The power alliance that was poised to rule the season blows up in spectacular fashion as past beef mixes with new beef and everyone starts fighting.
Well that was short-lived. All hell broke loose on "Celebrity Big Brother" as loose lips sunk all the ships and absolutely destroyed the power alliance that thought they were going to run through this game.
It all started to go wrong when Dina Lohan escaped the block after the alliance had agreed that she would go up. "Mean Girls" star Jonathan Bennett convinced HOH Ryan Lochte to not put up his "other mom" Dina Lohan from that time in his life, which on the surface is no big deal. But to their alliance, it showed who ranked where.
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View StoryThe rustling began immediately, with the girls (four of whom were already in that alliance with Jonathan and Ryan) deciding they couldn't trust the boys, properly predicting that they had a final two deal. Of course, then Natalie Eva Marie had to go and blow up her own final two with Lolo Jones by mentioning it in front of Tamar Braxton, who's not in it. Guuuurl!
Tamar was smart enough to just file that intel away and move on, but it won't be forgotten and it means even the all-girls alliance is in trouble. Actually, the pre-game beef between Tamar and Kandi Burruss was causing even bigger ripples tonight as they got. into. it. for real!
So, what was their big beef? It's still kind of unclear, though it stems from a tour Braxton did with Kandi and her Xscape band members. According to Tamar, she felt disrespected by all "yiddy yaddling" going on backstage while she performed. Kandi, however, just kept laughing off all the accusations of sabotaging her set, which only infuriated Tamar more.
Old history between @TamarBraxtonHer and @Kandi could end their alliance before it even began. #BBCeleb pic.twitter.com/Er9pAqiXsd
@CBSBigBrother
Though their beef escalated last night, even that had to be squashed temporarily when Ryan openly lobbied against Lolo.
Now Lolo, not wanting to be the only one not blowing up her game, made a couple of bonehead moves of her own by proving she's a little too hot-headed, but the biggest one was calling out Ryan and Jonathan as the final two and flipping off their pictures intentionally in front of them. It was an act of war, and Ryan was ready to declare.
And so the alliance was over, with Ryan ready to target Lolo this week for elimination. So much for the Olympic spirit. But he needed Power of Veto winner Ricky Williams to pull someone down out of nominees Jonathan, Tom Green and Anthony Scaramucci for that to work, but Ricky had a better idea.
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View StoryHouseguest Report Card
Ricky Williams just emerged as the slickest player in the game. Without an alliance to his name, he used the Power of Veto to firmly and finally blow up the power alliance he didn't even know about, sowing the seeds of chaos. And he managed to do it without looking like he got any blood on his hands. He won that POV through his brains and athletic ability, but he's playing so low-key, people may not see him yet. Grade: A+
Tamar Braxton is still playing a stellar game of "Big Brother" from a strategic standpoint, and her social game is mostly on point. But she needs to get a little better at pushing down her emotions with Kandi before their fighting is too off-putting for the house. She's clearly very upset still about what happened. Hopefully, they've started putting it past them, and it was good to see her able to quash it when bigger problems arose, like Lolo being targeted, so she's still in a good spot thus far. Grade: A-
Kandi Burruss is in the same boat as Tamar as far as needing to be better about communicating with Tamar. She appears to be a nervous laugher, which is not setting well with Tamar, who appears to be a bit dramatic. These aren't necessarily negative traits, but they are definitely clashing when they try and talk through their beef. If they can crush it, though, they could be a power duo. Kandi is a notch below because Tamar seems to have a better pulse on the game. Grade: A-
Natalie Eva Marie really put her foot in her mouth when she touted her final two with Lolo while Tamar was IN THE ROOM. Come on, Natalie, that's BB 101. Still, Tamar quashed that and holds no real animosity toward the girls for having a final two. She recognizes that everyone has deals. And it was so early in the game, it may not hurt her in the long run. But Tamar will not forget, that's for sure. Grade: B
Lolo Jones has a strong alliance with the girls, but she also is struggling to keep her emotions in check, which has doomed many a Houseguest before her. She snapped at Tamar over a joke she didn't get and flipped off pictures of Ryan and Jonathan in front of them. She wears her emotions on her sleeve and seems to be in fight mode all the time. We're very early in the house for her nerves to be this frayed already. She needs to calm down, breathe and find her zen, or she might doom her own game. Grade: B-
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View StoryKato Kaelin and Dina Lohan are enjoying floater status at the time. They didn't even feature at all in this episode. Dina has been targeted, but that was an early game target. As neither of these two are seen as threats in competitions, they might have just established safety for a little while based on that alone. It's really hard to win from the middle, but that's where they've found themselves. Grade: C
Tom Green does not appear to be anyone's actual target this week. He was just an alternate nominee when Jonathan talked Ryan out of Dina, so he's almost in that floater status. If he can keep his cool, stay charming and funny and likable he can just ride this out and then probably join Dina and Kato in that pool of people waiting for more dynamic players to decide they're done with them. Grade: C
Joey Lawrence is trying to fly under the radar, but it's not working. First he poo-pooed the very idea of an alliance and then he totally threw this competition so poorly that Tamar saw right through him. He's alone in the game and it's not really clear that he gets what one normally has to do to win this game. Whatever his strategy is, he better get to it, because he's rubbing people weird right now, and that's never good early game. Grade: C-
Ryan Lochte is the HOH, but he made a mistake in targeting Lolo directly, and then trusting Ricky not to tell her. He's also clearly playing Jonathan's game. And while he's still a formidable threat physically, he's mismanaged this first HOH to the point that he destroyed his own alliance, exposed his final two and will like be targeted the very first time the house can take a shot at him. He better hope he keeps winning things, and especially if Jonathan goes. Grade: D
Anthony Scaramucci could still be the target this week, but Jonathan has made a strong case for himself. That said, even if it's not this week, the house is clearly concerned about how intelligent he is -- and yet he's not playing the smartest game, nor is he seeing things as clearly as, say, Tamar. Still, he's not created any notable bonds with anyone and is an actual target, so if he doesn't go now, it will be soon. Grade: D
Jonathan Bennett is right there with his ride-or-die, only he's the one actually on the block. And because things went so spectacularly bad for them tonight, he may become the actual target for eviction on Friday. Julie teased a surprise twist that sends someone else packing as well, which could be even worse for Jonathan as the House seems to pretty firmly not trust him at this point. Grade: D-
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View StorySPOILER ZONE START
(Do not read on if you don't want to talk about things that have been reported from the show that have not yet aired on television. For real, this is your final chance to avoid possible spoilers)
According to TMZ and other news outlets, Anthony Scaramucci walked from the show already after six days in the house. He's been absent from the live feeds and reportedly made an appearance in Europe at a business meeting where he talked about his time in the house, hinting that his departure may be more than meets the eye.
That's got us thinking it might have to do with the big twist of the season. With three people on the block, maybe Julie created a temptation for them by offering a smaller cash amount for someone to voluntarily leave the show. Or maybe his exist is part of some twist and he's not necessarily off the show, as his picture has not been grayed out on the memory wall.
Or he just walked. Honestly, we've no way of knowing, so we'll just have to tune in Friday to see what Julie was talking about, and what happened to the Mooch.
SPOILER ZONE END
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View StoryHouse Chatter
"Dina didn't come up on that block like Ryan say she was. It is very clear to me that this is Jonathan's HOH, it's just Ryan's face. And Ryan's getting played and Jonathan thinks he's playing us but uh-uh, can't play the old Tay-Tay. I see straight through you." Tamar
"If it's an ath-a-letic-wise competion, there's no way." Ryan"Do you put an extra syllable in that word?" Jonathan
"One of the things he used to love is he would shoot the tweet, and he'd be watching TV, and then boom, breaking news, and there was the tweet. It was up on the news. Just think about it, at that time he probably had 20 million followers, now he's probably got 60. He said, 'I've got 20 million Twitter followers. How many people read the Wall Street Journal? 2 million? So I've got 10 times the power of the Wall Street Journal. Oh, and by the way, I shoot it off the satellite, it lands on everybody's newsfeed.' So he figured that out, he exploited that big time. He played them like a fiddle. And by the way, he still is." Anthony
"Let's face it, I'm not in love with the president's war on the media, or the non-strategic use of his Twitter feed. Having said that, he's going to continue to do it anyway, but he's never tweeted at me. One, I stayed loyal to him. I don't really say bad things about him, although I tell him to knock it off on Twitter, but I still want to help him. But if he turned on me, he knows I got a big mouth. That's not going to be great for him." Anthony
"Whether you like him or dislike him you have to admire the force of his personality and the nature of his game." Anthony
"Jon's really starting to sketch me out. I feel like he's making decisions for the group without talking to any of us. The quick pop-ins, it's just not genuine ... I don't know what his game is, but it's not working." Lolo
"He's a strong player." Lolo (about Jonathan)"That's why he's got to go." Tamar (the first blindside?)
"We have to think of a final two name." Natalie (to Lolo, but Tamar is lying in the bed right there. Damn!)
"I know the name of the final two, busted.com. Y'all busted, okay?" Tamar
"Look at the final two." Lolo (walking in on Ryan and Jonathan)"What?" Ryan"You heard me." Lolo (flips off the memory wall)
"If Lolo wants to come at us like that, she can find me on the winners podium and her ass on the block." Ryan
"You'll win the golden Power of Veto." Lolo (explaining POV rules)"The thing that looks like a gold toilet seat? From Trump Tower?" Anthony
"Now Joey, come on. Everybody knows what you're doing. You're trying to throw this competition. You're supposed to be a better actor than that, you've been acting since you were five years old." Tamar
"The fact that she is trying to make me this villain in her life is totally ridiculous." Kandi (after Tamar says she felt attacked by Kandi during a recent tour they were both on)
"So I told Lolo what happened mainly because I think I just like to stir the pot. I feel like people in here have a low tolerance for stress. If I can keep everyone stressed out, my chances of winning this thing go way up." Ricky (exposing Ryan's veto plan)
"I've been fired before, but I'm not a quitter." Anthony (but is that true?)
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