It all came together tonight as Vanessa Rousso secured her votes and is now appearing the favorite to survive round one of the upcoming Double Eviction.
I could write five pages on everything that’s gone down in the past 36 hours that brought this all to a point today, but let’s not do that. Instead let’s run through the highlights on what just happened.
Yesterday Vanessa stormed in to the Have-Not room following her blow-up with Becky. Here she sought a sympathetic ear about mean ol’ Becky but when that wasn’t happening she started unloading what she knew about Becky to James, Jackie, and Meg. It resonated with James who appeared to fixate on Vanessa revealing “The Generals” alliance proposed by Becky.
After Vanessa left James sat there in silence with gears turning. It was immediately apparent. James walked around saying “Generals” later that day, but the real action was soon to follow.
Overnight the talks kicked off. Jump to 1:40AM BBT as the Goblins alliance (James, Jackie, and Meg) run through reasons why they should keep Vanessa and evict Shelli. They think the whole house is against Vanessa so she’d be easy to get out at will while Shelli will be tougher to get back in this position. They really think Vanessa is isolated and will be targeted by all.
The Goblins really want to keep Vanessa and now they have to keep thinking about it before going around to look for the other votes. The plan was to wait until Wednesday, but James can’t wait.
Jump to 12:55PM BBT and again at 1:45PM BBT as they continue this debate. In the first talk Goblins actually say the other HGs will be more likely to nom Vanessa than them now that Vanessa has been on the Block. Other than JMac nominating Vanessa? Nope. In the next talk James and Meg are alone saying they believe what Vanessa told them the day before. Remember that from a few paragraphs up?
Little later Vanessa talks with Julia. Vanessa has no idea what’s going on around her or how well that talk yesterday actually went with the Goblins. She tells Julia that Steve won’t support her and can’t be trusted. She’s burning his bridges. Vanessa says she’d need a Goblin to stay and hell will freeze over first. Hold that thought, Vanessa. Help is on the way.
James bumps in to Vanessa and she wants to talk with him. James tells her he’s got an open mind and hasn’t decided how to vote. She asks for 10 minutes of his time later.
Next up, James goes to talk with Austin. Flashback 5:20 PM BBT. James is waving huge flags at Austin that he wants to flip his vote but Austin just plods along. James keeps saying he doesn’t care which of the noms goes, he just wants to vote with everyone. Austin misses it. James tries again saying all of the Goblins will vote however. Nothing from Austin. It’s hilariously painful to watch. Austin closes with encouraging James to go talk with Vanessa so let’s go to that.
Vanessa and James start talking in the bathroom. Flashback 5:58 PM BBT. Vanessa’s a straight shooter, says Vanessa. Vanessa is telling James that Becky thinks he’s a sexist pig and Becky spends more time baking and cleaning while James is in power to play that up. Yeah, I don’t know either on that one.
James seals the deal. He asks Vanessa if she can get Austin and Liz to vote to keep her. If she can do that then he’ll get her the Goblins’ votes and those five votes will keep it from going to Becky for a tie. Done and done.
James runs back out to Austin to tell him the exciting news. They’re on board together. Vanessa soon shows up and starts running this in to the ground. Worth noting here that Vanessa offers James safety for him and one other person. She then expands that to be safety for all of the Goblins. James says he’s sold on it.
Goblins celebrate their victory. Flashback to 6:53PM BBT as James tells Meg the shocking news: the Austwins are down to keep their strongest ally, Vanessa. Meg is thrilled. “I knew it!” Knuckleheads.
So there you go. Vanessa is staying as of now, but we’ve got a little under two days until the next eviction and things can change, but this was a big shift and I’m expecting it to stick.
Who gets the credit for this? I’d say Vanessa got the ball rolling with her Generals talk to the Goblins. James was immediately impacted and I think he still wanted Shelli out from the week before when he didn’t get his wish. That info fueled the flames and he went to work. By the time Vanessa talked to James it was all a formality. I’ll split it between them. Vanessa gets the point for yesterday and James for today.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention sweatergate in all this. James had a hoodie that belonged to Clay. Shelli wanted it back so she went through all of his stuff yesterday to find it. James found out and it pissed him off. Now how much of that contributed to Shelli’s demise is debatable.
I’d say it was just another nail, but it sure didn’t help her. As Derrick Levasseur joked, that sweatshirt may now be valued at approximately $500K.