The Battle Back Competition

BB18 Episode 15 – July 22, 2016

<–Previously, a unanimous vote sends Tiffany out

It’s almost nice to have something very easy to write about and not worry about the strategic machinations going on in the house!  Let’s just get right into this, shall we?  This episode is a compilation of the competitions that has been ongoing this season with interesting twists on the HoH Competition that just occurred that week.  Up first in Round 1?

Round 1:  Glenn vs. Jozea

Okay, let’s be honest here – was there really any chance that Glenn was going to win?  Highly doubtful.  I enjoyed his bitterness though at his team being absolutely terrible at competitions and that being the reason why he was out first.  While that definitely contributed to it, Glenn just wasn’t that good of a competitor.

You may remember this competition from before, when Paulie won his first HoH.  It’s basically the same, although with only having to get 20 berries back.  The twist here is there’s a poison berry you can choose to collect and bring back, which will reset any of your competitors’ unlocked berries.

Both start off rough, but Jozea gets into a good rhythm and has the energy to overtake Glenn.  At one point, Glenn tries to get the poison berry back to knock out Jozea’s first 9 berries but Jozea manages to lock in his 10th berry (and secure those first 10) seconds before Glenn returns with the poison berry.  D’oh!  Jozea returns the favor right afterwards, successfully.

Bye, Glenn!  Jozea makes it to the next round.

Round 2:  Jozea vs. Victor

Next up, the former allies go head to head in the tennis-themed HoH arena.

Similar to the HoH competition, each contestant had to bounce a ball on the racket, but with the intention to knock down the five targets on the other side of the net.  There’s only 3 balls at a time, so you then have to go run and collect them before serving again.  It looked suitably exhausting.

There were moments when it seemed close, but Victor ended up having a better grasp of the game.  At the end, there was a tiny target right near the net which proved difficult to hit, but Victor managed the task, sending the messiah home, and starting us off with a lot of chest-thumping on Victor’s part.

Nice guns, but bring it down a notch, alright?  🙂

Round 3:  Victor vs. Bronte

This competition brought Team Unicorn members together to fight it out to the death!  Or not!  In this competition, it was a tweaked version of the Eurotrip photo competition, in that this time there were pictures of the remaining houseguests in various European locales being shown on 3 different monitors.  There were then 6 questions being asked in the booths that required a houseguest photo as an answer.  First to get them all right wins!

I kind of thought Bronte might have the edge here, as she is a mathematician.  But as they played, her choices were wildly wrong initially and then only began to get slowly better, while Victor kept making the proper corrections and playing it cool.  At one point, Bronte decided to just go for hoping to hit the right pattern by putting up random picture patterns.  Bad idea, Bronte.

Victor ends up being the first repeat champion in this game, knocking out Bronte fairly decisively.

More DR chest-pounding for us!  Bye, Bronte!  I was kind of hoping you’d be the one to come back as it seems you could have slid easily back into the house and not be an immediate target….but alas, twas not to be.

Final Round:  Victor vs. Tiffany

This challenge was certainly the hardest of them all, and rightfully so since whoever won was going back in the house.

This arena is not one we’ve seen before, so I’m assuming it will be the stage for the next HoH competition and likely involve all those ballpits in the foreground.  Because for this competition, the ballpits weren’t involved and was mainly focused on the pyramid wall.  Each competitor was rigged into a rappel line and had to assemble a puzzle on the wall from pieces in their bin.  They also had to listen to audio clues indicating when certain Big Brother-inspired bands were set to go on during the festival.

It was ridiculously exhausting for these two.  You had to climb up and down the wall to assemble the puzzle, and at one point, they both realized they had set the words pieces a level too low, meaning they had to move all their pieces up one level.  Tiffany had some good ideas on the strategy, but she just didn’t have the energy to keep up with Victor, who yet again earned victory and entrance back into the house!

So Victor earns the right to go back into the house, but not before….

…..Tiffany warns him that he should trust Frank and NOT DaVonne.  Victor tells us that he has no intention of really trusting anybody since everybody lied to him in that house.  He pledges that it’s time to play dirty.

I’m not sure Victor is the strategic powerhouse that he thinks he might be, so his return into the house is a big unknown for me.  I think he could be a huge ally for Paul, but Paul has been playing the lapdog role for a few weeks now and is probably enjoying not being on anyone’s radar.  So we’ll see how his re-entry shakes things up, if at all.  He could be right back out this next week!

Status & Standings:

Outgoing Head of Household:  Paulie
Incoming BattleBack Champion:  Victor

Other than that, we don’t know much else.  Should be interesting to see where the alliances are now that the teams are dissolved.  Can Mama Da get herself into a safer position?  Can Victor avoid being this week’s target by default?  Will DaVonne’s showmance-targeting come back to bite her in the ass?  Will we actually find out how Tiffany got evicted unanimously?  Let’s find out tonight!

Next, a VERY long HoH comp yields yet another broken word –>