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Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Big Brother Season 17, Episode 13 Recap

Wednesday shows are usually about showing what happens after one of the dual Heads of Household is dethroned and then the Power of Veto selection, competition, and ceremony. Then CBS attempts to manufacture drama between the house guests and to foment uncertainty for the viewers as to who will be evicted later this week.

Live feeders (and anybody paying attention to this web site and our various Twitter feeds) know days in advance, though, that there’s no uncertainty at all. Audrey’s hours-long DR disappearance and rules-breaking absence from the POV has sealed her fate.

By the way, this is John (@uselesstraffic) writing this recap rather than the on-assignment Scott (@bigbrothrgossip), who usually writes these, and I’m writing it as the show airs in the east without the benefit of a DVR (so, sorry, no photos). So please be nice in your comments when you correct my mistakes and forgive the lack of Scott’s trademark humorous snarkiness!

As always, the show starts with a summary of nomination ceremony from Sunday’s show. Audrey was behind Shelli’s nomination of Jason, she said, but then Audrey tried to backtrack that with Shelli. And we see a summary of the Battle of the Block. Losers are punished by being made to perform in the “Whackstreet Boys” — we’ll get to see that tonight.

It’s Day 30. Shelli talks about being happy about being the sole HOH. Julia says Shelli winning isn’t bad, as she’ll keep the twins safe this week.

“We’re safe,” James says. “No backdoor this week. I’ll eat cereal all week and watch the madness happen.”

Jason talks about not wanting to go home broke and “back to the basement” at his mother’s house if he’s not saved this week.

Bobcat Goldthwait — er, John — laments losing the battle and actually being on the block. (As an aside, I’m referring to Bobcat’s Police Academy character. These days, Bobcat is an accomplished director who gave up that annoying screamy persona years ago. John sounds just like that character in every DR appearance, and I can’t stand it! But it’s only because production makes him do it. On the feeds, he’s an awkward guy but not annoying to watch or hear.)

Audrey tells James that Shelli “threw me under the bus for Jason. I’ve been loyal to her and there’s no other single person who would help her. If you won HOH, you’d have every justification” to put Shelli up.

But then James tells Clay and Shelli everything that Audrey said. “I don’t know if she’s baiting me, but she was talking negatively about you and Clay.” “Audrey is digging her own grave,” replies Clay.

In the hammock room, Clay asks Audrey why she’s being weird. We see a flashback of Jason denying saying anything about Shelli and Clay. Clay tries to reassure Audrey, saying she’s being overly paranoid. “You’re thinking too far ahead.” In the DR, though, Clay admits that Audrey should be worried about being put on the block as the replacement nominee.

Now Vanessa’s in the HOH room talking with Shelli. “I completely screwed up in my conversation with Jason. I didn’t think about the aftermath” of telling Jason that she might nominate Audrey. “She is doing people so dirty in this game,” says Clay, that everybody has reason to dislike her.

“On a personal level, I love her. On a game level,” Shelli tells the DR, she can’t be trusted. Commercial time.

"Liz, Jason, & John, please go to the Diary Room," says Big Brother.  We see them transform into boy-band costumes (white pants & shirts), complete with 90s-style pagers plus microphones on their ears. “Everyone get to the sky bridge - it’s time for the Whackstreet Boys,” announces an unusual voice to the house. Liz, Jason, & John do a coordinated dance to applause from the other house guests. Staff member Jackie appears in the DR reading stupid scripted “I love the Whackstreet Boys!” lines. This scene ends fortunately soon enough.

Shelli then announces it’s time to select Veto players. “Best scenario is for Audrey not to get picked,” Shelli says in the DR. She wants to set up Audrey being backdoored. Vanessa, Meg, and James are selected as players. (James was Jason’s houseguest choice.) Shelli selects Steve to host the comp.

“At least 50% of these people will take me off” the block, says Jason, and he thinks he can convince the others to save him.

Meg in the HOH room says “I feel like I have no idea what’s going on this week” and asks about putting up Audrey as replacement, which Shelli says would make her feel sick to do. But Vanessa says Audrey has been given second and third chances and wouldn’t feel bad at all. James shows up and asks what the veto winner should do.

“From the very beginning, I set my loyalties with Audrey,” says Shelli in the DR, lamenting that she doesn’t want to be the one to put Audrey up.

In the storage room, James tells Audrey that they don’t have a plan for the replacement nominee. “Are you worried?” James asks her. “No, I don’t think I need to be,” replies Audrey.

Uncertain music plays and Shelli tears up about potentially nominating Audrey. She bawls in bed with Clay about the choice she has to make. “I just want to trust her.” Clay tries to reassure her that she doesn’t have to do it, but if he wins in the following week he won’t hesitate.

Commercials again, and Steve announces the POV “Saved by the Smell” comp is on. “Steve looks like the science geek and I’m so tempted to shove him in a locker,” says Austin. Players must concoct unique smells by pouring specific color chemicals into glasses, but if they do it in the wrong order it’ll blow up in their faces and they obviously lose.

Round 1 is “boo ya berry.” John fumbles his scripted line in the DR to canned laughter — ugh, please, Grodner, stop forcing him to talk that way! All players get round 1 correct.

Round 2 is “chill pill pine.” Vanessa figures out that she needs only remember the first letter of each color to get it right. Meg wants to make up songs to remember the colors. “Teachers knew not to trust me with chemicals,” James tells the DR, and then we see his chemical blow up in his face to more fake laughter.

Round 3. Shelli says she’s throwing it so as to keep blood off her hands, and we see the explosion. “Smell you later, Shelli - you have been eliminated,” says Steve. John, Jason, Meg, and Vanessa are still in the game.

Round 4. “Now that Shelli’s out, I need to take this to keep the Power of Veto in our alliances’ control,” Vanessa says. It blows up on Meg.

Round 5, “trippin’ tea.” “I’m even surprising myself how good I am,” says Jason. Then it blows up on both Jason and John. Vanessa wins Power of Veto! “I’m over the top happy,” she says. Shelli chimes in, “This is exactly what we wanted to happen.” “If I’m up there against Johnny Mack, I might as well pack my bags,” says Jason.

After an ad break, the boy band is paged and everyone’s required to watch them do another dance in the living room.

Then we go directly to … yet another Whackstreet Boys performance on the sky bridge. Okay, this is getting old.

And then … to the backyard and to the bridge for two or three more boy band dances. Let’s take a theme, shall we, CBS, and beat all the humor and entertainment value out of it?

“I’ve had my back against the wall since week 1,” says Audrey in the backyard later, saying everybody has somebody to watch their back except her. “You work yourself up so much and are paranoid,” says Clay. “I’m offended,” Audrey replies, and goes back and forth with Clay about whether Shelli will be loyal to her. Forgive me in that I don’t remember the fine details of this week’s day-by-day events, but since we already know Audrey will be gone tomorrow, this feels like the typical CBS attempt to manufacture some drama.

Audrey invites herself into the HOH room, where Shelli, Clay, and Vanessa were already talking about her. “You could have been dancing through Broadway happy” for the last three weeks, Shelli tells her, if Audrey had only trusted her. “In my heart it offends me that you’d say none of us would put ourselves in your shoes when that’s exactly what I’ve done.” Audrey accuses Clay of making this about him and of cornering her. “You’re a blatant liar,” Clay retorts. It was the usual nasty back and forth between these two, and Clay storms out. To Vanessa, Audrey says, “You’re an amazing manipulator, and I’m not gonna try to argue about” the fact that Vanessa ended up putting Jeff up last week. Then Vanessa and Audrey get into it.

Commercial break, and a moment for me to say that I have to feel a bit badly for Audrey … because I really think she’s brought all this on herself. What a waste of potential. On Day 1, there was such goodwill toward Audrey for her being so candid with everybody about her past. But she can’t ever not attempt to play the game, and in doing so she only ever stirs up trouble! She might well have been able to float herself to jury if she’d mostly kept her mouth shut.

After the ads, we see Audrey in the DR (only a few seconds of what feeders know was her several hours there) and then walking to the Have-Not room in a cloak to sleep.

The veto meeting is held. “As you can see, Audrey isn’t here,” Vanessa says, but that the meeting is still going on. Jason pleas to her not to end his Big Brother dream. John simply says “please use it on me.” Vanessa announces that she’s using the veto to save Jason. Shelli then swiftly nominates Audrey.

In the DR, John squeaks “My best move is to literally do nothing.” Jason says “I really feel bad for Audrey. She’s not taking it well.” Clay recites an obviously scripted line: “She’ll do whatever is necessary to stay in the game, and that’s a little bit scary.”

And that’s it. They spent only mere seconds on Audrey’s meltdown — but that’s obviously going to be a big part of Thursday’s live eviction show. Live feeders know that Audrey has been spending the last few days sleeping in the Have-Not room, even being allowed to break the rules (eating regular food others bring her even though she’s a Have-Not, and missing the POV ceremony).

It will quite likely be a unanimous eviction vote tomorrow. I always hate those ... but on the other hand, the Audrey meltdown has been predictable, so at this point I'm not sorry to see her go. Zero air time on the Twins Twist tonight, so we'll probably get some of that on Thursday. I'm already thinking ahead to next week: Will the Twins survive, even if they or an ally don't win HOH? Or back to today, how do you feel about the whole Audrey situation? Comment below or tweet me @uselesstraffic.)

2 comments:

  1. They cleaned up Audreys special treatment meltdown like it never happened. Now it looks like a fight between her and Shelli's boy toy. They will edit even more to make her look better. What a wacko!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Of course, Jackie was the only one to watch that last performance they showed. She has to know that time is guaranteed to make the show. Also, her shimmy and thoughts about Jason being the sexiest one was really odd.

    ReplyDelete

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