For the past four weeks, Big Brother 15 has been kind of boring. Amanda was calling all the shots and the evictions were set in stone from the minute the HoH competition was over. The show needed to shake things up, to change the game to give fans something to get excited about.
Enter this week’s big HoH competition which saw the first four members of the jury come back into the house to play to get back into the game. This episode single-handedly turns the game upside-down and does exactly what it needs to do: adds an element of unpredictable.
The HoH Competition
Amanda, McCrae and Andy are terrified of any juror coming back because they got rid of all of them. Elissa is much more excited because she knows she needs some allies to go against McCranda.
The competition is insanely difficult, balancing on a small platform while having baseballs thrown at them and water sprayed on them. If that’s not hard enough, random mascots show up, a turtle and a wolf, and start fighting to distract everyone. I’ll go on record as saying this could be one of the hardest competitions in Big Brother history, combining endurance with skill.
The best part is watching Helen feed the other jurors information about the past week, most notably that GinaMarie is a good person and that Andy cannot be trusted at all. This is precisely the kind of thing Andy and others did NOT want to happen.
After 20 minutes of the HoH competition, Spencer and McCrae both fall off. After around 40 minutes, Andy falls too, leaving Amanda as the sole member of 3 A.M. Jessie falls off too, but curses out Amanda before leaving because, well, everyone in the jury is smart enough to know that Amanda is to blame for everything.
A few minutes later Helen falls, and she’s followed by Candice. The show makes it look like a lot of time passed between those two, but in reality, Candice fell very quickly after Helen. Just like that, Judd is the only juror left standing and he gets to come back into the game!
Judd promises to start a clean slate with everyone and that he’s not mad at them, but people like Aaryn and Amanda are terrified. Judd eventually falls off.
That leaves GM, Elissa and Amanda, that oddest of trios. Amanda nearly falls but does a great save. Elissa almost falls even worse than Amanda and does some insane Batman maneuver to save herself. That single moment is the best ad for yoga ever.
Against all odds, Elissa wins HoH. She immediately hugs Judd. Amanda and Aaryn can’t hide their disappointment.
A Puppet Master Without a Puppet
Elissa’s main target is Aaryn, but she wants to cause some tension between her alliance with McCranda, so she considers putting McCrae up because he could beat Aaryn for the Power of Veto. She tells this to Amanda, who becomes petrified.
Amanda admits to us that she’s been the puppet master all season, but this week is difficult because Elissa is a wildcard who isn’t so easy to manipulate. Amanda tries her hardest to get GM up as the pawn, but Elissa isn’t very receptive at all. Naturally Amanda runs to McCrae and complains about how stupid Elissa is because she refuses to do exactly what she wants her to do.
Amanda’s logic is sound about putting up GM against Aaryn if Elissa’s goal is to break up the Aaryn/GM pair. But as Elissa tells us, her secondary target is Amanda, so she doesn’t want to risk putting up Aaryn and GM only to have Aaryn win the Power of Veto, thus resulting in GM getting evicted. It’s hilarious watching Amanda try her hardest to manipulate Elissa and failing miserably. She even starts to cry.
Elissa’s HoH Room
Amanda complains about having to see Elissa’s HoH room. She compares Elissa to Rachel and herself to Britney. Um, Amanda is as much like Britney as Aaryn is like Janelle.
Of course her letter is from Rachel, but the best part is how Andy complains about Elissa’s HoH basket because it’s all coconut water and health food. It says a lot about the Big Brother 15 HGs that they think it’s dumb that an HoH basket doesn’t include a ton of candy.
Aaryn’s “Suicide” Attempt
The best filler of the entire season comes as Andy, Spencer and Aaryn are just hanging out in the HoH room and then Aaryn accidentally takes a drink of nail polish remover. She thought it was her water bottle and it’s the most casual and ridiculous moment of the season. The two guys just laugh about how stupid it was.
Let’s Make a Deal
Judd is Switzerland now that he’s back, without alliances or deals. He’s neutral to everyone and looking for allies. He finds HoH Elissa, who trusts him and wants to work together to take out Aaryn and McCranda. They form a nice little alliance.
Next it’s Aaryn’s turn to campaign, even though she knows she’s the target. Aaryn throws McCranda under the bus and starts begging. Elissa isn’t so easily moved because she’s tried to work with Aaryn in the past, and it failed every time.
Elissa then says the second dumbest thing she’s said all season: “I don’t know what I’m thinking.” The first came when Amanda interrogated her about the MVP nominee in week 3 and Elissa famously said “I don’t even know who I put up.” Clearly Elissa isn’t very good at knowing herself.
The Nominations
Elissa nominates Aaryn and McCrae. She says she wants McCrae to win the Power of Veto and that Aaryn has targeted her all season and made her life a living hell. Amanda complains for the 23rd time this episode about how unfair it is that she didn’t get to control the HoH this week. Aaryn cries about being a target. I would feel badly for her, but this is her own doing. She nominated Elissa twice and evicted her close friends Howard, Judd and Helen.
In hindsight, this probably isn’t the best move. It would’ve been smarter to nominate Amanda and McCrae, that way, if either wins PoV, she could backdoor Aaryn, and if anyone else won, maybe they could be convinced to use the PoV to backdoor Aaryn. If she did that, the only way it could’ve backfired is if Aaryn got picked to play and won the Power of Veto.
See Who Won the Power of Veto>>
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(Image courtesy of CBS)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
