Big Brother Recap – 7/20/15

So after all that filler, we make it to some alliance talk about who to nominate and who to target for the week. And in the end, they decide that Jason is the best option, followed by Meg and James. There’s some talk about getting Audrey out, but Shelli wants to keep her around, as does the rest of the alliance because they feel she’s always going to be a target. But again, here’s the flaw in their strategy – the longer they keep her around and start picking off everyone else, they’re pissing off other people in the house to the extent that if they ever are in power, they’ll care very little about getting out pesky old Audrey and care more about getting out the people who are in power and who have been behind all of the past evictions of houseguests they were aligned with. And guess what those people will do? They’ll go to Audrey and make deals with her to add her as a number to their alliance to help get you out and guess why Audrey will do it – because it will be yet another week she gets to miraculously stay in the house after she spent the first month being hated and targeted by everyone except the HoH. It happens just about every season and before you know it, she’s in the final five or seven and you’re sitting at home watching the season or in the jury house, hoping and praying she’s the one who gets dropped off by the limo and brings in the DVD of what happened the past week!! Of course, I don’t think it’s worth it to get Audrey out at all since she’s not much of a competition threat and will always be an easy out in the house if nominated, but just pointing out that people always do tend to wait too long to vote out the house pest.

Hey, we get another scene with Jackie in it! Watch out, is she thinking about finally starting to play the game? Maybe, but I doubt she’s going to play it well as she has a discussion with Austin and then immediately goes and tells someone Austin is aligned with what he said. If she were paying attention at all, she’d probably have known that Austin and Shelli are aligned and anything he said to her is probably something she would already know. Or maybe she’s an idiot savant and knows that telling Shelli what Austin said to her will get Shelli all worked up about Austin talking to her and telling her things…which is what happened. And, in true Big Brother form, Shelli is all upset that, how dare he, go and talk to someone else in the house about the game and what COULD happen this week. It’s not like Austin told her she’s definitely going up as a pawn, but instead just having a conversation about how things could play out during the week. But again, how dare Austin have a conversation with someone without clearing it with Shelli (and Vanessa for that matter)! Did Shelli and Vanessa talk to Austin before they had their little chit chat about him and being worried about him in the game? Nope. Again, this is just another showing of how intensely crazy this game is and how wishy washy it can be that Jackie could have full blown lied to Shelli and never even had that conversation with Austin and it could have completely blown up his game. It’s just crazy that any conversation you have at any time in that house can cost you your life in the game.

Not again! Not with the Johnny Mac throwing the Battle of the Block, Clay! Please don’t ask him….oh f*ck, here he goes! And don’t you find it funny that it’s Clay going to ask him? Shelli’s in charge and if that’s what she wants to have happen during her reign as HoH, shouldn’t she be the one asking these questions? Girl power, huh?!? Or well maybe it is a show of girl power that she just has Clay do her bidding and she can always say that she’s not the one who asked Johnny about throwing it. However, that’s unlikely to work since Johnny is just counting up all these times he’s been asked to do something for this power alliance and he’s not going to care if it was Clay or Shelli who asked him, if he’s up, he may just nominate them both! In the end, Clay was tip-toeing the fence and telling Johnny that he didn’t have to do it if he didn’t want to (which then, why ask him in the first place and not just let the chips fall where they may???), so they left that conversation in the same place where they started, where Johnny would be nominated and he could win or lose the Battle of the Block. Good talk, guys. Also, in the beginning, it was a neat idea for Johnny to continue to agree to all of these things, but where is the talk with them about what he gets out of it? He’s not even in their alliance and he’s just going to blindly follow their lead like that? I sure hope they’re just editing out all the talks he has with them about how he’s going to be safe and making final three deals with people and such. I know those deals mean squat, but at least try and get something out of you deliberately losing to help benefit their game every week.

Ugh, Shelli. Maybe we should let Rango do the talking from here on out because the whole “I don’t want to be doing this at all” crap is played out. Yes, maybe you feel bad about being the reason someone is going to go home and you want to seem emotional and friendly, but let’s not kid ourselves, you definitely want to be in charge of this game. Or maybe you’d rather not and see your face show up on that screen?!? Or maybe Jeff crying to her last week really just struck a chord with her and she’s truly upset about all of this. Although, I will say one thing (even though I don’t think she did it strategically), her speech did open up the conversation line with Jason and could possibly play into them working together at some point (if she’s smart). Her saying that she’s heard things about him targeting her was a brilliant line and definitely got him to approach her and talk game with her, which could benefit the both of them now and later in the game, if they’re smart and decide to work together from opposite sides of the house.

Let me send a quick shout out to Liz here for not opening her mouth like everyone else seems to be doing this season at the drop of every dime! She nominated Jackie mostly because she’s never talked to her (pretty girls always hatin’ on other pretty girls – even though I don’t happen to think either are truly pretty, but society will tell me I’m wrong – but hey, girl power, right) and doesn’t know where she stands in the game, yet here’s Jackie approaching her probably right after the nomination ceremony and asking her who’s the real target and how things are going to play out this entire week. I don’t hate Jackie asking, because if someone’s going to tell you, you may as well ask, but props to Liz for keeping her trap shut and not telling her everything she knows and wants to do just because they’re having a conversation. I’ve always thought that the best way to play Big Brother was to never answer questions but instead return questions to the person asking you so that they end up answering their own question or veer off into another direction so that you’re never truly talking YOUR game, but instead either talking their game or just game in general. That is exactly what Liz did here and I’m somewhat proud of her for doing so. Maybe her being in power will turn her head around in this game and have her playing harder. I think she turned a corner last week and also think voting her own way this past eviction night gave her more confidence. It shall be interesting to see where she goes from here. I happen to think Jiz both being in the house will be a detriment to her game, but who knows. How crazy would it be if they both made it to the end and won first and second place?!?

Then we cut to Shelli telling Jason right off the bat that it was Audrey telling her that he was gunning for her. Again, I’m not saying this was a bad move, because it does paint a target on Audrey and deflect some from her, if Jason ever did win, but at the same time this is just how the game is going this season – everyone telling everyone everything. And telling them right off the bat, not making them earn the information by giving up anything of their own. At least mine for data from Jason first. Try and figure out his game plan for staying this week and what he would do next week if he won before you just go ahead and give him everything he wants to know. Information is power in the Big Brother house and truly the only form of currency – you can’t just go around handing out money to people without getting the right amount of change in return. But, as I said before, the HoH is never truly the target the following week, so Shelli probably shouldn’t worry if Jason did win.

And if we didn’t have our fill of Audrey crazy yet, we’re getting it now. For one reason or another, she approaches Shelli to tell her that what she previously told her didn’t come from her, but from her listening to other people talk?!? What in the actual f*ck is Audrey? I can’t quite place my finger on what she’s doing or thinking, but every time she opens her mouth, it seems as if she’s just completely nuts and has no idea what she’s saying or doing. She fought with Clay after he just got done telling her he wanted to save her, and now here she is backtracking on something SHE brought to Shelli, and she’s backtracking TO SHELLI. What? Even I’m confused when I try and write about this stuff. Why would she even do such a thing in the first place? If Jason is mad and he’s talking to Shelli about what she said a the nomination ceremony, you have to just live that lie, Audrey. Don’t go and tell Shelli that you’re in fact lying! What is wrong with you? Now, we get the requisite amount of diversion with Shelli telling us she may get Audrey out this week since she realizes more and more she can’t trust her (duh!!!), but we all know she’s not going to get her out.

After digesting that lunacy, we head to the backyard for the Battle of the Block competition, where we watch Jason and Bobcat G get off to quite the large lead on James and Jackie, but then the two morons head over to the section where they need to smash some pumpkins, and even though they were up 3 keys to 1, they somehow failed to find the fourth key before James and Jackie found the second, third, and fourth keys?!? Wow. It appeared the two stick figures had trouble with breaking open the pumpkins, but it also appeared that the two had ample time to break EVERY SINGLE ONE of those pumpkins before the two non-speed demons of James and Jackie found three other keys! I’m not sure how that one worked out that way, but if I was a betting man, I wouldn’t know what to believe that I just saw and would just accept the fact that I lost whatever bet I placed to production factors! I guess I can start backtracking about how much James sucks at competitions now since they pulled off this comeback.

So, even though Johnny wasn’t trying to throw the comp, he still lost and has yet another chance at building his reputation as the Veto King. We’ll find out on Wednesday if that rep rings true or if he’ll be stuck on the block and have to sit through an actual live vote! And we’ll probably have to put up with a few scenes of some stupid Wackstreet Boys punishment performances. Can’t wait…

See you all back here on Friday…

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