Things are definitely bleak right now for Austwins and Vanessa haters. With James and Meg up on the block against each other, it’s looking less and less likely that the unholy foursome will ever be evicted. With only eight people left in the house, the numbers are dwindling too fast for there to be much hope that any of them will ever be ousted until they turn on each other.

But things aren’t over yet. James and Meg are both upset about the nominations, but this has just served to make them even more determined to stay in the house now. They’re both ready to fight for the veto; one of them has to win, or they’ll be the next two out of the house. And Vanessa can’t quench that fire when she tries to reason with them about why she’d nominated them. Actually, the fact that Vanessa couldn’t give a reason – all she can say was that it isn’t personal, but just a game move – seems to make them even more determined. Meg points out that they’ve never put her up on the block, and in fact, they’d saved her a few weeks ago when they’d gotten rid of Shelli instead. Van once again cries about how James and Meg have each other, but she’s always been alone. She’s never had a partner to work with. Cry me a river, Vanessa. While she hasn’t been part of an actual couple, everyone knows how close she was with Clay and Shelli, and I like to think it’s pretty obvious how close she is with the Austwins too – though I could be wrong, since Meg and James questioned it a few days ago. No one believes her “poor me” routine anymore, especially since she spouts that crap every time anyone gives her half a chance.

So Vanessa goes to Steve for advice: should she go after Meg if James wins the veto? She doesn’t want to piss off the Austwins too, after evicting everyone else already. Those three are the only ones she hasn’t targeted, except she kind of has, but we’ll just conveniently forget about that for now. Steve just asks her what’s best for her game. Personally, I don’t understand why Vanessa isn’t taking the opportunity to get rid of Liz. With eight people left in the house, the other five could easily oust them. No one seems to get that three people together are a bigger threat than two, especially when one of that twosome is terrible at this game.

When it’s time to pick players for the competition, Vanessa picks Julia, James picks Liz and Meg picks Austin, which is pretty much the worst case scenario for the last remaining Goblins. Not that John or Steve would help them anyway. No one would want to anger the evil queen, after all. They’ve got to do it themselves, and James admits that if he doesn’t win, he deserves to go home.

So after a little segment about James’ daughter, we begin the competition, titled Hide and Go Veto. One at a time, the players will hide a card (about the size of a tablet) somewhere inside the house. Then they’ll take turns searching through the house for the cards for two minutes each until five of the six cards are found. The trick is, none of them know whose card they’ll find until the end of the game, as the cards are all locked. Meg hides hers under a bed in a little nook she’s found. Austin puts his inside a duvet cover. Vanessa and Julia both hide theirs inside couch cushions, one in the hammock room and one in the living room. Liz hides hers in a pizza box inside the freezer. And James hides his under the rug under the couch.

I seem to remember the house guests finding the objects relatively quickly last year, but not so this year. None of them discover anything on their first go around. Eventually, Vanessa finds Liz’s card, and then Julia finds Vanessa’s card. By this point, James is just having fun throwing everything everywhere, including cereal that had been in a bowl on the table, something not even close to being big enough to fit the card. Meanwhile, OCD Liz is starting to freak out from the mess. The whining is hard to handle.

Meg finds Julia’s card next, and then, after throwing a bunch of stuff on top of the couch and his card, James finds Meg’s card. Lastly, Vanessa finds a card, and when they’re all opened, we find that that card belonged to….Austin! Therefore, JAMES WINS THE POWER OF VETO!

All in all, this game apparently lasted four hours, and now they all walk back into a completely trashed house. So while, I’m assuming, everyone else starts to clean up the mess, Vanessa marches up to her throne room to freak out about who she’s going to nominate when James takes himself off the block. As James has more or less announced (to Austin, who told Van) that he’ll be targeting Vanessa, her number one target now is Meg. She can’t get rid of him, but she can get rid of his queen, as she’d called her on nomination night. The problem is that every time Meg has gone up on the block this summer, the other person has gone home, not her (although Meg has never been the actual target until now). So Vanessa needs to put up someone that can beat Meg in a vote.

The Austwins, of course, urge her to put up John, since they’re still gunning for him, but Van doesn’t want to sacrifice her newest alliance member. She tells them all that Meg is her number one target, and if she puts up John, she knows that they’ll vote him out again. She suggests putting Julia up on the block, but of course, Julia doesn’t like that idea. She’s part of a threesome, she says, so of course everyone will target her. The girls insist that they could beat Meg in any competition, whereas John could beat them, and Vanessa points out, rather deviously, I might add, that since everyone can beat Meg, they’re all letting her slide, and if they don’t get rid of her, she’ll slide right through to the end. I have to admit, it’s a brilliant move.

James decides to talk to Vanessa to try to convince her to target someone other than Meg, and it completely backfires on him. She’s already angry when he walks in, which is not good for him. She’s floored that he’s making it personal by going after her when she’d targeted him only as a game move and not in a personal manner. I call bull on that. Really? So when you target someone, it’s not personal, but when someone targets you, it is? Also, what’d she expect? For James to just roll over and be like, “meh, it’s all good. Just vote out my closest ally and we’re cool?” Especially knowing that he’ll be next in line to go? This chick is crazy. And hypocritical. Her whole side of the house is hypocritical. They drive me nuts.

Anyway, James makes it worse by telling Vanessa that she’s playing the game too hard. Whoa, wrong move, dude. Vanessa immediately gets pissed off. James insists that he’s complimenting her on her game play, which I could see if he’d worded it differently, but she takes it as an insult. She basically tells him to get out, and when he continues trying to pull his foot out of his mouth and only succeeds in shoving it in deeper, she warns him that the more he pisses her off, the more he’s securing Meg’s fate in the game. Come on, James. You should know by now that Vanessa is overly sensitive and takes everything personally. Maybe think first about what you’re going to say before she murders you with that raccoon-eyed glare.

During the nomination ceremony, James obviously uses the veto on himself, and Vanessa, after complimenting James on his Veto game (holy fake, dude) replaces him with Julia. Julia definitely isn’t surprised by this and goes to take her spot. I’ve heard from the feedsters that Vanessa apparently offered Julia $10.000 to go up on the block, but production made her take that back, as these kinds of deals obviously aren’t allowed. So instead, she dared Julia $10K to go up on the block instead, which apparently is allowed.

Personally, I think Meg will be the one to go tomorrow night. Austin and Liz will obviously vote her out, and I can’t see Steve or John going against Vanessa and keeping her over Julia. It would only make her target them next, and everyone besides James is too afraid to let that happen. And unless James can pull off a win for HoH tomorrow night, he’ll be heading out the door right after her, which, as I mentioned last week, will leave us with three vs three. Now, if John wins HoH, he’ll probably target the Austwins, but I can’t see Steve targeting them. He still thinks he’s close to Austin. I still don’t understand why these guys don’t see the massive obstacle that is the Austwins. It makes no sense to me. I’ve heard that the twins have been talking about how to get rid of Austin and Vanessa, and that Austin and Vanessa have been trying to figure out how to get rid of the twins, but no one is making a move. I don’t get it. Hopefully tomorrow night’s double eviction will make things a little clearer. And a little less Austwin-y.

– Rebecca