BB6 Live Feed Recap, Saturday, 8/13/05: What’s a Half Word Worth These Days?

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BB6 Live Feed Recap, Saturday, 8/13/05: What’s a Half Word Worth These Days?

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Can a leopard change his spots? Can a houseguest who has burned bridges in all directions find a new place to call home among his fellow hamsters? How long can he keep up the sad puppy act? *sigh* Even ten minutes is too long, trust me.

Since the All-Nighter

• Jen nominated Rachel and Janelle.
• During the nomination speech, Jen told Kaysar she was giving him what he wanted (which CBS edited out) and that they had an understanding (which CBS left in).
• In the Power of Veto competition, Rachel won.
• Jen polled all the members of their alliance as to who they wanted to backdoor this week: James or Kaysar.
• Jen has gone from stating firmly she would stick to the plan to backdoor James, to planning on nominating Kaysar on Monday.

What’s the Deal with America?

Gathered in the hot tub, Maggie and her crew have thoughts on why America voted to keep Kaysar instead of Eric. Jen says that she will never believe that Eric ruined his own chances. Ivette thinks America was moved by Cappy always talking about his family, and wanted to return him to his children. Maggie finds it personally insulting that the person she evicted as HOH was returned. Beau reassures her that it must have been because America wants Dra-Mah. “America’s laughing,” adds Jen. “America won’t be laughing long,” Maggie counters, unamused.

April attempts to eject a note of reason, saying that America got to see things that they didn’t. Maggie takes offense, and says that they “don’t know how America portrayed Eric.” She means CBS, but the meaning is clear - it’s not Eric’s fault, and she doesn’t appreciate her teammate taking a larger view of the situation. I wonder how this conversation would have gone if they had known how clearly America registered its opinion, giving Kaysar a landslide 82% nod of approval. On second thought, I’m sure this conversation would have been exactly the same. It would take more than statistics to convince the likes of Maggie and Ivette that Eric didn’t win over America by staging drunken brawls and giving self-righteous speeches all the time.

Life Under Jen

The house spent most of Friday napping, so it’s clear that Jen made up her mind quickly and decisively without much time for scheming and dealing. In fact, Jen spent Friday doing what no other HOH in this game has done so far - getting everyone to give their point of view without giving anyone a glimpse of her own. She absolutely refused to tell anyone her nomination plans ahead of time, not even to April.

Maggie looks a little disturbed that Jen won’t say anything, not even a hint of who she has in mind. She says pointedly that she (Maggie) talked to everyone when it was her turn at HOH. But Jen is not playing quiet, under-the-radar girl any more. She responds, “You weren't standing there holding a button for 14 hours." Oh, snap!

After the nominations, Rachel and Janelle stormed to the gold room to commiserate and fume at Jen for stabbing them in the back. Part of the agreement Kaysar made when he let go of his button was that Jen would put up Maggie and one other person from her side. Kaysar decided to believe this fiction...or he knew his finger was about to slip. Either way, Jen didn’t put up her “friends.”

Kaysar is not happy with the nominations, and against the advice of Janelle and Howie, finds Jen so they can talk. What emerges is a Jen we haven’t seen into the house until now. In fact, she’s so different that I can’t help but think of her as Jen for the first time, instead of barely-there Jennifer who didn’t bat an eye when her game partner told Howie and Janelle that she was known in the sorority for performing a particular sexual act. She told April she was miffed the next day, but even then she was using it for game play, pretending they had been fighting all day when really they had been trying hard to figure out if they could pull off evicting Ivette rather than Sarah. But I digress.

This Jen is calmly confident. In contrast to the weepy woman who pleaded with Kaysar to let go so she could see pictures of her boyfriend, she openly laughs now when Kaysar says that she made a promise to him. After all, he asked “fifty times” for a promise from Jen; obviously he didn’t trust her after she said yes the first time. “Did you still believe me after that?” she scoffs. Kaysar, serious as always about the game, says that yes, he did.

Jen explains her actions were the result of a miscommunication. She blames Kaysar for not talking it out clearly when they were inside the box, saying that at the time he was more concerned with being overheard by the houseguests outside, when they should have been talking freely and openly. Kaysar wants to know what she meant in her speech, which implied they had an understanding of some kind, and she says it meant that she was giving him what he wants: James, through the back door.

Kaysar reminds Jen that Howie didn’t nominate one of her alliance the previous week, but Jen says that Howie broke his word by trying to evict Ivette at the last minute. Kaysar doesn’t know what she means, so Jen runs down the previous week from her perspective. She says that she and April were subjected to a campaign to evict their own colleague, and Jen can no longer trust them. Absent from this rendition is the easily-checked fact that April and Jen came to Howie and Janelle with the plan, not vice versa. Maybe she’s convinced herself of her own innocence, or maybe she thinks Kaysar won’t talk to his own alliance.

Friends That Make Jennifer Aniston Look Good

Friday evening, the group of five gather in the HOH room to play friends, which means they talk trash, talk sex, and talk strategy while subtly testing their rank within the group. Despite their moniker “the friendship,” there are always visible tensions when they get together. Especially since April gave up cigarettes. And trust me, that is in no way a joke.

Jen admits that her nominations signify that she has gone against her sworn word - well, half her sworn word. The purpose of the nominations was always to backdoor James after the veto competition, and that hasn’t changed. She couldn’t agree to put people from her own side up for eviction, though. No one knows when there will be a veto competition with no winner, or if Big Brother has a surprise double eviction up his disembodied sleeve.

Ivette clearly has an agenda, and that’s to save James. I have to say this about James and Ivette: I can’t explain the bond between them, and I’ve given up trying to fathom Ivette entirely. She is someone I just can’t identify with, willing to dismiss the opinions of her trusted allies but believing every word that comes out of James’ mouth, no matter how obviously manipulative. He seems to have a Svengali-like power over her. And Sarah was worried about Jen getting too close to her man!

Ivette tells the group that James confided in her that he had an epiphany during the HOH competition. Hmm, that he can’t win against a house that hates his guts? No, according to Ivette. He now sees the error of his ways, and is ashamed that he played “dirty.” The whole room scoffs at James’ reformed ways, but Ivette persists, saying he told her that he doesn’t deserve to be welcomed back on their team. Her voice quivers with emotion; she is moved by this declaration. Ivette may find this kind of maudlin discussion persuasive, but her fellow teammates can’t believe she would buy into his crap. Maggie tries to reason logically with her, telling her to look at James from the team’s perspective - that even though Ivette’s friendship with James will help her if he wins HOH, befriending him doesn’t benefit the team one whit. Ivette promises to do what the team wants, but she can’t shut up about saving James. She’s like a dog with a bone when it comes to her men.

As the hamsters readied themselves for bed, Jen’s plan seemed set in stone: use the veto to put up James as a replacement, and if BB pulled out a surprise no-win competition, evict Rachel. Done, and done.

The Wheels On the Bus Go Round and Round, And So Do Houseguest’s Plans

Rachel is not a calm hamster under the shadow of the eviction hammer. She is determined to win the veto, and tells her friends that she dreads being sequestered with “those people”, so maybe it would be best to go sooner rather than later. If Jen picks James to play for her, she will know the jig is up. Meanwhile, out in the yard, April tells Kaysar that he has nothing to worry about, the plan is still to evict James this week.

After the competition is over, we learn that Rachel has won the veto, saving herself - but no one else from her alliance. Not long after, the Friends gather in the HOH to discuss their options, since Jen has regally indicated she will entertain other opinions at this point.

Maybe Rachel was a bigger target than I realized, and the talk of nominating James was already a front; because now that Rachel’s off the block, the plan to evict James seems to melt away in the air. Suddenly, all of the Friends have a reason to save James. Jen, who has not told anyone her final decision, says that she has talked to all of them individually, and every last one of them recommended they put up Kaysar rather than James as the replacement. April and Maggie seem stunned to hear this, and soon the plan is getting serious consideration.

But let’s not forget the trash talk! They take time to review the reasons why they are superior to the other side of the house. They pat themselves on the back for being friendly to everyone, not acting “dirty” like the others. Never mind that they have complained bitterly in the past that Rachel and Howie have joined their conversations as if they’re trying to be friendly or something. Ivette complains that Kaysar wants to evict her simply because he thinks she’s a bitch. Not thirty seconds later, April whines that she wanted to evict Rachel this week...because she’s a bitch. They laugh outright that the likes of Howie and Janelle believed it when they told them they were still planning to evict James.

It turns out that late last night, Jen went to James and quizzed him on his nominee choices if he had won HOH. She makes him run down his evictee choices over several weeks, and he admits that he would nominate her after taking care of Maggie, Beau, and April. She is impressed that he admits this to her face, and tells him that it has convinced her that he is telling the truth. What the devil - so it’s truth you want? Too bad you couldn’t extend Michael the same courtesy, Jen!

Now the feeling is that Maggie “worked so hard” to evict Kaysar the first time, they should finish the job. Ivette throws into the conversation several times that the “dirty” players can’t be trusted because even though they stuck to the plan and evicted Sarah, they tried to sway April and Jen to evict Ivette. Jen and April play along in mock outrage - or maybe they believe this lie themselves by now. It’s not like they can stop Ivette to say, No, that was us. They agree to keep James on a short leash, and Jen doesn’t even want to tell him the plan has changed in his favor. Somehow, though, by evening, James is visibly more cheerful than he has been. And why not, since, against the wishes of her entire alliance, Ivette has gone to him and spilled the beans. His mood swing hasn’t gone unnoticed by Kaysar and company, either.

But Jen has said several times that she won’t tell anyone her decision ahead of time, and Monday is *gulp* a long way off.

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