Since Clay Honeycutt and Shelli Poole’s showmance fell on hard times on Big Brother we’ve seen repeated attempts by Clay to lie down his BB17 life for her and throw away his opportunity at $500K.
It’s happened before where one HG falls for another and then gives up his or her game for the other and it’s often quite a disappointing move, especially when it’s not a strategic decision. This time around it’s no different. Now after some back and forth Clay renewed his efforts overnight to campaign for votes against him.
Over the weekend when the Veto comp was lost to James we saw Clay going around the house asking HGs to vote him out. He left John in tears with the request and moved Meg with the same emotion though she refused to comply. Of course they had also been drinking copious amounts of wine, so that might have helped bring the tears along.
A few days later and Clay seemed to have changed his mind. Or at least he wasn’t trying to so hard to give up this once in a lifetime opportunity. Talking with HGs Clay had been assured that Shelli was the one going so he seemed to accept it and not pressure anyone either way. That made things look like there might be room to keep him. Well hang on again.
Flashback to 1:58AM BBT 8/6 as Clay talks with Liz to make sure she’s willing to vote to evict him. He asks for her to make sure Austin will do the same. After he leaves Liz is crying to Austin about Clay’s decision. She can’t believe he’d do something like that for her. Yeah, I can’t either. What a doofus.
Austin and the twins take this request and consider it in a private talk. Flashback to 2:25AM BBT as they huddle in the HN room to discuss. Julia really wants to keep Shelli while Liz and Austin are much less committal. It’s been interesting to watch as Julia and Liz have been repeatedly on opposite sides of a decision. I know I certainly expected more uniform choices so this has been interesting.
Finally they agree that if Clay is giving up on the game then it’d be risky to keep him and have an angry player in the house. They think Shelli is less likely to throw the upcoming HoH comp which makes her more valuable. Liz says Shelli is a better short term option, but more dangerous long term choice for them. All the same they agree to evict Clay.
Now working on Steve, we see Clay again push to be sent home. Flashback to 2:41AM BBT for roughly a twenty minute talk. Clay says this has been Shelli’s dream so he wants her to stay over him. Grrr.
Big Brother casting has continued to defend their use of recruits on the show and while generally recruits can still be entertaining it’s crap like this that’s upsetting. Clay doesn’t care about being there or playing and winning the game. He had never heard about Big Brother before the casting director personally recruited him at a Lakers game, per his own retells. Clay thought she meant the charity organization “Big Brothers Big Sisters” when first asked. His lack of interest or commitment is apparent. What an absolute waste of space in that house with that attitude.
Earlier in the weekend when Clay asked Steve to vote him out Steve camtalked with anger at such a request. He’s right. That’s absurd and shameful. Clay will have a long time to look back and see he threw away his chance at $500K over a woman he met 6 weeks ago.
Now if Clay and Shelli were trying to make this a strategic decision then that’d be different. Shelli staying would be more of a target for James, Meg, Jackie, and any tagalongs. Clay staying would have more potential to work with both sides and he could return to the middle of the house like they were before blowing a great position on the Jason renom fiasco. Instead Clay is doing this because of their showmance and Shelli wants to be there more.
Speaking of Steve camtalking, after his talk with Clay ends Steve stays in the Lounge and rants (3AM BBT). Steve knows Clay is lying to him and says it’s obvious that he and Shelli threw him under the bus to James in hopes of finding an alternative to their eviction. Steve is very upset and speaks aggressively about the situation saying “Clay, you just lied straight to my face.” So what’s his plan? Good question.
Jump forward to 4:09 AM BBT to find Shelli and Steve talking privately in the bathroom. Steve tells Shelli he’s voting out Clay against James’s wishes because, so he says, he knows James lied to him about Clay & Shelli throwing him under the bus. BUT! Steve says, if anything gets around then he’s just pretending to be believing James about Chelli throwing him under the bus. Backtrack an hour and we know Steve believes James was telling the truth. Interesting.
I’m not entirely sure what Steve is up to here. Is he setting Shelli up for a surprise evict-vote or is this a cover so he can continue to work with her in case she stays? Considering how angry he was at Clay for lying then telling Shelli he doesn’t think they were lying, well it makes me think Steve may be about to make a move against them. Issue there is it’d require Steve to go against Vanessa. Hmm.
Tonight’s live eviction show is going to be awesome. The votes are in flux and could be very close. If Steve goes against Vanessa to join Meg, Jackie, Becky, and John then that’d be five votes to evict Shelli. Oh my, oh my. We have ourselves a game here, folks. What do you hope will happen?