Episode 12 had Kelsey & Loveita both sequestered away in the Secret Suite without anyone knowing it and this gave Loveita the perfect chance to clear her conscience with Kelsey when she revealed that Mitch had been playing both sides of the house. Kelsey had begun to suspect as much before she checked out but she didn't have enough evidence to go on. Meanwhile, inside the house, Dallas felt betrayed by Maddy for putting up Loveita and now she's his main target, at least until they discover a treasure chest in the living room filled with memorabilia from the very first Big Brother Canada back in 1860 (which is actually just the current cast replayed in black and white videos and old time photos). The new HoH will be picked based on that treasure chest and at thinned of the competition it's Wild Card Tim as the new Head of Household and in his HoH room there's a letter from Big Brother stating that, in honour of the first non-Canadian win there will be no HaveNots that week. This was followed by Big Brother Says which won the houseguests a pizza party the night before Tim calls a house meeting. Tim has decided to use a koala (gummy) bear system, which he convinces them is the Australian way, to choose his nominations based on the houseguests popularity within the house and based on that system Tim nominates Dallas and Ramsey.
In Episode 13 we still find Kelsey and Loveita locked away but they're getting a ton of background information from throughout the house which will eventually be used when one of them returns. Ramsey is all teary-eyed for being nominated while Dallas goes into grumpy beast mode about it and at the PoV Competition it's Tim, Dallas, Ramsey, Mitch, Cassandra and Jared who get to don rainbow coloured onesies and toss a ball 300 times over the rainbow. Dallas and Jaredr ran neck and neck throughout the competition until both blew it allowing Ramsey to win the PoV. Meanwhile Nikki finally gets some airtime when she gets all jealous about Maddy cozying up to Tim and it doesn't get any better when the houseguests play Truth or Dare which culminates in a naked Joel racing through the house. There's something nobody wanted to see. Apparently this is also Mitch's birthday but he's not enjoying the fun and games so he wanders off to get all emotional until Raul hunts him down and brings him back for birthday cupcakes. At the PoV Ceremony it's no surprise that Ramsey takes himself off of the block, forcing Tim's hand to put Maddy up instead because the koala's told him to. Nothing crazy about that.
It's Eviction Night for Episode 14 and Arisa is back for a 90 minute special which means we get more filler and less substance. Hard to believe I'm saying that when 'm talking about Big Brother Canada since, let's be honest, as entertaining as it all may be there's not really a lot of substance to begin with. It's Day 32 in the house and Dallas is ready to throw Maddy under the bus, which is okay with Kelsey and Loveita who are still sequestered away but they don't want Maddy gone just yet. While Dallas tries to turn Ramsey against his showmance, Maddy is chatting with Nikki unaware that Nikki really hates her. Arisa returns with a little background on Kelsey and Loveita as we get to see their family's response to the two of them inside and outside of the house and it's the usual family support filler (told ya), then Big Brother sends in Emmett from Season 1 to give the girls some advice before taking them both back into the house to play a game on the other houseguests. Emmett has Kelsey and Loveita hide 100 black and white poker chips throughout the house while totally trashing it and then they sneak back out. Upon being allowed back into the house Tim tells the houseguests that, while they were out, hotel management has hidden 50 black and 50 white poker chips and they have to find them so the houseguests are divided into two teams and given 10 minutes to find the chips and the knowledge that the team with the most chips wins a special reward while the losing team will be dealt a punishment. Eventually the Black Team has 36 chips while the White Team has 46 and they get to join Tim in the High Roller Room for a VIP Cocktail Party while the losing team gets to clean up the house. In the High Roller Room Cassandra goes all fan-girl when she sees Emmett . . . poor guy.
It's Day 34 and Nikki is upset that Maddy and Ramsey had a bath together when they stayed overnight in Tim's HoH room, which he had offered up because she got shafted on her short HoH. Nikki needs to get over herself. Dallas eventually goes to Tim to throw Maddy further under the bus by revealing all sorts of stuff but Tim never does what the house wants so I'm not sure what Dallas hoped to accomplish there. Meanwhile, back in the Secret Suite, Loveita and Kelsey have realized that they should have been working together from the start because Kelsey has a great social game while Loveita is more analytical and they feel like mastermind geniuses, but they're a little late for that. Just before the eviction Arisa returns to show the houseguests some video of from the past 13 episodes which gives them all a different outlook on how things have played out, . . . but then we go straight into the eviction and it's not really a surprise that, by a vote of 5-3, Dallas has been evicted from the house. When he joins Arisa on stage he says he still feels betrayed by Maddy but he has no regrets and then Arisa tells him about the fake double-eviction. As Dallas leaves, Arisa welcomes Kelsey and Loveita back to the stage and then proceeds to tell the house what's going on and how the girls have been watching them and have even been back in the house, and Maddy and Cassandra decide right there that if Loveita comes back in they have to send her straight back out. Arisa tells the house that they need to make a unanimous decision as to which of the girls will be going back in to the house and gives both Loveita and Kelsey some time to plead their case and then they return to the Secret Suite while the houseguests deliberate . . . into the end credits.
That's a lot to take in as we return for Episode 15 to find that the houseguests have decided to vote back in Kelsey who, once she's back in the house, reveals that the first few days with Loveita were torture but they eventually worked it all out. She doesn't tell them that they also compared a ton of notes and had a whole strategy to work from for whoever returned. Big Brother throws a pizza party to welcome Kelsey back and eventually it devolves into another Truth or Dare game with Nick kissing Nikki, much to his brother's chagrin. Afterwards Kelsey tells Jared and Raul that Mitch has been playing both sides and Raul does not take this well and goes to confront Mitch, who of course denies it, but they just get louder and louder until Kelsey needs to race in and do damage control. Not the brightest move made by Raul, that's for sure. It's Day 37 and the HoH Competition is based on ancient Greece with everyone in togas and the challenges are based on the punishments of Greek mythology, holding the sword of Damocles on your head, balancing Atlas' world on a disc (shades of Survivor), or pushing the boulder of Sisyphus. In the end, Raul wins Head of Household and picks Joel, Ramsey, Nick/Phil and Maddy as the HaveNots of the week. Meanwhile Maddy and Nikki are complaining about voting back Kelsey who's brought so much turmoil into the house then Nikki goes to Tim with the same whine but he doesn't care. While Nikki whines, Kelsey tries to do damage control with Raul and Jared in the HoH room, which includes revealing a lot of the information she and Loveita shared. By the end of the episode Raul nominates Joel and Mitch for eviction in an attempt to get payback.
Time for Episode 16 and, with Mitch's game out in the open he has no choice but to switch up his gameplay and continue to deny everything that Kelsey has been revealing which is making Nikki angry, even though it's all true. Mitch tries to do a little damage control of his own with Raul but Raul is taking the whole situation very personally and refuses to believe Mitch anymore. He eventually calls up Kelsey and then Jared but no matter what Mitch says his exposure by Loveita has likely cost him the game, . . . thanks Loveita. On that note we move to the PoV Competition which is set up like a three challenge casino which eventually comes down to Jared versus Ramsey who was a little too obvious about throwing it and allowing Jared to win the Power of Veto. Jared has a plan to backdoor Nick/Phil but Raul refuses to go along with it despite Mitch coming him to again in an attempt to repair their friendship. While all this is going on Tim and Cassandra pull a fast one on Phil by convincing him that they are cousins and that they can only tell Phil but just when he starts to believe him they start laughing and tell him it's a joke, . . . then Phil is called to the Diary Room where he finds Tim and Cassandra who tell him it's true, they really are cousins and . . . nope, they blew it again. At the PoV Ceremony Mitch makes the grandiose mistake of calling Jared, Kelsey and Raul a cancer in the house that he wants to excise and with that Jared decides not to use the PoV and concludes the ceremony. Too bad because he had actually wanted Mitch to stay in the game as an ally but apparently Jared is the one person Mitch never spoke to about staying in the game. That speech forced Jared's hand and Mitch did exactly what he was upset about others doing . . . he made it personal.
Which of course leads us right into Episode 18 where we watch the entire HoH Competition play out and Maddy become the new HoH, which is like a death knell for Kelsey. Oddly enough Maddy raced straight over to both Raul and Jared and told each of them they were safe this week which surprised the heck out of them, but not so much as she avoided including Kelsey in that guarantee and everyone assumes she'll be putting up Kelsey and Cassandra when it comes to the nominations. Eventually Tim goes to Maddy with some advice but the advice is obviously better for his end game than hers and at this point Maddy has decided that the entire house is on an even balance and they're all targets which is not what anyone wants to hear. Even though Ramsey is feeling pretty safe, she's not playing his game either and he's not sure he likes the new Maddy but before he gets a chance to worry about that he's called to the living room where he finds a container for each houseguest and a bucket of slop which each houseguest will use in turn to decide how much slop each person gets and those with the most will be this week's HaveNots . . . which ends up being Raul, Kelsey and Nikki who has never been on slop and whom everyone is afraid to see how she'll handle it. She immediately starts in on her moaning and groaning and "why me" whining and Tim is a little afraid she's going to quit because she just keeps escalating. Eventually Nick decides to teach Nikki how to cook slop properly but she's still not going to suffer in silence. We get a little background on Joel and his time in New York but it's all so squeaky clean that I swear the whole thing is an act. There's the usual pleas from Cassandra and Kelsey to Maddy to not be put up on the block but at the Nomination Ceremony Maddy has nominated Kelsey, which surprised absolutely no one, and Jared who was obviously guilty by his association with Kelsey. When maddy goes on about how Kelsey lied to everyone Jared had to cover his laugh because that’s exactly what Maddy did to him when she told him he was safe, and then she tells Jared the reason he’s there is because of the person he’s closest to but Jared tells Maddy it’s called friendship, which prompts Kelsey to say it’s something she wouldn’t understand. Understand it or not at least Maddy seems to realize it's just a game.
Day 43 and it's Episode 19 where Maddy reveals that the only way she can guarantee that Kelsey goes home is by putting Jared up next to her but apparently she's forgotten about the whole concept of a backdoor game. With her nominations done Maddy is even more stressed out and starts hiding in the HoH room to avoid Jared but eventually Jared goes to Maddy to find that he's not her target but she can't have him voting to keep Kelsey despite both Kelsey and Jared working to keep her the previous week. As he leaves Maddy continues to hide in her room until Day 44 and the PoV Competition. Prior to the competition we see Jared on his knees in prayer and it paints a totally different picture of the young cowboy, a better one than when he and the other PoV competitors arrive in the backyard in their little white mouse uniforms with the GoPro Cameras attached to their helmets and their eyes blindfolded. That's right, it's Six Blind Mice as they need to traverse a maze in which they will find four emblems, one in each corner, which they'll need to retrieve and return to the center buzzer to win the PoV. It's a fun competition and the only one with a plan is Jared who uses a firefighting search and rescue technique that helps him to orient through the maze and eventually he does manage to get all the emblems before everyone else, despite having a heck of a time on the third one. When Raul hears that Jared has all the emblems Raul stays by the buzzer to guide Jared back and Tim can't believe that Raul would do that because if Jared goes off the block it will likely be Raul taking his place, but he obviously didn't think that through and Jared wins the PoV. Afterwards Cassandra decides it's time to up her game by manipulating Maddy into doing what she wants without Maddy knowing it and it might even be working but then Tim calls everyone to the living room where he announces that Big Brother is tired of everyone treating the house like a pig sty and that they have 20 minutes to clean up to win a reward for the entire house, HaveNots included, and it's no surprise that they win another pizza party. During the party Kelsey says she wants some music and Big Brother pumps in some techno dance music and with the alcohol flowing Tim proposes a game of Spin the Bottle but Jared disapproves, even mores when Kelsey ends up giving Nick a kiss and Jared just gets up and leaves, which prompts Kelsey to go after him and Tim to stop the game . . . now that the damage has been done. Eventually Kelsey give sup trying to apologize to Jared who has a definite jealous streak in him caused by a bit of insecurity (not a big surprise there) and when Kelsey returns to the house Cassandra can't understand why Jared is taking it so seriously. Watching those two discuss jealous cowboys is hilarious. Arisa returns to hint at another Wild Card where Canada will choose the next HoH and then we return the next day to find Jared apologizing to Kelsey for being a bit of a hot head. Raul finally realizes what he's done and goes to Maddy to try and keep himself off the block but she tells him she still doesn't know what she's going to do. We find out soon enough when, during the PoV Ceremony Kelsey tells everyone that Mitch was the unstoppable force inside the house and she just wants Jared to use the PoV on himself, which he does and follows with a speech about how hard that was because he cares so much for Kelsey and that they've formed a friendship not an alliance and with that Maddy nominates . . . Raul, who is once again on the block beside his best friend in the house. This is not going to be pretty as they throw each other under the bus throughout . . .
. . . Episode 20, which brings Arisa back for the live eviction and Day 46 where we pick up immediately after the PoV Ceremony. Raul takes Kelsey aside and apologizes beforehand that he has to campaign against her and he hopes that doesn't damage their friendship outside of the game and it's a good move on his part but neither of them is happy with it. Everyone is working everyone in an attempt to get to their own end game. Cassandra is trying to work Maddy, Raul is trying to work Nick/Phil, and as morning dawns Jared tries gathering the troops to see what's going on between Raul and Kelsey and Raul is once again apologetic but he has no choice and that angers Jared who doesn't seem to get it but at least Kelsey does. Eventually Cassandra calls everyone to the living room to watch some internet memes that have been created thanks to the Brick and then tells the houseguests they get to make their own and that the most popular houseguest meme will win a $1,000 Brick gift card . . . which goes to Tim when he creates a meme with Nick/Phil. It's time for the eviction and Arisa gives both Kelsey and Raul a chance to please their case and Raul states that he is no longer here as anyone's friend while Kelsey still wants to be friends and wants the house to decide based on their own game . . . which eventually ends in a vote of 6-1 to evict Raul from the house. He gets hugs from everyone and then joins Arisa on stage who asks why he helped Jared win the PoV and Raul says that it came down to friendship and that he knew it was a risk but he's okay with the outcome and hopes that Jared and Kelsey take it to the end. Everyone wishes him video farewells, including Kelsey who is sad to see her best friend in the house leave, and then he's off to join Mitch in the jury. Wouldn't you love to be a fly on that wall? Arisa calls the houseguests back to the living room to reveal the next Wild Card that the new HoH has been determined by the Canadian viewers and a simple game of chance. The top two choices were Nikki and Nick/Phil but after a random ball drop in the roulette wheel by each houseguests, Nick/Phil are the new Heads of Household . . . and let's be serious do any of us really want to see Nikki in charge?
So that brings all of us almost entirely up to speed on the last three weeks in the BBCan Grand. I have yet to watch Sunday's Episode 21 but I'll get that done shortly and get a review up before my Survivor review mid-week. If anyone has any comments I'd be happy to chat about any of the shows I review and I always look forward to constructive comments. If you're not following this show, no worries because I'll be back to my usual reviews shorty. See you real soon houseguests.