Cue the Who's Going to Hook Up? session of this episode. Basically, Shannon and Will are hot for each other, and they can barely keep themselves from having sex right there, but somehow, they manage to keep their hormones under control. For now. Despite the fact that they're sleeping in the same bed, and that Will just spent the entire afternoon talking about electrons, when he knows that Shannon thinks smart guys are hot, hot, hot.

In the HoH room, Autumn tells Mike that she doesn't want to hook up with Justin, although Justin apparently thinks she does. She tells Mike that "Justin isn't [her] first choice." Mike thinks that she means he's her first choice, although we all know Autumn is hot for Hardy. Good work with the self-confidence, though, Mike. In the Big Blue Chair of Letting Her Down Easy, Hardy opines that Autumn has some neediness issues that she needs to address. In other news, Autumn cries about nothing on her bed, and says she feels excluded from the group. "Autumn better watch herself in the [next] sixteen to twenty-four hours," Mikes says ominously, like he's thinking about taking her out back and shooting her.

Next, we learn that everyone loves Sheryl, and Sheryl loves everyone. She's like the archetypical Hot Mom.

Finally, after a ton of futzing around, Mike brings out what he calls "The Box of Fate," and Krista calls Pandora's Box; the box which the HoH will use to announce the nominations. Then, Mike takes himself too seriously for about twenty minutes. I'm going to cut to the chase, though. The Box of Fate works like this: Mike loads ten of the engraved keys from the pool into pre-cut holes in the top of the box. Those keys belong to the housemates who are safe from nomination. The keys missing from the box belong to the two unlucky schmoes who have their heads on the chopping block that week. There's a whole lot of rigmarole with the keys, and it turns out that the first Schmoes are Nicole and Sheryl. Mike gives this whole long speech about why he nominated Nicole, and basically says that he nominated Sheryl, because she's so well-liked, he knows no one will chose to evict her. He's acting like a "one-man jury," he says, and he thinks that the group can lose Nicole with the least amount of pain or trouble. Everyone gets up from the table and hugs. Sheryl tells the camera that she doesn't think anything is safe or sacred, and that she's still on her guard against eviction. Nicole tells us that she thinks she can "turn it around," and that she sees "some wars" in the future. No doubt.