'Celebrity Big Brother' Blowout: Even Julie Chen Shades Omarosa, as One Houseguest Begs for Elimination

Someone's not buying that story.

Tonight featured just our second eviction of the season, as well as a live Power of Veto competition. Unfortunately, thanks to one houseguest throwing in the towel, the best laid plans of mice and men had to be thrown out the window. And with so much happening live, we weren't privy to as many of the thoughts behind what we saw on the screen. We'll just have to wait for the next episode to see that.

We're going to run this season like you'd run a department store. Each product, or celebrity, may have come in with equal value, but pretty quickly you start to see that certain ones aren't working. First, you try discounting them to see if they can turn things around and become solid performers again. But if that doesn't work, it's time to put them on clearance so you can sell them out (the door). With that said, let's take a look at our inventory, ranked from our strongest performer to our weakest.

Over here in the children's section we have a hot tub and two inflatable ducks and a world-renowned basketball player. Metta World Peace made a friend this week with the hot tub camera. "Can you hear this, camera?" he asked. "Just nod, 'cause I feel like I'm talking to myself." The camera totally nodded, to his and our delight.

Later, he asked his new friend something else. "Y'all want to see a fight between this duck and this duck?" he asked, holding them up. Again and to his delight, the camera nodded. So he had a brutal fight to the drowning death between the two ducks that was absolutely charming. Perhaps this is how Metta is going to maintain his sanity in the house. We're totally rooting for this friendship between him and the hot tub camera to continue.

Sadly the wine aisle is closed tonight as Brandi Glanville sobered up and started playing the game (good for her, not so much us), so once again, we are shining a spotlight on the White House as Omarosa continues to dish about her time there. She revealed that the government shutdowns are to hurt Democrats, and that President Trump's hard stance against DACA is because he wants his wall.

"Barack Obama's administration said if you sign up and basically out yourself that you're here illegally, we'll protect you. As a result, all these people signed up, outed their families, their children, people that were in hiding," she said. "But guess what, the crackdowns are happening, and they're aggressive, they're intentional, and they're gonna get worse. Don't get me wrong, the Obama administration was aggressive about deportation, too. Nobody talks about it."

When asked again if we were going to be okay, Omarosa stood firm. "No. we're not okay. I've seen the plan. The roundup plan is getting more and more aggressive."

She said that for Trump, it's about outdoing his predecessors. "He's a numbers guy," she said. But as much as she seems to be off the Trump train, she thinks Mike Pence is even scarier. "Everybody who's wishing for impeachment might want to reconsider their lives," she said. "We would be begging for days of Trump back if Pence became president. He's extreme. I'm Christian. I love Jesus. But he thinks Jesus tells him to say things. I'm like, 'Jesus didn't say that.' He's scary.”

Ross Matthews ("Chelsea Lately") executed a successful reign, even if he didn't get his primary target. He put the BGM ("Black Girl Magic") power duo of Keshia Knight Pulliam and Omarosa on the block and set himself up for the possibility of backdooring Shannon Elizabeth. It makes him slightly vulnerable once he's out of power, but he did a good job of shoring up support for himself in the house, and then Keshia gave him a little boost as well with her speech, but more on that later.

Marissa Jaret Winokur ("Hairspray") continued her masterful playing of the game, fully committing to the difficult choice of backdooring her friend outside of the house because Shannon is just too big of a threat. She is playing a subtle game but is a part of all of the major decisions, and has positioned herself on the winning side each time so far. She won the Power of Veto tonight and tried to use it to implement Project: Backdoor, but couldn't get the nominee she wanted to save on board. Thus, Plan A it was, which is fine but leaves a real power threat in the house with a lot of potentially damaging information floating around. Buyer beware!

Brandi Glanville ("The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills") and Ariadna Guttierez (almost Miss Universe) continue to play a unified game for some reason, but at least they've finally started playing. They approached Ross with the Shannon backdoor idea he was already considering. At least this proves they're paying attention to the game and seeing what's going on. It might be interesting to see them emerge from their floater cocoons and start to get in there.

James Maslow ("Big Time Rush") is in an interesting spot this week, because he got some potentially damaging information about his alliance with Shannon, and he remains largely on the outside of all of the power moves happening in the house. He's still a strong competitor and a big threat, but at least for now, he's slipped from the top so he can lie low and let the others take potshots at one another.

Shannon Elizabeth ("American Pie") had a quiet episode but continued her social decline anyway. She was very much the target of almost every discussion in the house. Most of her allies have turned on her, so she's not in a great position that way, but she's still a smart and savvy player. She almost got backdoored this week, but thanks to a last-minute plea by one of the nomineees, she lives to fight another day. Now, she's in a position where she needs to look for new allies, and the surviving nominee may be her best and most unlikely choice. Trust is gone, now it's just strategy and hard work.

Mark McGrath (Sugar Ray) also decided that it might be time to step up and make a move by jumping on board Project: Backdoor, but the eviction drama took away his chance to prove that. Had Ross and Marissa been able to implement their backdoor strategy, Mark could have proven his commitment to shaking up the game and knocking down the power players. If he steps up his game soon, he's got a real shot as he's not made any enemies right now, and he's one of the smallest targets in the house.

Metta World Peace (NBA) is starting to figure out how the game works, and even voted properly tonight. His social game is fantastic, as he is loved by everyone in the house and he's not seen as a huge phyiscal threat. In other words, no one is looking at Metta. That said, he's also going to have a hard time convincing a jury of warriors that his gameplay would deserve the prize money.

Omarosa Manigault ("The Apprentice") comes off of clearance pricing even as her ally leaves the game. Now, she's a free agent with no allies. Shannon's game got blown up more than a little bit, so that may not be a good choice, but the majority alliance isn't likely to ever trust her. Omarosa is in a tough spot, but her best move is to try and lay low (yeah, right!) and make her move based on who wins power next.

Keshia Knight Pulliam ("The Cosby Show") made the difficult decision to leave the game, pleading with her housemates to evict her and save Omarosa because her breast milk was depleting. Her baby at home is just over a year old, and she was concerned that staying in the house would further erode her ability to feed her child. Now, the player in me says the house should have sent Omarosa packing and made Keshia leave of her own free will, but there may be something in her contract that means if she does that she wouldn't get paid -- her parting comment that being part of "BB" was her working makes us suspect that's the case. So their choice was to play hard, and possibly be cruel, or give her her wishes. Her eviction vote was unanimous.

• "I know Omarosa's asthma attack was real, but it doesn't hurt her game to play it up a little bit, right." Shannon [but do you know it was real? asking for Julie. --ed.]
• "This has been really, really fun. And I haven't had a chance to hang out with people and just do normal stuff. I think that that's the real win. I actually realized everything that's going on in the world that's bigger than 'Big Brother.'” Omarosa (to a very, very, very skeptical Ross after he nominated her for eviction)
• "I don't know if I buy the new Omarosa. She's something else.” Ross
• "Now that Omarosa is having asthma problems, we are realizing she is the weakest competitor." Ariadna [ask Julie about that. --ed.]
• "My fear is that next week when I'm sitting outside this house talking to Julie Chen, it will be Shannon who sent me there because I didn't have the balls to make the move now.” Ross
• “Please make the decision that's best for Keshia.” Omarosa (in her 'save-me' speech)
• "What are we gonna eat now?” Mark (after Keshia's eviction)
• “I hope they didn't come in while I was saying 'full bush,'” Ross (about eavesdropping on the houseguests) [they totally did -- ed.]