Rewind!

BB16 Episode 35 – September 10, 2014

Even though this was a meaningless week, I have to say that I was entertained by not only this episode but also Tuesday’s episode.  I didn’t have time to post about it, but as a quick rundown, here are some thoughts on Episode 34:

• The Team America Rat Chase was amazing.  When BB has the time to just let some of the action from the house happen and isn’t concerned too much about what strategies are being implemented, the show takes on a much more fun tone.
  • Cody being the biggest lady of them all was particularly priceless
• Frankie’s domination of the Veto Challenge was pretty impressive, especially since Derrick wanted to win.
  • I was also impressed that Frankie exercised restraint at the right time in not using the Veto.  He certainly could have made a big game move and put up another guy against Cody, but that BBRewind button had to have given him pause.  Well played, Frankie.

As for today’s ending of the fake week, I remained entertained yet again.  From the Jury House to Victoria’s “acting” what wasn’t there to love?

Who’s Afraid of Victoria?

The end draws near and everyone is clearly focused on how best to get there.  Derrick, Cody and Caleb are happily plotting against Frankie and really wishing that the Button will help them in their efforts to get rid of him.  Privately, Cody is also concerned that Caleb might flip and vote against him, forcing Frankie to be the tie-breaker, effectively sending him home.  Victoria, meanwhile, is under the impression that the guys are sticking together and she’s going home this week.  She’s still proud of how great she was this year….UGH.

We are left wondering if Victoria is the goat after all.  Frankie tells us he fully intends to get rid of Victoria this week as it’s far too dangerous to allow a golden goat to stay in the house, because if you’re put up next to one on the Block, YOU GO HOME.  He’s right, of course.  At this point in the game, a golden goat is certainly a prize but you have to thread the needle of perfect gameplay to ensure YOU are the one sitting next to it at the end.  That’s not an easy feat.

Derrick Threads That Needle

There was a certain point this season when Victoria re-emerged into the narrative:  once we found out that Derrick had been brilliantly fostering a friendship with Victoria and doing what he could to keep her in the house as a golden goat.  Over the last few weeks, Victoria’s been a pawn but never in danger as hello, it’s Victoria.  But now with the end near, Derrick isn’t certain he can protect Victoria.  Furthermore, he’s aware that his relationship with her is quite obvious and with Victoria likely now going to the Jury, he has a definite vote lined up.  That paints a huge target on his back, so now it’s time to remedy that.

What does he do?  He conspires with Victoria to make it look like they’re fighting.  Victoria is totally on board because hello, she’s Victoria.  She’s happy to help Derrick if it’s likely she’s unable to stay.  The ruse?  Victoria goes to Frankie and bawls her eyes out as Derrick dropped the nice guy act and told her everything and now she can’t even look at him or trust him.  I kept hoping we’d get a DR shot of Frankie rolling his eyes at this Junior High performance, but as it stands now, he buys it, even crying sympathy tears and giving supportive hugs.  Victoria lets Derrick know it’s all going according to plan.

Player Vs Player

Aww, they’re wearing matching shirts!  These two really are the only viable candidates for a Best Winner this season.  They’ve each played amazing games, with Derrick playing a stealthy yet masterful manipulation game, while Frankie is uber-social and amazingly competitive.  Each are worthy of a win.  I think it’s clear to both of them that the other is a danger, BUT!  Derrick is trying to get the deck stacked so that Frankie feels Derrick is the easiest to beat and takes him to the Final 2, much like he did with Caleb a few eps back.  So it seems Derrick isn’t that concerned about going against Frankie in the end.  I think he should be.  But it’s best to cover his bases and make sure he at least GETS to the Final 2.  Then worry about beating Frankie.  As for Frankie’s part, at least with this hard sell, he wasn’t buying what Derrick was selling.  Privately, he knew exactly what Derrick was doing.

Jury House Reckoning

It was great to catch back up with the jury members.  Jacosta’s hair was fabulous and it looks like Zach and Donny have let go of the game and embraced having a good time.  We rejoin them when it’s Zach’s birthday, and the gang have bought him a special present:  a brand new pink hat!  He loves it of course and has some nice words for Victoria.  Gotta love it.  Then it becomes time to speculate on who’s coming next.  Hayden dreads the thought of Nicole coming back so soon, but we all know that’s how it played out, and sure enough, she joins them in the dramatic backyard where they’re playing ping-pong.

They get to watch the video of what happened and also hear from Nicole how terrible it was, with Hayden notably hating on Christine’s role in it all.

As for who is coming shortly afterwards, pretty much everyone is in agreement that they want to see Christine show up.  Right after Donny executes a pretty accurate Christine-giggle, guess who pops up!?  Christine!  Guess who notices or cares?  NOBODY (just watch this video for Britney’s reaction to seeing Rachel’s HoH Room to understand the way I’m saying NOBODY).  it’s incredibly awkward as even Helen Keller would have noticed.  Donny is OVER Christine, as is everyone else.  Christine does her best to end the awkwardness by having everybody watch her video.  During the video, we see her abrupt departure and she also tells them about her booing, which thrills Donny.  He even asks if she has a lawyer, implying D-I-V-O-R-C-E!  Kinda harsh, but I think Donny has felt targeted and betrayed by Christine especially, so I think he’s entitled.

In the end, Christine seems to now understand that she was epically played by Derrick and that her game moves were pretty wrong in hindsight.   I hope she gets to understand that her Nicole distrust was based entirely on lies too so that they can move past that.  I have no doubt that the jury house will eventually cut her some slack, but probably will bust her balls a bit more.

TICK, TICK, TICK….

Once the houseguests were informed that the Live Eviction was happening a day early, they all knew that the BBRewind countdown would coincide with it.  None of had an accurate guess of what it meant, and from yesterday’s show, it was still in their minds that an eviction was going to occur regardless.  Victoria continued the ruse that she’s pissed at Derrick and we even had Julie start the live voting, with Derrick at the DR door, when the alarm went off…

That’s when it was time for Julie to let them know the game was changing yet again.  No one was too blown away by the eventual reveal, with Frankie happily surrendering his HoH key while Cody wasn’t particularly thrilled that the Rewind also meant that he had to put the Dinosaur Costume back on.

I guess it shouldn’t have been too surprising, but I admit that I was amused that all the upcoming week’s competitions will be replays of the ones they did the first time.  So we saw that the HoH competition was the Seed-saw one and Julie pledged that the Veto competition would be the same…I wonder if they’ll change the faces though, or if it’ll be a speed-run to see who can remember the answers the fastest.  I guess that could be interesting too!

Status and Standings:

Rewound Head of Household:  Frankie
Rewound Nominees:  Cody & Victoria

If Frankie had actually made a big game move this week, he’d be a more overt target in the next few days.  He wisely didn’t as I guess he figured the Button was going to do something.  So I do think he ended up losing the most with this Rewind, but the scale of what he lost wasn’t too great.  Certainly Cody and Victoria are winners in this.  With Frankie taking a lead again in the HoH competition, it could be an exact replay of last week but maybe this time, he targets Derrick?

It will be interesting to watch, and another interesting thing is that there is some random programming notes ahead:

Sunday:  The Jurors Return to the House
Tuesday:  The Veto and an Eviction Episode
Wednesday:  A 2nd Eviction!
Friday (!!!!):  A special episode – my guess is it’s a Clip episode

I suppose after that it’ll be a week of the Final 3 competitions and the eventual Finale.  I’m happy with either a Derrick or Frankie win at this point.