Big Brother 11, July 17 Live Feeds: The Madness of King Ronnie

Thursday on the Big Brother live feeds, there was a lot of last-minute scrambling for votes before the live eviction. The voting ended in a 5-5 tie between Chima and Braden, with Head of Household (HOH) Jessie breaking the tie and sending Braden home. Ronnie won the HOH competition and began his one-week rule over the house. Some last-minute vote switching had many of the houseguests mystified about who voted for whom, which led to the inevitable accusations and a lot of yelling. Ronnie capped the evening by boldly predicting that he’ll be remembered as a better Big Brother player than Dr. Will. Missed anything? Be sure to check out Jeffrey Clinard’s full live feed recap here and also check out my own recap of the live eviction show here.

Now, on to Friday’s recap:

The house is quiet, with no one rising before Big Brother’s 8:40 AM wake-up call.

Within an hour, Ronnie has a locked-door meeting with Laura, Jeff, and Jordan in the HOH room. He wants to know if any of them have said that they want him evicted because of his intelligence. (Oh gawd.) They all deny saying such a thing, but agree that Russell has uttered those same words. Ronnie says that he’s considering a plan to backdoor Russell.

A short time later, Ronnie grills Casey and demands to know if Casey has ever said anything negative about him. (This is going to be a long, long week for the other houseguests … Ronnie is both paranoid and desperately wants his butt kissed repeatedly.) Ronnie then descends from high above to mix with the mere mortals below.

Nothing much happens until about noon when the have-and-have-not competition begins … and goes on for nearly four hours. When the feeds return, the two remaining Populars (Jordan and Laura) lost the competition and will be on slop and cold showers all week. They also must move into the “doom room.” The Offbeat clique won the competition and will be treated to a movie. (I assume the Brains will also partake in the movie as a member of their clique is the HOH.) Also, Dan from last season was the host.

Jordan and Laura commiserate in the doom room, saying that everyone is out to get them in the house. Jeff joins them and tries to cheer them up.

In the HOH room, Ronnie chats with Russell and Jessie. He says that he’s going to nominate Jeff and Laura. Ronnie is called to the diary room, which breaks up the trio’s conversation.

Later, Chima and Michele argue over a bed in the red room (of all things). Laura told Michele that she could use her bed (as Laura will be in the doom room), but Chima says that she claimed the same bed by putting her clothes on top. Natalie – ever the mature one – says that she’s going to stay up all night in the red room, so no one is getting any sleep in there anyway.

Chima leaves the argument and joins Ronnie in the HOH room. She tells Ronnie to not trust a single thing that Jeff says and repeats how much she dislikes him. Ronnie discusses his plan to backdoor Russell, but Chima thinks that it’s a terrible idea – they’ll need Russell’s strength in competitions in order to keep the Brains’ alliance with the Athletes intact. Jessie joins them in the HOH room and they discuss the plan to nominate Jeff and Laura, with Laura the primary target.

After a lot of various discussions of groups of houseguests going over their preferred boot lists and final-two, final-three, and final-four scenarios (way too early, guys), Ronnie talks with Casey and promises him that Casey won’t be nominated and won’t be a replacement if the Power of Veto (POV) is used. Casey pushes hard for Ronnie to nominate Russell instead of Jeff, but Ronnie isn’t fond of the idea.

Later, Michele chats with Ronnie in the HOH room. (Boy, all of the action today is in the HOH room.) Ronnie tells her his plans for nominations and asks that she work to calm the nerves of both nominees. He says that Laura is his prime target and is no longer an asset to their alliance. He also mentions the possibility of a backdoor eviction of Russell.

Meanwhile, in the doom room, Jeff and Jordan are both in a funk. They’d rather leave right away and both know that neither of them have a chance to win the game. Not much point in sticking around and being with a lot of people that they don’t like.

Elsewhere, Russell and Natalie complain to one another about Ronnie. Russell wants Ronnie gone as soon as possible, but Natalie says that he’s a valuable ally. Russell … get this … Russell complains that he doesn’t like how Ronnie is lording over everyone as HOH. Russell, you can’t be bloody serious. Did you forget the entire last week when you walked around like you owned the freakin’ place? Russell needs to look up “irony” in the dictionary and then shut the hell up. Sucks when the shoe’s on the other foot, doesn’t it?

The feeds cut out for an hour and when they return, we learn that Laura and Jeff have been nominated for eviction.

Jeff and Casey grab a bite to eat in the kitchen. Jeff finishes and jokes that he really doesn’t need to clean up his dirty dishes now and tosses his dirty bowl into the sink. He does clean the bowl, but it was a funny moment.

Later, Chima, Kevin, and Ronnie chat in the HOH room. Now Ronnie says that Laura isn’t his primary target this week. Lydia, Jessie, and Natalie join the festivities in the HOH room, where the discussion naturally goes into who has the votes to stay in the game. No major consensus as it’s still early in the week.

Laura and Jordan chat in the doom room. Laura is convinced that she must win the POV or else she’s sure to be going home. Meanwhile, Casey plays pool with Jeff, who seems remarkably unfazed at his nomination for eviction.

Later, Jordan and Russell talk in the storage room. Russell sees that Jordan is mad at him and wonders why. She starts a laundry list of examples of how snide and rude he’s been to her, including during the have-or-have-nots competition. It was supposed to be fun, but he was too aggressive and demeaning. She also observes that he’s much nicer one-on-one than he is when he’s in his clique. (A lot like high school, eh?)

Jordan tells Russell that he has no idea what it’s like to be in the house and only a few people will talk to you and how conversations change or go into hushed tones when she walks into a room. She predicts that he’ll eventually be treated the same way in the house. Russell gives Jordan a hug.