Big Brother 14 -2012 Day 34

'Big Brother 14' Recap: The Zingbot Returns
Wednesday, August 15, 2012

John Kubicek
Senior Writer, BuddyTV

You know that Big Brother 14 is boring when the producers have to bring in the Zingbot this early. And when promos for tomorrow's episode promise the return of fan favorite Jeff Schroeder.

It doesn't help that in this episode there's a perfectly plausible plan to make a huge game move that is completely ignored in favor of not rocking the boat.

After the Nominations

Dan is happy (for now) that Frank and Boogie stayed true to the Silent Six. Frank and Boogie are targeting Wil and, in the process, they decide to try and get some mileage out of Joe since no one else wants to be his friend.

Boogie lies to Wil that he's safe, but Wil doesn't believe it. None of that matters, but what does matter is that Wil seems to think his life is a Tennessee Williams play. Go home and play with your glass menagerie, dude.

Finally, Shane is paranoid that he's going to get backdoored because Shane is the cockiest human being that ever lived and he assumes everyone wants to get him out all the time because he's the best player in the history of the universe. It doesn't help that Danielle is SO into him, fueling that egotistical fire raging in his head.

Goodbye Spirit-Tard

Frank gets to take off his unitard and does a little cheer before he removes it. There's nothing I care less about than this. Except maybe Wil's "secret" that he was a teeny bopper touring singer.

Zingbot and the Veto

The Zingbot shows up for the Power of Veto competition and immediately insults everyone! There are some good digs about Ashley's intelligence and Shane's ugly pink tank top, but the best/worst goes to Danielle. He claims that after the show, Shane will give her a restraining order. Ouch!

The Power of Veto competition involves putting tubes together to reach an endpoint so they can guide a ball to it to help give birth to Baby Zingbot.

It's a pretty complicated puzzle and Ashley is positively clueless. They even play a Sesame Street theme song sound-alike to drive home how simple she is.

Frank kills it and beats everyone, proving what a big threat he really is. Both Shane and Dan are worried about getting backdoored. I'm more concerned about the fact that, for the third week in a row, the HoH wins the Power of Veto. Consolidating the power every week makes for very dull game play.

The Backdoor Plot

Wil, Ashley and Jenn realize that this is a chance for Frank to make a huge move and backdoor a much bigger threat than Joe or Wil, like Dan or Shane. Wil and Ashley go upstairs to try and get Frank to pull the trigger and make this big move. Jenn correctly realizes that it's "foolishness" for Frank not to make the move and that, if he doesn't, there's obviously something bigger going on (ie the Silent Six).

Wil and Ashley promise Frank that if he does this that he'll have the votes to get the person evicted and they'll have his back in the future.

Unfortunately for them, Britney sees Wil and Ashley upstairs talking to Frank and immediately sends Ian up to do some detective work. Ian quickly learns that Frank is targeting Dan and Ian does his best to talk Frank out of opening that can of worms and unleashing a bloodbath on the house. Frank makes compelling points about how Dan (and, for that matter, Danielle and Shane) were coming after Frank two weeks ago.

Ian goes downstairs and reports his findings to Danielle and Britney. And the next day Frank talks to Boogie about the potential plan and Boogie talks him out of backdooring Dan too. Frank is starting to realize that what's best for Boogie and what's best for himself aren't necessarily the same things. But he also realizes that going against the Silent Six this early will just cause too much chaos.

In the end, Frank decides to keep the nominations the same. It's funny that, in the diary room, even Dan admits that backdooring him would be the smart move. It's also bad that Frank even considered this, because that just gives Dan and the others fuel to go after him next week.


Tomorrow night see if Wil or Joe goes home and who becomes the next HoH.

August 15, 2012
Big Brother 14: Frank And Ashley Date Night Heats Up
By: Matthew Boyer (GTP) |

Frank and Ashley kiss - Big Brother 14

Big Brother 14 has danced around some wishful thinking showmances with Ian & Ashley’s date then the Shane & Danielle nomance, but nothing had really taken off. That may be changing as of late last night when Frank and Ashley came together for a little date night of their own that ended with lots of kisses, laughs, and smiles.

Earlier in the day Ashley proposed an ice cream date to Frank who happily accepted her self-invitation to come up to his HoH room and dine on his reward items. Of course there was a little tension in the house for Ian as he saw some competition from his fellow houseguest for Ashley’s attention, but she shoos that idea away.

The Ashley and Frank date night gets started around 10:40PM BBT so you can watch it all play out on the Live Feed Flashback feature. They talk about various aspects of their lives before things evolve in to a little game talk. Ashley tells Frank she expects Wil to go home and seems sad about it, but doesn’t fault Frank for the situation.

At 12:15AM BBT Frank jumps right to it and asks if she wants to go over to the couch and make out. Ashley agrees and then suddenly realizes he isn’t joking but happily goes along with it. He pulls her down on the couch and goes in for the kill.

After a few minutes of kissing they stop and laugh how easy it is to forget about the cameras. They lay on the couch and after a few minutes they start to kiss some more. After another break Frank talks about how nice it is to have physical contact again. Ashley tells Frank this [kissing him] is what she wanted.

Jump to 12:30AM BBT to find the couple going at it again. Frank cranks it up a notch when he goes for the butt grab without complaint from Ashley.

When things settle down they decide to not tell anyone about their make out sessions. After Frank and Ashley head back downstairs they relay only things like finding dead fish in the tank. Of course Frank is up this morning retelling his date (and the kisses) to Boogie. Boogie is excited for the potential of controlling a possible Ashley-HoH.

Considering the attraction between Frank and Ashley seems genuine I think there could be some potential here for a little romance this season. What do you think of this budding Big Brother relationship? Romance, showmance, or another nomance?

So Wil was booted tonight as expected. Now an endurance HOH comp. is in progress which has the potential to run at least an hour, so will be here watching until the winner....will report immediately.

The comp. to win HOH involves carrying colored water in a small cup down a slippery walkway and filling a big bowl until a ball floats high enough to grab and remove from the bowl, then going back up the slippery walkway to get another cup full from your barrel. This type of comp. usually takes a long time.

But there are two alternatives: If you want to forgo the HOH you can fill a much smaller bowl and guarantee that you can't be nominated for eviction for another week. Or you can fill a slightly larger bowl, forgo HOH and win $10K. If someone fills their HOH bowl first then the two smaller bowls have to stop. 4 are going for the HOH and 4 are going for one of the other prizes.

Wow ! They've only been at it for 20 minutes and Shane already has his bowl 7/8ths full. He's way ahead of the rest and will almost certainly win HOH. Dan, Jenn, and Danielle are about tied for 2nd but they are only 1/2 full.

Shane wins it in 30 minutes ! I can't believe he filled that big bowl so fast...3-4 oz. at a time. But the camera doesn't lie.

Shane has poor strategic game play and his first HOH win gained him nothing. There will be a double eviction next Thursday. Who he nominates for eviction is way up in the air at this point, but I guess that both of his nominees will be evicted, except that the POV winner may change things.

'Big Brother 14' Spoilers: Who Won the Week 6 HoH?
Thursday, August 16, 2012

John Kubicek

Senior Writer, BuddyTV

Sometimes Big Brother competitions follow a pattern. Just look at season 12. There was the surfboard endurance HoH competition in week 3, the knockout competition for week 4, then the paint can endurance for week 5.

Big Brother 14 is following that same pattern. Two weeks ago we had the pirate ship, last week was the knockout game and now we get our second endurance HoH competition.

In Thursday's episode, Wil was evicted and a new HoH competition began with nine HGs. The HoH competition began, and it's the typical slip and slide where the HGs must walk across a slippery path to transfer liquid from one side to the other to get out a cork.

There are also two smaller jugs. One is for Safety, meaning the first person to fill it up cannot be nominated or evicted this week. The other is for $10,000. But if an HG gets one of those, they can NOT win HoH.

Right away there are clear lines. Boogie is the only person going for $10,000.

Joe, Ashley, Britney, Jenn and Dan are all going for Safety.

Danielle, Ian and Shane are going for HoH.

The temptations are interesting, but they make this kind of a simple challenge, because you only need to beat two other people to be HoH. I assume Shane has an advantage since strong guys always win this type of competition. But I really admire Jenn for going for it.

As always, all times for my live updates will be PT, since that's local time in the Big Brother 14 house.

7:09pm: The feeds are back, but this is one of those competitions where it's sometimes hard to tell which jug is the most full.

7:10pm: Indeed, on first inspections, it seems Shane is doing the best for the HoH Group and has a good system in place. Much like the Power of Veto with the balls going down the two inclined planes, this is the kind of challenge that requires a simple, mindless repetitive motion, which is where Shane excels.ZING!

7:12pm: Also in the HoH Group, Danielle is falling a lot and Ian has embraced a crawling strategy, which doesn't seem to be a very good idea.

7:17pm: Britney and Dan are the two strongest in the Safety Group. Given last week, it makes sense that Dan is FINALLY trying to win something.

7:20pm: Britney is almost done with Safety while Shane is killing it in the HoH Group. This has suddenly become a fairly anticlimactic competition with all these temptations.

7:23pm: BRITNEY WON SAFETY!

7:23pm: And since Shane, Danielle and Ian already have a 30 minute headstart on HoH and Boogie has the same for $10,000, Ashley, Jenn, Joe and Dan can pretty much just quit.

7:25pm: Indeed, Jenn just said it would be a f***ing waste of time to continue. Congratulations, Jenn, you've spotted the MASSIVE hole in the design of this competition.

7:26pm: Boogie and Shane are both about halfway done with their respective jugs. Realistically, Danielle and Ian don't have any shot in hell of winning. Chalk up another boring, predictable challenge for the boring predictable season.

7:30pm: Since it's now just a matter of time before Shane wins, I'm going to speculate. Will he go after Boogie and Frank? If he's smart, "Yes." Or will he get out "floaters" which would be a waste of everyone's time. Or will he betray the Quack Pack and turn on Dan and Danielle (not bloody likely). Realistically, I'd say Joe and Ashley might go up with the plan of backdooring Boogie or Frank. Or he'll go straight at them and nominate Frank and Boogie. For that matter, the exact same thing could be said if, by some miracle, Shane has a heart attack and Danielle wins.

7:35pm: Continuing with my random thoughts, if Shane wins that will make his fifth win, Do you know how many people have won five competitions in a single season? Eight, and that list includes four winners (Rachel, Hayden, Dan and Drew). Since it's so early, he could have the time to beat that. Only three players have ever won six competitions in a single season: Janelle Pierzina, Daniele Donato and Rachel Reilly (though in season 13, one of Rachel's six wins was a co-victory with Brendon). The real test is if he can match Daniele (2 HoHs and 5 PoVs) or Janelle (4 HoHS and 5 PoVs). But 2 HoHs and 3 PoVs in the first six weeks is a great start.

7:40pm: Back to the game, Ian is falling all over the place. You gotta give the boy credit for trying. And Britney is thinking that, since she did so well, she may have been able to beat Shane. Obviously it doesn't matter since she's guaranteed Safety and can compete next week, but she's worried she could still be a Have-Not.

7:45pm: This is not going to help the perception that this is the worst, most boring season ever since Danielle, Frank and Shane are the ONLY houseguests to win anything. Sure, Boogie won a Coaches Competition and Britney just got Safety, but all of the actual nominating and backdooring decisions have been made by three people. The worst part is that production had to know that Shane would win this. No one else stood a chance. Part of me is worried he's going to get a Pandora's Box and get a special power to give him even more influence.

7:50pm: BOOGIE WON $10,000!

7:51pm: Frank is happy for Boogie, but I'm not. I really hope Shane nominates Frank and Boogie, because this "Let's take the money" attitude is lame. It also means Boogie now has $16,000. If Boogie is allowed to shamelessly be the ONLY PERSON to go after the money and still stay safe this week, it will be embarrassing. Luckily Shane is kind of stupid and if Britney and Danielle tell him to put up Frank and Boogie, he probably will. It worked once before.

7:56pm: Seriously, why in the name of all that is holy is anyone other than Shane still playing? Can the rest of the HGs just forfeit and name Shane the new HoH already instead of wasting everyone's time pretending that the rest of the competition even matters? My guess is that the production team told them they have to keep going, because otherwise they should just take a chair next to Britney and Frank.

8pm: The HGs have learned there are NO Have-Nots this week. So that means, to fill time, there may be either a luxury competition or, more likely, a Pandora's Box. My guess is the latter because the producers KNEW Shane would win this competition and they probably want to give him a special power because he tests well with the ladies and has the potential to be a Jeff Schroeder 2.0 for the show.

8:06pm: Inexplicably Dan has seemingly raced into a tight race with Danielle for second place. It doesn't really matter, but the other HGs should definitely take notice that Dan could realistically win any competition he wants to. She might take second, but the fact that it's close when Dan gave her a 30 minute head start and filled half his Safety bowl says a lot..

8:15pm: Fun Fact: Last season Jeff won an HoH competition very similar to this. He also won the Power of Veto that week and used it to backdoor Daniele Donato. But that week there was a live double eviction and Jeff got evicted that same night. There's a decent chance history could repeat itself with Shane backdooring a big target (like Boogie or Frank) and then Shane could get picked off during the live double eviction next Thursday.

8:16pm: Even the HGs know this is just a formality as they're already talking about the possibility of Shane's CD in his HoH basket possibly being Blink 182 this week. When did we time travel to 10 years ago?

8:23pm: Here's one last random thought before this thing finally ends. Will Britney and Danielle successfully get Shane to target Frank and Boogie, or will Frank and Boogie try to get Shane to go after Dan (I can easily see them trying to do this). Also, it's probably for the best that Britney won Safety. Sure Shane is her former player, but Boogie and Frank were talking a lot Thursday morning about how they wanted to get Britney out, so they would've pushed Shane hard to make a "big move" and nominate his own coach. And with Shane, that may have actually worked.

8:29pm: SHANE WINS HOH!

8:30pm: No duh. Anyone who has ever seen this show before knew Shane was the new HoH the minute they saw what the competition was.


Well, how do you feel about Shane's SECOND HoH reign? Should he target floaters (Joe/Ashley/Jenn) or Frank and Boogie or the Quack Pack (Ian/Dan/Danielle)? My money is on Ashley and Jenn as the nominees with the plan of backdooring Boogie or Frank.

http://www.bigbrotherupdates.com/article-4073--0-0.html

Week 5 Eviction
Thursday, August 16, 2012
'Big Brother 14' Recap: Wil vs. Joe in the Week 5 Eviction

John Kubicek
Senior Writer, BuddyTV

The long national nightmare that was the past week of Big Brother 14 is officially over. As soon as Frank won the HoH last week, we knew Joe and Wil would be nominated. Within one day the target changed from Joe to Wil, and then everything else played out exactly as expected. The live feeds have been so boring that the show has resorted to bringing back fan favorites like the Zingbot and Jeff Schroeder to drum up any kind of excitement about this season.

But hopefully tonight will change all of that. It's time for a new HoH, and it's sure to be an interesting one. Right now HoH seems like a bit of a hot potato. Nobody wants to make a big move this early (sure, the finale is in less than five weeks, but there are still 11 people in the house as of the start of this episode). So the strong competitors like everyone in the Silent Six are reticent to win because they don't want to have to waste an HoH getting rid of someone as useless and nonthreatening as Joe or Ashley, but they also don't want to make themselves a target by going after a big fish like Frank or Dan.

But let's get this show on the road. And more importantly, let's hope Julie Chen finally gives us some details about how they plan on getting rid of seven more people before the finale since there are only four Thursday live eviction episodes left.

I don't know what makes me laugh harder: Julie Chen trying to make it sound like this season isn't super boring, Shane for egotistically thinking he's the biggest target in the house or Baby Zingbot. Oh, who am I kidding., It's Baby Zingbot! CBS should totally sell those things, because they would make great stocking stuffers.

After the Power of Veto

Seriously, they're going to try and put some stuff in here to make it look like there's any chance Wil won't get evicted? Let's not pretend that Joe or Wil's campaigning has ANY influence on the decision this week. But it doesn't help that Wil theorizes that there's a super alliance picking off himself, Joe and Ashley one-by-one while Joe shamelessly promises that he won't nominate anyone.

Britney is upset that Frank even considered nominating Dan. I guess the fact that he didn't means nothing. Britney, in full panic mode, asks Dan if he's going to win HoH, and he hilariously responds "not in the foreseeable future." Even when he's so close to potentially getting backdoored, Dan STILL sticks to his "throw every competition" strategy. You have to admire that dedication to a plan.

Ashley's Two Boyfriends

Ashley asks Frank out on an ice cream date right in front of Ian, which is just cold. The date itself has no ice cream, but plenty of booze. Ashley, who sees the writing on the wall about Wil being evicted, is shamelessly flirting with Frank as a game strategy, and she has the cojones to say that it's NOT a game move.

Frank makes his "move," which is just to ask a woman straight out if she wants to make out. It works and the two start making out on the couch. She compares him to Channing Tatum. Um, no. NO! Clearly she's as dumb as I think she is if she thinks Frank and Channing are in any way, shape or form similar. It seems like they're both entering into the showmance for purely strategic reasons.

HoH Update

Hey, Julie Chen lets us know early on that tonight's HoH competition is endurance! And we get to tweet whether we want the HGs to be tempted to quit with a Have-Not Pass or $10,000. Ooh, I hope it's the money, and I really hope that whoever takes it gets evicted, because that would be shameless. Especially if it's someone like Boogie.

Joe's Family

As filler we get to meet Joe's family. Joe's wife instantly wins my heart by shouting at the camera. I'm less amused by Joe's son's blonde mohawk, but at least his kids hate his dyed soul patch and how loud he is. Once again I hope that one of these days Big Brother will do an "It's All Relative" season where the HGs are all relatives of past HGs. Get Joe's wife in the house now!

Jeff Schroeder's Take

Before we see him we get a quick montage of Jeff Schroeder's best moments. They are pimping him hard. Maybe he's being groomed to replace Julie Chen as a host next season? He is doing exit interviews for CBS this season and he even gets the chance to ask Julie Chen a question. She says if she were to play, she'd be a Janelle/Boogie type who would never be a floater. I really think, after 14 seasons and now that she has The Talk, Chen might want out and Jeff would actually be a pretty great new host.

He tells us that he and Jordan are living together in California and there's a deadline of June 5 for him to pop the question. Jeff says that anyone can win and tries to avoid picking any favorites. But he does say that he's rooting for Ian.

Julie Chats with the HGs

Julie decides to give the HGs some info about what's going on in the real world. They learn that Jennifer Aniston is engaged and that the United States won the most gold medals. And that Dwight Howard got traded to the L.A. Lakers and that R-Patz and K-Stew have broken up. Britney is heartbroken about the last one.

Nominee Speeches

Wil starts with a joke and then gets sentimental about how much he loves his family and how leaving isn't the worst thing.

Joe does some insanely dumb speech about speaking loudly and Sharon Osbourne. Julie Chen literally cuts him off. I hope he enjoyed that, because I didn't.

The Vote

Ashley votes to evict...JOE
Boogie votes to evict...WIL
Danielle votes to evict...WIL
Jenn votes to evict...JOE
Dan votes to evict...WIL (but first he tells Julie she's the most beautiful and best host on TV)
Britney votes to evict...WIL
Shane votes to evict...WIL (he also praises Julie's beauty)
Ian votes to evict...WIL

WIL IS EVICTED 6-2!

No big surprise. However, I'd like to point out that Dan and Shane are clearly pandering to the viewers in an attempt to ensure being voted America's Favorite. At least that's what I think is the actual reason for their comments about Julie Chen.

Wil annoyingly gets into his jean shorts and captain's hat before leaving. Wil thinks he's out because everyone thought he was more likely to win than Joe. Dan is a nice guy about how he wanted to work with Wil but Wil's emotions got in the way. Boogie says basically the same thing.

HoH Competition

The endurance HoH competition is the slippery path where HGs must transfer liquid from one side to the other to get a cork out. Sigh, this one always benefits the big strong guys, so I have a sinking feeling that Shane could win again. The girls are gonna be too weak, Ian is too small, Joe and Boogie are too old and Dan doesn't want to win.

There are also two added temptations of smaller jugs the HGs can fill. One is for Safety (the player can't go home or be nominated) and the other is $10,000. But if you get either of them, you can NOT win HoH. Interesting.

Right away the battle lines are drawn. Boogie is the only one going for $10,000 (of course). Then five are going for safety and only three are going for HoH. This is the obvious flaw with this challenge, because there's absolutely no way to come back after you make your choice.

It seems Ashley, Britney, Dan, Jenn and Joe are going for Safety. Meanwhile, Ian, Shane and Danielle are going for HoH.

HoH Spoilers: Live Blog of This Competition>>

And next week is a DOUBLE EVICTION! Finally.