Well, this article isn’t going to be a long one. Except for a few minutes at the beginning and the end of the episode, all we were shown were clips from earlier in the season. And we get this every year, a chunk of time devoted to memories of the season, but I feel like we usually get more never-before-seen stuff. That’s what I usually look forward to in this episode. Nothing really drives the competition further, but at least we get to see clips that didn’t make it into any episodes from earlier in the season. This year, with the exception of maybe the brief glimpse of the food fight, every clip we saw was one that had already aired this summer. And with cameras on the house guests 24 hours a day, there had to have been a ton of footage that we hadn’t already seen. So why just show already aired stuff? I have no idea, but I’m not super impressed.

So let’s just talk about the few things that weren’t repeated. Johnny Mac was voted out last week, leaving Vanessa, Steve, and Liz still in the house. Steve seems to be the only one even remotely upset that he’s gone, and even he isn’t hurting that much; he figures he’d have had a hard time winning against John, since John has so many friends in the jury. Liz is just happy that she’s still here instead of John,and apparently Vanessa has always planned for things to go this way. Her goal had been to bring one member of Liztin, plus either Steve or John, to the final three with her. That way, both of the other contestants will be much more likely to take her to the end with them should one of them win the final HoH. It’s a pretty smart move, if it’s actually legit. Vanessa hasn’t exactly been super truthful with us about her motivations and stuff. If she was being truthful, she’d have let us in on all her schemes over the course of the summer. She’d have owned up to the fact that at least some of the tears she’s shed this summer have been borne from strategy rather than emotion. So I’m not sure how truthful she’s being about having had this plan the whole time. But whatever, it’s her plan now, so I’ll move on.

So Vanessa is pretty sure that either other player would take her to the end over each other. She definitely seems to be right about Liz. Liz feels grateful to Vanessa because they’ve been so close throughout the summer, so she wants to go up against her rather than take Steve, who would be easier for her to beat. Steve seems to be a little smarter. He knows that he’ll have a tough time beating Vanessa, so he’ planning, at the moment, on taking Liz instead, even though that’s a gamble too, since she’s already got two automatic votes to win. I think Steve is in trouble either way. Vanessa has played a better game than he has, since she’d helped evict every single person in the jury house. That’s tough to beat unless the entire jury is a bitter one. But with two votes already for Liz, can Steve change the minds of the rest of the jury to vote him the winner? I’m not sure. He also thinks that evicting Vanessa could garner more votes for him since he’d basically be doing what the people in the jury couldn’t. He’s got a point there, but on the other hand, if he votes Vanessa out, she could turn the tables on him from inside the jury house if she decides that Liz should be the winner over him. We all know hoe persuasive she and her tears are.

As for who Vanessa will take to the final two with her if she gets to choose? Liz is sure that Vanessa will pick her. Steve hopes that she’d pick him too, but again, he’s a little smarter, knowing that he can’t be sure of anything with Vanessa around. He and Vanessa agree that it would be in her best interests to take him to final two than it would be to take Liz because of Austin and Julia in the jury. But he does ask her if she’s made a final two deal with Liz, and Vanessa denies it. She says that she hasn’t promised Liz anything but may have accepted a promise from Liz. Vanessa, of course, is telling Steve what he wants to hear in order to ensure that he’ll take her to the end. I like to think that she’d take Steve with her, but who knows. I honestly can’t keep up with her mind. She’s always got some crazy reason for doing everything she does.

After fifty minutes of clips we’ve already seen, we finally get to the first part of the final HoH competition, titled How Bout Them Apples? The house guests have to climb onto giant apples on ropes, and then they’re dipped into candy apple coating and then slammed into a wall with a picture of a mouth on it. This process will continue until two house guests fall off and only one person is left on their apple. Based on what we’ve seen with endurance competitions, I have the feeling that Vanessa will win this one. She really knows how to hold on when it really counts. But I can’t count out the other two just yet. Steve has been waiting for this competition for years, so he’s going to fight hard to take it. All three house guests want to be the one to decide who goes to the final two, so no one is just going to give up and throw the competition to someone else. I hope.

That’s pretty much it. Not a lot happened in this episode, unfortunately. So, I’ll see you on Wednesday night for the finale! One more episode and we’ll have a winner!

– Rebecca