by David McAlpine

Last time on Big Brother 11, Casey went out with a bang (in a banana suit), making sure to tell off Jessie and Natalie upon his exit. Julie announced that the cliques would be dissolved and America would be able to give a houseguest a huge power: the coup d’etat, which enables them to nominate two people of their choosing (minus the HoH and Veto holder) before the live eviction. Like many other final ten challenges, the HoH competition was endurance and left us hanging (literally).

The competition picked up right where it left off: everyone but Jessie swinging in a circle, getting slammed by a foam diploma and getting rained on. In short, it seems like it’s a “who can stand to be absolutely miserable for the longest” challenge. Natalie, surprisingly, is having trouble dealing with spinning in circles, so she starts making wretching noises. Kevin wusses out first only 21 minutes into the competition, and Lydia quickly follows four minutes later. The kicker? For their stellar effort, Kevin gets $5,000 courtesy of his “graduation gift,” while Lydia gets a 42’’ flat-screen TV.

Natalie continues to vomit, which makes Ronnie increasingly sick, so he drops out 46 minutes in, then Natalie succumbs to her dizziness three minutes later. They both open their respective boxes and…nothing. Zip, zero, zilch, nada. It’s almost as if you can hear the karma gods singing about how great this is.

The swinging contraption starts to slow down, stand still, then speed up, further torturing the remaining contestants. Oh, and that diploma that they were running into? It’s now hitting the houseguests back, too. After an hour and 37 minutes, Jordan can’t handle it anymore and drops, but she still gets the last graduation gift: the chance to choose the three Have-Nots for the week.

No one wants to trust Russell, so the Athletes plus Ronnie are rooting for Chima, Jordan is rooting for Jeff and poor Michele is on her own. When is this girl going to learn that this game is social, too? And props to Chima for staying on this long, I thought her diva self would have been out before the first hour was up. However, Chima is the next one out after two hours and 22 minutes. Jeff and Russell decide to talk if or when Michele drops, which she does at 2 hours and 41 minutes. Unfortunately for her, her pants get stuck on her seat, leaving her to hang upside down, while someone seems to clip them with a pair of shears.

Jeff and Russell ask for some privacy, so everyone heads inside. Russell tells Jeff he’s gunning for Ronnie and that both he and Jordan are safe this week. Jeff is hesitant, so Russell pulls out the ace in his pocket: he voted to keep Casey because of the deal he made with him at the beginning of last week—and Jeff was sold. Jeff drops after three hours and 38 minutes, making Russell the fourth Head of Household.

With the competition over, Jordan now has to pick the Have-Nots for the week, so she does what any innocent girl would do who doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings: she picks names out of a hat: Natalie, Kevin and Jessie. Natalie is ok with it because she has a slop pass, but Jessie is pissed, prompting a snide Lydia remark.

Jessie and Natalie get to work on Russell ASAP, suggesting Kevin and Lydia for nomination because they did minimal work and got the best rewards out of everyone. Then Ronnie says that he thinks America would vote for him to win the mystery power (at which point I had to pause the show to laugh at the TV), then makes a weird sci-fi reference.

Russell and Jeff solidify their plans to work together, and it makes me start to like Russell more and more. He’s here to play the game and he’s doing it very craftily, yet solidly. I feel like he’s going to have an ironclad argument if he makes it to the end.

Sensing trouble in the ranks, Chima chips into the control bus with Natalie and Jessie and they all suggest Lydia because she’s a lair. Ronnie joins in and keeps suggesting Lydia and Kevin as well, but it seems like Russell knows better.

In the end, Russell tries to make both people happy by nominating Ronnie and Lydia for eviction. He confronts Ronnie head on about some of the things he’s heard Ronnie say (which sounds like how the first fight started), and leaves it at that. Now things are finally starting to heat up!

Be sure to tune in to CBS Tuesday at 9/8c to see which houseguest wins the Power of Veto and if they save Ronnie or Lydia from the nomination block.

(Image courtesy of CBS)

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