bunny-boiler and clyde

After a week of Helen on High, it's nice to have Judd Down Among the Commoners. He held his HOH pre-nom chats down in the cockpit room, and was quick and to the point with everyone. Judd didn't really want HOH in the first place this week and the twist is making him super-nervous, so is main goal right now is to get through the week without ending up with too many enemies. His original nom ideas were GM and Kaitlin. He always seemed to see Kaitlin as a pure pawn, but was a little more vague on GM. To some Judd was saying he was going to nom two pawns to set up a backdoor plan. To others he was saying that GM was his target because she had thrown his name around as a target and/or because he was just so over her moping about Nick.

Judd gave Kaitlin the "you're a pawn" speech, and though she wasn't completely comfortable with it, she didn't pitch a fit. He then gave GM the same spiel and she flipped out. Even though she was assured she was safe, she wasn't "comfortable" with the idea of being on the block. The plan Judd was pitching was to that Kaitlin and GM would go up as his noms, and Aaryn would be the MVP nom (they're all still assuming Elissa will get MVP and she's said she'd nom Aaryn). Judd said if he wins veto he'd take down either Kait or GM, and put up "someone" to be backdoored. A lot of them are still on a kick-Howard-kick, but Judd doesn't seem really on board with that. However, he's not above letting everyone think he's targeting Howard.

After GM was so opposed to the pawn plan (or as it sounds in her accent, the "porn" plan), Judd offered her a new deal. If he didn't put her up, she had to agree to vote however he wanted this week, and in the future. He kept saying they'd be like Bonnie and Clyde. I do believe at that very moment, GM completely forgot about her obsession with Nick and refocused on Judd. Increasingly the likelihood of drama out of this latest turn of events is the fact that Jessie came out of the food comp as one of the HNs for the week (along with Andy, Spencer, and Candice) and won't be sleeping in HOH. GM offered to come keep him company, and has basically been following him around like a puppy dog. Meanwhile, Jessie's stuck sharing the HN room with Spencer, who has been keeping up a steady stream of inappropriate and disgusting comments (apparently his version of admiration) about her for weeks.

Next up for a pre-nom chat was Aaryn. Judd told her that he had heard that if Elissa gets MVP, Aaryn would be the nominee. She asked from whom he had heard that, and he finally admitted it was direct from Elissa. Judd then proposed that he preemptively nominate her, and then if she comes off the block with the POV, he'd get to choose the repl-nom. He also said that if the mystery twist turned out to be something where the nominees got power, he wanted to be on good terms with those on the block (he mentioned the same idea to Kaitlin and GM). None of it makes a whole lot of sense, but it seems to be working well enough for hamster brains.

So now the twist actually matters. I think it's pretty much a given that Aaryn will be the number one choice by America to be nominated. What's funny is that had she gone up as the MVP nom, the HGs would all just assume Elissa was MVP again. But now we get the second choice and things could get very interesting. Between the people who actually don't like Elissa and the ones who accidentally voted for her thinking it was a regular MVP vote, it would not surprise me if it's her. GM and Amanda are also strong possibilities. If it's Elissa the house will go crazy trying to figure out who won MVP, since it will be confirmed it's not her. If it's anyone else, they're probably all going to assume Elissa was MVP, and whether her denials are believed remains to be seen. The other thing that will be interesting is that since a lot of them have been keeping Elissa under the theory that it allows them to control the 3rd nom every week, if they know/believe she didn't get it, how will that change things?