Big Brother Episode Recap, Thursday, August 11, 2011

Julie Chen, looking sprite as ever in her white pant suit, introduces us to tonight’s show, where for “the first time in Big Brother history, two evicted House guest will face off live. The winner returns to the House to get back in the game.”

We’re given a recap of the week’s goings on in the house, with Kalia as Head of Household and Rachel and Lawon now up for eviction. It will come to a battle between one of these two and one of the four already evicted House guests voted back in by watching fans.

From the studio audience, strolling casually down the stairs (actually looking kind of cute tonight), Julie gives us her take on the current situation. The house Guests give us their take, too, during their Diary Room monologues. Lawon is the most exuberant of all of them, “Lawon is on the block. And I love it, love it! If I do get voted out of the House, I have a 99% chance of coming back to the game with superpowers. So, take note of that, Lawon made the boldest move.” Rachel calls it a miracle, while Jeff says it’s either very intelligent or very stupid and he votes for stupid.

Lawon puts on “his acting skills”, as he puts it, pretending that didn’t expect it. Shelly doesn’t buy it, as she “knows in my gut, something’s up”. Shelly sees the total change in his “vernacular”. Lawon says “when I’m going out that door…”, Shelly interrupts him and tells him it’s Rachel going out the door. Shelly wakes up Kalia in the HoH and asks about Lawon and finds out that Lawon volunteered for the block. Hah, his game’s up! Shelly passes the word around. “Lawonderful!”, Shelly snarks.

Meanwhile, Rachel sees an opportunity to rise from certain defeat as she goes around to canvas support and, hopefully, critical votes to be saved from eviction. Votes are uncertain, but as Kalia noted, if it comes to a 3-3 tie, Kalia gets the deciding tie-breaker. Shelly advises Rachel to stay zipped so she doesn’t create any animosity while giving Lawon a chance to create his own downfall. Daniele agrees with Shelly while they are alone outside that Rachel can’t even stay shut up “for even one second”.

In the HoH room with Daniele, Kalia is a little upset by all of the revelations being passed around in House, saying that when it’s agreed that whatever stays in the room, stays in the room. She realizes now the House walls have ears with information leaking like water from a rusty bucket, if it can be believed with the lies going around.

Now we’re back in the studio with Julie interviewing the House guests gathered in the living room. Daniele says “it’s Big Brother” and “you play the game like you don’t know what’s going to happen.” Shelly says “it’s crazy” with times there are a lot of tears. Jordan says it was “like a ball of fire this week”. Jeff answers Julie’s question about whether the game gets easier or it gets harder as the game goes along, and he explains why it gets harder.

It’s history time! We meet Ragan, who in a past season’s clip says “Rachel, everything about you is a lie”, jokingly. She does that ninny-laugh, which he imitates. He says, believe it or not, he’ll be at Rachel’s wedding party, as they’re good friends and like to hang out together. We also see Matt from the past, who says he’s also friends with Rachel. Ragan and Matt make fun of Rachel’s crying episodes as they watch video recaps together, but say that’s she’s also as dangerous as “the killer at the end of a slasher movie”, “down but never out.” Watch out for Rachel, they say!

Julie talks with Kalia in a private feed, asking her “what was the biggest challenge?” It boils down to Kalia saying that “you have no idea what to do” with all of the things that go on. Well, we found that out this week. Kalia says, “you care about people here” in all sincerity, as she says she’d like to restore some good relationships that she had earlier, in particular with Jeff and Jordan.

It’s time for the vote. Rachel and Lawon give their speeches before the vote. Rachel keeps it short and thanks half of the world and then zips up. In contrast, Lawon goes “Woo! I’ve fallin’ in love with all y’all. Whatever happens happens.” Jordan votes first, voting for Lawon’s eviction. Jeff repeats the vote and it’s now 2-0 Lawon over Rachel being evicted. {Insert blatantly lucrative and lengthy commercial mid-vote commercial spot.} Porsche, in a key swing vote, votes for Lawon. Daniele also votes to evict Lawon! 4-0, Lawon is out! For the remaining two votes, Shelly and Adam vote to evict Lawon in a unanimous 6-0 vote.

As Lawon is about to walk out, Julie goes, “Hold on a minute, Lawon! Just hang on just one second. Everyone, please, take a seat.” Ah, hah! Julie tells Lawon and the House guests that Lawon is about to battle a returning House guest, as the four evicted House guest also “learned that they too might have a chance to return to the Big Brother House”. Rachel’s mouth is gaping so wide open, half of her face is one big “O”. Julie then says that she’ll reveal America’s vote for who will return to battle Lawon for the spot to return back into the House. The house guests go wow!

Julie then takes us to Keith, Cassi, Dominic and Brendon with a brief interview of each of them. {Cue another lucrative commercial spot.} More than 2 million votes were cast, Julie tells us. Keith and Cassi are out, so it’s between Dominic and Brendon. “The winner who received more than one million votes is… Brendon.” Rachel is breathless!

Now it’s a battle between Lawon and Brendon to be the person returning to the game. Julie tells us that this competition is called “That’s How We Roll”. On Julie’s go, 150 balls go into the yard. The goal is get a ball for each of the original 14 House guests in the hole, which has room only for 14 balls. Whoever has the most balls of the Houseguests in the hole wins. Brendon is way ahead early 7-2, as Lawon has difficulty even getting the ball in the hole. So much for his superpowers! The score goes up to 9-5… 12-6… and it ends with Brendon winning 14-6. Rachel is ecstatic!

“Lawon, I’m sorry, your game is over.” You can just see the blood drain from his face as his energy level went from “Super-powered” to “Zero”.

That, folks, is how heads roll.