Double eviction! These can be brutal in the Big Brother game, as the nominees have no time to try to save themselves. Then again, this season, we haven't seen many big turnarounds. Everything seems to be decided by the Veto Ceremony and there's little that can be done to change it. Still, tonight's second half was rough on one houseguest. And Julie revealed a big twist... that probably would've gone over better a couple of weeks ago, but that's neither here nor there.
Here's how things went down tonight:
Nicole was evicted unanimously.
Derrick won Head of Household.
Derrick nominated Victoria and Christine.
Frankie won the maze Veto.
Frankie didn't use the Veto.
Christine was evicted unanimously.
We can also add that Christine didn't hug anyone on the way out and got brutally booed by the audience when she sat down for her interview. Meanwhile, inside, Frankie seemed to have interpreted the audible booing as a sign that they all did the right thing in getting her out.
We're getting way ahead of ourselves though. First, Nicole was evicted. And she got in a nice little zing about people not making big game moves in the house, saying this is Big Brother, not Big Baby. It's true, it wasn't a big game move to send her out the door. Maybe she would've proven to be a threat, but by her competition wins and the fact that no one was trying to help her stay, maybe Caleb and the other houseguests could have set their sights on someone who might be harder to beat.
Would it have been in Caleb's best interest to backdoor Frankie? That's certainly debatable. But he might've taken a closer look at Cody or Derrick and decided that it was time to ease some of the steeper competition out the door. But he didn't. Victoria went up and Nicole went home. She had her second adorable interview with Julie. There were no goodbye messages. And she's off to cuddle with Hayden in the jury house.
Following that predictable exit, the second eviction was underway, as all but Caleb played the next Head of Household competition, which was a thinking-comp centered around comments the evicted houseguests made. Or comment, as it were, as there was only one question. I've always wanted to see all but one houseguest get eliminated in the first round of one of these competitions and sure enough, it happened, as Derrick was the only one to get Donny's kissing comment right. It seems highly unlikely that Derrick would've wanted to win this competition. He didn't really need to. The odds of anyone, save maybe Frankie, being savvy enough to recognize how ahead of this game he is were slim to none. For Derrick, winning only puts him in a spotlight he doesn't need and has been trying to avoid all season.
Derrick had some quick chats with the houseguests, including one with Victoria wherein he told her she had to go up but she was definitely not going home. This was a great move on Derrick's part. For one thing, Victoria might be steamed at having her Big Brother life put in jeopardy by her closest ally. But on the other hand, Derrick's really her only ally. Even if she's mad, she has no one else she can really go to, right? And if Derrick really is this season's Dan Gheesling, he'll be able to calm her down and regain her trust within ten minutes. Remember Dan winning Danielle over not long after he blindsided Shane? Worse infractions have been made against close allies in this game, and people have come back from them. There are times to hold grudges in this game and there are times when a grudge is a luxury a houseguest like Victoria really can't afford.
Derrick put Christine and Victoria up, and claimed it was what the house wanted. He's been doing a great job of making it seem like he's always just going along with the group. Meanwhile, he drops subtle hints to tilt people in whatever direction works for him.
Christine needed to win the Veto. I don't know if she knew for sure that she was the target when Derrick put her up -- he did say the house wanted these nominees -- but she needed to win the Veto to ensure her safety, or she needed to pull Frankie into a room immediately after the competition and tell him that this alliance is about to collapse and she would have his back to the end of the game if he used it to save her. If Frankie had taken Christine off the block, Derrick would have had to put up either Caleb or Cody. Christine and Frankie would be able to decide who went.
But that's not this season. This season has been the majority deciding which lone houseguests is the next to go and then sticking to that regardless of whether or not it's best for their own personal game. Christine has unfortunately been a part of that, and it eventually caught up with her. Now, I'm not going to say I advocate her being mercilessly booed by the audience, but her swift exit, which didn't involve any good-bye hugs or even words to the houseguests on her way out, was inevitable. There were times in the game when it seemed like she was making the group's decision, playing along with their plans in order to stick with them. But from the outside perspective, it did look like she was being kept around for convenience. And she missed some big opportunities to nurture friendship with people outside the boys club that might have given her a better hold on the game. Like she said though, who knows how things could have gone if she hadn't allied with the guys.
And in fairness to Christine, she isn't the only one putting all of their chips on an alliance that continuously gangs up and sends people out without a second glance. Caleb is the closest anyone comes to being legitimately loyal to that group, and I think that has more to do with him wanting bragging rights to founding the Bomb Squad, based on how often he talks about getting the biggest alliance to the end. I'm not sure that'll happen though, as I would be genuinely surprised if Victoria didn't make the final four, if not the final three.
And that brings us to the last point. Everyone needs to see what's happening here. How can they not? Victoria is the ultimate pawn right now. She's an easy nominee and she doesn't win competitions, so why would anyone vote her out when they can get someone who can win competitions to leave instead. All but two houseguests will likely regret not getting her out sooner. That is, unless she wins a competition, which I'm kind of hoping she does just to throw every planned scenario out the window. And these scenarios have been planned. There was talk about getting Christine or possibly Frankie out tonight if it was a double eviction. It couldn't have gone smoother if it had been scripted.
Twists and Missions
A magic Button has been placed in the Big Brother house. If someone pushes it, it'll hit the breaks on the live eviction next week and force the house to re-play the whole week. Meaning whoever was in danger of going might have a chance to flip the whole game and send out their competition. Honestly, I would've loved to have seen a twist like this a couple of weeks back when Donny and Nicole were still in the house. It's so close to the end though that it's hard to know how something like this will affect the game. But I wonder if the twist is actually being implemented just to make sure something interesting happens in this home stretch.
We may never find out. The Houseguests know the button exist, but they have no idea what it does. So they might play it safe. How long do they have to decide? If it's there all week, there's no way one or both nominees post-Veto don't push it. Did Julie specify? Moving on, there's the Team America twist, one of which is to encourage a house-wide fast while Team America secretly eats. The other is to convince the houseguests that there's a rodent in the house and try to get everyone to spend a day looking for it.
Julie Chen also announced that Jeff and Jordan will be appearing on Sunday night's episode to make a big announcement. Hopefully we'll get some indication of what that's about on the live feeds before then. In the meantime, be mindful of the altered schedule for some of the upcoming episodes. Check that out here.
