the bitch is back

Before I get into the real action of the day, just for the record, they played the POV comp. and Ragan won.

Normally this would be the big event of the day.  But....Pandora's Box is back....and so is Rachel!!

I admit it, I didn't get overly excited about Julie's comment that it might not be last Rach was seeing of the BB house (of course it wasn't...she'll be back for finale night, which are usually Julie's parting words to jurors, so I should have noted the difference).  I did, however, figure this week's HOH would get a chance at PB.

So after POV, we go off to extended bubble-land and come back to find that Brendon is MIA, and Rachel's back in the house.  For a bit they figure Brendon's going to reappear, and Rachel even starts to wonder if he's IN Pandora's Box.  They briefly search for clues for how to free him, but eventually decide that PB was probably a trade. They don't know exactly what Brendon was tempted with, though the leading theory is that it was something about getting to spend 24 hours outside of the house and he made the assumption he'd get to be with Rachel, and went for it.  Rachel is in the house for 24 hours (who knows if it's a real 24, or a BB 24 like the 24 hr solitary confinements that are more like 18).  She says she's not back as a player, but I say that while she's not back in the running for the prize, and won't play any comps, being in the house and talking to people is playing for sure.

It seems Rachel entered the house with the line "I'm back, bitches!" and pretty much right away lashed out at Britney and Ragan.  She's on a tear about their goodbye messages, etc.  She came in supposedly not knowing who was HOH, etc. (I only say "supposedly" b/c I don't know for sure, not that I think she knew.) They tell her Brendon is HOH, she asks who's nominated, gets Ragan...and before she can even hear Lane, she says "well, Ragan, I guess you'll be joining me at the JH."  He responds, "well, not this week, Rachel.  I won POV."

Ruh-row.

Rachel then proceeds to start holding individual audiences with the rest of them.  She meets first with Enzo, who kisses major ass, telling her how he and Hayden have teamed up with Brendon and they love him and trust him and they're with him to the end.  This is starting to seem more and more true, not just their diversion from the Bro-gade plan.  After the chat, Enzo goes down and fills Hayden in on everything and they start running scenarios.  They are starting to think more and more that they should try to get Matt nom'ed this week, keep Lane, ditch the Bro-gade and stick with Brendon to the end.

Next up is Matt.  He mostly asks questions about the JH and what it's like to be in the outside world.  They do talk game a little and he even makes an odd little comment about how if he's the repl-nom that's okay because he'll get to fight for votes and that's just a part of the BB experience.  It seems like a message he's hoping she gets to pass along to Brendon.  Rachel wants to know why he didn't want to team up with her as another strong competitor, and calls his nom'ing her and Brendon a "pansy move" because it's what everyone wanted, and a power move would be to go against the house.  Matt uses this as his opening to remind her about his "sick" wife and says that if he wasn't playing for something "so important" he might be willing to take more risks and make big game moves.

Third round is with Kathy.  I didn't listen to much of it, but what I did hear was mostly Kathy talking about how much she loves Brendon and how much they miss Rachel.  It's Floater Behavior at its finest. 

Ragan had already declared that he wasn't going to talk to Rachel.  After chatting with Kathy, Rachel comes down to the kitchen and someone asks her if she gets to choose whether to be a Have-Nottie for the day she's there.  She laughs and says she'd choose to not be a HN.  At some point she had been told that Brendon got to pick the Have Notties, and picked Brit/Matt/Ragan.  Matt and Brit are in the kitchen and talking about how they got eggplant as the HN food.  Rachel says something about cookies and that she's going to go offer Ragan one (knowing he's a HN).  They get into a HUGE fight with lots of personal attacks and then winding into game stuff from Ragan.  He ends with a monologue about how she's been a bad sport and that when she watches the tapes of the show she's going to realize things about herself and feel bad.  He then says he's never heard of anyone being evicted from the BB house and not getting high-fives on the way out (she didn't, but how does he know this? StaboTooling?) and that "it's a tip--learn from it!"  He leaves Rachel frozen in her shoes.  She finally goes in, sniffles to everyone else then heads for the DR.

When she gets out of the DR, she comes and apologizes to Ragan, especially for the slightly anti-gay stuff she said to him.  He (somewhat surprisingly) immediately accepts and then they sit down for a real convo.  They basically just rehash the same things about comps and who's fighting and who's not.  Rachel does tell Ragan that she thinks Lane is the StaboTool.  

Next up is Britney and they sort of talk through some of their catty girls issues.  Britney's goodbye message to Rachel was pretty catty.  Brit tries to say it was supposed to be funny and Rachel kind of says "yeah, whatever."

Now it's Hayden's turn.  The most useful part of the convo for me is that Rachel tells him that she's learned that she and he yell in the DR and that viewers want them to knock it off.  

So, Enzo and Hayden are planning on ditching Matt from the Bro-gade and scooping up Brendon.  As far as I know, they haven't let Lane in on this plan just yet.  So their plan is to get Brendon to make Matt the repl-nom and then go with the "oh, dude, it sucks we have to vote one of you out" tact.  But if Britney does get nom'ed they'll happily vote her out.

Of course, they don't know about the D-POV.  If they do get him nom'ed and he has any clue about it, the best thing for Matt would be to save himself and throw Enzo up on the block.  If Ragan/Britney/Matt vote out Enzo, even if Kathy/Hayden both vote out Lane, Enzo's still gone. And since he just saved Lane, Matt's now got Ragan/Brit/Lane/himself against Hayden/Brendon/Kathy, going into an HOH that Brendon can't play in.