Way too much in the area of “water works” for this week’s episode. If you don’t like a load of false drama, this wasn’t the week you wanted to be watching. Fortunately, we here at Poker News Daily did the job for you.
It has all come down to this. With only two weeks to go in the season, Vanessa Rousso has been able to manipulate her way to the Final Five on the CBS reality show Big Brother. Depending on the outcome of tonight’s Head of Household competition, Rousso could be in shape for being in the Terrific Three next week after some new twists in the house.
When we last left the Big Brother compound, Steve was sitting in control of the Head of Household position as Rousso looked to create as many alliances for herself as possible to ensure she would stick around. After partnering with the “Sixth Sense” (Rousso, the twins Liz and Julia and the wrestler Austin) for much of the season, Rousso had quietly begun to seed a new alliance with Steve and John to protect her back and because she was going to be the “odd man out” if the “Sixth Sense” reached the Final Four. With Steve in the HoH position, Rousso masterfully molded everything that happened in the house over the last week, getting the outcome that she definitely wanted through twisting the minds of her fellow houseguests.
First it was Steve, whom Rousso convinced to put up Austin and Liz for potential eviction from the house. Rousso’s logic here (as was Steve’s) was to break up the “showmance” that remained in the house. With this achieved, the players headed off to the Power of Veto competition, a physical competition that involved bowling in tutus (hey, I don’t make this stuff up). It was during this competition that Rousso pulled off perhaps her best move.
Knowing that the plan was for Julia to win the competition (and potentially keep her sister in the game), Rousso was able to manipulate Julia to “attacking” Austin, who took the affront personally and devastated everyone in the physical competition. This was viewed by the twins as an attack on them because, with the Power of Veto, Austin could use it to save himself instead of protecting them. The twins retreated to their own thoughts while Austin tried to convince Liz that he was doing what was best for “all of their” games in taking the PoV for himself.
There was a reason that Rousso wanted Austin to take the PoV. If he were to use it on himself, Steve had already raised that he was going to push Julia into the chair so that one of the two twins would be ejected and cause a disturbance in what has become the “AusTwins” alliance. If Austin had not won the veto and Liz would have been removed, Steve would have put Rousso on the block. Thus, Rousso’s move in getting Julia to mistakenly attack Austin – and his resulting anger that drove him to the PoV – saved Rousso for another week.
Austin did use the Power of Veto on himself and, as he stated he would after discussions with Rousso, Steve put Julia beside her sister for elimination. After some overly weepy moments with the sisters, they decided that Julia would depart the game and got Rousso and Austin to vote for Julia’s eviction. John, just happy to still be playing the game (remember, he had been previously evicted before winning a “jury house” competition to return), went along with them as Julia marched out of the house.
As the show went off the air on Thursday night, the next competition for Head of Household was going on but it would prove critical to Rousso’s game. That competition, where the players had to move 10 eggs through a cage netting (think a chicken coop) over a rainbow to a base (seriously, someone gets paid to make these up?), was won by Rousso (her fourth victory in HoH competitions), guaranteeing that she will be among the Final Four. The problem is that the players don’t know what’s coming at them next.
Rousso, getting ensconced in the HoH bedroom, will have a short lived tenure. Next Tuesday night, there will be a surprise elimination that will come out of Rousso’s selections. Does she go after Austin and Liz, who have been her partners for some time, or does she strike off with her new group in Steve and John? Current talks in the house show that Rousso is working all the players in the game, trying to decide which two would be the best choices for eviction, and she hasn’t made any decisions.
Rousso will lose the HoH following the eviction and there will be another complete process (new HoH, eviction nominations, PoV competition and eviction vote) next Wednesday night (Big Brother is moving from Thursday night due to NFL football) to bring the competition down to the final three players. Unless her wheeling and dealing backfires on her, Rousso is in decent shape for making the final three in the program and potentially reaching the final two, when the last seven evicted players in the Jury House will vote on who should win the 17th season of Big Brother and the $500,000 first place prize.
