During the time following Janelle's exit, neither person wanted to come down off of the spinning wheel. Honestly, I think that Ivette had the least to worry about. Janelle knew that her only chance was going to be taking Ivette, and Maggie's whole existence is centered around Friendship, so there is no way that she was going to take anyone other than Ivette. Ivette was convinced that it would be Maggie that Janelle would want to take. She probably believed that since she and Janelle were at odds with each other so often, Janelle wouldn't want to take somebody like her to the end. The most important thing for Janelle was winning, and she didn't pretend to want to make friends with either of them.

Maggie continued to protest and said she wouldn't come down and asked if Ivette wanted to stay in because she wanted what was in the last combination. Oh, did I forget to tell you? Trying to salvage something resembling Summer of Secrets (a term they gave up on much earlier than "Project DNA" last year), the winner of the first part of the competition would get the combination to the third safe in the gold room. Realistically, this prize should have come up much sooner, because the people that are left are thinking about $500,000 and not another plasma screen or trip to the Caribbean. Soon enough Maggie was eliminated, and we were going to figure out what was in that safe. Maggie stumbled, but Ivette thought that Maggie for some reason took pity on her and let her win. She thought that Maggie knew she would be going to the end, so why not throw Ivette a bone. Maybe Maggie knew what was going to be in that third gold safe and decided to throw the competition. When Ivette opened the safe, she learned that her prize would be in the backyard. When she made it to the backyard, she found out that she had won a pair of Vespas. In retrospect, it was the perfect gift for Miami Beach, or re-enacting your favorite scenes from "Weekend at Bernie's," but I think it would have generated just as much excitement as if she had won a year's worth of free trips to Old Country Buffet.

Part two of the three-part HOH competition started the following morning, and continuing with the giant representations of combination lock theme, Maggie and Janelle walked outside and saw two huge padlocks. The padlock had an eight number combination, and on the top of the padlock were clues corresponding to each number with questions like "How often was the Golden Power of Veto not used" and "How many times did the HOH win the Power of Veto." I was holding out hope that Janelle would do well because this is the type of thing she has been doing well at. Since they had to run up and down steps to get between the clues and the are where they could adjust the numbers, there was a physical component of the competition I thought would also help her out. I mean, let's be honest, Maggie has been working out all summer, but has managed to go from orca fat to perhaps only walrus fat, but it still takes a lot of energy to get that ass in motion.

My confidence aside, Maggie and her big ass started to get me worried there for a bit. Even though she said she had trouble with the answers, it looked like she was able to eliminate a lot of the wrong answers quickly. The first time she tried to open the padlock, there were four questions incorrect, but she quickly cut that number in half, while Janelle was still struggling. At this point, I might have actually cried, but like she has done so often this year, Janelle mounted a comeback and eventually beat out Maggie, meaning she would have a chance against Ivette to decide the HOH, who would choose one person for them to continue on to the end. After they celebrated Janelle's win, if you could call it a celebration, they came into the house and saw that their table had been downsized again, this time with only three chairs, but a very unique difference. It was clear plexiglass, and $500,000 was stacked neatly on the inside.

Once again, I was in a good mood. Ivette has been making a little bit of a run lately with some of the competitions, but I thought the chances of her being able to beat Janelle were remote. Janelle was not taking any chances, and decided to talk strategy with Ivette over a game of chess. Basically, Janelle made it very clear to Ivette. Her only chance of winning would be against Janelle. Janelle promised to take her to the end, and if she wanted to win the money, she would take Janelle to the end. Does she want to win the money or does she want to make a friend? To those of us watching from home, this was a no brainer, but it didn't look like Ivette was going to be falling for it. I was hoping that seeing the money in the table would convince Ivette to be greedy, but for some reason this money she desperately needed was not of concern to her.

Posted by J-Unit on September 18, 2005 3:08 PM