then beggars would ride

As promised, they had an early wake-up call to start a day of POV-ness.  They picked players and we ended up with Rach/Brit/Mon + Enzo/Hayden/Lane playing.  Trotted off behind the bubbles and trivia, and when they get back, Britney has won the POV.

So, now the real week 2 begins.  Monet is supposedly the Target, so Britney getting the POV just means that Rachel has to find the Perfect Pawn.  Though, we all know what happens to Pawns....

Rachel runs through her options.  She doesn't want to pawn a big competitor because they could later use the "you pawned me" excuse for putting her up.  She doesn't want to pawn someone she's close to because  that just seems rude, and besides she risks losing an ally.  And she doesn't want to pawn someone who the house could turn on and Monet ends up staying.  Well, maybe--more on that later.

So, she rules out Brendon, Hayden, Kristen, Ragan, Enzo and Lane.  That leaves Andrew, Kathy and Matt.

Monet stops by and makes a push for Andrew.  Remember, Andrew was a big target for the CattyGirls and the MeowMeowBoys at one point.  So, Monet figures her best chance of staying is getting him next to her on the block.  She and Rachel chat for a while and by the end of Rachel seems to be seriously considering it.  It's not clear to me whether she's seriously considering keeping Monet, or she's realized that PawnAndrew puts her in a position where she can get Monet kicked, but then turn to Britney and others and say "well, I tried to save her by putting up the person you wanted."

Next Rachel starts checking in with people to make sure that they'll all vote for whomever she wants.  She's kind of intentionally vague as to whether that means vote for or against the repl-nom.  She gets a couple of promises of "absolutely."  Then Brendon/Rachel sit down for a chat with Matt and Ragan.  And things get a little odd.

Rachel lays out her Andrew/Kathy/Matt thinking.  She keeps saying that with either Matt/Kathy it will be a "9-0" vote for Monet to go (which is, of course, bull sh-sugar pops b/c surely Britney is going to vote to keep Monet, if nothing else).  But she tells Matt she doesn't want to put him up b/c she likes him, and the same with Kathy, so she's thinking Andrew.  Almost immediately Matt starts saying how risky that is.  Andrew's had so many run-ins with various people that he's a risk to go.  Also, he's so unpredictable that he could blow up before eviction and then everyone would decide to kick  him.  Or if he stays he'll be so pissed he was nom'ed that he'll target BRachel.  So, Matt volunteers himself as the pawn.

Matt's reasoning is this: if Andrew's nom'ed and Matt votes to keep him, it will look odd b/c Matt/Andrew are known to have "issues."  And if Rachel wants Monet out, but Matt votes to evict Andrew, he ticks off Rachel.  But on the other hand, if Matt's on the block he feels super-safe.  He knows he has the MeowMeowBoys, and with BRachel's teamies, he's easily got the 5 votes he needs.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Rachel's totally on to Matt. Well, not totally--she doens't know about the MeowMeows, but she knows something's fishy about anyone volunteering to be a pawn.  She figures he's going to say he's okay with it now, and does know he's safe, but later on he'll turn around and use it against her.  So, she's still thinking Andrew.

About this time Andrew stops by HOH.  He had walked into a MeowMeow pow-wow and noted how quickly they stopped talking.  So he's up there to tell Rachel that whatever she just told Matt, he's downstairs sharing.  Rachel asks for a few minutes alone with Brendon, and Andrew's about to leave when Brendon says something like "don't worry, we'll tell you the plan before it happens."  The lightbulb goes on over Andrew's head and he basically says "oh, okay, so I'm the pawn?  Fine, but just FYI, I'll be kicked."

Later on Rachel gets upset at Brendon for "telling Andrew," though (at least as far as I heard) he didn't technically tell him.  At one point Rachel tells Andrew he just needs to trust her.  He responds that he 100% trusts Brendon, and if Brendon trusts Rachel, that's good enough for him.  It doesn't escape me that Andrew didn't really say he trusts Rachel, and I'm pretty sure it didn't escape Rachel either.  Andrew leaves, and Brendon/Rachel have their little fight, though they make up about 10 minutes later.  Eventually Brendon comes around to saying that Rachel's right about Matt and he just didn't see it.  He's worried about Andrew getting kicked if he's pawned.

Then Rachel talks to Kristen, who also argues for pawning Matt.  Kristen feels like Andrew won't understand being a pawn and it will lose him as an ally to the ShowmanAlliance.  And then next up is a big HOH pow-wow with Ragan. The long and short of it was that Rachel's nervous about Matt volunteering to be a pawn along with the conditions he put on it.  His conditions were that Rachel has to say Monet's the Target, but at the same time, he wants to make it seem like he was completely blindsided by the repl-nom.   Rachel points out that this makes her look like a total jerk.  She's also convinced he's playing both sides of the house with this.  Ragan's advice to her is to confront Matt about the whole thing.  Point out how his conditions make her look bad, and see if he backs off them.

It seems Rachel's going to go with Andrew as the repl-nom.  I think it's still Monet she really wants out, but she won't consider it a tragedy if Andrew goes.  It does seem like there's a strong split in the house with the CattyGirls+MeowMeowBoys vs. the ShowmanAlliance+Week 1 HaveNotties.  And I do notice that Matt's on both sides.  So is Hayden, but no one seems to have picked up on that.  And I notice Andrew's left out in the cold, though he's certainly closer to the second side. 

Apparently as some POV consequence Monet, Rachel, Brendon and Lane have to hang out (no pun intended) in these stockade things for an hour.  Brendon's sulking, whereas Rachel has started a game and is trying to keep everyone distracted and happy.  It's struck me today that I like Rachel a lot better when Brendon's not around.