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Michelle had an unmemorable few days in the Big Brother house this week.

It all started at the Head of Household endurance competition, where all eligible HouseGuests hung from a railing overlooking a safety mat, with the challenge simply seeking the HouseGuest who could hang on the longest. Following more than two hours attached to the silly apparatus, Michelle, lifeless hands and all, conceded to April, but not before making April vow that she would save herself and Jessie from eviction. During the evening's nomination ceremony, April went against her word to Michelle by nominating Jessie and Memphis for eviction (strike one).

On Tuesday, Michelle earned quite the prize at the Power of Veto competition: a Hawaiian vacay! Moments later, Libra greedily snagged her prize and replaced it with the infamous Big Brother leotard, which Michelle would later be forced to wear – like two previous HouseGuests from prior seasons – 24 hours a day for seven straight days (strike two).

And on Thursday, Michelle had to choose between the lesser of two evils by voting to evict one of her two best friends in the house – Jessie or Memphis. Jessie ultimately garnered the most eviction votes – four to Memphis' three – and promptly exited the house (strike three).

Then something unexpected happened. Michelle kicked ass in the HoH competition, and decidedly became the most powerful person in the house. So what should viewers expect to see in next week's crop of episodes? Why, revenge of course.

Week 4 at a glance

Head of Household: April
HouseGuests nominated for eviction (pre-veto): Jessie and Memphis
Power of Veto winner: Jerry
PoV used on: No one
HouseGuests nominated for eviction (post-veto): Jessie and Memphis
HouseGuest evicted live on Wednesday: Jessie
Who should have been evicted: Jessie
New HoH: Michelle
HouseGuests remaining: 9 (April, Dan, Jerry, Keesha, Libra, Memphis, Michelle, Ollie, Renny)

Memphis: "There is no alliance anymore. It's time to start from square one."

Perhaps the week's biggest story, besides Michelle's unbelievable change of luck, is the fall of the house's two largest factions. With Angie gone from the week before, and either Jessie or Memphis slated to join her in mere days, the original group comprised of Jessie, Memphis, Angie and Michelle had surprisingly collapsed at the hands of April's side.

But instead of joining this wave of loss by taking himself under, Memphis forced productive action, working behind April's back by co-conspiring with his newest game partner, Keesha (you know, the Hooters waitress). Then, in a closed doors meeting with Libra and Dan in attendance, the four became a team of sorts, vowing to keep Memphis in the game (along with the help of Renny's vote) and ditching Jessie like yesterday's news. You know what? It worked. At the eviction ceremony, Keesha, Libra, Renny and Dan* (I'll get to that asterisk) voted to evict Jessie, while Ollie, Jerry and Michelle satisfied April's request by voting to evict Memphis.

To April's surprise, the vote wasn't unanimous to rid the house of Memphis, but in fact was a close 4-3 in favor of Memphis remaining on the premises.

"And I'm proud to be an American..."

How did Dan earn that pesky asterisk? If you recall, Dan was offered the opportunity to play the game this week as America's Player. For $20,000, Dan could put his entire game on the line by playing Big Brother according to the wishes of the viewing public. He accepted.

In addition to confronting April with who she should nominate for eviction (America chose Jessie), Dan also had to hug a fellow HouseGuest for at least ten seconds (again, Jessie), and then vote for America's preferred evictee (ahem, Jessie).

Usually I find it tough to even stand this secret feature to the Big Brother game, but Dan's effort to get Jessie to hug him for a little man lovin' was too great to pass up. Faking that he got himself all worked up over a missed girlfriend, Dan was finally consoled by Jessie for not just ten seconds, but in fact 17. The challenge even showed a new side to Jessie – he really isn't a heartless buffoon after all – that hadn't been captured on CBS up to this point in the game.

Problem for Dan, though, is his $20,000 mistake cost him big time. About half of the house – Michelle, Jerry, April and Ollie – can no longer trust him because he promised their side that he'd vote in their favor, too. Because he was locked into what America wanted – keeping Memphis – Dan basically shot himself in the foot.

Final thoughts

From here, it appears like Michelle will continue working with Memphis because there's no foreseeable bad blood between either of them. Where the situation gets sticky, though, is how much larger the Michelle-Memphis grouping is likely to get.

At first glance, you'd expect Michelle to align herself with whomever Memphis is aligned with – Keesha, Libra, Renny and Dan. But all of these people voted to keep Memphis in the game, not Jessie, who Michelle absolutely preferred (and vowed to avenge for now that he's gone). Yet Michelle wouldn't be caught dead with people like April and Ollie because she quite frankly can't stand them.

What I see happening, then, is an alliance between Michelle, Memphis, Keesha and Libra, with Michelle nominating Dan and April for eviction. Dan because he went back on his word by "voting" to evict Jessie, and April because she went back on her word by nominating Jessie for eviction and then accidentally evicting him.

BOP is doing a link exchange with our good friends at Buddy TV this season. For more Big Brother info, visit their site.