BB17 Episode 31 – September 2, 2015
<–Vanessa Solidifies Her Power and Makes Some Moves
I’ve been loving when the thing that HAS to happen for someone to succeed or survive actually happens – and that’s been happening quite a lot this season! In this episode, James, not Meg, but James, HAD to win Veto or it was clear he was headed out the door. Perhaps Meg could have been chosen instead, but that would have been dumb with James the huge challenge beast sitting right there. And this Veto Competition? MAN – talk about needing a whole lot of luck!
That Damn Cool Hide-And-Go-Veto Competition
There really isn’t much that needs to be said about the reaction of Meg & James getting nominated. Both feel like this is it and realize that their conversation in the last episode with Vanessa was absolutely useless. Emotions are sad, and Meg vents sadly to Vanessa about feeling betrayed after going to bat for Vanessa so many times. Anyway, Meg & James know they need to win Veto – and more importantly, they know James HAS to win Veto for them both to have a good shot of staying this week.
So each player is given time alone in the house to hide their Veto card. It’s nondescript so you can’t tell one person’s Veto Card from another. It seems there were very few rules about where you could hide your card – probably just that it had to be on the ground floor and not slid in to the DR area. Once all 6 players have hid their cards, then the game really begins.
As now, each person gets 2 minutes to tear the house apart looking for a Veto card. And that house got TORE UP. Another rule seemed to be you couldn’t re-hide your own Veto Card once in the house, but there wasn’t a rule about camouflaging as much as possible the area around where you hid it. It was awesome to see how close some people were to finding a card but then the timer would go off. James just enjoyed the anarchy of destroying the house while Liz was having a mini-breakdown having to navigate the horrors of this giant mess – in this case, I’m Liz. I can’t stand messes.
Slowly but surely, the Veto Cards were found – and once the 5th card was found, the game was over, as that meant that whoever’s name is on the 6th card would win Veto….
It was amusing to see who got taken out by who – since you couldn’t tell whose card you found, it was possible you’d take out your own ally…much like James did to Meg! To recap though:
- 1st Card was Liz’s, found by Vanessa (d’oh!)
- 2nd Card was Vanessa’s, found by Julia (d’oh!)
- 3rd Card was Julia’s, found by Meg
- 4th Card was Meg’s, found by James (d’oh!)
- 5th Card was…..
…Austin’s, found by Vanessa (super d’oh!)! James won Veto!!! Insane luck – although he did hide his card in a pretty good spot and would require major furniture moving, which I’m surprised didn’t happen at least by Austin! I was cheering along with Larry when Steve revealed Austin’s name, as CBS was crafty and showed Vanessa right by James’ Card but then cut away before showing her actually finding the Card. Well done, editors!
So James gets some safety this week, and of all the people who needed to win Veto, he did it. Damn, James!
The Aftermath
The Veto Comp went on for a long time so that basically the rest of the episode was the other side of the house figuring out what to do.
As we can see here, this is absolutely the worst case scenario for Vanessa as HoH. James is most definitely coming after her next week (or tonight, since we’ve got a Double Elimination again coming up). There’s no one else to put up that she hasn’t aligned with, so someone she has given her trust is about to be disappointed. Lastly, it’s Meg that the “pawn” will be sitting next to, and Meg’s performance thus far guarantees that she is certainly not a threat compared to pretty much anyone else who sits next to her. So what to do?
James is happy in his victory and during a conversation with Austin, tells him that Vanessa is obviously going to be a target next week. Austin can’t run fast enough upstairs to tell Vanessa this – which only solidifies her determination to get rid of Meg, since she’s James’ last bit of support.
James decides that he has to at least talk to Vanessa to hash some plan forward out – especially if he can try to take the target away from Meg. Unfortunately, James is waaaaaaaay too candid with Vanessa, casually mentioning that while he doesn’t dwell on all the details and every little thing that’s happened before, Vanessa does and plays the game too hard. Her reaction to that is captured in the image above, and it only gets worse from there. Vanessa insists that James leave at one point but he persists, but it doesn’t really help matters and serves to REALLY make Vanessa target Meg just to get back at James. D’oh!
Ladies & Gents, Welcome a First-Timer to the Nomination Chairs!
James is clearly not a fool and has only one option available to him: use the Veto on himself. Which he of course does. Vanessa is polite and political and congratulates James on his Veto win as it was well-earned; very smart, Vanessa! Now it’s time to figure out who she nominates… Just before, Liz was advocating that John should just go up but Vanessa hints that she thinks Julia is the best pawn. The Austwins insist that John be the guy who goes up – Meg is still not a threat and John just came back and they don’t trust him at all. Obviously, we know Vanessa has a deal with him though, and her position in the game is much stronger being part of a John-Steve threesome. LOL
Surprise, surprise, Julia gets the nomination chair! I admit I was a bit surprised that Vanessa didn’t bow to the pressure to put up John. I think she’ll have to explain that some more to the Austwins, but I wonder if we’ll actually learn about it especially considering the accelerated pace tonight. I think Meg realizes that Julia is much like her in that she hasn’t won much and thus isn’t an easy bigger target to hide behind. This could be a very interesting vote! We’ll see what James & Meg can do to get some votes….
Status & Standings:
Head of Household: Vanessa
Nominated for Eviction: Meg & James
Power of Veto Winner: James
Veto Used? OH yes
Replacement Nominee: Julia
I think James has it in him to make some magic happen with the votes. It’ll be tough to convince John & Steve to do that, as they’d likely face the brunt of any repercussions – ESPECIALLY from Liz, who would likely be fucking livid. But it could happen, still. Can’t wait!