Big Brother - Season 9, Episode 23 Recap

Our weeklong national nightmare will be over in less than an hour, as Natalie’s reign of terror ends. Who will be evicted – Josh or Sharon? More importantly, who will be the next HOH?

So after we see last night’s episode truncated into a tight 60 second spot (and Julie once again repeating the same highlights), we begin with the reactions to the veto meeting. Sharon is pretty confident that she’s staying, but admits it’s going to be a tough last few days being up with her partner. Sheila agrees because they’ve become such good friends, and have bonded emotionally.

At the same time, Josh is also confident, as he claims he has James and Ryan’s votes. Natalie has promised that if it ends in a tie, she’d vote in his favor. “I’m hoping that he can just get the votes himself so I don’t have to be someone’s executioner.” (Ooh, that’s a pretty big word for our Natalie.)

In the bathroom, Natalie tells Josh that she does not want to have to break a tie…and repeats the executioner line. Josh now has some doubts that she would even keep her word if that situation plays out, so he begins to work on Adam by playing up the fact that he’s miserable on slop. “This better be convincing”, he says before breaking into fake tears as Adam walks in. He’s really not good at acting, but Adam gives him an encouraging hug. “Cry it out if you need too,” he tells him. Josh thinks he’s playing this role so well he should be hired as a soap actor. Um, no…he stinks, which is even more apparent as he rolls his eyes when Adam gets up to grab him a tissue.

“I just want to stay. I don’t want to campaign. So what do you do? You have to throw somebody under the bus, and I don’t want to do that.” Adam wipes off a little snot on Josh’s nose, and tells Josh that it’s just as hard for him as it is for those on the block. “It sounds like you’ve all decided already to keep Sharon anyway,” Josh replies. Adam claims that he’ll give him a vote.

Natalie is not outside in the hot tub with James and Josh, and wants reassurance that if she keeps Josh that they won’t come after her. James is non-committal, but says they’ll talk if the situation arises. Natalie then goes up to tell Sharon that Josh is making deals to save himself, but that she wants to keep her. Here’s what I don’t get – why can’t people try to save themselves? Why should Sharon’s feeling be hurt over this? They may have been partners, but at the end of the day they’re both trying to win the money.

To make matters worse (at least for us viewing at home), Natalie decides to bring Sheila into the conversation. Sharon meets her on the steps and tells her, “James and Josh are trying to get me out of here.” When she gets into the HOH, they fill her in that the two are trying to get Ryan and Adam to flip their votes. Sheila, as expected, is over the top in her fury. “Oh my God. He’s sneaky. I can’t believe he would do this to her…that’s not right.”

Natalie now says that if it’s a tie, she’s keeping Sharon. Dig this great Natalie quote – “if I want to keep the girl power together, I need to go work Adam and Ryan and make sure they vote out Joshuah.” Women’s lib, with an assist from the boys?

Ryan is brought in first by Natalie. “Joshuah is going to tell us anything we want to hear. That’s the only thing that scares me.” Ryan points out that they are safe if Josh stays. If Sharon makes HOH, this may not be true…at least for him. Natalie wants Josh to feel like he’s safe, and then “bam”. “Sharon just worries me, man. I know if I can’t trust her.”

Sharon asks Natalie how their conversation went, and Natalie confides that Ryan doesn’t know if he can trust her. Sharon doesn’t get it, but Ryan walks in at that very moment. “I’ve never been gunning for you”, says Sharon. “I’ve never been after you. Josh and James, you know they’re gunning for you…I know if I leave, you are all fucked.”

Baller’s up next, but first we see Sharon repeating that she’s not after him. Suddenly, Ryan sees her as a “very trustworthy person”. God, these people can’t keep an opinion for more than five minutes. As usual, Adam just lies around and listens, adding little more than a “yep”. Ryan joins them, and is now completely on board. Natalie is ecstatic.

James and Josh still believe that Josh is going to survive. “That is unreal”, says James. “This is definitely the best possible scenario.” Acting a tad cocky (as usual), Josh says it’s time for Sharon to go because he’s done babysitting her. They both agree that she’s going to be blindsided by this. Well, not really.

After commercials, we head to the living room for the typical nonsense. Sheila gets the first question, as Julie asks a convoluted question tying in her fight with James and his later “words of encouragement”. Suddenly, she’s all complimentary about him. “He’s highly intelligent, and he’s playing a smart game. And it was some really good advice.”

Obviously, we move on to James, and his reasoning for calling out Sheila at the veto meeting. He babbles about how she wasn’t true when she pumped him, so he wanted her to see that he was true about wanting her to succeed in the game. Does that make sense to you? Not me.

Adam tells Julie that he loves her before answering a question about “all the tears” in the house. James rolls his eyes (again) when Adam claims that he also gets a little emotional at times. “I just have a level head.” Oh boy. Exchange the word “level” with “empty” and I think you have a more accurate description.

Up next, Josh is asked about being up on the block with his best friend. “It’s really hard to campaign against such a great person as Sharon. We’ve been together from the beginning, and we know each other’s deepest, darkest secrets. It’s hard not to use it against each other, that’s for sure.” Sharon’s response is that she loves him, and not much more (as usual).

Oh god, we now get to meet Josh’s mother. Wait, she’s kind of cute for an old woman. You know the drill – we get the whole “I love him/he’s the life of the party” babble, and of course she’s never seen the kind of outbursts we’ve seen from him this year. After a clip of his rampage against Amanda (and her fine ass), she says she’s especially shocked by the language. “Sometimes when I’m watching him, I just want to wring his neck…I keep telling myself that that is his strategy.” We now get his life story, and how he played football and had girlfriends. One question – who is the guy next to her that gets out maybe three words the entire segment?

It’s now time to cover your ears, as we move up to the silly conversation with the HOH. Julie the crack journalist just has to begin with another round of questions about Matt. “When I look at Matt’s picture, I just think about all of the good times we had, and the memories that we shared together in this house.” Yeah, like when those great times when he’d hide from you?

Regarding Chelsia, there were a million ways Julie could have questioned Natalie, but instead she went for the softball. “How do you think Matt felt when he saw her walk through those doors?” “I think Matty was ECSTATIC to find her in the big brother sequester house.” Oh boy, she goes on to say that since he’s not her boyfriend, he can do whatever he wants, BUT “I trust him. She’ll probably try to do something with him to spite me, though. That’s the kind of girl she is, you know.” (I need a drink after hearing that drivel.) I can’t bear to listen to the rest of her garbage about Ryan and God.

Finally, it’s the moment of truth. Sharon gets to plead her case first, but all she says is that she is “thankful to be here…if it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go.” As you may imagine, Josh is a bit more prepared. “This is the most dysfunctional family on TV. Believe it or not, as much as I may hate you all I truly do care about you inside.” This goes on and on, and concludes with him saying he wants to stay.

Sheila begins the voting, and obviously votes to evict Joshuah. Ryan also goes for Josh, as does Adam. As expected, James is the lone vote to save him. Josh is evicted, but before leaving gives a self-serving lecture on being true to your self. Silly Sheila is near tears, but you know she’ll be bitching about it later. While we wait for his interview, everybody consoles Sharon.

In his interview with Julie, Josh rambles on about how it’s such a tough game (I think he says that at least 4 times), and how it’s clear that he was evicted because he’s the toughest competitors in the house. Oh yeah, and if he “would have stayed, he would have picked them off week by week.” Hmmm, I don’t think many would agree with that assessment.

OMG, let the self-serving platitudes end! Now he claims that he’s only mean when provoked, and that he likes to “stand up for others in the house. I only wanted to make sure other people were respected…and the only way I knew how unfortunately required screaming and getting in their face.” Oh boy. Julie doesn’t help matters by complimenting him on his “acting”. The goodbye messages are as you may expect, but I have to laugh at his reaction to Natalie’s “I still love you as my fellow brother of Jesus Christ” comment.

Finally, we move on to the HOH contest. Natalie’s bummed because it’s finally a quiz that has to do with numbers in the house! Bwahahahahahah! I can only imagine how she’ll later babble about how she would have answered every question correctly…and how Sheila didn’t understand the questions.

Everybody but Sheila(!) gets the first question right, and Ryan and Adam join her in getting the second question wrong. She does get a point on the third question, and Sharon takes the lead. Everybody gets the next question wrong, but they’re all correct on the fifth question. Sharon misses the sixth question, and it’s now a three-way tie between Sharon, James, and Adam. OMG, Adam gets the last question correct, and is the new HOH. Things don’t look good for James once again!