Big Brother 2, Episode 17: The Untouchables Get Touched
by David Bloomberg
-- 07/10/2002
Nicole has one-on-one talks with each houseguest to explain her thoughts. Instead of calming things down, it heats 'em up. Krista gets mad. Monica gets mad. Nobody's happy. It should be a fun week.
It’s nice to have an occasional surprise. With so much of Big Brother 2 lacking suspense, I had a feeling Nicole would shake things up a bit, and I was right. Rather than making her nominees for eviction a surprise, she decided to talk to each houseguest one-on-one in order to get their feelings. As she said, it backfired a bit.
Before I get into that, let me say that Krista is really becoming more and more of a bitch. The show opened with her talking behind Bunky’s back about what a “punk” he is for voting to evict Kent when she “thought he was his friend.” Mind you, if he’d have voted to evict Will, she’d have been annoyed that he didn’t vote the way the rest of the house voted. With people like her, you just can’t win.
But she didn’t just leave it at some minor whining. Instead, she brought it into her one-on-one chat with Nicole later. She actually claimed that Bunky is a threat, and used his vote against Kent as another strike against him. Nice try to turn attention away from yourself, but Nicole isn’t that stupid. Indeed, lots of people in the house are suddenly waking up and realizing just what kind of person you are – something those of us at home have known for a while now.
What’s amusing is that Will is the source of some of this revelation, as he told Nicole last episode about the Untouchables alliance. So now Nicole didn’t trust her. Then he told Hardy about Krista’s plan to substitute Will into that little alliance and get rid of Hardy. So now Hardy didn’t trust her. Krista is trying to be way too clever, and is instead shooting herself in the foot. She took a bunch of people who at least claimed to want her to win only a few days ago, and turned them into sworn enemies. Good job, genius!
Anyway, in her other discussions with houseguests, Nicole found that Monica expected to be nominated because way back in week one she voted to evict Nicole instead of Sheryl and thought it might come back to haunt her. Give me a break – that’s not what the problem is here. Nicole spelled it out: Krista and Monica are too close. One of them has to go to break up their power. At least, that was her suggestion; we wouldn’t know for sure until she made the official nominations.
Needless to say, neither Krista nor Monica was happy about this, and they took out their anger on anybody in range. Krista blasted Will without telling him why. Monica blabbed on about how “it’s on.” Etc.
Meanwhile, Nicole schemed with both Hardy and Will, promising each of them separately that her only allegiance was to them. One of them is being lied to, but it’s hard to say who. I’m not even sure Nicole knows yet. But before the nominations, it looked like Krista was on the way out if she would be nominated. Hardy was mad because the more he got to know her, the less he liked her (mind you, this has apparently changed in about 24 hours). So now he wouldn’t help anybody here except Nicole (yeah, right). Will continued to weave a variety of tales, which he said people must expect by now since he’s been lying from the beginning.
As a brief interlude to the scheming, the food competition involved each contestant (minus Nicole as the Head of Household) getting into a big bowl of Alphabits cereal and finding plastic letters. Then they would name all the foods they could think of in 60 seconds beginning with that letter. After each had two turns, that was all the food the house would get that week. It was about as thrilling to watch as it is to read about, let me tell you. Oh, and then they had some stuff about the pig. Whoopee.
Back to the personal interactions. Krista is upset that people are turning on her because she thought they were her friends. Well, honey, maybe if they were your friends you shouldn’t have been stabbing them in the back for several weeks. She’s particularly annoyed at Will, so Monica brings Will over for a three-way discussion in the hot tub. We get to see Hardy hiding behind an open window so he can hear everything, which is a rather amusing sight. This threesome/foursome turns into a whole-house meeting just before it was time for nominations, so everybody can air their feelings and, more by Will’s plan, so he can avoid any blame and get the others fighting while he steps back.
Will’s part of the plan works, but Krista and Hardy accidentally reveal the existence of the Untouchables alliance. Krista tries to cover her tracks by claiming it was never an alliance that plotted and schemed, but just one that would make her, Hardy, and Monica the final three. Nicole didn’t quite see it that way, correctly noting that if that was the case, it sure was a plot because it keeps her, in particular, out of those final three. Whoops! Busted. Of course, Krista is so blind to her own failings, she probably thinks Nicole just doesn’t understand.
I think this little fight made things that much easier for Nicole, who did, indeed, end up nominating Krista and Monica. Interestingly, though, after Nicole explained her reasoning (which was the same as before – they are too strong together), Krista was much calmer than she had been in the previous 24 hours. She said she’s been there and knows how difficult it is, and respects her. Monica, however, said she knew she would go as soon as Nicole got HoH as revenge for week one. She said she’ll add some statements at the house meeting on Monday (which we’ll see Tuesday), so that should be interesting. However, Hardy noted that Monica doesn’t do herself any favors when she says things that people don’t understand and, frankly, don’t make sense. I think everybody is pretty confused by her claims that this is some sort of revenge held over for weeks now because of what happened in the very first week. We’ve seen no indication that this is why Nicole has nominated her, and everybody else seems to understand the reason. I think Monica has lost it at this point.
This brings up interesting possibilities. Before Monica went a bit nutty, it seemed pretty certain that Hardy and Bunky would probably vote against Krista (Will is always an unknown). Now, though, everybody is afraid of Monica. If she is not booted now and wins HoH, she will certainly target Nicole and probably Hardy as well. Krista is less of a threat now that everybody knows she’s been scheming against them (though I don’t put it past her to manage to convince one or two of them again that she is being honest this time). The vote will be clearer after Tuesday’s episode, but right now, I fully expect Monica to be the next one evicted.
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