Welcome to Fightful's recap of Celebrity Biiiiiiig Brother.
My name is Jeremy Lambert and you may know me as Fightful's resident Volunteer For Torture. I am the man who reviewed Enzo Amore's "rap" album and now I am reviewing the week in Celebrity Big Brother. Why? Because in the words of Russell Westbrook, "Why Not?"
This season of Celebrity Big Brother features everyone's favorite former WWE Superstar Eva Marie. Eva didn't accomplish a whole lot in WWE but just about every member of the WWE Universe had an opinion on her. And she parlayed her semi-successful wrestling career and sort-of-around reality stardom into a spot in the Celebrity Big Brother house. Much like Dancing With The Stars uses the term "Stars" loosely, Celebrity Big Brother uses the term "Celebrity" loosely.
First off, I am a Big Brother super fan so I know how the game works and who will win before the winner is announced. Take that, Tony Romo. Second, these recaps will mainly look at how Eva Marie is doing. They won't be your traditional blow-by-blow recaps where you get all the action and tea. They'll be heavily slanted towards Eva with my commentary on the game she's playing in the house.
Now, let's see who Eva's competition is in the house:
Kato Kaelin (Witness in OJ Simpson trial)
Ricky Williams (former NFL running back)
Jonathan Bennett (Aaron Samuels in "Mean Girls")
Lolo Jones (Olympic Track Star)
Joey Lawrence (Actor, Star of "Blossom")
Dina Lohan (Lindsay Lohan’s mom)
Tamar Braxton (Singer)
Tom Green (Comedian/Actor/Singer)
Kandi Burruss (Singer/Songwriter)
Natalie Eva Marie (former WWE Superstar)
Ryan Lochte (12-Time Olympic Medal Swimmer)
Anthony Scaramucci (Former White House Director of Communications)
For the first competition, the celebrities go one-by-one and pick a fellow celebrity to be their teammate. The two celebrities will sit out the competition. And wouldn't you know it, no one picks Eva Marie. Come on guys, she's a former professional wrestler. She's athletic.
What this tells me is that she has no built-in friendships in the house. Lochte and Lolo know each other from the Olympics. Kandi and Tamar know each other (and have beef) from the music industry. Dina and Jonathan have the Lindsay Lohan connection. Eva has no connection with these people. That's not a bad thing because connections usually put a target on your back. But it also means you don't have someone watching your back when you enter the house.
The other thing is telling me is that no one views Eva as a serious competitor. This can be good or bad depending on how people play the game. Either she will slide under the radar because she's not viewed as a threat. Or she'll be eliminated because she's not seen as useful.
The good news for her is that, in a twist, the two competitors not picked for the first competition are safe from elimination for the week. So, no matter what happens, she's staying past the first week. Turns out not being a threat worked in her favor.
Lochte and Jonathan win the competition so now they face to see who becomes Head of Household. And the loser goes up on the block. Lochte wins because of course he does. Jonathan goes on the block and Lochte nominates Scaramucci and Tom Green to join him but a bunch of twists are coming.
After the first competition is when alliances start to form. Lochte and Jonathan already want to team up. Lolo and Dina are basically grandfathered into their alliance. And Eva Marie joins as well. In fact, Eva makes a final four with Lochte, Jonathan and Lolo. A smart move by Eva. Lochte and Lolo are going to be competition beasts given their Olympic background and now she has them watching her back.
She also makes a final two with Lolo, another smart move. Now, these final fours and final twos don't work out all that often. It's a long game and as much as you may want to protect someone, big moves have to be made at some point. But so far, Eva has the right gameplan.
She and Lolo take it a step further and make a final four with Kandi and Tamar as well. Playing both sides either takes you to the end or gets you eliminated right away. The good news for Eva is that Lolo is also playing both sides and she's probably looked at as a bigger threat.
Eva does make a big mistake during all this alliance talk when she sees Lolo in a room and suggests they need a name for their final two. Alliance names are fine. You don't need a name for your final two. But Eva comes from the world of professional wrestling and every good tag team needs a good name, I guess.
The only problem is she makes this suggestion of a name while Tamar was also in the room. So now Tamar knows Eva and Lolo are in a final two. Eva tries to talk her way out of this one. It goes about as well as you would think an unscripted Eva Marie promo would go. Lolo does her best to cover up the mistake and it ends with the threat of throat punching.
Two veto competitions happen. Nothing comes of the first. Before the second veto competition, it's revealed that Scaramucci is too good for the house and was just there for a couple of days. Trump must have fired him again. So he's off the show and off the block. Lochte puts Kandi on the in his place.
Kato wins the second veto competition and saves Tom Green. So, he's off the block as well. Lochte puts Joey Lawrence on the block now.
All of the girls, minus Dina, unite to vote Jonathan out of the house because they believe he has a final two with Lochte. Jonathan is voted out by a 6-1 vote.
Here's the updated Celebrity Big Brother house:
Kato Kaelin (Witness in OJ Simpson trial)
Ricky Williams (former NFL running back)
Lolo Jones (Olympic Track Star)
Joey Lawrence (Actor, Star of "Blossom")
Dina Lohan (Lindsay Lohan’s mom)
Tamar Braxton (Singer)
Tom Green (Comedian/Actor/Singer)
Kandi Burruss (Singer/Songwriter)
Natalie Eva Marie (former WWE Superstar)
Ryan Lochte (12-Time Olympic Medal Swimmer)
Evicted
Anthony Scaramucci (Former White House Director of Communications)
Jonathan Bennett (Aaron Samuels in "Mean Girls")
A good start for Eva for a number of reasons. First, she was never an option to be eliminated due to not being picked. Second, she went under the radar as far as gameplay goes. And third, she formed some strong alliances. One of her alliance members on either side was going to get eliminated since Joey was the pawn and everyone seems to like him. Jonathan was the better option because it ties Lochte more to Lolo, who has the final two with Eva. And strengthens the girl alliance, which was threatened when Eva stupidly revealed her final two with Lolo to Tamar.
The bad news is that by revealing the final two and not participating in any competitions, she might be seen as a liability or weak player. But the numbers are definitely on her side right now as she's aligned herself with Lochte, Lolo, Tamar and Kandi.
She's got the numbers to easily make the final five but this game changes in a hurry.
