Big Brother - Season 9, Episode 26 Recap

Here we go with another eviction night. Will James finally be shown the door (again)? Or will he somehow convince two people to cast votes to save him? The answer is pretty obvious, but that’s not stopping CBS from attempting to cast some doubt.

That’s not tonight’s only question, though. Will there be a double eviction, as the house guests believe? Doubtful. Will the HOH competition be another endurance test? Quite possible. Will Sheila finally break her winless streak? Extremely unlikely.

Here we are with the recaps, which for some strange reason date back to Chelsia’s eviction. Wow, this may be the longest recap ever. Will it ever end?

Julie Chen doesn’t help matters, as she does her usual job of repeating what we just saw. (Damn, I’m tired of repeating her repeating every Wednesday.) Please, Julie, just stop.

Yay, for the very first time I don’t mind hearing “but first”. We start with the reactions to the veto ceremony. Obviously, Natalie is ecstatic. “There’s nothing that James can propose to me to keep him around. I want him gone. With him gone, it makes me going to the end that much more real. If I’m in the final two with anybody else in the house, I know I have the votes to win.” Say what?

Meanwhile, Sharon knows she’s safe. “Sheila’s not going to turn on me. Ryan and I have an alliance, and Natalie can’t stand him.” She also believes that if she’ll win if she makes it to the final two.

James isn’t giving up, though, and his plan is to “turn the house against Natalie. To stay in this game, I need to show the house that I’m the only one who can take down the Natalie beast.”

He begins his campaigning by letting reminding everybody that she’s the strongest player left in the house, but has yet to be on the block in “solo game play”. Sheila and Sharon chuckle at his imitation of her, and he adds that “after Matt left, it seems like she just focuses on her tanning” instead of working out.

When she appears a few seconds later, James asks her about that. “Is this going to be picking on me? Just shut up. I like to work out. I just haven’t worked out. It’s starting to be just like Chelsia, and it’s dumb.” Adam nods in confirmation when James says he “speaks the truth”.

Natalie has moved inside to eat, and whines to Ryan about the exchange. James says he knows she’s bitching about how he’s acting like Chelsia. And she is…and adds that she saw people laughing so “if I win HOH, I’m going to be pissed at the people who were laughing. Nobody needs to be egging him on.” Sharon comes back outside, and tells James that she had said “nobody’s supposed to laugh”.

The girls are now laying out, while the boys are resting in the shade. James promises to “blow this bitch out of the water”. In response, Natalie again warns Adam to not “egg him on or your ass is grass next week. You better watch it, Adam, and put him in his place. I don’t need another week of hell. I’ve put up with enough BS from those people.”

While she’s bitching, Ryan tells Adam that he doesn’t know if he can trust her anymore. Meanwhile, Sharon quietly pitches to Natalie that maybe they need to get rid of one of those boys. Adam points out that there’s no way either of them can defeat her in an endurance competition, nor do they have the votes against her at the end. (I’m not sure of that.) At the same time, Sharon is asking Natalie who would be the quickest to turn on them at the end. Sheila just sits there and listen when Natalie declares “I’m going to send home Adam.”

The boys versus girls chatter continues for a bit before Sharon gets up for some water. Natalie uses this opportunity to tell Sharon “I have to win…or you have to win.” Sheila is starting to see through the b.s. “Natalie tells people what they want to hear.”

Sheila runs inside to warn Sharon not to trust Natalie. “She wants to go to the end with one of the boys. How stupid doe she think we are? She doesn’t want either of us to go in the end with her.” Sharon points out that is a stupid move because if either of them are evicted, the boys will be coming after her.

Baking cookies, Natalie informs Adam of the “girl’s alliance”. “She told ‘you need to put up Adam and Ryan and get rid of Adam because he’s the biggest threat’. She told me she wants to get rid of you…that’s down on the DDL diggety down low.” Ugh.

She moves on to tell Ryan of Sharon’s plan, but TC’s going to pull through at the end. Double ugh. Meanhile, Sheila says that she needs to let Adam know about Natalie’s plan, but doesn’t want anybody to know she’s telling him. “She’s scared of you and Ryan…whatever she tells you or Ryan, you have to block out.” Adam doesn’t know who to believe.

Now it’s back to James, who thinks he’s got a chance because people are starting to see through Natalie. Playing chess with Ryan, he asks him if he’s dead set on voting him out, which Ryan confirms. “What if all the girls gang up? I think Natalie’s the golden girl out of all of them…I can mentally break her down.” Again, they make it appear like James has a chance, as Ryan says it’s a possibility that he would vote for him if Sheila agreed to do the same.

So James naturally moves on to work on Sheila. “You guys are going to need somebody to battle Natalie. Right now she has no opposition from anybody. She can go straight to the finish line.” Sheila insults James by calling her “the female version of you.” James points out that she would not be able to perform in the HOH competition if they shocked her by saving him. “I’m ok with leaving the game, but at the same time I’d like to take out that bitch before I left.” Hehehehe. Great editing once again by CBS, as Sheila says “we need more action in this game, and I think I’m going to do something crazy for my 46th birthday.” No, you’re not.

Now that we’ve been force-fed misleading footage, it’s now time for the meaningless chatter with the house. We begin with a question from a viewer for Natalie, which excites her (it doesn’t take much). Oh God, the question is “what does religion have to do with the game?” I should have made tonight a drinking game night. You can probably guess her answer. “Religion keeps me strong during the game…blah blah blah.”

Sharon also gets a religion question, and she affirms the “everything happens for a reason answer”. Actually, she states that line at least three times. We move on to how Adam’s letter informed him that a lot of “babies” are waiting for him in Philly. Sheila winces when Adam says he’s looking for women with “style, positive attitude, somebody who can make me smile, and quality conversation is the key because if it gets too boring I’m out of there.” Good luck with that, Baller.

It is then pointed out that Sheila is the frequent target of practical jokes, which includes a clip of James pouring flour on her. James is asked why. “Sheila’s a lot of fun with her reactions. She’s probably the only one that can handle the jokes in the house. I think if you played them on Adam, Ryan, or Natalie, they would take them way over the top.” Sheila is asked if the people in the house make her feel older or younger, and despite her complaints all season about immaturity she answers “younger”. Hmmmm. “They do make me feel wanted when they play jokes on me.”

And it’s now time for the tears, as she’s asked if she has a message for her son since she’ll be spending her birthday in the house. “I love you. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, leaving you for three months. And I can’t wait until I get out of her so we can celebrate his birthday.” Wow, no tears!

We move on to some more puff pieces, as we get a profile of Sharon. We see her family celebrate as Chelsia is eliminated, and then her Marine father introduces himself. You know this drill – she’s a great girl, a perfect student, a loving daughter, blah blah blah. Dad doesn’t want the “beebies” to come home with her, though. Wow, we’re told that she had a serious car accident last October (has this ever been mentioned), and that she claims she “felt the presence of God”. Sharon’s cute sister says it’s time for her to “step it up”.

Oooh, we’re going to see the jury house. Yay, my girl Chelsia is going to be back on! We begin, though, with Matt talking about how “the dream is over”. The only thing he misses around the house, he says, is being around people. “Being alone with my thoughts all day is not all that it’s cracked up to be.” Yeah, I’m sure that’s true.

Yes, here we go. The car pulls up, but before we see Chelsia we have to listen to Matt some more. Matt says that he’d like to see James show up because he “was my arch nemesis in the house…but if not him, I’d like to see some type of female.” I can’t blame him for that.

Chelsia runs up the stairs yelling “Matty”, and jumps on top of him (lucky bastard). She asks about the location of her bedroom, and Matt points to his and tells her she “should go right that way”. “I’ll be taking this one, Matty. Thank you!” Face!

She says in an interview that she will NOT be hooking up with Matt in the sequester house. “I’m not whatsoever attracted to him.” Good girl!

It’s a week later, and they’re now waiting for the next evicted houseguest. Matt still hopes it’s James. “Payback’s a bitch.” Chelsia says she “really cannot stand Natalie, but I want to see her in this house. I don’t want her to last another day in that Big Brother house.”

The car pulls up, and we see Josh enter. “I have a bad feeling”, Chelsia says just seconds before he shows his face. She’s bummed, but Matt is obviously all smiles. “I don’t want to see you here”, Chelsia whines. Matt goes onto describe Josh as a “bitchy female…he’s just like any other girl who is on her period.” I must say he is a bit over-the-top as he puts in the DVD of the prior week’s activities. They see Natalie win HOH, and Matt wants her to win because “I know I’ll reap the benefits of it”. Oh boy.

It’s Chelsia’s turn to celebrate when James wins the veto competition. “I’m so proud of James. It was awesome to see him kick ass in this game once again.” Josh and Chelsia both laugh when Josh denies Natalie’s hug when he’s evicted, along with making fun of her “hooker outfit”. I must admit that Matt is pretty good at controlling himself.

Finally, it’s eviction time. Sharon goes first with her final plea. As usual, she just says “if it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go”. Ugh. James says he “could say a million things right now and it won’t mean anything. People are going to vote the way they’re going to vote. I came in as a homeless kid with no money, and I’ll leave with a girl I fell for on national television, and friends I’ll have forever.”

Natalie votes first, and obviously she wants to evict James. Ryan and Sheila do the same, so it’s a unanimous decision. Despite all of the doubt CBS attempted to throw at us, the results were as expected.

We have to sit through commercials before James is given the news. He goes out with a whimper, though. To everybody but Sharon’s surprise, he just hugs them and runs out. OMG, Natalie just gave a “whoa, Bundy” salute. She’s a Married With Children fan? I may have to rethink my opinion of her.

Julie starts the interview by pointing out that he seems relieved to be leaving. “I did not like my house guests. I’ve been wanting to leave since I got back in the house…I hate these people.” Julie then asks about whether he regrets going back on his word to evict Matt. “I do in a way, but in a way I don’t. The reason I don’t regret going back on my word is because Matt was lying to me the whole week. I had to take care of business.”

After a silly question about all the tears he shed, we get the goodbye messages. Adam tells him that he shouldn’t have come out so strong when he returned. “It was the house’s choice, not mine, to get rid of you.” Sharon promises to do “as much as I can to get Natalie out this week.”

Ryan brags that he’s outlasted him, but he has “been a true warrior in this game. You might have been the hardest person to get out in the history of Big Brother.” Natalie’s next, and James has as little desire to hear this as I do. “You’ve finally been evicted. I have a file cabinet back here of everything people have said and done to me in this game, and you betrayed my trust. Once a cheater, always a cheater. Once a betrayer, always a betrayer.” Ugh.

We conclude with Sheila, who claims that James reminds him of her son (whom she said a few days ago will probably punch him at the wrap party). “You’re rebellious, and a free thinker, and I respect you for that. You are crazy, James. You lived up to your name. They definitely broke the mold when they made you.” Julie concludes by asking James who he feels he’s continue to be friendly to. “Probably Adam, Sheila, and Sharon. I hate Natalie, and I hate Ryan for what they stand for and who they are.”

We conclude the evening with the HOH competition, and it’s a hanging competition called “Glass Houses”. This doesn’t look good for Sheila. Then again, is there any competition that looks good for her? Ryan is already struggling, though, after we return from commercials. And we’re left hanging with the houseguests.