Big Brother - Season 11, Episode 3 Recap

Welcome to the first Tuesday night episode of the season. Generally, this is an episode chock full of filler, but we actually have more material to deal with than usual. Besides the POV competition and meeting, we have a good-sized blowup that occurred between those two events (“technocratic, baby!”). Plus, I have a feeling we’re going to get more info on the “green” theme (guaranteed to be chock full of Chima’s whining).

You know the opening drill - repeat everything that happened on the first two episodes in a ninety-second recap, and then we finally proceed with the reactions to the nominations of Lydia and Chima, who claims she “volunteered” herself to be a pawn. Laura thinks she “dodged a bullet” by not being nominated. Chima adds that high school “works” by having the athletes targeting the “nerds”. Jeff feels like an outsider in his own group because he had no clue that Lydia and Chima were going up, while Russell says the situation is a “wakeup call”.

Lydia walks away in tears with Braden, who gives her a hug. She’s joined by Jordan, who says “I know you’re not going home”. Lydia blames her nomination on her tattoos, so it really is just like high school. She tells Jordan she doesn’t want to see her cry. Jeff and Kevin also walk in and also tell her there’s no way she’s going home.

Meanwhile, Chima is in the other room with Ronnie and Michelle bitching because nobody is consoling her. She adds in the diary room that although her alliance is assuring her she’s safe, she’s still going to fight for the power of veto. “It’s the only way I can guarantee my safety.”

Chima and Ronnie now go into the storage room to wonder about whether Jeff would betray her own team. For some reason, he also whispers that he’s a national champion in persuasive speaking. Oh boy.

Casey walks into one of the bedrooms where Laura and Russell are talking. Laura thought for sure she was going to be put up. “Why? What did I do? Is it because I have big boobs?” Casey laughs in the diary room that she believes she’s being targeted because she’s pretty. “It’s hard being beautiful sometimes”, he says sarcastically. “It’s not my fault I have big boobs”, she complains.

Now we’re back up to Meathead Central, and both Jessie and Russell are complaining that Jeff is hanging out with Jordan and Lydia. They’re worried that their plans will fall through, and Chima will end up going home. He babbles a lot of his usual nonsense, and Russell informs her of Laura’s paranoia. They decide that they need to be brought in “while the iron is hot”.

Laura is then brought up into the HOH in her white hot pants and extremely low cut top. Oh yeah, and heels. Jessie goes on about how they need her because he’s just pissed off the whole house, including oen of their own. Laura brags that she’s a good competitor, but admits in the diary room that she needs to suck up to them. “We need winners on our team”, Jessie tells her.

After the first commercial break, we have filler time. Braden is wandering around in tight leather pants, and we then see a whole segment of him acting like a buffoon. I told you we’d have filler tonight. Russell does say that the fact he’s fun makes him a huge threat.

So now it’s time to pick the players for the veto competition, and Jessie struggles to read the script. Lydia says she doesn’t want an athlete to play because they’re the ones who put her up. Oh, they do use the bag after all (despite what the rumors were saying). Jessie pulls out Russell, but Chima nabs “houseguest choice” and picks Natalie. Michelle is not happy that she didn’t pick a member of her team. Lydia then pulls out Jeff’s name, and Jessie chooses Casey to be the host.

They then head outside (actually much later in the day), and Lydia describes the scene as a “giant face” with oozing eyes and acne cream. As usual, Chima is disgusted, but in the diary room she is all joking as she laughs that the acne-covered face looks like her high school picture.

Inside the pimples are a bunch of tiles with letters. The winner is the person who spells the longest word with the letters they grab. Yeah, it’s that thrilling.

We get the whole speech from everybody how important this contest is, but Chima stands up for bragging about how vocabulary is one of her traits since she’s a “freelance” writer. Um, my dear, all I’ve seen from you are bad interviews with C-list hip-hop stars. Don’t flatter yourself.

I won’t bore you with the play-by-play, but they all complain about how gross it was to wade through the “zits”. After the ten minutes was up, we find out that Jesse misspelled “continuously”. Casey has a good laugh over it. Natalie correctly spelled “last”, which makes Ronnie laugh. Chima wanted to spell “superficiality” but “couldn’t find all the letters”. What an idiotic move. Russell correctly spelled “shotgun” to take the lead.

Jeff is up next, but he couldn’t find all the letters to spell “technotronics”. Russell bitches about this in the diary room…and will again later in this episode. Lydia is the last person to reveal her word, and she’s about four letters short of “civilization”. “Shotgun Russell the Love Muscle” has won the POV! Ugh! Lydia promises, though, to do anything she has to do to get off the block. Jessie poses, as usual.

When we return from commercials, Russell and crew (including Laura) celebrate in the HOH. Laura is convinced that Jeff threw it because he can’t possibly be that stupid. Russell agrees, or maybe “he’s a complete moron”.

Jeff, meanwhile, is flirting with Jordan, who is rubbing his feet. Russell walks in, and is pissed that he’s spending so much time with people outside his team. This is the perfect setup to something that happened a full day later. Jeff and Russell are both working out, and they’re giving each other the evil eye. Russell admits in the diary room that he’s setting this up to make Jeff look bad, and starts yelling “technotronics”. Jeff is calm at first, pointing out that Russell spelled an easy word. (Please don’t take a drink every time you hear the word “technocratic”, as you’ll be drunk in 30 seconds.)

Finally, Russell walks away, and it’s now Natalie’s turn to start in on him. Jeff asks what he’s done to anger his team, and it goes around and around like a typical Big Brother fight. Natalie finally says Jeff’s lucky he’s on their team, or it would be him that would be put up. “Every one on my team can fuck off”, Jeff finally yells as we fade to commercial.

With little time remaining in the show, it’s time for Lydia to turn up the charm. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get myself off the block.” She starts by rubbing Russell’s shoulders. She babbles to him about how much she likes him, but Russell instead turns it into who would put him up. He also lies and says it was the other athletes that wanted him out. To Lydia, that means that Natalie doesn’t want “another strong woman” to be in the house, so she needs to step it up. Interesting theory. They go back and forth about how things change in the house every day. Natalie then enters, and gets the evil eye from Lydia.

Lydia now goes up into the HOH and begins to complain about how he lets Natalie dictate his actions. Natalie walks in at that very moment because she wants to go to bed. Lydia takes the opportunity to question why she was put up instead of Laura. For the fourth or fifth time, Natalie says she doesn’t lie (oh really?) and that she’s never talked shit about her. Lydia calls her out on this, and again we get the usual back and forth. Jesse adds that he doesn’t believe all of her actions (massage, etc.) were “not sincere”. Lydia says in the diary room that she knows she has to redirect the negative feelings to others, and points out Jeff and Braden. She says she doesn’t feel bad throwing out Braden’s name because “it’s survival of the fittest”. Jessie tells Lydia they’ll discuss it further.

Russell is now brought up into the HOH, and is informed of the discussion. He seems to think Braden should be their target, and by taking Lydia down she’ll owe them. Natalie seems to agree because Braden is “persuasive as hell”.

Ronnie is then asked by Russell about targeting Braden, and of course he agrees. Ronnie says the backyard incident showed how Russell is a “loose cannon”, and by agreeing to his plan he’s showing them what a “valuable asset” he can be. Yet, he goes right to Jeff and Jordan with this news, and they immediately bring Braden in to tell him. In the diary room, Braden claims that Russell is “jealous” of him. Ronnie quickly adds that nobody should know that he was the informant, but Russell noticed the two of them talking. He brings Ronnie into the storage room to ask him if he told Braden, and of course he quickly denies it. Russell doesn’t seem to believe him, and gives him the evil eye as he eats.

Jessie then enters the kitchen, and Russell takes him into the storage room to tell him that Braden now knows. They talk about how Ronnie talks to everybody all the time, and even tried to follow them into the storage room. Hell, even Russell says he’s acting stupid.

It’s finally time for the POV meeting, and it follows the usual script. Russell is shown contemplating his decision in front of the wall of photos, and babbles about how the decision is going to be what works best for him. Ronnie says he’s worried because he “rolled the dice”, and then everybody is called in. Lydia hopes her conversations with the athletes will save her, and Braden babbles how if he is put up he’ll “take it like a man”.

Both nominees babble the usual garbage about how they’d like to go down but would respect Russell’s decision. He then announces that he’s going to use the veto on Lydia, and Jessie then announces that Braden is indeed the new nominee “due to today’s current events” (whatever that means). The nominees (and former nominee) babble the usual stuff about fighting to stay in the house.

So ends the veto meeting, and the episode. See you Thursday when Braden (probably) gets the boot!