Howie Gordon the seventh 'Big Brother 7: All-Stars' houseguest evicted

Big Brother 7: All-Stars voted out the first of its special double eviction week evictees last night, with Howie Gordon becoming the seventh houseguest to be evicted from the show's All-Stars house.


Howie, who had been nominated for eviction by seventh Head of Household George "Chicken" Boswell, was evicted via a 3-2 split vote in which fellow nominee Erika Landin received votes from Janelle Pierzina, Howie's Big Brother 6 ally, and James Rhine (whom Janelle and Howie still believed -- hoped? -- to also be part of their Big Brother 6 alliance.) Howie received votes from "Chilltown" members Will Kirby and Mike "Boogie" Malin (whom Howie and Janelle believed they'd also allied themselves with and would be voting to keep Howie) and Danielle Reyes (the fourth member of the secret "Legion of Doom" alliance that also includes James, Will, and Mike.)

As usual, neither the current Head of Household nor the two eviction nominees were eligible to vote in the eviction balloting.

Following George's surprise Head of Household victory on Thursday's live broadcast, Big Brother host Julie Chen had informed the houseguests that the coming week would be a double eviction week and as such, George had to name his two eviction nominees immediately. Forced to reveal his nominations immediately, George -- considered to be one of the house's few remaining non-allied "floaters" at the time -- had nominated James (who had nominated George for eviction in Week 3) and Erika (who had just come off the block moments earlier) for eviction.

However unfortunately for George, James won the subsequent Power of Veto competition (which like the rest of last night's pre-taped Big Brother events actually took place on Friday), allowing him to take himself off the block and force George -- who in the interim, had decided to form an alliance with Erika -- to nominate another houseguest to take James' place. After listening to most of the other houseguests (including Erika) suggest that he nominate Janelle in James' place, George instead did the opposite, informing Janelle and Howie that James had also been among those calling for Janelle's ouster and telling them that in exchange for not nominating either of them as James' replacement, he wanted to replace James as the third member of their alliance. Having little other choice (a fact Janelle readily admitted during a subsequent Diary Room confessional), Janelle and Howie agreed to George's proposal, which also included Janelle and Howie's promise to keep Erika and vote for whoever else George decided to put on the block to replace James.


Erika didn't react well to the news of George's new plan (which included putting Will up in James' place), insisting that if he actually followed through with it, she'd end up going home instead of Will. Desperate to keep Janelle and Howie's votes from controlling her fate in the Big Brother house, Erika secretly shared George's plan to nominate Will with Mike and Danielle. Armed with Erika's tip that George was planning to put his "Chilltown" ally on the block (a move Will himself had secretly suggested to George), Mike confronted George publicly, resulting in George learning that although Will and Mike had eventually convinced her to instead nominate Marcellas Reynolds, Janelle had considered nominating George during her most recent Week 6 reign as the house's HoH. Uncertain whether that would be enough to convince George to change his plans, Mike also tried intimidation and -- while formally confirming nothing -- strongly hinted that he had won the show's new Coup d'Etat power (the exact name and nature of which still remains a secret from the rest of the houseguests.)

Feeling backed into a corner of his own but yet still a firm believer that Janelle was too good a player to be "thrown under the bus," George came up with another last minute alternative to nominating Will: nominating Howie.

Howie didn't react well to the news of his nomination, publicly declaring that this was "a free week" for him and (naively sure that Will -- who repeatedly demonstrated he couldn't be trusted during Big Brother 2 -- and Boogie would remain loyal to their alliance with Howie and Janelle) proclaiming that George wouldn't be able to get the three votes required to evict him.

Howie didn't react much better when Julie later informed him that he'd been evicted. After taking another shot at George's decision to nominate him, Howie got into a heated confrontation with Mike, whom he "thanked for the sellout."

After Howie was interviewed by Julie, the remaining houseguests competed in "Pie In The Sky," Big Brother 7: All-Stars' eighth Head of Household competition. As the outgoing HoH, George was not eligible to compete.


A true/false trivia challenge, the HoH competition tested the houseguests' memory of their previous Big Brother house activities. Every houseguest had to answer each question. If a houseguest answered a question wrong, they were eliminated from the challenge. The last houseguest left would be Big Brother 7: All-Stars' new Head of Household.

In an unusual twist that eliminated any chance that Julie could once again bungle another HoH challenge, "real-life gnomes" -- and not Julie herself -- were entrusted with the responsibility of notifying the houseguests as to whether they had answered a question correctly. Should each gnome see that their assigned houseguest had responded with the wrong answer, they would hit them with a chocolate cream pie to the face -- a subtlety that even Julie couldn't fail to detect.

After just two questions, only two houseguests remained -- Janelle and Boogie. Boogie correctly answered the third question while Janelle got it wrong, making him the show's eighth Head of Household.