Josh's Luck Runs Out

Previously on Big Brother 3: Eric and Lisa spent their week on the block making out and looking deeply into each other's eyes, but their best gal pal Gidget turned down a chance to save them with the power of veto on the theory that if she did, her beloved Moondoggie might go . After a week of inept scheming and a failed attempt to throw Josh's sorry ass in front of the Julie's Couch Express to save himself, Eric got the star-crossed boot. Elsewhere, Danielle and Jason continued to operate in relative secrecy, adding Marcellas and Josh as the perfect accessories to complete their covert outfit. Ironically, Chiara won an HoH competition reliant on the ability to avoid going over the line. Julie dropped the bomb on Eric (but not yet on the remaining houseguests) that one of the evictees will be making a triumphant (or, in Amy's case, a likely intoxicated) return to the house this week.

Blue-and-white Eric is evicted. Again. Lisa and Roddy lament his departure in the diary room, while Jason tells us that he feels responsible for it, having provided the vote that made it a tie and threw the eviction to Gerry. As Jason talks, the music shifts from the typical bonging chimes of the somber elegy, O My True Love Has Gone, Gone To Julie Chen, and to a spry, vigorous violin line that I think is supposed to represent the uptick in the level of gamesmanship that you are about to see this week.

As the houseguests ponder Eric's exit and Roddy stares at the floor wondering how it all went wrong, we slide to color. Lisa reports that she's sad, and to demonstrate, we see her cleansing her face. Because Eric was the Clearasil on her blackheads of loneliness. Or something. When she's done burying her feelings of loss under a haze of salicylic acid, she and Roddy have a chat in the Aquarium Room, consoling each other over Eric's departure. They're both sad.

"Four down," Danielle smirks in the diary room, "Six to go." Danielle? Is not so sad.

Once again, we get to see blue-and-white Kiki snag HoH. Gerry points out that this development caused him some "anxiety," because he knows Chiara doesn't really like him. Of course, he probably doesn't even believe in humping the patio chairs, so I think it's just that she can't relate to him. In the diary room, she gushes that she's "excited that a girl has [HoH]," and you may consider that the intro to the lesson Chiara is endeavoring to teach us this week, which is how important it is to contribute to the cause of feminism around the globe. Oh, no -- don't yack all of your stomach contents onto the carpet yet. There's much, much more to come. Jason chimes in that having Kiki as HoH makes him nervous as well, because if she knows that he voted to evict Eric, she might have "a little revenge in store." I think he's also afraid that her HoH gifts will include strange erotic accessories that she will employ in her continuing campaign to part him from his underwear.

Chiara enters the HoH room to check out her cool basket of goodies. She pulls out some pictures of her friends, and hands them around to the other houseguests. Josh, puzzled: "You said your friends were all hot! What happened to these three?" Okay, it's rude. And it's not like it's witty or anything, but yeah, I chortled. Probably in part because I find the notion of telling everyone how hot your friends are to be so pathetic that I rather enjoy seeing her charred like a Cajun chicken sandwich for it. Roddy says in the diary room that he's really happy that Kiki is HoH, because she's "someone [he] can really believe in." Oh, look -- it's Foreshadowing (tm Sars), putting up two fingers in a "V" behind Roddy's head! Kiki talks some more about how being HoH is the bomb.

Gerry relaxes in the Aquarium Room and tells Josh that he expects to be nominated, but he refuses to spend the week fretting about it. Good for you, Gerry. Josh, still sporting the TiVo-legs beard, says that he doesn't think Gerry will necessarily be nominated, and he certainly doesn't think that he himself will be on the block. Oh, look -- now Foreshadowing is gnawing on Josh's ear! Isn't that cute? Josh, loudly, in the diary room: "Chiara as head of household? There's no way my Jew ass goes up!" The joy I am able to take in watching that remark in retrospect almost makes up for how much I detest him for making it.

Kiki and Lisa chat in the Big Bed Room, with Danielle listening in. Lisa points out that if Kiki puts up Josh, the one possible problem would be Gerry getting the veto. Chiara responds that this is no problem, because she's going to make a deal with Gerry where she'll demand that he "give his word" that he won't veto Josh, or else she'll put him up. I shouldn't be surprised by it at this point, but that is a really idiotic remark. Gerry knows they already intend on screwing him very shortly, so he has very little to lose by doing whatever he wants in spite of anything he might promise. Danielle laughs when Kiki says this, which Kiki thinks is because she's so brilliant, and which I think is because she's so comedically addlepated. Sometimes I love Danielle and sometimes I don't. This week I do.

Josh goes to Roddy with an interesting tale. It seems he spied a little handshake between Jason and Marcellas, and he now believes that they had a deal regarding the booting of Eric. Josh (fairly astutely) diary-rooms that Roddy needs to wake up and smell the spicy aroma of intrigue, because he's quite mistaken in believing that he's got the whole game and everyone in it wired. Roddy, because he trusts Marcellas more than he trusts Josh, takes this story directly to Marcellas himself. Ah, poor Josh, the Boy Who Cried Backstab. How frustrating for him -- telling the truth for once, and nobody believes him. That would make me cry if I weren't occupied with laughing with joy and clapping a pair of castanets together. Marcellas tells Roddy that Josh is full of it, as usual -- there was no deal. Marcellas and Jason did not have any sort of joint plan with regard to ousting Eric. Roddy is rather unhappy that Jason voted to boot Eric, because it turns out that Jason strongly suggested to Roddy that he would vote to boot Lisa. Roddy wants to know what the story is. His new argument is that he feels wronged by Jason's vote not because Jason didn't vote the way Roddy hoped he would, but because Jason misled him about how he planned to vote, and thus he did not say goodbye to Eric. Wow, I've driven uphill on winding Oregon mountain roads behind logging trucks weighed down with enough timber to build three towns and have enough over for a spice rack, and I've still never seen that big a load.

So now Jason has this problem. Josh has nailed him as a traitor, and Chiara is becoming concerned that she was wrong to trust him in the first place. Kiki corners Jason in the HoH room and puts him on the hot seat about his vote. He tells her that being the "fifth wheel in a couples group" (my goodness, I almost forgot that the couples still believed Jason was on their team) isn't easy, and he got concerned after he saw Eric's hard charge to sell Josh out and save himself during the week he was nominated. "So you had no deal with Marcellas?" Kiki asks him. "No," Jason says simply. Cut to Jason and Marcellas, lying in their beds. Having a deal.

Now, you are about to see what is undoubtedly one of the best strategic moves I have ever seen on this show. Danielle approaches Chiara and, by implication, thanks her for voting to keep Lisa and boot Eric. Now, you'll remember that Danielle knows that Jason and Marcellas voted to boot Eric, so because she can count substantially higher than Chiara can (as can a circus elephant, of course), she knows damn well that Kiki voted to boot Lisa. A gullible Chiara accepts Danielle's gratitude, apparently believing that Danielle is confusing her vote and Jason's vote. "Hopefully, we'll stick together," Chiara says blandly. Oh, you silly fool. ["For someone who presents herself as a master manipulator, Chiara has the WORST poker face I have ever seen." -- Wing Chun] Do you see how brilliant? In this one move, Danielle did all of the following: (1) Dispelled any notion Kiki might have that she was allied with Jason and/or Marcellas by making Kiki think she doesn't know how the voting went. (2) More generally misled Kiki regarding her level of knowledge about what's going on. (3) Gained a crucial piece of evidence she can use against Kiki at any time ("she lied to my face"). (4) Learned for sure that Kiki is absolutely not loyal to Danielle at all, because she didn't choose to tell Danielle the truth. Absolute freaking genius.

And here's the big payoff, where Danielle makes her big move. That night, Danielle and Lisa are the only two people in the Big Bed Room as they lie in the dark. "Think about the votes," Danielle says intensely. "It was Marcellas, myself, and Jason," she continues. There is a pause. "Oh, no," Lisa says with genuinely pained disappointment, having just figured out what Danielle is telling her. "I swear on my children's life," Danielle says softly. An angry Lisa curses Chiara's betrayal in the diary room. I think Danielle must also know that Josh made up a lot of hooey about Lisa badmouthing Chiara and must tell Lisa that, because Lisa's comment to Danielle is that Chiara is going to feel pretty damn stupid when she watches the show later and finds out that Lisa never said a bad thing about her. Sadly, I doubt Chiara will have the sense to feel as bad as she should. Furthermore, I don't think Lisa is done feeling bad yet, because I suspect that what will pain her the most when she watches the show later will be seeing that Chiara didn't just stab her in the back for strategic purposes, but also felt the need to sit around talking about how stupid and annoying Lisa is. It's going to be that "I have friends, and they're nothing like Lisa...they're awesome" conversation with Roddy that's going to hurt.

And now it's time for the inspiring story of Gerry's Adventures in Physical Fitness. He explains that he's taking the opportunity in the house to get in shape. He does the glider, he lifts weights, and he even does Danielle's Ab Class of Torture and Death. Jason comments that it's clear to everyone that Gerry's clothes are looser, face looks thinner, et cetera. And darned if it isn't true. And then, in my favorite moment by far, Gerry looks over at Marcellas while they are lying in chairs by the pool and says, "Marcellas, my pants are getting baggy!" He does it in this high-pitched squeaky-girl voice, and it's completely adorable, because he totally deserves every smidge of pleasure he's taking in it. In the bathroom, though, he examines himself in the mirror. "Still too fat, still too fat," he mutters. Hee.

The monks start yodeling again as we return to Roddy, The Thinker. Only now, it seems like those who loved him last time are starting to find him a bit of a windbag. This time, we see him telling Josh that when a whip cracks, it's a mini sonic boom. I should start by saying that as a general matter, I am biased toward Roddy's position in this segment, for the simple reason that I tend to like people who tell me weird and obscure things I don't know, especially if they know a lot about things I know nothing about. I really don't get tired of this sort of thing nearly as quickly as normal people do, so I'm not a good judge. However, he blows his entire advantage with me by gently pointing out that he has trouble talking to the other people in the house, because they talk about "pop culture" and "television shows." Ugh. Dude, you're on reality television. You're doing it right now. Not only that, but you're on the dumbest, trashiest reality show of them all. Please don't imply in any way that you're too good for TV. (An ideal person, of course, knows a lot about the climate on Mercury and the history of the socket wrench, and also knows about pop culture and television shows. That's how you know you are in the presence of greatness. I should point out here by way of illustration that one of my friends once hypothesized that he was the probably the only person who was upset that Cleopatra 2525 was on at the same time as Prime Minister's Questions.) So I feel for Roddy that he has nobody with whom to discuss philosophy, but he's getting no sympathy because he has to sit through discussions of popular culture, because if you can't find anything interesting in that, you're not trying. Chiara diary-rooms, essentially, that Roddy's sentence structure is too complex for her tiny brain to comprehend. Danielle tells us that she doesn't know what to do except pretend to care, either. In a particularly great moment, Chiara comments that it's just not important to her that Roddy knows really wild, advanced, mysterious things like the names of all the provinces in Canada. (Let's see...there's Ontario...and Alberta...and Port Charles...and the Congo...and Mazatlan...but I don't know the rest of them.) Roddy has a talk with Chiara and Josh about the fact that it's been made perfectly clear to him that everyone finds him boring, so he's decided not to talk at all anymore. They assure him that everyone in the house makes fun of him largely because they know that he's smarter than they are (which is true) and that they secretly are really, really listening to everything he has to say (which is not true). Josh also says he's used to being the smartest person he hangs out with. I think he must spend a lot of time with the cat.

And now the Chiara Sex Segment. See, it turns out, as if you haven't figured this out yet, that she talks compulsively about her sex life, her various body parts, and her interest or lack thereof in the sex lives and body parts of others. She also enjoys waggling her what-have-you in the faces of anyone within a twenty-foot radius. The people in the house get that she's trying to be funny, but they obviously find it tiresome. It's not that they're offended, exactly -- it's that they're bored with her. In the Big Bed Room one night, she throws her legs in the air in a wide straddle, announcing that she's trying to see what she looks like in various sexual positions. "Keek, wait until I leave, okay?" Jason says good-naturedly, half-kidding and half-not. One afternoon during one of their many bouts of sunbathing, she starts to catalog her sexual history for the rest of the houseguests. Gosh, thanks. "I say a lot of stuff that I really don't mean, to be different," she explains in the diary room. "Like, 'Girls shouldn't talk like that,' so why don't I talk like that?" Jason points out that she intentionally tries to embarrass him, which I think he knows is affectionate in its own way, but from which I'm sure he could live with the occasional respite. "Stereotypes were made to be broken," she says, "and double-standards were made to be proven wrong." She goes on to say that she's "sure there are many girls who can relate to [her]," and "many girls who are appalled by [her]." Yeah, put me under that second one. Especially now.

Look, Chiara. You are not advancing feminism by throwing your legs in the air, compulsively discussing your sex life, wearing peanut butter on your genitalia, or especially by boring a house full of people with your ironically sexless antics. It has been said over and over again, but perhaps it will always bear repeating: Feminism is not choosing to be one kind of woman, and it is not choosing to be another kind of woman. It is the very act of choosing the kind of woman you want to be, and even more, it is the genuinely rebellious act of daring to be more than one kind at the same time. Allowing your decisions to be dictated by what you think other people expect you to do is as foolish if your reaction is hostile to those expectations as if it is obedient to them, because either way, you are ruled by a million voices in your head that are not your own. Either way, you are bound to lose track of everything that is genuine and natural about yourself. The issue presented by a stereotype is the very fact that it flattens you into a one-dimensional cartoon, not whether it chooses to make you Minnie Mouse or Jessica Rabbit, as it were. The way you act is the way you act, but if you want to stand toe-to-toe with women who really do defy stereotypes, you had better be prepared to take responsibility for those choices and not try to pawn them off on the many burdens society places upon you. In short? Behave like a graceless buffoon if you will, but don't delude yourself that it makes you a pioneer.

The houseguests wake up the morning to find a message on the plasma screen that says, "EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED." Everyone is uneasy -- what does this mean? Rather hilariously, Kiki says she wondered whether someone had it in for her, which I suppose means that she feared that someone had broken into the Big Brother control rooms and put this message on the screen, and was now hiding behind one of the fake walls, just waiting for an opportunity to jump out and poke her with a fork or something. It's really not likely, dear. ["It's a beautiful notion, though." -- Wing Chun]

More peanut butter anguish. Apparently, Chiara's approach has been to distract herself from food all week by doing chores around the house, which means she's spending a whole lot of time cleaning. She washes up in the kitchen, she does the laundry, she sorts the towels, she cleans the bathroom...ah, Chiara, the messenger of cleanliness. Irony: You're Soaking In It.

Time for the food competition. It's one of those pull-things-out-of-a-stack games, sort of like Jenga, only with what look like giant paper towel tubes. Not only is this game not interesting in and of itself, but there is very little personal conflict. Josh bitches some, and Marcellas bitches some, but there's very little to it. They get a reasonable but not marvelous haul of food. I do think there's entirely too much excitement about the halibut. Have these people ever eaten halibut? From their reactions, I secretly suspect that they think it's a kind of steak.

Everyone is herded into the living room, where it is time to find out about this business with expecting the unexpected. The houseguests are surprised to see clips of Lori, Amy, and Tonya living it up in Mexico. They seem genuinely happy to see the evictees having a good time, and there is a particular burst of happy giggles at the sight of Amy sipping her margarita. The annoying Big Brother voice goes on to explain that the three Mexican revelers -- in addition to Eric -- have been sequestered and haven't seen the show. And now, one of them is coming back. There is an interesting mix of excitement and dismay -- Josh and Roddy are dismayed, Jason is excited...it's hard to gauge some of the reactions. "Scandalous!" Danielle yells. I am officially done with Danielle and "scandalous," as much as I love her these days. As the houseguests consider the implications of this development, they're all sort of tickled at the thought of someone they like potentially returning, but they also realize that their various strategies have taken a serious hit. Marcellas talks about how happy he was to see Amy's face, and Lisa tells us that she would be thrilled to see Eric -- but she's not sure that would be the best thing strategically. Hmm.

Sexual Frustration Follies. Josh likes looking at the sunbathing chicks, and he's not too thrilled about the lack of action. Danielle, Lisa, and Kiki discuss their sex drives, and agree they have needs. (Therapy, in Chiara's case, not that she's noticed.) Kiki says she can't stand to watch Roddy work out, so hot and bothered does she become. The Bongos of Lust kick in as people wiggle and flirt and get wet and whip each other with towels. Jason says there may be sexual frustration in the house, but then adds, "I'm a bad judge of that." I think pretty much everyone in the audience can be forgiven for filling in the rest of that sentence, which goes, "...because I feel that way all the time." Bongos, bongos, bongos! Marcellas owns up to being attracted to Roddy and Jason (me too, man; don't kick yourself too much), but not so much to Gerry. In the hot tub, Chiara breaks the news to Josh that he doesn't need to think too hard about what he would do if presented with the opportunity to get lucky with the girls in the house. "None of us would ever do that," she says flatly. There is a pause. "Arguably the meanest thing I've ever heard said in my life," Roddy says matter-of-factly. Back inside, lizard sex ensues. No, really.

Kiki and Lisa have a moron-to-girl chat about loyalty and other inconvenient details. Chiara somberly asks whether what Josh told her -- that Lisa said nasty things about her and vowed to get her booted -- is true. Lisa swears she didn't. A frustrated Chiara hates herself for having believed Josh. "Does Danielle know [you heard this]?" Lisa asks. "Danielle knows," Kiki says gravely, "but Danielle knows at the end of the day I didn't go with that." HA! You're so screwed, Chiara. And such a very, very poor liar. See how good it was, what Danielle did earlier? With the total fooling of this silly person? Simply brilliant. "You have my loyalty. That goes without saying," Chiara says, more unaware of what's going on around her than your average ham sandwich.

Stage One of Josh's Descent Into Madness occurs when he begs Kiki to put his key in the box first so he'll know he's safe immediately. He says in the diary room that he's pretty sure that he, Chiara, and Roddy are "on the same page." Uh huh. And at the top of that page, it says, "Chapter One: Josh Is Delusional." Chiara pulls Gerry into the HoH room for a chat about the pirate Badbeard himself. She wants to know what sort of deal Gerry and Josh have; Gerry assures her it was a one-week thing, and it's all over. Roddy slips into the room and joins the conversation just as Chiara asks Gerry whether, if she agrees not to nominate him, he'll promise to boot Josh. He says yes. "On my dead mother's soul," he swears. Roddy starts to ask Gerry something else, and it is at this point that Kiki looks over at Roddy and says, "I'm thinking of putting you up." "Really?" Roddy asks. Gerry leaves, and Roddy turns to Chiara. "When did you come up with this plan?" he asks incredulously. She tells him that "sometimes you have to take a risk to get the bad person out." He wants to know whether she's been talking this up with other people behind his back, or whether she just thought of it now. She swears she hasn't discussed it with anyone. He notes in the diary room that "decoys have been sitting on the beach in Mexico," so he's not feeling too safe and secure about going on the block as some sort of complex, double-somersault-with-a-twist maneuver. Back in the HoH room, Kiki tells Roddy that nominating him with Josh is "almost like a 'ha-ha,' like." "To you," he quite correctly says. She diary-rooms that it's to her advantage to show everyone that she isn't necessarily in any particularly strategic alliance with Roddy, no matter how often she shakes her bon-bon for his personal amusement.

And now, things get really emotionally tangled in the HoH room. "Do you think Lisa would have put Eric on the block?" Roddy asks. Ooh, comparing her merit as a girlfriend to his buddy's girlfriend? Low. Accurate, but low. "I'm not Lisa," Chiara says. Somewhere, Lisa's mother looks at the sky and clasps her hands together gratefully. "I'd never put you up," Roddy says, "and you've told me right to my face you'd never put me up." "Give me a better option," she says. Good grief, from her perspective? Danielle and Josh! Marcellas and Jason! Marcellas and Josh! Jason and Gerry! In other words, I don't think the "I have no choice" argument has the remotest applicability here. Things are tense within the closed circle of the Greatest Love The World Has Ever Known, for obvious reasons.

A rip-off of Annie Lennox's "Why" plays as Jason explains that the inability to have even short escapes from the house has begun to stress him out. Roddy says that as nominations approach, he's nervous, so much so that he spent fifteen minutes turning into a prune in the shower, feeling the clench in the pit of his stomach. Kiki claims to have been "a basket case" all day. And then it's time for the noms, at last. She gathers the keys, ritual, key-pulling, et cetera. And the nominees are? Josh...and Roddy. Yep, she actually did it. Chiara tells Josh that she nominated him because he has betrayed her trust a couple of times now, most recently with the nasty lying about Lisa, which she describes to everyone. She says that she nominated Roddy because she knew that if she didn't, he might vote for Josh, and she wants Josh out without one vote of dissent. She asks everyone, in considering whom to vote for, to think about times when they "felt betrayed." (Well, she would like everyone except Lisa to think about this.) And times when they felt like they were "being played." (Well, again, she wouldn't want Lisa to fixate on this too much.) Chiara says they'll find it was always Josh who was screwing them. (She is speaking, of course, of people other than, you know, Lisa.)

Marcellas expresses relief in the diary room that someone finally put Josh on the block in a situation where he's highly likely to get booted. Gerry discusses the promise he made to Roddy and Chiara. "I made a very solemn promise to get Josh out. On the soul of my dead mother...which is about as solemn of an oath as a person can take. But...." He pauses perfectly. "My mother would understand." Hee! I laughed out loud at that. Probably because my mother really would understand. Mom's hip to the compromises that are necessary in reality TV. Also, she's still alive, despite the fact that when I was in seventh grade, I swore on her life that it was not me who sent that anonymous flower on Valentine's Day, when really it was...I'm sorry, where was I? Oh, yeah. Danielle finds the concept of having a shot at booting Roddy very intriguing all of a sudden.

In Stage Two of Josh's Descent Into Madness, Josh declares that he's taking a powder, period. You can't fire him. He quits. Whee!

Wednesday. Previously, Josh had a cartoon beard.

Blue-and-white Kiki nominates Josh again. Hipster, quasi-Pulp-Fiction, twangy guitars cover Josh's blue-and-white packing frenzy. As we go to color, Josh diary-rooms that he's been played by "an incredibly treacherous bitch." He opines that the fact that she was able to line up the votes for his ouster in advance shows that Chiara is "manipulative." Yeah. Either that, or everyone hates you. Kiki, in turn, diary-rooms that she put Roddy up because he refused to go along with her plan to deliver unto Josh the unanimous boot. Lisa, meanwhile, is just happy that Josh's slanderous treatment of her came to light around the nomination table. As Josh is packing, Lisa approaches him and asks what exactly he accused her of saying when he talked to Chiara. He double-talks and equivocates, trying desperately to avoid answering her. He ultimately changes the subject by telling her that Roddy, and not he, was the one who talked Kiki into voting to evict Lisa. "Don't play with darkness, Josh," Lisa cautions him as she leaves. I'm sorry, but that was stupid. It wanted to be funny, but she didn't carry it off. She's still working on her dark side, I suppose.

Lisa comes to talk to Danielle, and explains that Kiki grabbed her out in the yard and begged for reassurance that Roddykins would be spared. Lisa finds this rather bitterly vile, considering that Chiara wants her own boy toy spared by Lisa, who just lost hers. Danielle diary-rooms that she did give Kiki her word that she wouldn't vote to evict Roddy, but she's considering changing her mind, because it might just be too good a chance to pass up at getting rid of Roddy. Danielle tells Lisa not to worry about Chiara for now -- they'll "get her in due time." Heh. I'll take "Future Moments For Which I Can Only Hope I Have Enough Popcorn," for $1000.

Josh confronts Roddy in the kitchen, accusing him of having been in on this whole boot-Josh plan. Roddy points out that putting himself on the block certainly wasn't his idea. Josh says that's easy for him to say, because he already knows the votes are locked up. Roddy (correctly) points out that nobody ever knows the votes are locked up, so there's no way in hell he would have agreed to be nominated. Roddy insists to Josh that the whole reason he himself was put up was that he told Chiara he wouldn't vote against Josh. That may sound like crap, but it's actually consistent with what Kiki told the DR. In the Big Bed Room, Lisa and Danielle overhear snips of this fight. Shortly, it turns to a dispute between Josh and Roddy about who it was, really, that convinced Chiara to vote out Lisa. Was it Josh, with his evil stories of Lisa's trash talk, or was it Roddy, with his voodoo vibes of love? Lisa goes to the Big Bed Room door to listen. Eventually, she wanders out to the kitchen, where Chiara has now joined the conversation as well. Josh hems and haws a bit about having told Chiara he heard Lisa say she hated Kiki for not vetoing her. Lisa insists it's impossible that he could have heard such a thing, because she told Kiki from the beginning that she'd understand if she didn't use the veto. So she knows he's lying. "You're juggling, baby," Lisa says to Josh, "and you're dropping your balls." Now we're getting somewhere. That was much, much better than "Don't play with darkness." It was, in fact, nearly clever. There's a little more bickering, and then Lisa walks away from Josh, Chiara, and Roddy and heads for the Big Bed Room. She bites her finger, though, which means she needs a new storming-out-of-the-room gesture, if nothing else, because biting your finger just does not look intimidating. Chiara follows her, because of course, Chiara thinks Lisa just found out that Kiki voted to boot her, right there during that argument.

Kiki follows Lisa into the Big Bed Room, and while Lisa diary-rooms that she considered closing the door in Kiki's face (now that's entertainment!), she ultimately doesn't do it. Chiara is still convinced that they're bestest friends, so she's trying to make sure Lisa isn't mad at her for, you know, voting to evict her. Lisa says she still thinks that Josh will leave voluntarily before they even make it to evictions. Chiara returns to the justifying of her own behavior. She now claims that she knew it was going to be a tie, so she knew...well, I don't even get it. I guess she's saying she voted against Lisa to make somebody else (Roddy?) think she was on his side, and she knew it didn't matter because she knew Gerry would boot Eric...or something. Lisa doesn't really want to go through it all again; she's just happy that Josh is leaving. "I can't deal with liars," she says softly. Chiara looks like she just ate a frog. A spoiled frog.

Josh continues packing for his dramatic departure, and now he is visited by Danielle. She tries to talk to him, but he just mutters and babbles about his doom. "If you think for a minute that Chiara's an ally, actions will speak much louder than words," he says. Oh, Josh. Like Danielle could ever be that dumb, ever. Danielle goes from the Aquarium Room where Josh is packing to the Big Bed Room, where she talks to Lisa again. Lisa tells her that now that she knows Chiara and Roddy worked together to oust her, she's ready to put the two of them on the block if she gets HoH. Danielle responds that she's almost ready to break her word to Chiara that she wouldn't vote out Roddy. Lisa tells Danielle the tale of Chiara's pathetic attempt to claim that she had the whole tie scenario knocked from the beginning and never intended for Lisa to go. "She's full of shit," Danielle says simply. Lisa knows. They talk about Kiki's sad efforts to appear credible through pathetically attentive eye contact, and Lisa does a pretty accurate Chiara impression. Hee, I love mockery. Just then, Eye Contact Girl walks right into the room. Danielle continues playing Chiara beautifully, this time by shifting the subject and telling Kiki all about Josh's continuing meltdown and his declaration that Danielle will never make it to the end with the girls as her allies.

In one of her more truly bizarre moves, Kiki brings Josh into the HoH room with her. She claims in the diary room that this was an attempt to "make amends," although it doesn't appear that's the case at all. He tells her that she betrayed his trust twice, once when she voted to boot him when he was up against Tonya, and once when she put him up against Roddy. She diary-rooms thoughtfully that she hasn't "betrayed a friend" in a while. I guess she had almost forgotten how. Back in the room, she tells Josh that she put him up, essentially, because she and Roddy don't trust him. She reports that Roddy was relieved when Kiki won HoH, because he had suspected that Josh would put him up if he won. Quite surprisingly, in Stage Three of Josh's Descent Into Madness, this hits Josh quite hard, and he begins to tear up almost immediately at the thought that Roddy doesn't trust him. I do think he's sincerely hurt about the thing with Roddy, but his teary comment -- that Roddy and Kiki are the "two people" he actually cares about -- appears to be crap. He's certainly talked enough trash about her that I don't think he's exactly crying himself to sleep over her opinion of him. Roddy's opinion, though? Yeah, a little. He returns to Youth Hostel Lite and keeps packing.

As Josh's packing continues, he gets a visit from Roddy, who wants to know what's up with the voluntary exit. Josh tells him that the vote has already been settled, and he's not going to sit around and try to get people to vote against Roddy instead, so he's leaving. Roddy gets him to stop packing for a second and sit down. He tells Josh that if he walks out on his own, he'll always regret it. He asks Josh to stay and spend the week in the house, and the two of them won't talk about the game, won't talk about voting, won't work other people over, and will just sorta hang out. Josh has an almost freakishly happy reaction to this, and Roddy goes over and gives him a hug. That scene was...weird. ["I think a rather large chunk of it was cut, because the transition from bitter, packing Josh to weepy, maudlin Josh was very abrupt." -- Wing Chun] Normally, I don't really go in for the everything-is-secretly-homoerotic approach, but...yeah, Josh acts a bit smitten, I will agree. Josh unpacks.

Gerry farts in the kitchen. (It appears to be early morning, and there's nobody around, so...whatever.) Gerry coughs. Gerry belches. Gerry picks his ears. Chiara talks about how everything Gerry says is so boring that they call him "The Portable So-What." She, of course, speaks as a person who is far more able to make interesting conversation, as long as you want to discuss her favorite sexual positions. Marcellas talks in the diary room about how tiresome Gerry is, and again, I would point out that Marcellas is not exactly the most sparkling conversationalist in the history of mankind. He reports that the houseguests hand Gerry off like an unwanted child they have to babysit. Has anybody ever brought this up with Gerry? Hard to say. It's so much easier to just talk about people behind their backs, isn't it? Roddy compares Gerry to Forrest Gump, which is a pot-kettle setup if ever there was one. Lisa's beef is a bit more sensible, because she's not happy that he coughs over food without covering his mouth, and I have to go along with that one. Furthermore, I am also with Danielle's disgust when she says incredulously in the Big Bed Room that Gerry washes his underwear in the kitchen sink. This sends Marcellas, germophobe that he is, into a somewhat justified fit. Then they discuss the fact that they also think Gerry eats too fast or something, and now we're back on seventh-grade crap, because that's certainly not hurting anyone. How can people who smear peanut butter on themselves complain that someone else's chewing gives them the squicks? I mean, honestly. Chiara goes on about how he stores food in his teeth like squirrels do in their cheeks, and coming from someone else, I might be able to laugh, but coming from her? No. But I will totally agree with Lisa when she says it's nasty that, after he works out, he takes his sweaty shirt and throws it into the dryer with the clean laundry. Ew. This entire avalanche of gripes is the weirdest combination of a bum rap and valid complaints I've seen in quite some time. Speaking of which, now Marcellas starts bitching about what Gerry looks like without his shirt on, and shut up, Marcellas. Lisa was happy to see Gerry showering. Amen to that.

In the Big Bed Room, Danielle raises the unthinkable with Marcellas: what if they booted Roddy instead of Josh? Marcellas reacts with horror, because he doesn't think tactically like Danielle does. He thinks emotionally, and he still hates Josh so much he can't really bring himself to be strategic. ["If I were in the house, I would be Marcellas." -- Wing Chun] Danielle asks him to consider it. She diary-rooms that it would take three votes to oust Roddy. Later, Marcellas tells her he might consider it if they could find the third vote for sure. They agree that they'll rarely have a better shot at Roddy, so it's awfully tempting to go for it. But Marcellas is only willing to go along if they know for sure that it's a done deal. They aren't confident they can convince Lisa, though, and Danielle reports that Jason told her he couldn't do it -- probably because everyone is already suspicious of him because of the Eric/Lisa vote, and if he wants to continue to have a toe in the opposing camp (which benefits Danielle as well as himself), he can't give them additional reasons to worry. Or else because he likes Roddy. They move on to Gerry, who enters at a particularly convenient moment. He's distracted by worries about the returning evictee, because if it's Eric, he's convinced he's out the door. Gerry wants to think about the whole idea of booting Roddy, but he's willing to consider it (in spite of his dead mother's soul and that sort of thing). Gerry says that breaking his word would be wicked yet oddly appropriate: "It's cold-hearted, it's strategic, it's nasty -- it's Big Brother 3." Good point. More lying! More fighting! It's the only chance we have against boredom!

Roddy and Josh talk in the Aquarium Room. Roddy repeats to Josh that he's not enjoying this week they're going to be spending together on the block any more than Josh is. Josh declares that if he gets the veto, he is indeed going to use it on Roddy. Josh is very depressed, and as he begins Stage Four Of Josh's Descent Into Madness, Roddy comes over and gives him a very manly hug.

The day, it's time for the veto competition. As usual, the veto competition is boring. It is almost as boring as the veto itself, considering that no one ever uses it. This week's competition involves placing groups of five still shots of events that happened in the house in chronological order. Snore. Lisa wins. In the most entertaining moment of the competition, Chiara gets a big fat zero in the first round. She is...really something.

Veto-victorious Lisa says she thinks it will be fun to make some people squirm this week. More generally, she says that since Eric left and she found out that Chiara had screwed her, she's become much more ruthless. To wit, she drags Kiki out of the living room for a convo in the HoH room. Her purpose is basically to reassure Kiki that she isn't holding a grudge, because last week was last week. Chiara starts to justify herself again, and Lisa basically tells her not to bother -- all she can do is say something that's going to make Lisa regret forgiving her. In the diary room, Lisa says that it is a common characteristic of liars that they give too much information. Back in the HoH room, an undeterred Kiki continues to explain to Lisa why voting to evict her wasn't really Kiki's fault. Again, Chiara refers to this conversation with Lisa as "making amends," and I'm just really not sure she knows what "making amends" means. Chiara diary-rooms that she hopes this conversation will "open the doors for [them] to be friends." Oh, I don't think so, my dear. "I don't know how to tell Kiki to stop lying to me," Lisa diary-rooms with a chuckle.

More anti-Chiara sentiments are on the rise in the Big Bed Room, which has apparently been taken over by Marcellas, Danielle, and Lisa. They discuss what a big liar Chiara has turned out to be, and they also agree that getting Roddy out is key to declawing Kiki. Hmm.

The houseguests spend some time ruminating about the whole returning-houseguest scenario. Gerry and Kiki talk while they squeeze-dry some towels. They both think it sucks. Kiki thinks (unsurprisingly enough) that it would be okay if Eric came back, just not anybody else. Later, she asks Lisa if Lisa misses Eric, and Lisa says she does. Jason, in a chat with Roddy, Dani, and Gerry, can't stop babbling happily about how cool it will be just to see someone who's seen the outside world since early July. Marcellas talks quite nicely about Amy and how much he misses her, and how much easier it was to be in the house when he had someone there that he could just be close to and be friends with. Roddy thinks it's going to be tough for anyone except Eric to "fit in again." Just his objective opinion, of course. Josh chimes in that if Tonya comes back, the women will all turn into castrating, anti-male bitches. Because of Tonya? Please. Josh's fear and loathing of women grows ever more creepy.

Time for America's Choice. The houseguests get a microwave. Yay, radiation! The one highlight is that as the segment begins to run on the plasma screen, several of them snap and wiggle to that hideous light-FM theme music in a way that clearly indicates how much they hate it. I'll give them a point for that. We get relatively modest product placement, in that no one actually tells you what brand of microwave popcorn the microwave is filled with when they get it. The other highlight is that the microwave comes with a clock, which they set using a spontaneously-determined, somewhat random time that is probably accurate within...two hours or so. They appear to spend the several hours scarfing popcorn.

Josh acts like a complete and utter spaz in a montage that is designed either to make him beloved or get him committed, depending on your perspective. He makes a lot of weird noises. I don't know. Marcellas still thinks he's stupid and nasty. Oh, and we get to see him fart, because what's more entertaining than that? Chiara comments that although Josh is funny, "there's a deep sadness in him." Well, yes. Most creeps are like that, if you know anything about creeps. (And believe me, I do.) Chiara talks about how much "more" she can see in his eyes, and then we go to this crazy-ass shot of Josh, staring at us with this blank, serial-killer expression that's about three degrees to the left of that guy you see in the paper who just got arrested for trying to set some minor celebrity's house on fire. Jason is sure there's a "great guy" hiding underneath Josh's many layers of evil. Roddy says Josh is secretly "a softie." The only thing I really care about is that we've reached a point where the TiVo beard is almost entirely gone from the footage they're using of Josh. At some point, he at least shaved, and I am grateful for small favors at this point.

Stage Five of Josh's Descent Into Madness. Josh sits on his cot in Youth Hostel Lite, snorfling to Roddy about the fact that he doesn't have very many friends. You know, I feel for the guy, but he might consider examining his behavior for clues about why his social life isn't flourishing the way he might like. Roddy tells Josh not to worry -- Roddy is his friend. Josh tells Roddy he's "one of the greatest people I've ever met in my life." In the diary room, Josh talks about how much he cherishes the friends he has (according to the principles of supply and demand, I suppose), and yes, it's clear that both in the conversation with Roddy and in the diary room, he's choked up. Sigh. In the diary room, he declares that he "love[s] Roddy." Roddy says Josh is "a rare person" he's "glad [he] got to meet." ["Which makes it sort of sound like Josh is a unique specimen in which Roddy is interested for purely clinical reasons. That's how I choose to interpret that comment, anyway." -- Wing Chun]

Josh cries in the bathroom.

Later, Josh comes to the Big Bed Room for a chat with Lisa. His message to her: Please veto Roddy. Please, please veto Roddy. Roddy didn't deserve to be nominated, Roddy's never been anything but nice to anyone, Roddy is shiny and smells good, et cetera. "I would give you anything," he pleads. He cries some more. Lisa looks at him somberly. "I just beg you to use that power of veto on him," Josh says miserably. Lisa acknowledges him with a tiny, serious nod. He starts for the door. "Just look in that heart, that's all I ask." He leaves. The second -- and I mean the second -- he's gone, Lisa cracks up. Leans forward with her head in her hands, and cracks up. Which was very, very funny, although ironically I think that for once, Josh was slightly sincere, which makes it seem a little mean. But mostly? Fun-ny.

Lisa holds the veto meeting. Roddy is the first to get the chance to beg for his life, and he just tells her he'll support whatever she does. Josh, on the other hand, takes this opportunity to enter Stage Six of Josh's Descent Into Madness, by raving about Kiki and her backstabbing. He points out that she promised not to vote for him and did, she promised not to put him up and did, she voted to boot Lisa, she put Roddy on the block...he's not sure she's too well-positioned to question his integrity the way she did when she put him up. Which, although I'm not sure it has a lot to do with using the veto, is a fair point. In fact, it's so fair that Chiara literally starts to squirm on the couch. Danielle diary-rooms that Chiara's discomfort was understandable: "He was telling the truth." Again, Josh begs Lisa to veto Roddy. She voices-over that as Josh talked, she realized that everything he was saying about Kiki was essentially true, and she almost considered vetoing Roddy. Presumably, though, she would realize that the last thing that's going to make a good punishment for Kiki at this point is vetoing Roddy. She stands up and announces that she's not using the veto. "My heart doesn't hear your words," she says to Josh, sounding rather forced.

Lisa diary-rooms that she made this decision because vetoing Roddy and forcing Chiara to make another nomination would just make Lisa a target, and she decided to leave it alone. Kiki, in turn, diary-rooms that she was unhappy with what Josh said, but it's not as if it was said by anyone she cares about. You'll want to compare that to the numerous times this week she has claimed to care about Josh. "Inside, she knows what a ruthless, scumbag bitch she is," Josh says. How can he be essentially right and also so deeply, deeply creepy? When everyone else is gone, Roddy thanks Josh for the effort on his behalf, and Josh comments on the "irony" (well...not really, but closer than Alanis) of Lisa saving Chiara's bacon, because Kiki worked so hard to boot Lisa. In the HoH room, an oblivious Chiara hugs Lisa, because the two of them are bestest friends! You can actually see Lisa physically recoiling from this hug, even as she participates in it. Kiki bitches to Lisa about how horrible Josh just was, and Lisa pretends to care. Danielle comes in, and she gives Kiki a hug, too, even as she says in the diary room that everything Josh said was true. Which...it was. You know what it reminded me of, Josh's rant? It reminded me of the part in Liar, Liar where Jim Carrey goes around the table and yells at everyone about how this one wears a toupee, and that one watches pornography, and that one is impotent...it's just this convulsive display of truth from an obvious crazy person, which is quite disorienting.

Roddy hugs Kiki in the kitchen as she bitches some more about not "stooping" to Josh's level. Darling, there is nowhere to go from where you are but up. Elsewhere, Josh vows to hurt Chiara on the Thursday live show just like she set out to hurt him: "I'm going to make her feel as worthless as she really is." Again, fair enough. Again, totally freaking scary. And that's Stage Seven of Josh's Descent Into Madness.

Thursday. Previously, Josh shaved.

Julie recaps recent events. She's back to pirate-lingerie mode, in slim black pants and a blue shirt with little laces all up the front. Julie, I'm begging you. Eat a cracker. And couldn't you wear a shirt with just...you know, buttons?

Blue-and-white Kiki nominates Josh yet again, and then blue-and-white Lisa doesn't use the veto. The opening theme of this episode is Josh's love for the lizards. He goes into a fairly elaborate diary room explanation of how much he loves the lizards, and "how much personality they have." He talks about how he uses the lizards as confidantes, because they're more trustworthy than his housemates. Also, he has more in common with them, although he doesn't quite say that.

Speaking of trustworthiness, Josh now begins his not-so-subtle campaign to get Roddy booted instead of himself. He explains in the diary room that this vote should be easy, and he goes on to elaborate on this point to Gerry in the Aquarium Room. Roddy, he explains, is easily the most dangerous player, and they're not going to get that many chances to boot him. "It's been discussed," Gerry allows. Gerry advises Josh to "lay low," which is exactly the right advice, which is exactly how you know it isn't what Josh will do. "Anybody who would vote me out over Roddy clearly has no concept of how to play this game," Josh tells us. He's still a dickhead, but he's also right. At Gerry's suggestion (which is a bit in conflict with the "lay low" advice), Josh goes around trolling for votes. He tells Jason to think about who he would and would not want to be with in the final two. He asks Danielle for mercy, flat-out.

We interrupt the proceedings for a pathetically overblown lizard metaphor, in which Josh says, "The big guy's a lot more chill than the little guy...the little guy, right now, he's looking for an escape route." Did you catch the symbolism? It's sitting on your head, so if you're looking for it, just roll your eyes to the heavens, and you can't miss it.

Danielle says in the diary room that Roddy is too good a player to leave in the game, and then she asks Lisa "what's worse -- a wolf, or a wolf in sheep's clothing?" (I'm just relieved that the captioners wrote "sheep's" and not "sheeps," given their well-known aversion to properly placed apostrophes.) Danielle suggests to Lisa that if they can successfully boot Roddy now, booting Chiara will be a walk in the park. Elsewhere, Gerry agrees to approach Marcellas on Josh's behalf, at least enough to see whether it's possible that his vote could be dislodged. Danielle fills Marcellas in that indeed, the possibility of evicting Roddy is being talked about at Josh's behest. And to whom is this information carried by Marcellas? To Roddy. Oh, Marcellas, you foolish boy.

Roddy confronts Josh outside about Josh's having broken their pledge not to campaign against each other. I would point out, of course, that this was an easy pledge for Roddy to make, given that it appeared that booting Josh was a foregone conclusion, and there were plenty of people to advocate that position if it became necessary, whereas the only person who was ever going to make a case on Josh's behalf was...well, Josh. Josh denies having campaigned, trying to draw some kind of bizarre distinction between real campaigning and whatever it is he's doing. Roddy scoffs at some sort of line between "first-degree campaigning" and "third-degree campaigning." Josh claims that he only said anything about the votes when he was asked by other people, so Roddy asks the other houseguests who are watching this debacle whether they have, at any time, gone up to Josh to ask about votes. Josh asks Gerry to back him up, but Gerry points out that the original discussion started not with him, but with Josh.

In a particularly regrettable development, Marcellas jumps into this argument, lecturing Josh that although Josh believes that some conspiracy between Chiara and Roddy is responsible for his nomination, it is in fact his own behavior that is responsible for his nomination. Of course, you'll recall that Marcellas has never been willing to admit that his own behavior could have played any role at all in his own nomination. Well, nominations. "There are eleven people in this house who probably never want to see you again," Marcellas tells him. Way to speak for everyone else, dude. If Marcellas is looking for sympathy for the times Josh has spoken cruelly to him, he just lost it right there, because there was really no reason for that remark. Marcellas is doing nothing except basking in the fact that now he's up, so he has the power to put Josh down. Common, but wrong.

In the diary room, a chuckling Josh allows that he was "caught stealing," but he doesn't think he had much of a choice. In Stage Eight of Josh's Descent Into Madness, he looks into the camera and maniacally insists that he will "fight on" and "beat this thing." Yeesh. Get the hook.

Time for Julie to check in with the houseguests. Jason is wearing another shirt with a little teeny pattern on it. Wow, yuck. Jason is definitely in the running for World's Worst Dressed Hottie. Julie asks whether Roddy and Josh have made up, and Roddy blandly insists that the fight is all over. Which is what they always claim. Josh insists that Roddy went "a little New Jersey," to which Julie counters, "And you didn't get Queens on him?" Oh, don't take me there, Julie. She asks how they're feeling about the evicted houseguest returning, and goes to Marcellas for a quote. "Why, when my best friend was wrenched from my arms on national television, why would I have any vested interest in who comes back?" he dramatically asks. "If Amy's not standing right to you, Julie, I have a problem," he bitches. Hee. Julie asks Chiara how hard the week as HoH was, and I think they've taken my advice and done away with the HoH interview! Yay! Well, okay, they might have considered it because of tight timing in this episode, but I'm sure my advice was the turning point. Josh stands up for his parting words and surprisingly says nothing objectionable. He loves everyone, he had a great time, and he has no hard feelings. Eh? Roddy puts a whoopee cushion on his seat, which he obligingly activates when he sits back down. Where in the hell did these people get a whoopee cushion? They don't even have watches, for God's sake. Roddy says that the whole thing is a bit complicated by the fact that he and Chiara are "a bit of an item," and then he quotes the old saying, "All's fair in 'I like you a lot, but we're on network television and my mom's watching' and war." Oh, please. He "loves" Kiki about as much as he "loves" the glider and the free weights. He offers some more warm words.

Voting. Lisa and Marcellas are in the diary room, and they discuss the predictable "Josh is a jerk, but Roddy is more dangerous and diabolical" reasons for evicting both of them. We do not see them vote, which you know means the vote is not close.

Boring friends-from-home segment. Roddy's friends call Kiki "dumb as a rock," and Kiki's friends call Roddy a "drip." I hate Kiki's friends instantly. Shut up, Kiki's friends. ["To me, it seemed as though Kiki's friends all watch a lot of Sex and the City. And that they should stop." -- Wing Chun] Roddy's friends do a very nice job of summing him up when they say he's "the kind of guy who can get on a plane without a ticket." Perfectly said, Roddy's friend. Charming enough to be kind of unsettling, is the idea. I also like when Chiara's friend says she'll "give you the shirt off her back if you need it." I'd say she'll give you her shirt whether or not you need it, just because she thinks you might want her shirt. Or you might want to see her boobies. Or you might just have forgotten in the last thirty seconds that she existed, and giving you her shirt seems like a good way to remind you.

Julie moves on to the topic of the return of the evictee. Josh offers another pitiful lizard metaphor about how adding a third lizard wouldn't be fair to the other lizards, oh har har har. They all bitch about whom they don't want back, and salivate over whom they do want back. Gerry thinks Lori got "the bum's rush" and deserves another shot. Kiki wants Tonya back, presumably because the ick factor in the house has dropped to an unacceptable level. Danielle thinks Amy would be the best face to see.

More voting. Gerry, Danielle, and Jason all make the same comments you would expect from them in the diary room, but none of them actually casts a vote on camera. Does anyone smell unanimity? I thought so.

Julie delivers the vote, and the vote is 5-0 to evict Josh. Whee! Everybody shares a group hug, but only Jason and Roddy walk him to the door. Ouch. It is as Josh walks down the front steps that I take a moment and think to myself, "Oh, my God, he's gone. Thank the merciful heavens." Gone! Josh! Yay! It's easy to forget how much I have waited for this wonderful moment. He goes in to see Julie, and of course we have to return to the house while he gets wired. Julie does tell him as he hugs her that she doesn't want him to grab her ass. Heh. Back in the living room, Kiki thanks everyone, as if they booted Josh because they love her so much. Moron. She thanks them for "keeping to their word." Danielle wears a hilarious look of dubious amusement.

In Josh's Chenterview, he continues to pretend not to be an ass. I'm sorry, but I don't buy it. He happily prattles on about how he knew as soon as Kiki nominated him that he was doomed, because she had secured the votes in advance and so forth. Julie just as cheerily tells him that unbeknownst to him, he had the votes to stay in the house two days ago. He looks stunned, and essentially tells her he doesn't believe it. She tells him it's the truth. In other words, if he hadn't acted like an ass, if he had lain low the way Gerry told him to, he might be in the house right now. He tries to ignore what she's telling him, and they move right along to his goodbye videos. Jason, Danielle, and Roddy tell him how much they dig him. Everyone else has nothing to say. Heh. Julie hands Josh off to Merritt, who leaps into his arms and tells him how much she missed him. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you," he gushes. We go back to Julie Chen, who makes this face like, "Go figure." Ha!

And now, the returning houseguest issue is revisited. Julie starts by asking the potential returners (Amy, Tonya, Eric, and Lori) how much of the $500,000 they'd be willing to give up if they could reenter the game -- in other words, how small a prize would they be willing to play for? Lori only offers to give up $50,000. Doofus. The other three all do what seems like the most logical thing, and offer to give up half. This means they're all tied. The tiebreaker is how many days they'd be willing to eat peanut butter and jelly if they returned to the house. Tonya offers to eat PB&J for twenty-one days, but Eric and Amy both offer to eat PB&J for the entire remaining forty-two days. Yikes. This means Eric and Amy are the two finalists. Then, quite surprisingly, Julie announces that they don't actually have to play for the smaller prize or eat PB&J. She was just asking. Hee. Now, it comes down to the remaining houseguests, who get to vote between Eric and Amy to see who will return.

Now, I don't know what math you were doing during the commercial, but this is the math I was doing: I had it three-three, with Jason as the swing vote. I had Marcellas/Danielle/Gerry voting for Amy, and I had Roddy/Chiara/Lisa voting for Eric. When Julie comes back, they've got all the houseguests separated into different parts of the house so they can't see each other's votes. Each of them has a red paddle and a black paddle. They're to hold up the black paddle if they want to vote for Eric and the red paddle if they want to vote for Amy. My favorite votes? Danielle votes for Amy with an emphatic, in-your-face shove of her red paddle at the camera. Jason votes for Amy, mouthing, "Amy! Amy!" Marcellas votes for Amy with great aplomb, actually dropping his black paddle onto the floor so there is no confusion. The jaw-dropper, though, comes when Lisa holds up...her red paddle. Whee! I have to say, I didn't think she had it in her. After the "hi" and the canoodling and all that jazz, I really was quite sure she would vote for Eric. Voting to bring back Amy was probably the best thing she could do for herself (she brings back Eric, and she's right back in the couples thing, and she will also have to contend with Eric's lingering allegiance to Roddy), but I didn't think she'd actually do it. Because Eric was the iodine on her surface abrasions of...oh, never mind. Other votes go as expected.

Julie announces to a waiting Eric and Amy that the big winner is Amy. Amy laughs happily. She walks up the stairs and rings the doorbell, and Chiara opens the door. Marcellas runs over and throws his arms around her. I have to say that everybody looks genuinely happy to see Amy, in part because she's a new face, relatively speaking, and I think they're bored out of their wits. Danielle also looks like she has some real affection for Amy, and gives her a very nice greeting. "Thank y'all! Thank y'all so much, I missed y'all so much!" Amy babbles happily, in a way that is actually quite endearing. I'm sure she'll bug me again soon. Jason also looks extremely happy to see her. I have to say, I'm cocking an eyebrow at the Jason/Amy vibe. This is really very warm. How weird. No one mentions the tremendous ugliness of the braids she acquired on vacation. Bad, bad braids.

The HoH competition this week involves climbing into a big tub and staying there as long as possible. The twist is that increasingly disgusting things are going to be poured into the tub. They start with forty squid. Roddy jumps out immediately. What a freaking idiot. His feelings of invulnerability are really quite uncalled-for. Furthermore, he should have waited for something grosser, because that was ridiculously obvious. If he wanted to throw HoH, he could have thrown it in a far, far less transparent fashion. They're not telling us who wins, obviously, since we're live, so you'll just have to wait to find out who the HoH is.

Friday. Previously, Amy had really ugly braids.

Welcome to Big Brother 3: Misty Watercolor Memories, brought to you by the NFL, and more specifically by the fact that there is no Big Brother Saturday night because of football, and there's no way they can prep three hour-long episodes in three days, so the thing to do is to just have a clip show, don't you think? Let's have a clip show, shall we?

We pick up the HoH bathtub competition with all the eligible players in the tub except Roddy, who bolted about two seconds after the whole thing started. Jason says he was a little nervous going into HoH, particularly because you never know what a guy like Gerry might do if he won. Back in the tub, the thing Kiki pours in (and man, how symbolic is her spreading of filth?) is seaweed and pond scum. She goes out of her way to pour it directly on clean freak Marcellas. Way to go, Peppermint Petty (tm Sars). I have a feeling that right now, Marcellas would give up his ducks and his white bathrobe for an extra-large bucket of chlorine. The main activity in the tub, though, is pumping Amy for information about what's going on in the world. Amy isn't able to offer a whole lot, though she does tell them that Julia Roberts got married. She also tells a neat story about being recognized by a little girl in Mexico, who declared that she loved Amy and sent her love to Marcellas. Danielle says that having Amy back brings the gossip level back up to a healthy blare.

Let's look at some clips of gossip! Remember how everyone hates everyone? Bitch! White trash! Heart of a ho! Morons! Spineless bitch! Prison bitch! Regular bitch! Wacko! Ah, good times.

Remember that fight Danielle and Lori had about Gerry washing his hands? Remember how, even then, it was too long? Yeah, me too. I didn't particularly want to see it again. The only good thing about this is that it gives me the opportunity to once again appreciate what is possibly the highlight of reality-show editing of all time, the Gerry Handles The Salad sequence. Absolute genius, I'm telling you.

Back in the tub, the houseguests exchange some more gossip, and interestingly enough, just as the houseguests want to know what's going on in the world, Miss Amy wants to know what's going on in the house. And this is approximately where this becomes a clip show pretty much in the exact tradition of Full House, Three's Company, and every other show that's ever done one. You have the perfect setup, where people sit around in a big group and say, "Remember that time when..." It's really quite brilliant. First up, Danielle recounts the food competition in which Marcellas ate the chicken livers. I'm glad they showed this, actually, because bad weather kept me from seeing Jason eat the Twinkies the first time, and I must admit it is quite impressive. And weirdly hot. And I understand why Shack went straight, and then blind, and then died. Hee. The other thing that's interesting is looking back at things like how openly Lisa liked and enjoyed Chiara then, which sort of reminds you how bad she must have felt when she found out about the betrayal and the backstabbing and the lying and everything. As boring as clip shows are, sometimes context is an interesting reminder.

Remember the peanut butter bikinis? Remember how you wanted to wash your eyeballs with hydrogen peroxide? Remember how you had a weird urge to wash everything with hydrogen peroxide? My favorite part is when Jason says he wished they had been wearing more than peanut butter, and then he says, "Mm, certainly." They do add a nice moment here we missed before, which is Danielle pitying the mothers and children of anyone who would wear peanut butter on television.

Back in the tub, Jason threatens to pee. This causes squirming among the other houseguests. Chiara can't understand why. There's a shock and a half.

Remember Eric and Lisa, and how they liked each other? Chicka-wocka-chicka-wocka...ah, yes, it's all coming back to you now. They had a date, you know. And he said "Hi." And then they declared their adoration for each other, and then she voted not to let him back into the house. I'm tearing up just thinking about it, aren't you?

The houseguests reflect on how Eric's departure has changed Lisa. It's freed her from being part of a couple, it's freed her from being part of a pair of couples, and it's cut her loose to be her own person. Also, of course, this all coincided with her finding out that Chiara screwed her, so there seem to be several factors at work. Most of them, though, agree with what I think is widespread audience sentiment that Eric's leaving has been good for Lisa, particularly as a player.

Amy talks about how much she loves Marcellas and how happy she is to be with him again. You know, as much as I love that footage of Amy and Marcellas dancing on the basketball court, I think they've used it about ten times now, and frankly, I've had enough. I get it, they like each other. It's adorable. Get another shot to use. But anyway, remember when they had that big horrible fight, and he yelled at her? I actually hate him even more watching it the second time, because I'm more annoyed with him generally than I was when they showed this the first time, so I've just got no patience with his whole screaming fit at her expense. He is way over the line with the self-righteous, as he so often is. They show, however, the clip they didn't show before of the time when they made up. It looks like it happens shortly after the fight ends, and Marcellas comes into the Big Bed Room to find Amy still sniffling. He tells her he doesn't want it to be unanimous (um, liar) and basically keeps arguing the same point he was arguing before, which someone should tell him doesn't really constitute an attempt at making up. She, however, cuts right to the chase by asking him to please sit to her, and telling him that she never meant to hurt him or say anything behind his back, because she loves him. And I give Amy big points for that -- it's a big thing with friends. Sometimes, you don't figure out who was right, you just freaking drop it and remind yourself that you'd rather have the person than the point. She did a good job of it. The only sad thing is that, of course, I blame him for the fight, so I would have rather seen him apologize, but unfortunately, that's again the way it often works. The person who acts like a jerk in the first place is usually not the person who's able to apologize. It's a crappy rule, but it tends to hold stubbornly.

We also now get to see the "roast" they threw for Amy when it became clear that she was going to be evicted. It actually looks like it's Chiara's idea, which is a little bit bizarre. But they all gather in the living room, and they take turns saying nice and kind things about her. Nice editing again, as each person's kind words about Amy are followed by his blue-and-white vote to evict her. It does a really good job of conveying the fact that I think a lot of them genuinely have been very conflicted about Amy from the beginning, as I have been myself. Good heart, lots of growing up to do and all that. I miss a little bit of this scene because of a very quick weather update from my local channel, but clearly, everyone gets a chance to show some big love for Amy, and she gets a chance to unburden herself and talk a little about some of what she's learned since she's been in the house.

Back in up-to-date time, what sounds like the accompaniment to "Just a Gigolo" accompanies Marcellas's sudden exit from the HoH tub. Gerry goes with him. Marcellas runs screaming for the shower. Hee. He looks very, very relieved to get under the clean water.

Danielle leaves the HoH tub, claiming to be squicked out by the squid, but she diary-rooms that she wanted nothing to do with HoH, so she threw it.

Remember how there were a bunch of alliances that held together for varying periods of time and sometimes did and sometimes didn't involve actual coordinated voting? Those were the days. This segment segues, however, into a rather ugly clip we haven't seen before of a conversation between Josh and Marcellas from this week, in which Josh told Marcellas that Marcellas would have been first out the door, had Gerry not used the veto. Josh stresses that even Amy would have voted to boot him. As Josh did all last week, what Josh is doing here is mostly telling the truth, but again as he did all last week, Josh is doing it in a way that comes across as having no purpose but to inflict pain on people, which has a strange way of looking bad, even if everything you're saying is true. "Cruel to be kind" is generally a pile of horsepucky, and this is no exception. Josh is telling Marcellas this because he enjoys watching him squirm, and he knows this remains a sore spot. Josh felt like the low man on the social totem pole all week, and he was desperately looking, as people like this will do, for somebody to force down so that he might drift up. It's not that different from what Marcellas did to Josh earlier, actually, with the "eleven people who never want to see you again" business. Unfortunately, it works like a charm, and Marcellas winds up crying his eyes out in the Big Bed Room. God, Marcellas, it was freaking four weeks ago. They didn't even know you then. Get over it, man. Kiki and Lisa find him crying, and Lisa rubs his back while asking if he was in the diary room. "No, no, he was outside with Josh," Chiara says. "That'll do it," Lisa says bitterly. Outside, Josh tells Danielle what he said to Marcellas, and she shrugs it off as "the truth hurts." Eh? That disappointed me. ["To me, it seemed like that response was for Josh, and to downplay an alliance or even a friendship between Marcellas and Danielle." -- Wing Chun] Back in the Big Bed Room, Marcellas wants the girls to explain why everybody hated him at first.

Marcellas, they can't really explain why, but since you've asked a hundred times, I can. You stuck out. If you put a bunch of insecure, paranoid, generally uninteresting dimwits in a room together, they don't know how to bond. They feel isolated and lonely and nervous, and they're at something of a loss, because getting to know each other takes time they don't have. Therefore, they look to the most obvious way that idiots know to bond with each other and remind themselves how cool they are, which is to choose someone they can all agree to pick on. And the person who's going to get picked on is the first person who sticks out. Sometimes, that leads to a not-bad choice, because the loud, obnoxious crapweasel gets targeted. Sometimes, it's a total and complete rip-off, because someone with absolutely nothing to justify disliking him or her gets targeted. But usually, as it was with you, it's a combination of good and bad reasons -- someone is targeted because he has a quality or two that make people vaguely uncomfortable in a way they don't even consciously recognize (this is the part of Gerry's weird "I have a dream" speech that was true), and because he's a little socially clumsy, and because he's a little irritating. Not any more irritating than the rest of the morons, of course, but once the momentum goes against you, a social closed system like this is hard to counter.

Lisa can't deal with the eels, and she's out of the HoH tub. Somewhat weepily in the diary room, she says that she knew that if she was HoH, she'd have to put up Kiki and Roddy, and she doesn't relish exposing herself to that degree yet. Jason and Amy aren't particularly getting along with the eels, either.

Remember how everybody got followed around by cameras all the time? Remember all the grooming with a camera up your nose? Remember all the farting? The one thing I like in this segment is a moment when it looks like the houseguests ran through the house in erratic patterns trying to screw with production, which is kind of funny. They're led by Roddy, for whom I have a persistent weakness, so I like that especially well. There are also nice shots of Eric and Marcellas checking themselves out approvingly in the mirror. Heh.

Remember all the sex no one was having? Remember how Chiara humped everything? Most of all, remember when Kiki and Tonya took a shower together and wore shaving-cream bikinis? Actually, they do show a little new footage here, especially some of the stuff where the guys are totally getting off on the shaving cream shower, which...I mean, you knew they were, but it's nice that they admit it. Roddy talks about how "responsible" he thought it was for the girls to conserve water by showering together. Snerk.

About two hours into the HoH tubfest, they pour in a large amount of cod liver oil, and the smell finishes Jason off in short order. He also goes over and slithers around on top of Amy giving her big sloppy hugs while departing, and he's all oily. (See discussion of eggs and mud for a discussion of why this is really very sweet.) Not that I could ever find anything that occurs in a tub full of dead squid, pond scum, eels, and cod liver oil hot or anything.

And the very best thing about Amy being HoH? It bugs the hell out of Chiara. Woohoo!