hats off

Haven't posted for a while, but to be honest, the last two weeks have just not been that interesting. The AusTwin triple threat is still the biggest stumbling block to actual interesting gameplay, and with a Liz HOH followed by an Austin HOH there's been no chance of breaking that up. Vanessa's been the other huge power player of the season and though lots of dirt was spilled to Liz and Austin during their HOHs they also knew that there was no reason for them to personally take her out. On top of not wanting to target Vanessa, Liz did her a huge favor by taking out one of Vanessa's big targets, Becky.

Then Austin won an HOH that he could have easily and safely thrown and let someone else target Vanessa. Many of them were still hoping he'd target her, but with minimal effort she was able to pull him back to her side. She then managed to pull off a POV win and had the power back in her hands. First with the choice of whether to use it, and then after deciding not to (mostly to avoid pissing off Austin and the twins), she became the swing vote between Johnny Mac and Steve.

Next up Vanessa pulled off what I found to be one of her more impressive moves to date. Even while having the opportunity to save him, and not taking it, she managed to completely repair her relationship with John. This worked out brilliantly for her when he ended up bouncing right back in as the returning juror, but even if he hadn't she would have had his jury vote wrapped up. Now he is firmly on her side along with Steve. Meanwhile she still has a solid alliance with AusTwins and Steve.

Finally, Vanessa pretty much lucked into an HOH. We got the second shortest endurance comp in BB history (after the BB7 aborted F3 endurance), with the HGs falling like flies of the spinny dizzy thing. So, she charged right at James and Meg. James hid and seeked his way to POV, and now Vanessa's got to put up a renom. It got a little dicey for awhile with the AusTwins pushing for Johnny Mac to go up, which Vanessa doesn't want to do, but she also doesn't want anyone to see that she's got JMac tucked into her pocket.

But through her powers of persuasion, Vanessa has slowly worked everyone around to the idea of Julia as a renom pawn to ensure Meg goes. At this point she even has Julia arguing in favor of her own nomination. And while there's a strong argument to be made that it would be in the others' best interests to flip and keep Meg, I'm pretty sure Vanessa's got everyone lined up to do exactly what she wants.

And hats off to her for all that. She is exhausting as she spins around the house like the Tasmanian Devil, but there's no denying she's playing a great game. Some of it is luck and some of it is strategy, but whatever it is, it's working for her.