Big Brother - Season 9, Episode 16 Recap

I’m back! After a fantastic weekend in Minneapolis, I’m home tonight to see what I missed over the weekend. I’ve read some reports, but I have yet to see any footage of the veto competition or meeting. This should be interesting; the episode has potential to be far more intriguing than I thought it would be when I left town Saturday morning.

We know the drill here – recap of the HOH comp followed by the nominees. Now we carry on with the reactions to the nominations. Sheila babbles but I really don’t hear what she has to say. Natalie is still grateful four days later that James has kept her word to not nominate her or Matt, who is for once actually happy with Natalie. He takes into the storage room (not for the reasons you might think) and tells her that there should be more people like her. Of course, she can’t just take a compliment without extending it further. “You make it seem like a big deal. It just came natural to me.” Stupid Matt butters her up by telling her he’d throw himself under the bus for her, but all she wants is “another massage”. We know, Natalie.

Ryan and Josh still seem to have their secret alliance, but Josh has more of a “whatever” attitude in his diary room interview. Meanwhile, Sheila’s sulking in the bedroom when Ryan comes in to chat. “I didn’t know there were rules that people weren’t supposed to lie in this game”, she complains. Well, Sheila, there isn’t, but common sense says that when you do lie the idea is to not let anybody catch you in your lie. “I gotta go out and kick ass and when POV.” Hahahaha – this from the woman who hasn’t won anything yet. “We need a miracle,” she adds…

…which leads into tonight’s religion study. Matt, Ryan, and Adam are discussing Bible verses, and it really is a meeting of the no-minds. The only way they can understand it is to relate it to the Indiana Jones movies. Matt comes up with this wonderful plan to go find the Holy Grail. Yeah, that will work out well for you brain surgeons.

Poor Adam comes out with coffee to find silly Sheila sitting outside. Funny how she is now apologizing for everything she’s ever done or said to him. “Your actions over the last couple of weeks have shown me what type of person you really are…I hated being mean to you.” The timing for this big apology is certainly interesting.

Natalie is now sitting outside with James, Chelsia, and Josh, and after a clip of Ryan complaining to Natalie about voting to bring back James, she explains that it seemed like the right thing for her to do. Josh asks who the mystery third vote was against James. It’s either Matt or Adam, and James vows to get “to the bottom of this”. Natalie lies to Sharon about this very subject, but Sharon says the truth will come out soon enough. In fact, Sharon claims in the diary room she immediately knew Nat was lying. (BTW, I’m sure that’s the token Sharon sighting in this episode.)

It’s now cheese time. The guinea pig cage mysteriously has blocks with letters that spell out P.O.V., and it’s just shocking to everybody. Sheila says as soon as she saw these blocks she knew she “desperately” needed to win POV. Right, you silly twit, you already said that ten minutes ago. She teams up with brain surgeons Matt and Natalie to figure out what the blocks mean. Natalie tells her to study all night long, which somehow means to Sheila that it indicates she doesn’t have her or Adam’s vote. Instead of studying, she goes off to cry herself to sleep…which I’m sure has happened a lot over the course of her life.

While Sheila’s sleeping, Natalie joins the rest of the cast and they dish about her psychosis. Natalie reports that Sheila had told her, “if you win, or anybody wins, and don’t take me off I’m going to be so pissed.” A bit later, they come up with the idea to prank her by saying the POV is happening right that minute. I have to admit that, while cheesy, this is pretty damned funny.

We finally move on to the POV. James pulls out Matt’s name, and Sheila gets Chelsia. Natalie really wants that final slot, but it goes to Joshuah, which makes Ryan happy. James chooses Natalie to be the host, though, so she’s happy for a change. Sheila still thinks she’s going to win. She really is a silly, delusional woman.

My girl Chelsia describes the game, but I must admit she doesn’t make a lot of sense. “It looks like a guinea pig cage, and there’s a tube at the end.” My advice is for her to just look cute, sweetie. So the game is to carry blocks from one end to the other on balance beams without dropping any. There’s a physical aspect of the game, but Sheila still thinks she’s going to win this game for her son. Sure you are.

Matt drops out first, and claims that while he didn’t throw the competition he also didn’t try real hard. Josh doesn’t buy it. “I was internally laughing so hard when big, bad Matt fell off the board. He’s a roofer. You’d think he’d have better balance.”

Ryan says he purposely started off really slow to get a feel for the game, but gradually sped up. Sheila says she gained some confidence when she heard Ryan breathing heavy. “He’s big. He’s going to fall.” For once, she’s right. He’s pissed at himself, but still has hopes that Josh will win and take him off the block.

The game continues on...and on...and on. (Can I take a nap?) Of course, Sheila is in last place, but says she’s not going to speed up. Yep, her strategy is to just not fall and hope that everybody else just screws up…which basically explains how she’s played the entire game. It’s a horrible plan, as she drops a block and is out of the game…which means we get more footage of her crying. “I didn’t realize how hard this was going to be.” Really? Did you think that everybody was just going to hand you the game? Of course she did.

At this point, it really doesn’t matter who wins since James, Chelsia, and Josh are in this game together. Yes, Ryan still thinks Josh is working for him, but that alliance only seems to work when it can help out the Queen.

Oh no! My girl Chelsia’s down! We now get more and more boring footage until James finally wins. Ryan now feels hopeless, as this means he will see five days of hell.

We come back from commercials to see Sheila “not” campaigning for votes. “I’m not good at kissing people’s asses for a vote,” she says as she does that very thing. God, I’m almost wishing that Allison is back. She tells everybody who will listen that she is the reason they’re still here, and she expects the same. Yet, somehow they don’t owe her anything. Natalie angers her by saying this “is going to be really hard for me”. “Are you serious?” replies Sheila. “You’ve got to think about this?” We now get a list of her accomplishments. “I feel disgusted by what Natalie said to me.”

They move over to bother Adam about this subject, who would really much rather just read the Bible. All he can say is that it’s “just crazy in here”. He won’t guarantee her a vote, which just pisses her off that much more.

James is outside hanging out with Matt and Adam, and that third vote is still pissing him off. A bit later, Sheila is upstairs with him to “clear the air”. She then goes off on Adam, but of course she’s not “throwing Adam under the bus” by suggesting James take her down and put Adam up. James puts the idea in her head that the person who didn’t come clean about not voting for his return may be put up. “Really”, she replies with her first smile of the night.

Coming into the bedroom, James beckons Adam to come up to talk to him. Adam tells him that he is the one who voted him back into the house, but James is not sure he believes him. His “rambunctious, abrasive” way just wasn’t assuring.

Josh comes close to cutting himself with his razor when James whispers to him that he’s going to use the veto. My girl Chelsia comes out of the bathroom right after that, and he takes her outside to tell her that he’s going to put up Adam. She’s not sure that it’s a good idea, but he should do whatever he thinks is right.

They head up to the HOH to chat some more about this idea. He decides to talk to Sharon because he can’t have any question about who voted against him. Wow, we get to see her twice tonight? Chelsia and her pretend to feed the guinea pigs before she heads upstairs to use James’ bathroom. Before James even tells her the plan, Sharon informs him that the third vote was indeed Matt. Now the plan is to get rid of Matt!

After the staged shot of James peering at the pictures, it’s time for the veto ceremony. Everybody walks in, thinking that everything is going to stay the same. Ryan knows he’s screwed, and Sheila says she’s realized that the people she thought was going to protect her don’t have her back. Sheila’s plea to the house is to again remind everybody that she’s protected them all, because “that’s what I do”. Ugh. She goes on about how she needs to “win this game for herself”. Well, win something then. Ryan keeps it short and sweet, about trying to play honest and that he wants to stay.

Here’s the moment of truth. Sheila breaks down bawling (again) when James announces that he’s saving her. Ok, drama queen, sit down. James then babbles a bit too much before stating that he’s putting up Matt. Instead of bringing up the third vote, though, he says that he’s doing it to break up him and Natalie. “The kid with the pink hair has defeated the Boston boy,” is all Matt can really say. Ryan now has some hope. “The only person they want out of this house more than me is Matty.” Natalie is obviously upset. “You’re so full of crap, James. It’s obvious why your eyes are so brown.” What does that even mean? “God will avenge me, and take you down.” It’s funny how Sheila has such complimentary things to say about James at this moment, given how psychotic she’s acted ever since. James, of course, is ecstatic that he gets to screw one of the people who screwed him over last week.

Will Matty be able to get the votes this time? Tune in tomorrow to see!