next to Donny, which forces the hamsters to view Donny as a sexual creature. “If Donny knows what's best for him, he would not put me up,” Caleb tells us threateningly, offering Donny security next week, but telling Donny that if he has to go up, he at least wants to go up with a legit player. Unlike Zach's mind game, Caleb is not practicing reverse psychology.

8:27 p.m. “Hayden and I are super-competitive,” Nicole says, before she hops a pool ball up and nails Hayden in the groin. “I never took Nicole to be the vengeful type, but lesson learned,” he squeals. We watch the replay in nad-crushing slo-mo. And we're reminded that while Barney's film had heart, Hayden's film had a pool ball in the groin. In non-genital-squashing news, Donny reassures Frankie and Derrick that they're safe as far as he's concerned. That's all Frankie says because, like everybody else, he doesn't want to get blood on his hands. That could be this season's “Big Brother” Slogan: A House Full of Bloodless Hands. “I think Frankie is the root of basically everything. Frankie is the puppetmaster,” Hayden observes. Donny doesn't want to put Frankie up, but he makes it very clear that he wouldn't mind if Frankie was backdoored. Interesting, Donny. Interesting.

8:36 p.m. After the failure of his reverse psychology approach, Zach goes to Nicole to try forward psychology and tell her to only put up weak players. This isn't what Nicole wants, so things are maybe going to get interesting. Donny, in contrast, wants as little blood on his hands as possible. Nicole nominated Jocasta and… ZACH. Ha. Nicole pays homage to Zach's tradition of nutty speeches, saying she looked up super-villain in the dictionary, only saw Evel Dick and that Zach too “cute and innocent” to be a super-villain. Donny's nominations are Caleb and… Victoria. “I think if you survive this week, we are square,” Donny tells Caleb. Then he tells Victoria that her blood has been on many people's hands and so her blood might as well be on his hands as well. Everybody's very impressed with Nicole's speech, or at least they tell her they were, even if she's not exactly sure what her speech was about. 

8:47 p.m. Zach is confident that there's no way he can lose to Caleb and Victoria at Battle of the Block, figuring that Caleb and Victoria will just fight through the BoB. He ends by telling Frankie that he won't be paying attention to the fighting because he'll just be, “Getting ready for my celebratory intercourse date with you.” Frankie kisses Zach on the chest. And Cody cringes, with the Harlequin romance of it all. Jocasta figures she can work with Zach because Zach knows that “Mama J don't Play.” And by that she means that Jocasta generally doesn't participate in competitions? On the other side, Victoria is telling Caleb that she's determined to win, while Depeche Mode Cowboy tells us that whenever you lose with Victoria, it's her fault.

8:55 p.m. Time for the Battle of the Block. It's like a child's playpen in the backyard. Frankie is pleased. “I want to play with everything!” he squeals. You have to create a domino run and hit a bullseye button, knocking over punishment dominos along the way. “Even if you win, you lose,” Victoria says aptly. Punishments include manure baths and shaved heads, which Zach and Jocasta want no part of. “I will take out the weave, but shave the head, she will not do!” Jocasta promises. Suddenly, Victoria is a warrior or, at the very least, she's trying. Zach and Jocasta are first to set their dominos in motion, but their dominos fall wrong and Victoria and Caleb try next. And they succeed! They're safe! Donny overthrown! “I just showed all these Jamokes that I'm a strong competitor,” Victoria declares. They get two weeks of slop, one of them get a shaved head and they have to wear fig-leave bodysuits and be joined together for 48 hours. Congrats to the Princess and the Pea-Brain. Zach simultaneously blames himself, but vows to work against Jocasta.

Yay? Boo? So what?

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