Big Brother 17 - Finale

That's all she wrote! Yes, the 17th season of Big Brother has come to a close tonight with the crowning of a new victor in young superfan Steve. That's right, in the end, he was able to oust Vanessa at the last possible second, securing his victory over Liz.

But let's back up a moment and talk about just how he got there. After Sunday's rather pointless episode, we were left in the middle of the first part of the HOH competition, an endurance competition. I think this was the longest any of them had been able to endure thus far, as it went at least over three hours. Steve was the first one to fall, though, and then Vanessa started playing mindgames on Liz to try to get her to give up. Which she did. Sigh, Liz. That ensured Vanessa was going straight to the final competition.

The second competition was a big crossword puzzle where Steve and Liz had to solve the clues and also climb up the giant board to place in the pieces. It felt super close, and in the end it was, with Steve coming out just a few minutes faster than Liz, sending him into the final competition with Vanessa.

That final competition was another mental one, where they had to guess how the other jury members had answered some questions. Steve was ahead for most of the game, but Vanessa came back and tied it up just before the last question, which all came down to who knew Johnny Mac better. And that was... Steve!

And luckily, because while Steve may not be great at endurance competitions, he's no idiot. He knew that Vanessa was a force to be reckoned with that he probably could not beat in the final two, so he decided to take Liz with him instead. Vanessa was pretty peeved about not making it to the final two, it was quite obvious, but honestly, does she really need to win $500,000 when she's won millions of dollars playing poker already? No.

Anyway, when it came time for the jury to ask questions of the two remaining houseguests, it became pretty clear that the jury would have to be pretty stupid not to vote for Steve. His answers were 100% more eloquent, while Liz didn't really have much to say for her gameplay.

So, yes, in the end, Steve took home the BB17 crown in a vote of 6-3. Obviously Julia and Austin voted for Liz. The other vote? Vanessa, because she's a bitter weirdo sometimes. Congrats to Steve! He was finally able to get out Vanessa, who dominated that season. Really, she probably deserved to win more, but it was more satisfying as a viewer for Steve to win. At least to me.

And who took home the $25k for winning America's favorite player? It came down to Johnny Mac, James, and Jason. And I said to my boyfriend the other day that I thought James might get it because he's got more of the South voting for him. Was I right? Well, James did win, like Donny did last year. So take that as you will!

That's it for this season! Are you happy with who took home the $500,000?

Big Brother 17 - Fourteenth Eviction

Only two episodes left to determine who is the winner of this season's Big Brother. The person it won't be? Sadly, everyone's favorite dentist, Johnny Mac. Yes, his time as a resurrected juror came to an end this week. Single tear.

Honestly, though, the nice thing is that at least every person who made it into the final five was actually playing the game. Last season it was so frustrating to see Victoria make it so far just because she was so clearly a floater and would never win against anyone. I don't really think anyone can beat Vanessa this year if she makes it to the final two, but if it ends up being Steve versus Liz? That's not quite so certain.

Anyway, let's get to the meat of this thing. After Steve won the HOH competition during last night's episode, he had to put up two nominees. But not before Vanessa decided to talk to both John and Liz and tell them she would take them to final two with her. Which is great because she loves to tell people she can't trust them because they go back on their word, but she does it all the time too. Yeah, okay.

The nominations don't particularly matter this week, because it really just comes down to who wins the veto. But because he has to put up nominees, Steve puts up John and Vanessa. Interesting tidbit - this is the first time Vanessa has been straight up nominated. She's been a replacement nominee before, but never a regular one.

Shortly after the nominations, it's time for the veto competition. It's one of those comps where they have to guess the correct day certain events happened and input it into a counter thingy. Liz gets eliminated pretty quickly, then Steve, and then it's down to Vanessa versus John. Alas, Vanessa was blazing in that competition and could not be stopped. So it was up to her who she would send home - Liz or John.

In the end, she decides to eliminate John, which isn't a big surprise. Who would she choose to take with her into the final two, though, Liz or Steve? And would it matter? The better question is - would Liz or Steve be dumb enough to take her into the final two with them if faced with that decision? Liz might, but I don't think Steve would. We won't find out more until Sunday when the next HOH competition starts. But it's only a week from today that a winner will be crowned.

The best part tonight was when Austin went into the jury house and started spouting how Vanessa didn't deserve to win, and the only person to sort of agree with him was James, while all of the girls were like yeah, no, buddy, she's still in there and we're not. I would be straight up dumbfounded if she made it to the final two and didn't win. But I've been saying that for weeks.

That's it until next week's finale!

Big Brother 17 - Thirteenth Eviction

Well, the showmance is officially over. At least in the Big Brother house. Tonight's eviction was a blindside to the houseguests, who weren't expecting it to happen for at least another day or two. But come on, Julie loves to tell you to expect the unexpected, people.

Anyhow, after Julie told everyone that the eviction would be happening tonight, the show rewound to show us what happened leading up to tonight. As you may recall, on Sunday we were left wondering who won the HOH competition, but in the end it was everyone's favorite crying villain Vanessa who managed to get all of her eggs across the chicken wire. She then found herself in a conundrum - does she try to take out the showmance, or Johnny Mac? She had a whole convoluted reason why it would be best to take out John, so she put up Steve and John on the block.

John harbored ideas of throwing the veto competition to Liz and Austin (who promptly told Vanessa about these ideas), but did he follow through when it came down to it? The veto competition was another puzzler, but this time involving magnets, a balance beam, and a timer. Vanessa dropped out of the comp pretty much immediately, which left it up to the two duos to battle it out. John did seem to be planning to throw it to Austin and Liz if they could win before Steve, but when he sees Steve is close to winning, he decides no, he needs to win it for himself. And win it he does.

The real question - how many competitions would John have won if he wasn't throwing or semi-throwing them half the time? He's the only one who hasn't won an HOH yet. Anyway. He did win the Veto. Which meant Vanessa had to put up another houseguest as a nominee, which she again cried about. In the end, she put up Austin because she didn't want to put up Liz the week after Julia went home.

Johnny played squirrelly again, telling Austin and Liz that he just might vote to keep them in the competition rather than Steve. To anyone besides Austin and Liz, this sounds like a completely stupid plan. Luckily he went and talked to Vanessa, who shook with him that he, Steve and her would go to the final three together. He did contemplate not doing that, but it would've been stupid on his part.

When it came time to vote, Liz voted to keep Austin while John voted to keep Steve, which left the tiebreaker up to Vanessa. And she sided with Steve and John, voting out Austin. Austin seemed completely blindsided by the whole thing, and proceeded to yell at Vanessa that she would never get the jury votes to win. Um, dude? Have you been watching the same game? If she makes it to the final two, I don't see any way she doesn't win. She's had more control in the house than anyone, and has won more competitions than anyone too, I'm pretty sure. Just keep saying that, Judas. Sure.

Then it was straight into another HOH competition. Vanessa, of course, not eligible to compete. It came down to a tiebreaker between Steve and John, with Steve ultimately winning, even though honestly I feel it should've been John because his number was actually a lot closer to the number they were going for, but whatever. Now it's just a question if Steve will decide to really try to get the biggest player out of the competition. It would be in his best interest to do so at this point, as he would probably win over either of the other two, but not Vanessa.

But will he go against her? He does admire her game play, so he should know he should take her out. But does he have the balls to do it? I guess we'll find out tomorrow, when there's another eviction!

Big Brother 17 - Twelfth Eviction

Well, the domination of the Austwins has come to an end. Although I'm not sure we can really say that they were actually dominating, or more riding on Vanessa's coattails throughout the competition. Or perhaps more like her puppets as she laughs from above, pulling their strings.

She did this particularly well in the Veto competition this week, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself. After last week's double eviction, it was time to crown a new HOH. The competition had the houseguests figuring out puzzles and putting faces of their fellow contestants together. Being good at puzzles worked in Steve's favor, as it came down to him and Johnny Mac to take home the prize. Which was a good thing for them, and for us the viewers, because things finally got shaken up in the house.

Steve knew he had to break up the Austwins despite being in the Scamper Squad with them, but wasn't sure which of the two to put up on the block first. In the end, he did the smart thing and put up Austin and Liz together, the reasoning behind this being that Julia was less likely to win the Veto competition than either of them. Because if she did win it, she would be able to take one of them off and keep herself safe as well.

The Veto competition was one we've seen before, where the houseguests have to spin around a bunch of times and then try to knock down some bowling pins. Liz went up against Steve first, and knocked him out. But next up was Julia, and this is where things went downhill for them. Vanessa whispered in her ear that she should pick Austin over anyone else to compete against, to beat him and ensure her own safety. But earlier, the Austwins had discussed both Austin and Liz throwing it to Julia so she could keep two of them safe. Julia decided to listen to Vanessa in the situation, though, and took on Austin instead of Johnny Mac or Vanessa herself.

Thus ensued the rage of Austin, who thought maybe the entire house was working against him, including the twins. He beat Julia, then after Liz lost to Johnny Mac, defeated both Vanessa and Johnny Mac, taking home the Veto victory. But Liz didn't like his over the top reaction to winning, and their whole relationship took a downspiral. At one point it seemed like it may actually be the end of Austin and Liz as a couple, but after she calmed down a bit, she made up with him. Sigh.

Though Liz was hoping he might be her knight in shining armor, in the end Austin decided to use the veto on himself, which meant Steve then had to replace that nomination, which he did with Julia, meaning one of the twins was going to be evicted. Both twins thought the other should stay, but in the end decided Liz was more likely to be able to win the whole thing than Julia, so Austin and Liz went to Vanessa to get her on their side to keep Liz.

Now this may be where Vanessa began her own downfall, because she decided to go forward with keeping Liz and getting rid of Julia. Liz, who has won multiple HOHs and now is pissed that her sister is gone. Okay. Sure. Get rid of the pawn instead of the player. I don't know if that was the best plan, but it will hopefully make for more interesting television. Because, yes, Julia did end up being the one evicted, leaving Liz in the house to try to exact revenge.

The next HOH competition was still in progress as the episode ended. The interminable egg competition is probably really annoying for the HGs and just plain boring for the audience to watch, so we'll find out on Sunday (unless you watch the live feeds) who ends up winning. Next week is also a week of change ups, with a special eviction episode happening on Tuesday, then another eviction happening on Wednesday. Guess I'll be doing some extra recaps next week!

As I've been saying, if Vanessa makes it to the final two, she has it in the bag. The jury already sees how much influence she has in the house. The only chance the others have of winning is by taking her out, but they never seem to have the cojones to do so. Will they this week? We'll just have to wait and see.

Big Brother 17 - Tenth & Eleventh Evictions

Well, that was kind of an uneventful week, really. After Johnny Mac won his way back into the house during this week's HOH competition, and Vanessa won the HOH competition itself, I had a feeling I wasn't going to much enjoy the week. It just meant another week with Vanessa not even in contention to go up on the block, and it remaining unlikely that the Austwins would go home either.

Was I wrong? Alas, I was not. As we know, Vanessa has a deal with the Austwins in the Austin's Angels alliance, and if nothing else, she has definitely been very loyal to that group, despite being the last one on that totem pole. This week, however, she also made a side deal with Steve and Johnny Mac as a trio, to go up against the Austwins when the time comes. That left only two people on the outs with Vanessa - Meg and James.

So, she put them up on the block pretty easily. Of course, Meg sucks at competitions, so there was little to no chance of her being pulled off the block, but James, on the other hand, is pretty good at competitions, so he at least had a chance of winning the Veto. Joining Meg, James, and Vanessa in said veto competition were none other than the Austwins, who all hoped to win and keep Vanessa's nominations the same. In the game of hide and seek, though, James ended up taking home the victory by hiding his veto card the best.

With James pulling himself off the block, that left Vanessa with a decision to make in who she would put up to replace him. Although she could have done anyone, her choices really came down to Julia or John. She wanted to put up Julia to ensure Meg would go home, but the twins would rather have her put up John to keep them safe. In the end, she made the more interesting decision and put up Julia.

And here's where the other houseguests just did the stupidest move. John, Steve, James, and Meg all spoke with each other about flipping the house and voting out Julia, to finally break apart the Austwins. It was a good idea, and a great chance at chipping apart that alliance. Did they do it? No. Sigh. Steve bowed down to Vanessa once again and decided to go with what he wanted her to vote - so it was goodbye to Meg.

But this week was a double eviction week. Surely that would mean things could be shaken up? Sigh again. Steve clearly threw the competition from the get go, and James lost pretty early on as well as Johnny, thus ensuring another reign of the Austwins. Liz was the one who took home the HOH crown, and that basically sealed James' fate.

Yes, he could have won the Veto competition and taken himself off the block, but he didn't. In fact, it almost seemed like he lost on purpose. Definitely Steve and John lost on purpose. Julia ended up winning something for once, and of course kept the nominations the same.

So it was goodbye to James, one of the last people who may have been able to win an HOH competition and take out the Austwins alliance. And here I sigh again. This is really now Vanessa's game to lose. If she makes it to the final two, it doesn't matter who is up against her, she will win. She's had her hand in more evictions than anyone else, and seems to be the only one even playing the game at this point. But her obstacle lies in the Austwins that she's been so loyal to. She seems determined to make it to the final five with them and Steve, but once it's to that point, what does she expect? They will fully support each other over her, which she has acknowledged herself many times.

At this point, the show is kind of boring. There haven't really been any surprises, and even though I like Johnny Mac as a person, I don't think he really deserves to win. At this point the only person who does is Vanessa. Sigh.

Big Brother 17 - Tenth Eviction

Well, for anyone hoping that the reign of Vanessa and the Austwins was over was surely unhappy with the way things went down this week. Certainly there was a lot of drama in the house, if somewhat manufactured drama. Because, yes, Austin won the HOH competition, keeping him and the twins in power for at least one more week.

They were a bit concerned about Vanessa and wondering if they should evict her, but, sadly, this did not happen. I'm sure Vanessa would start crying if she saw how many people get annoyed by her crying at feelings of betrayal, but there you have it. Anyway, Steve was very adamant that he did not want to go up on the block if it was going to be against Johnny Mac. Austin somewhat agreed to that, but in the end just put him and John up all the same. Because he made a "deal" with James that he would keep him and Meg safe for the week. Why, exactly? Who knows.

After a visit from the Zingbot, whose best zing was reminding Liz that Austin actually has (or had) a girlfriend at home when he came into the Big Brother house. Oh yeah, burn. The fact that he went after her even though he came in with a girlfriend is so sketchy. Ugh. Anyhow, when it came time for the veto competition, Meg, Julia, and Vanessa were chosen to compete alongside Austin and the two nominees of Steve and John.

In a competition they had last year as well, the houseguests had to figure out who was included in a mashup of three of their faces. Julia did pretty well in this, but in the end Vanessa kicked her butt and took home the prize. And this is where things started to get a bit crazy. She decided to go to John and ask if he wanted to work together. Seeing as he had no one else in the house to work with anymore, he was like sure! She then went to Austin to try to get him to let John off the block, but Austin was not into it.

Now even more up against the wall, John told Vanessa about the alliance between him, Steve, and the Austwins last week to evict her. She, of course, flipped out. She went straight to Liz and confronted her about it. Though she tried to deny it at first, Liz eventually owned up to it - or sort of did. She threw Steve under the bus, saying it was him who orchestrate the whole thing, which sent Vanessa on a rampage against Steve, who seemed bewildered by the whole ordeal.

So, Vanessa did NOT use the power of veto, which left Steve and John on the block. The only way John could get himself to stay was by getting Vanessa to sway the twins to his side, but it was to no avail. The house voted him out unanimously. But, after an entertaining exit interview with Julie, John, along with the other jury members - Shelli, Jackie, and Becky - were all given a chance to come back into the house.

Everyone headed out to the backyard for the next HOH competition, an endurance competition. Whoever stayed on the ropes the longest would win HOH, and whichever jury member held on the longest would come back into the house. If the jury member was also the last one on, they would win HOH too. The episode ended without showing the result. I may or may not have gone and checked who won, but I won't spoil it here for those that don't want to know. But - who from jury do you want to see back in the house?

A last aside about Vanessa - she can be super annoying, but you have to admire her game play sometimes. I think if her crying theatrics were all part of her plan, it might not be so annoying, but sheesh. So much crying. The thing is, she is kind of a lone wolf. Although she has an alliance with the Austwins, they will surely evict her before one of their own, so she knows she has to win when it comes time that some of them must go up on the block. It would be in her better interest to start dismantling them now, but who knows if she will. Anyway, those are some of my brief thoughts on that whole thing!

Big Brother 17 - Ninth Eviction

After last week's double eviction, this week it was back to the regular drama. Liz took home the HOH crown in an emoji memory competition, putting her, Julia and Austin in power for the week. Notice I didn't say Vanessa, but she was there whispering in their ears throughout the week, of course. It's what she likes to do, constantly talk game. Of course, I don't watch the live feeds, so I'm not sure she is actually always talking game, but it does seem like it.

Anyhow, she decided to straight up confront Johnny Mac about his feelings toward her, and he was pretty much honest that when there was that whole blow up a week or so ago, he felt bullied by her. She took this as, like, some personal offense, and decided that she would spin it so that he seemed crazy when talking to the twins. Luckily, however, Becky went and spoke to them earlier about just what Vanessa says behind their backs, and how she is really only ever looking out for herself in the game, which at least planted a seed of doubt in their minds.

The seed was not enough to keep Becky or Johnny Mac off the block, though. In an interesting twist, Johnny decided to make something of a deal with the twins and Austin to throw the Veto competition if they would keep him in the house. That sort of deal is always a bit of a tricky one because it can blow up in your face, but he went for it, throwing the Otev Veto competition. I just now noticed that Otev is Veto backwards, so there's your trivia duh of the week. Becky was trying her hardest to win, but in the end Liz maintained her hold on the power, and despite the rest of the house really wanting Vanessa out, she decided that it was best for her game to keep the nominations the same.

I can see where Liz is coming from, but keeping Vanessa for too long is dangerous. It gives her more opportunities to win competitions and keep herself safe. And she knows that when it comes down to it, she will be the first one to go in their foursome, so she will start working against them sooner than later in order to keep herself in the competition. It is probably better to get her out after the jury members have the chance to come back in the house, but still, it's tricky.

Anyhow, all of that basically sealed Becky's fate. Though she kept saying in her diary room sessions that she was going to fight to stay, I'm not sure there's really very much she could've done. Particularly when Johnny Mac and Steve have seemingly aligned themselves with the twins and Austin now as well. The votes came back unanimously to evict Basic Becky, but I am rooting for her to come back into the house next week.

The episode ended with the next HOH competition under way, but we won't find out until Sunday who has won (unless you watch the live feeds, I suppose!). I'd like to see Johnny Mac finally take home an HOH victory, but the only person I really don't want to see win is, of course, Vanessa. Yeesh.

Big Brother 17 - Seventh & Eighth Evictions

Well, tonight's double eviction was certainly crazy and fast-paced! And played extremely late here on the West Coast, not sure it was the same on the East Coast, but I can tell you right now I hate having to write this so late when I have work so early in the morning! Anyhow, that's neither here nor there.

This week, Becky took the HOH crown and decided she wanted to create some waves in the house by backdooring Vanessa. She ended up putting Shelli and Steve on the block, with the plan to take one of them off and put Vanessa up. Everything went according to plan for a while, since even though Vanessa was chosen to participate in the Veto competition, she pretty handily lost, with Steve winning and taking himself off the block.

That left the door open for Becky to put up Vanessa, and she did, much to Vanessa's surprise, though to no one else's. Here's where everything went wrong, though. I feel like we didn't really get to see everything that went down, but basically Vanessa talked to James and turned that side of the house around, convincing them to take out Shelli instead. The whole house followed suit, and the vote went down unanimously to oust Shelli. If they were smart, they would have taken Vanessa out, but apparently they don't see how much she manipulates everyone. Particularly with all the high-voiced whining and tears. But I digress.

Shelli was the first to head to the jury house, but she wasn't going to be there alone for long - duh. It's a double eviction. Straight into another HOH competition the house went. And I said to my boyfriend, this is Steve's time to win if he's going to. And what happened? Steve won. I was thinking he might put Becky up since he apparently hates her, but I feel like something else must have happened offscreen here at this point, where John, he and Becky got together to form an alliance or something, because he put up Meg and Jackie! What!

They were both pretty blindsided by his nominations, and to be honest I kind of was too. He's a bit of a mystery, that mumbles-to-himself Steve. That led straight into the next veto competition, which Johnny Mac ended up winning. He and Steve had a brief conference about what to do, which ended up in them not changing the nominations. In the end, the house voted out Jackie. Apparently Steve thought she had been gunning for him in the past, when really she had been gunning for Austin. Now just who put that idea in his head? Who knows. We do know that Liz apparently really doesn't like Jackie thanks to her kinda bitchy "I vote to evict Jackie" evil grin, but maybe we'll find out next week.

So, the first two members of the jury have been evicted, but as Julie has been hinting, at a certain point they will have a chance to get themselves back into the game, but that may not be for one or two more weeks. Honestly, I wish they had voted out Vanessa, because while I liked her in the beginning, she's really starting to get annoying now. I think I am on team John-Becky-Steve if they are actually a trio, with Julia in there as well. If only she could get her sister away from Austin, maybe Liz would be slightly smarter.

That's all for this week! Phew!

Big Brother 17 - Sixth Eviction

The prince has been dethroned. I have to call Clay a prince because doesn't he look like the human embodiment of the ideal Disney prince? Particularly when he was in the knight getup for the Veto competition, which I included a screencap of below. Of course, a Disney prince would never be a champion of the mumble, but I digress.

Last I wrote, the houseguests were in the middle of an endurance competition that basically was all about them hanging onto a wall as long as possible, while cold water drenched them and weird felt eagles slammed into their chests. The final three remaining were James, Shelli and Johnny Mac. Shelli "made a deal" with James that she and Clay would be safe for the week, but that turned out to be a rather bogus deal.

James was still mad about the whole switcheroo the week before when Jason was sent home, and he had only one thought on his mind - get out the showmance. Rather than trying to backdoor either of them, he decided to just be direct about it and put Shelli and Clay up for nomination. With no more battle of the block, that meant the only way they could make sure at least one of them was safe from elimination was to win the power of veto.

That didn't work out so well. It would have been nice if the Veto competition for this particular week was a bit less random. I mean, did they get to practice on that thing at all? Otherwise it's kind of a crapshoot and doesn't really reward the person actually trying/doing the best. In the end, both Clay and Shelli lost the veto competition, with James taking home the crown instead.

Though they tried to campaign with James to take one of them off the block by telling him about Austin's alter ego Judas and how he swayed the votes away from himself and onto Jason, it wasn't enough. James kept the nominations the same. Which sealed the deal for the end of the showmance. Most of the house seemed to be in favor of taking Shelli out and keeping Clay in the house, despite the Sixth Sense alliance sort of wanting to keep Shelli. That is, everyone except Liz seemed to want to keep Shelli. I don't know about that Liz sometimes.

When Prince Clay loses the veto, he is so handsomely sad.

In the end, though, Clay must have really campaigned to get the house to vote him out instead of her, because the house turned in a unanimous vote for him to be evicted. Now I know some people in the comments on the interwebs aren't the biggest fans of the whole Clelli relationship and dominance in the house, but you can't say that Clay doesn't seem like a stand up guy. His exit interview with Julie only seemed to confirm that. Whether the relationship with him and Shelli lasts outside of the house remains to be seen, but they both seem to be into it right now.

I also don't get a lot of the dislike for Shelli. She seems like one of the more genuine people in the house, to me. Everyone has to manipulate the truth in the house sometimes. Anyway, I won't go on about it. Although I'm sure everyone will miss Clay's handsome Disney face, I kind of want Shelli to come back with a vengeance. Whether she is able to do that by winning the next HOH is left up in the air at the end of the episode, as it was another of the longer competitions cut off midway through.

Who do you hope wins the HOH crown? Of course I'd like to see what Johnny Mac might do with the power, but it would also be interesting to see how Julia would do things as opposed to Liz. And, um, is Steve even still in the game? He seems to be like a ghost, barely ever on screen. I will say Jackie has grown on me, she is showing some smarts that she was kind of hiding in the beginning.

And next week? A double eviction! Oh boy.

Big Brother 17 - Fifth Eviction

Well, that was quite a week, wasn't it? Although I'm sure it will up the drama from here on out, I am a little bummed that the original plan for the week didn't come to fruition, and instead Jason was sent packing. Although I'm not a huge Jason fan or anything, he was entertaining and did seem to know a lot about what was going on in the house. As opposed to, say, Steve, who barely seems to exist. Not sure if it's different on the live feeds, but that's how they present it on the show anyway.

At the start of the week, Vanessa and Jackie were both crowned HOH. After Austin decided to run his mouth and confirm to Jason that the twin twist was real and he only cared about keeping in Liz versus Julia, things started to implode. He was doing it as a supposed game move to get closer to Jason in the future weeks, but instead Jason went and started telling everyone about it, which eventually got back to Vanessa and Shelli, who assumed he was telling Jason the truth.

So, the plan to backdoor Austin was born. Only no one told Liz about all of this, instead only telling Julia, who opted not to tell Liz lest she get mad at Austin and blow things up ahead of time, or, you know, sway them against doing it, which is what actually happened once she did find out. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Jackie put up Liz and James as her nominees, hoping for them to lose the BOB and eventually get Austin on the block. Vanessa put up Becky and Clay, hoping they would win and de-throne her as HOH.

Not so much. Even though they got James to agree to throw the BOB competition, Liz pulled it out herself in the end, leaving Clay and Becky on the block, and Vanessa still in power as HOH, which was really against her plans as she didn't want to be the one to backdoor Austin after being so close to him. Then came the Veto competition, which Clay ended up winning. It was at this point that Vanessa decided to tell Liz about the plan to backdoor Austin, and that plan went right out the window when Liz said she didn't think he was being genuine about getting rid of Julia. So, Austin was able to campaign for himself, and, sure enough, they decided to keep him and completely blindside Jason instead. This, all after Vanessa had made a secret second alliance with that side of the house.

Jason tried to rally votes, but in the end wasn't able to do it. So, it's goodbye to Jason, and hello to Julia, who now gets to enter the house alongside Liz since they survived five evictions. And straight into the next HOH competition, which is finally an endurance competition, so we don't know who wins. AND it's the end of the whole BOB thing as well, thank goodness. I'm not sure they should keep doing that in future seasons. Also - what happened to the whole takeover business? That lasted, what, two weeks? So much for that idea!

In the end, I'm not sure it really was in the best interest of sixth sense alliance to ultimately keep Austin. Although they say they can trust him and he's a vote on their side, he did secretly vote against everyone last week. I mean, hello, his alter ego is Judas. You know, the betrayer? Plus he is getting so in Liz's face all the time with the flirting when she doesn't like him like that. I know she feels she can manipulate him, and that is likely true, but that's only good for her and not everyone else. It will be interesting to see how that dynamic changes now that Julia is also in the house at the same time.

Okay, people, that's it for this week! Who do you hope wins HOH? I hope it's someone new who can stir things up a bit; one side of the house has been in power for way too long now.

Big Brother 17 - Fourth Eviction

Well, that escalated quickly. Or perhaps not so quickly, considering the house has been wanting a certain houseguest evicted for a few weeks now. Yes, Audrey's time in the Big Brother house has come to an end. And to be quite frank, it is probably the best for her mental health that it has. She spent hours and hours in the diary room leading up to the Veto ceremony, ate regular food while a have not, and just generally seemed to close herself off to everyone.

Honestly, she played the game way too hard way too fast. The first week I was thinking wow she may have a chance, and then it just went all downhill from there, when lie upon lie piled up on each other until it was too much to handle. When everything you say becomes a lie, no one can trust you, and when no one can trust you, you can't get very far.

Anyway, let's back up a second and talk about how we got here, because at the start of the week, Audrey was not on the HOH radar very much. Liz and Shelli were in power, and ended up picking James and Jackie and John and Jason as their nominees, respectively. It was not very clear who Liz wanted to target at all, but Shelli had Jason in her sights, namely because she heard from Audrey that he was targeting her. Luckily for him, she went to him after and asked him if it was true, and found out that yet again Audrey had lied.

In the BOB, despite having a strong lead, Jason and John lost, taking James and Jackie off the block and keeping them safe for the week. This is when Audrey really started to tailspin, when she became ultra paranoid that Shelli would put her up as a replacement nominee. To be honest, Shelli wasn't really wanting to do that, but once Audrey started causing drama with Clay, things were not poised in her favor anymore.

The POV competition ended up with Vanessa taking home the prize. She decided to take Jason off the block, and Shelli had to do the right thing and replace him with Audrey. But - Audrey wasn't even there to participate in the veto ceremony! She straight up just stayed in the Have Not room, covered in a blanket. Ohhhhkay. First time in BB history someone has not shown up to the Veto ceremony.

Last night I was a little worried that something crazy might happen and that the house would evict Johnny Mac in some combination of feeling sorry for Audrey and starting to realize that he may be a contender since everyone likes him. Honestly, he is hilarious, and I was going to be super sad to see him go. But, in the end, the house did the right thing and voted to evict Audrey nearly unanimously, with Austin secretly voting to keep her. Who knows what in the world Austin is even thinking in this game anymore. He is just all over the place.

Which left the HOH competition to round out the night. I have to say, I wish a couple different people had won. First you've got Jackie, who's really been a complete floater. Then you've got Vanessa, who certainly seems to know what she's doing, but she's already been the HOH and I feel like she will just dominated Jackie in terms of who should go, which means another week of the same type of stuff. Will John be forced to go on the block yet AGAIN? Sheesh.

That's all for this week! Who are you routing for? Let me know in the comments!

Big Brother 17 - Third Eviction

Last I wrote, Austin and Vanessa had both been crowned the new HOHs for the week. I feel like with this whole Battle of the Block business, every episode is always some big event rather than just focusing on the drama of the house. Whether that's good or bad, I'm not sure, as I've only seen one season each with and without it.

Anyway, Austin and Vanessa have been in an alliance since the beginning, so working together as the HOHs was pretty much an easy decision. And they seemed to be on pretty much the same page - instead of targeting Audrey like the house wanted, they were going to go after either James or Jeff. To be honest, this was mostly Vanessa's plan over Austin's. They decided to put up James and John for Vanessa and Jason and Meg for Austin. And again John was asked to throw his BoB competition in order to keep James up on the block.

As has become something of a tradition for John, James pretty much threw the competition for himself, by just sucking completely at it. Jason and Meg kicked their butts and got themselves off the block. Which then led to the Veto competition on the next episode, which John won again to ensure he was safe. Honestly, even though everyone always tells him he's safe every time they come to him to be a pawn, it's best for him to win those things because he is definitely super likable and could get pretty far because of it.

So! That meant Vanessa, as the reigning HOH, had to nominate another person. She wasn't sure what to do at first because she didn't want to piss off the house and do the whole "blood on the hands" thing they love to say over and over, but then Jeff kind of kept putting his foot in his mouth and made her decision pretty easy. So, her two initial targets were up on the block. Alas, Jeff couldn't dig himself back out from his hole, and ended up going home in a vote of 7-4.

Okay, that's a whole lot of crap that happened in the last week. What exactly led Jeff to being evicted? He kept talking about the whole Liz being a twin thing, and to Austin, no less, which was a bad idea considering Austin is close to Liz and clearly would never tell him if he knew or not. Then Jeff basically said that Clay was getting distracted by Shelli and he didn't trust her, which came to a head, and was one of the main reasons Jeff went up on the block. Not to mention that Austin has a big ole crush on Liz and couldn't handle it when she would flirt with Jeff, even though she was doing it for her game, and it's kind of clear she's not super in to Austin, romantically.

After all of that, it was time for another HOH competition at the end of the episode, which was some goofy thing where a group came out and did some '90s inspired dance, and then everyone had to answer true/false questions about it. In the end, Liz and Shelli became the two new HOHs, which is probably very good news for Liz/Julia, as they only have to survive a couple more evictions until they can both be in the house at the same time.

That's about it for this week. As far as personal favorites in the house go, I guess Johnny Mac is consistently hilarious so I have to choose him. His voice is always so unpredictable. I'm not sure what to think about Austin. Sometimes he comes off a little wacky. Some others have been basically floating so far, particularly Jackie, Steve and Becky. Of course, it could just be how the show is edited.

Anywho, that's all for now! Until next week!

Big Brother 17 - Second Eviction

Another week, another eviction. It's funny, you wouldn't think there would always be so much drama in the Big Brother house, but it always seems to get stirred up somehow. This week was all about Shelli and Clay's "secret" plan to get rid of Da'Vonne. While Becky wanted to backdoor Audrey after all of her lying was exposed, Shelli (or was it mostly Clay, hmm?) were set on getting Mama Da out, because she would be, supposedly, gunning for them.

Well, as you can see, their plan ended up working. It was goodbye to Da'Vonne tonight after a last Hail Mary on her part to try to save herself from eviction that just didn't quite work. With her luck in getting the BB Takeover last laugh, she had something of a chance to make it happen. She was able to choose three people to not be able to vote in the eviction. She went to campaigning to get five votes to keep her in the competition, and although she seemed to be making some headway, it just wasn't enough. In the end, she kept Becky, Jeff and Jackie from voting, and was still voted out 7-2, with the only two voting to keep her in Jason and Audrey, ever the unpredictable one.

Da brought up an interesting point in her exit interview with Julie - she said that everyone is afraid to nominate Audrey for eviction because of the whole transgender business of it all. No one wants to be the one who does it. No one really seems to be saying that on the show, but it could still be true subconsciously. Seriously, though, I don't see how anyone can actually work with her moving forward, though. She is completely untrustworthy and clearly a liar. She doesn't seem like she can last much longer in the game, but who the heck knows.

Anyhow, that led to the next HOH competition, introduced by head of this week's BB Takeover, Rob Gronkowski. What his takeover actually means is yet to be seen apart from no one being a Have Not, and the HOH competition being something of an exaggerated beer pong situation. In the end, Austin and Vanessa ended up being crowned the next HOHs, and I have to say that should be pretty interesting. They seem to both be working together, and we haven't seen too much of either of them quite yet, so who will they be hoping to get rid of?

On another note, Da'Vonne also totally figured out that Liz is a twin! As Julie pointed out, she should have kept it to herself and used it as leverage with Liz/Julia to get her vote, but instead she blabbed it to the whole house, then went and told Julia about it as well, which didn't really work in her favor. But what does this mean for Liz/Julia moving forward? Are they only out of the game if they're voted out, or does the fact that everyone knows already negate it? I'm a bit confused on the rules of that twist.

Do you have any favorites so far? I have to say Johnny Mac's diary sessions always make me laugh just because his voice is so hilarious. I may kind of be rooting for him to take it all right now. But who knows, it's still early in the game!

Big Brother 17 - First Eviction

As some, or perhaps many, of you may know, in summers past the show I have recapped has been So You Think You Can Dance. But, with the big changes they introduced this season, I just didn't think I could stomach it anymore. In fact, I haven't even been watching it, which is saying something as I've watched every season since the very beginning. Big Brother may seem like an odd choice to pick as a follow up summer show to discuss, but if you've ever watched it, you must know - it's frickin' addicting.

I watched the last two seasons after my boyfriend insisted on watching it, and to my own chagrin, became hooked. So, because it's something we can watch and discuss together, I thought it might be fun to focus on it this summer. Perhaps it will be a one time thing, perhaps not, who knows! Anyway, I'm just going to be posting after each eviction episode lest I get too overwhelmed with a show on three days a week.

So! It's been a week now since this new season started up, with a whole new cast to get to know. There are a few different twists this year - including the return of the Battle of the Block, plus something called the BB Takeover, which is basically just a new twist to the game every week, as well as the Twin Twist, which my boyfriend tells me has happened in another season. But, basically, one contestant is actually an identical twin and switches back and forth with their counterpart. If they make it through a certain amount of evictions without being found out or evicted, they both get to enter the game, I believe.

Anyhow! This week was all about starting and stopping alliances, apparently. Mostly because of Audrey, let's be honest. She was in no less than three supposed alliances throughout the course of the week, and continued to annoy those in her biggest alliance by drawing more and more people into it. That may come back to bite her soon enough. Also likely in the cross-hairs soon? Da'Vonne, who had kind of a meltdown over something completely stupid, in my opinion.

But no one had a bigger target on their back than Jace. The main group, including HOH James and dethroned HOH Jason, hatched a plan with, you guessed it, Audrey, to backdoor Jace as the first evicted houseguest. And in really went off without a hitch. The first two groups of contestants nominated for eviction were John and Becky, and Steven and Jackie. While John and Becky won their Battle of the Block, Steven managed to win the Veto competition, which gave James the opportunity to put up Jace, who was rather blindsided as he thought he was in an alliance with James. Not so much, bro.

Nearly everyone voted for Jace to be evicted, except for Audrey, who is likely just stirring up that dramarama. So it's goodbye to Jace, who couldn't get enough of the camera or his "fans" in the audience upon his exit. I have to say, I'm relieved it wasn't Steven who went home, because he's such an awkward dude, I kind of root for him.

Oh, and it was revealed who the twins are tonight as well. The BF and I were talking about it right before it was revealed, with our guesses. He thought it might be Meg, but I said I had a feeling it was Liz. Who was right? Ahem. Yeah, baby! I got it right! Liz and her sister Julia are posing as the same person. If you know they're twins, you can probably tell, but without knowing, it would be difficult.

Anyway, the two HOH's for this next week are Becky and Shelli, and the BB Takeover is courtesy of Kathy Griffin. She will call the house seven times throughout the week, and whoever picks up on the seventh call will have the power of the Last Laugh, where they choose three people who won't be able to vote in the next eviction. Pretty powerful!

Okay, phew. That's a lot to recap in one post! Who are you rooting for? Anyone you think has the chops to make it to the end? It's kind of hard to tell right now. I was thinking Audrey was doing pretty well at manipulating people, but then she went a little overboard, so I'm not so sure anymore.

Let me know what you think in the comments!