Sayonara, Chiara

Wednesday. Previously on Big Brother 3: Josh and his TiVo-legs beard finally punched their long-overdue one-way ticket on the slow train to No Money For You. By a five-to-two vote, the houseguests invited Amy to return to the house, bringing her ugly Bo Derek hair with her. She then endured pond scum, eels, dead squid, and cod liver oil to earn a stint in the big fluffy HoH robe. Lisa wondered whether her vote to bring back Amy instead of Eric would upset the delicate balance in the relationship that is The Second Greatest Love The World Has Ever Known (currently campaigning to have its name changed to The Greatest Love The World Has Ever Known, Not Counting Relationships Of Convenience Between Professorial Dorks And Needy Exhibitionist Nitwits).

Blue-and-white Julie tells a crestfallen but brave-faced Josh that he is evicted. Again. You know, they just showed this shot thirty seconds ago. Apparently, short-term amnesia is one of the most common medical problems among Big Brother viewers. The Tragic Chimes Of Taking Out The Trash play as blue-and-white Josh is escorted to the door. In the diary room, Roddy tells us how hard it was to see Josh leave. Only he says "Joshie," as he so often does. You know, I have a friend Josh whose parents call him "Joshie," and somehow, coming from them, it works. On this particular Josh? Not so much. Roddy says that he liked Josh. Marcellas intends to just say "good riddance," but he winds up saying it in that annoying, overdone, Marcellas way he has, this time invoking a botany metaphor about Josh sowing seeds of discord or something, and how now Marcellas will be the avenging lawnmower of righteousness, assisted by Amy, the pruning shears of justice. It's very dramatic. It makes me want to run right out and buy a ficus. Roddy talks about how difficult it was seeing his own shapely fanny on the block, and then we see him sit on the couch while Kiki gives him a kiss. Marcellas runs to get Roddy an extra-large dose of sanitizer. Oh, no, he doesn't. Ah, well. Roddy can always boil himself later.

Jason's turn in the diary room. He says he was surprised to hear that, when Roddy first heard Julie say it was a five-to-nothing vote, Roddy thought the five might have been to boot him. This made Jason notice that Roddy doesn't entirely trust him, despite the fact that he did indeed tell Danielle all week that he wouldn't vote for Roddy. Of course, I don't think this episode indicates that Roddy has much reason to consider Jason his faithful sidekick or anything.

Danielle: "Five down, five to go." Danielle will not allow the inaccuracy of the math to interfere with the countdown. She does go on to point out that because of Amy's return, there are neither five down nor five to go. But it's a countdown -- what are you going to do? You have to keep counting down. That's what makes it a countdown -- the counting down. week, she'll probably say, "Six down, four to go. Not including one of the ones to go, and assuming an extra one is down."

Blue-and-white Amy returns to the house yet again. Marcellas says in the diary room that he's simply tickled pink that Amy has returned. He does allow that the braids are hideous. He doesn't say "hideous," but he couldn't be any more obviously thinking "hideous" if he were holding up a sign. You know, and the sign said "AMY, YOUR BRAIDS ARE HIDEOUS." Chiara says that she has "mixed emotions" about Amy's return, which is her way of saying she's thinking about whether cheese is a good medium for poison, because she thinks Amy might enjoy some arsenic-flavored Vermont cheddar right about now. Lisa tells us that while she enjoys having Amy back, she's feeling just a tad guilty about not voting for her own boyfriend. This is especially painful, of course, because when Amy returned, she told Lisa that Eric said "Hi." You'll recall that "Hi" is their special magic word of love. Good grief, Lisa, get a grip. This is going to make it really difficult if she ever breaks up with him. She'll go out on a date with a promising prospect, and he'll meet her at the door and say, "Hi!" And then she'll slam the door in his face and run into her bedroom, sobbing. Anyway, Lisa washes her face again, because washing her face is the only way Lisa can cope with the loss of her beloved. Also, I suppose she's worried that all the sex might have been the key to her clear complexion, so removing all traces of the oozings of her sebaceous glands is more important than ever. She explains her vote to bring Amy back much the way I think a lot of people interpreted it -- Eric would have hooked right back up with Roddy and Chiara in the snotting section, and Lisa had herself firmly across the aisle in non-snotting by then, so it would have been awkward. Also, she's still hurting about Kiki voting against her, and about Roddy's role in all of that, so she has no interest in picking up where the Couples Alliance left off.

Blue-and-white Amy wins HoH. She says in the diary room, "It feels good to win something because you deserve it, and because you've worked for it." I admit that we could fight all day about the just use of the word "deserve," but there's no way sitting in a tub counts as "work," not matter how many dead fish share the water with you. Ask any member of the proletariat. Amy, as usual, has all the realistic perspective of a cubist painting. In the diary room, Roddy explains his decision to bolt from the tub after about thirty seconds -- thus throwing HoH -- by saying that he "wasn't feeling it," because he'd been on the block and was nervous and tense. He also probably can't afford to risk that his hair will get wet and some will go down the drain, because there's a bit of an issue with the conservation of scarce resources, if you get my meaning. He fears that Amy -- given that he was the one who threw her to the wolves with that cheery "I think you have nice moments, but you're just too crappy to keep around" speech -- might take this opportunity for a little payback. Amy, meanwhile, explains that when she first became HoH, she really didn't know what she was going to do, except not nominate Marcellas. This is, of course, a lie -- Amy was never, ever, not going to nominate Chiara. She has had a piece of purple notebook paper taped up in her locker for weeks, and all it says is, "Nominate Chiara. I hate Chiara. I am prettier than Chiara. Everyone thinks so."

The rest of the houseguests accompany Miss Amy into the HoH room to check out the loot. You will be surprised to hear that there are snacks. One of them is Cheez-Its, har har har. She also gets what I guess are her black satin sheets from home. Black satin sheets? Man, if she moves to cheaper wine, she's going to be all set to appear on an episode of Cops, swaying in the driveway while talking about how she only hit her husband with a broom because he went out to that strip club with his cousin again. Marcellas isn't thrilled to find a picture in which Amy is shown with the Confederate flag. She explains that she was in a fraternity house, which apparently makes it all okay. Hey, it can't have been the bigot-y kind of Confederate flag -- it was a fraternity house! Gotcha. Her CD is Sarah Brightman. Oh, good. Nothing like a fussy, high-maintenance Broadway diva screeching in your ear when things are tense. Amy reads a letter from home -- in which her father uses the expression "how proud your mother and I am" -- and tells her that he even forgives her for the drinking. ("Your mother and I am"?) As Amy basks in her HoH-ness, Chiara wears her sourest jilted-cheerleader face, with the folded arms and everything. All she needs is to be snapping her gum. In a pathetic attempt to place a fingertip Band-Aid on the gaping wound that is Amy's hatred of her, Chiara brings in a vase of flowers to which Amy can add her HoH rose. "I know that her and I didn't always get along," Kiki says. ("Her and I"?) And then a funny editor shows blue-and-white Kiki calling Amy "that fucking bitch." Heh. Kiki claims that she's going to treat Amy the same as always, and neither "play down to her" nor "play up to her." Right. Because far be it from her to suck up. , we see Chiara and Amy having a heart-to-heart, except for the "heart" part. And, actually, the other "heart" part. What, in fact, is Kiki doing? Oh, she's sucking up. These two are really wasting each other's time and ours, of course, because no one, anywhere, is fooling anyone. Kiki tells Amy in soothing tones that they all knew she was the one who should come back. Here, Chiara introduces her favorite word of the day when she says that had anyone other than Amy returned, that person would have been "revengeful." It is at this point in the conversation (emphasis on "con") that Lisa enters the Big Bed Room, returning from her towel-clad, weepy diary room session. She is clearly surprised and a little dismayed to see this yapping going on between Kiki and Amy, because she knows they're both flakier than a couple of croissants and could easily be up to almost anything, no matter how stupid. Amy opines in the DR that she thinks Chiara was not entirely sincere in being friendly to her. Gosh, Amy, do you think? Amy, find your forehead and give it a slap for me. I'll draw you a diagram.

Lisa tells Danielle about the Kiki/Amy blather she walked in on earlier. They agree that Kiki and Roddy have good reason to be nervous -- Roddy because he nominated Marcellas and Amy, thus threatening the bitchiest friendship since Heathers, and Chiara because...well, because she's Chiara.

Marcellas invites Roddy out to the hammock to talk. Roddy tries to assure Marcellas that he's no criminal mastermind, and Marcellas counters that a "taint" surrounds Roddy because of the behavior of Josh and the behavior of Chiara. Excuse me, a taint? My goodness. For a house of debauchery, this place certainly does contain a lot of closet Puritans. Roddy tells Marcellas that if he had his way, racial harmony and equality of people of all sexual orientations would be achieved tomorrow. He loves everyone. He loves little children. And puppies. And if he had one wish this Christmas, it would be for all the children of the world to sing together in the spirit of harmony and peace. So...so don't vote him out just because his girlfriend is kinda bitchy, because the thing is that he is helpless to change the fact that he loves everyone. Even annoying people. Wow, welcome to the Hammock of Demented Sociology. Can we buy you a drink?

Roddy says in the diary room that he's "playing the game straightforward," and he doesn't know if Marcellas gets that. I think that Roddy actually considers this to be true. In other words, he's strategic, but I don't think he sees himself as intentionally working people over the way Danielle does. Don't get me wrong -- I think he's doing it, but I'm not sure that he thinks he is. Danielle walks up on the Roddy/Marcellas conversation, and DRs that she's concerned about whether the two of them have a deal. After she leaves, Marcellas and Roddy have a warm moment of friendship. And, from Marcellas's perspective, infatuation. They express to each other how glad they are that they met. Especially under these auspicious circumstances, I suppose. Marcellas says in the diary room that everybody else may want to go after Roddy, but that's not Marcellas's current agenda. He goes into the Big Bed Room, where Lisa and Danielle are chatting. "What did the Devil say?" Danielle asks. In case you are at all confused about whom she means, a shot of blue-and-white Roddy is inserted here, along with a blast of very serious music. It goes like this: "WWWOT!" A little defensively, Marcellas says Roddy was "nice" and "kind." Danielle tells Marcellas to go remind Amy that Roddy put up the two of them together, since this will probably get her to put Roddy up. Marcellas is convinced that it will work, because he completely fails to account for the fact that Amy loooves Roddy.

Sidebar of gratuitous armchair psychology: Lots of people have expressed a certain amount of shock that Amy has such a wild, hot thing about Roddy. How, they wonder, can this be? I'll tell you why I think it is. Amy, quite honestly, doesn't think very much of herself on any level except being cute. She doesn't particularly consider herself smart, and she's said over and over that she doesn't think she's a very nice person. People who don't think very much of themselves don't really expect people to like them for who they are, and they don't trust anyone who does. So they hope to find people who don't actually think very much of them either, but like them anyway. People with crappy self-images are incredibly vulnerable to this particular line of bull -- "Oh, you're such a fuck-up, but I still love you." It still allows them to consider themselves fuck-ups, which keeps them within their comfort zone, while offering a weird sort of positive feedback, which they also want. Furthermore, most people's great fear is that no one really knows or understands them, and so if you think you suck, someone who also thinks you essentially suck but is still willing to be your friend has a certain unavoidable appeal -- he might not like you, but at least he gets you. Once you figure it out, you notice it's incredibly insulting, because it's basically someone telling you that they, in their overwhelming generosity, will forgive you for who you are. Roddy's act of nominating Amy, having her thrown out of the house, and simultaneously telling her how much he loved and cared about her was a master stroke of this "I have a soft spot for you, even though you don't really deserve it" sort of thing. It works very well on her, because it's the only kind of affection Amy completely trusts, given the fact that she's pretty much given up on herself as a lost cause of obnoxious behavior -- which, incidentally, is the same reason she can talk intelligently about the crappy way she acts without actually doing anything about it. I'm not saying that I think Roddy means to be doing this to her, but I think he is. So Amy's not getting over the Roddy love anytime soon, unless she figures this out, which seems unlikely.

Danielle and Marcellas talk, and Danielle wants Roddy and Kiki put up on the block. Marcellas says that he doesn't want to tell Amy what to do. (He also, you'll recall, just explained in the DR that he doesn't want Roddy up.) Danielle says that in that case, he can send Amy to come see her. He agrees to do that. What a freaking chicken. He won't tell his friend what to do, but he'll send her to be pushed around by Danielle? Nice.

Chiara and Danielle talk in the Big Bed Room. Kiki says that if she and Roddy were nominated, she would go for the veto and remove him, which would free him up to vote for her opponent, and she knows that Danielle will always vote in Chiara's favour, so she would have at least two votes to stay. Danielle tells Kiki she thinks Roddy's going up, but she doesn't know who will go up against him.

Roddy takes his turn dishing about strategy, saying in the diary room that he currently is "without a tactic" -- he's just trying to survive the week, and then he'll think about what to do . Probably a good thought, and interesting from the guy the rest of them all believe has some sort of overarching master plan that moves ever forward with sickening inevitability, like some gargantuan suburban mall construction project.

Amy and Marcellas revel in being back in the HoH room together. They sing, they dance, they gossip, they do their nails, they trash-talk, blah blah blah. I want to find all of this a lot of fun, but I sort of don't anymore. They sadly seem united in pettiness in a way I just can't get into. They've gone from being the girls in high school who got picked on and therefore became bitterly funny to being the girls in high school who were always trying to make the top tier by being as mean as possible to the girls who were even less popular than they were. It's a little ugly.

Time for the food challenge. This week's competition involves a closed tornado booth (like a phone booth with a wind machine -- you know what I'm talking about), in which you grab flying money and food vouchers and stuff them in your bathing suit. In order to create equal footing for the men and the women, the boys are put into Speedos. Not the worst or most Speedo-like Speedos, but Speedos nevertheless. Marcellas says it made him look like "a fat girl in underwear." Oh, that Marcellas. What would he do without fat jokes? Nothing like transforming yourself into the new Don Rickles to keep things fresh. With a hearty introduction from Roddy, Gerry reveals himself in all his pale glory, and everyone laughs. (Gerry is the best sport ever about how much crap they give him, incidentally.) Jason then appears in the doorway of the HoH room with no agenda except waggling his ass in Marcellas's face, which is pretty cute and funny. I love the part where Bible Belt Boy flirts with the gay black man from Chicago while they both wear purple swimsuits. It's like a bizarre World War II movie set in Polynesia and featuring the most diverse platoon of all time. Danielle, apparently bored with the word "scandalous," declares the swimsuits "blasphemous." Which is stupid. Unlike "scandalous," which was just old.

Outside, the houseguests compete. We learn that Jason is best at stuffing bills down his suit, and Roddy sucks at it. "I stunk it up," says the Rod-man. They also win some money to send gifts to someone on the outside, and the houseguests decide to kick in all the money to Gerry so he can get an anniversary present for his wife. Kind of nice. There aren't all that many highlights. Marcellas comments on Roddy's "fabulous ass." Danielle once again takes the opportunity to ridicule Gerry's appearance, which is an especially crappy thing to do to a guy who's lost that much weight since they got there. Shut up, Danielle. As Gerry emerges from the money booth, Roddy says in a matter-of-fact, philosophical tone: "I love the gorilla dance for two reasons. One, because it's just inherently funny to me. And two, because it terrifies Marcellas." Gerry runs toward Marcellas, beating his chest like a gorilla. And yes, it's funny. Humor often defies logic. Jason comments that he felt "a little bit like a piece of meat" doing this particular challenge. Well, I'm glad he didn't miss the point. He looks nice in the suit. Not the gigantically buff kind of nice, just innocently nice-nice. You feel sort of guilty lusting after him -- the passion feels out of context, like pining for the ride operator on the log flume at Great Adventure. Amy gets food to make up for the day Roddy flubbed. In the end, $220 goes to Gerry for his wife, and he tells us he's going to buy her an orange tree. He says it's because whenever he eats an orange off the tree, he'll remember how seedy this entire experience was. Oh, no, I'm sorry. He says he'll remember how sweet they all are. Whichever.

Amy brings Gerry into the HoH room, spinning her room key on her finger the entire time, which distracts me, because I keep thinking she's going to take her own eye out. That would be funny, but it doesn't happen. She explains that she has pressure to nominate Gerry, but asks him whether, if she declines to do so, he'll give her his word that he'll boot Chiara. Now we see a montage of how Gerry has managed to get this far in the game without being nominated. He says his strategy is "just to hang around." Seems to be working so far. Marcellas calls him "a weasel," and makes his "prison bitch" comment yet again. I'm sorry, but Marcellas's crappy treatment of Gerry is just way over the line. The guy saved your ass, Marcellas, and the least you can do is not walk around behind his back talking about him like he shot your dog. Gerry may be a blowhard, but I think he's actually fairly sincere. Shut up, Marcellas. Furthermore, I think it's no worse to be the prison bitch than the prison snitch, which is how Marcellas himself is shaping up right about now. Roddy points out that Gerry is a solid, defensive chess player. It's a metaphor. GET IT? DO YOU? Elsewhere, Danielle calls Gerry "evil."

The bored houseguests lament the lack of music in the house. Oh, if only an unthreatening pop singer were available to sing a few songs for them! My favorite part of this sequence is when Roddy is asked to demonstrate what is apparently his signature dance. Danielle calls it a "goofy dance." Roddy deadpans, "It's not goofy, it's highly sexy, and I can see how you'd want to distance yourself from that much eroticism." HA! That made me laugh for two reasons. One, because it was inherently funny to me. And two, because it terrified Marcellas. No, not really. Reason two is actually that it was a dead-on imitation of Sports Night dialogue. And I miss Sports Night more than I can tell you. At any rate, he does the dance, and it is, in fact, goofy. Frustratingly enough, it is also sexy to me, because I have a hard time resisting goofy. Roddy's a clever one, indeed.

Amy pulls the houseguests into the living room for a special competition. First, they have to get dressed up for a "special night out." Marcellas loans clothes to all the boys. Hee. Roddy is my favorite, doing a sort of cute-geek thing with spiky hair and little shades. Amy puts on sixty-five pounds of eye makeup, apparently fearing that they might be appearing in a stage play. She's also doing that thing where you combine very, very dark eyeliner with a very pearly-pink lipstick, and I hate that. What's more, she puts it with a matching pearly-pink one-shoulder top with a ruffle on it, and that is just about more than I can take. Such a pretty girl, and always working to make herself less so. And now, the actual competition. Run all over the house and find eighteen CD cases. Assemble them into a puzzle on the table, and if they get it right, they'll get a prize in the backyard. The CD cases are not exactly carefully hidden. It's really more gathering than hunting. Lisa starts putting the puzzle together, so she's the first one to see words start to emerge. "Oh my God," she says. "Keep getting it." When they put the puzzle together, it says, "Sheryl Crow: Live in the backyard."

Now, I should probably disclose my own feelings about Sheryl Crow, which go approximately like this: "Eh." I think of Sheryl Crow as being sort of a perfectly placed pop product -- not too hard, not too soft, not too sexy, not too squeaky-clean, not a glamour girl, but not boyish...I just don't think she's a particularly wonderful singer, nor do I particularly like her songs. In order to remind me of this fact, she starts her set with "All I Wanna Do," which is up there with "How Bizarre" and "Mambo No. 5" in the history of songs I often forget actually exist outside dreams I have where I wake up screaming.

On the other hand, you can't help but be drawn in by the houseguests' tremendous excitement. They haven't heard much music in quite a while, or seen other people, or had much reason to be...joyful, for lack of a better phrase, and it sort of bubbles out of them in a very appealing way. They dance like Duke basketball fans doing the pogo -- just sort of up and down a lot of the time. Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump. Jason is particularly fond of the pogo. They get one point for the fact that not one person claps on the downbeat. Because clapping on the downbeat is a ticket straight to hell. They are all really, really bad dancers, but they are also a great demonstration of one of the truths about dancing -- nobody looks that bad dancing if they are truly happy and truly enjoying it. The people who look atrocious are people who are too conscious of being watched, or who feel self-conscious about it. Really happy people wiggling to music always look okay. Sheryl goes on to "Soak Up The Sun," and I don't really like this song, either. No song should end with someone giving herself permission to "rock on." Ew. But I hate it less than the other one. Then Sheryl goes to meet the houseguests. They all giggle uncontrollably at meeting an actual bona fide famous person. When she has greeted them in a thoroughly perfunctory manner, Sheryl goes up to do "Steve McQueen," her latest, and says she feels like she's doing "a wedding or a bar mitzvah." Yeah, that's the quality of the dancing again. Incidentally, this song is a lot better if you pretend she's saying "fax machine" instead of "fast machine." It becomes a sort of hymn to a sociologically fascinating juxtaposition of retro heroes and modern office technology.

My goodness, who is that guy behind Sheryl Crow who looks like an evil Adidas jogger? The guy in the red -- who is that? I'm a little afraid of him. Keep an eye on him.

In the diary room, the houseguests say they loved Sheryl. And also, presumably, the Citronas that were surgically attached to their hands during the big show.

Marcellas gives Amy the rundown on what happened while she was gone. Well, he starts giving her a version of the rundown, I guess. His version is that Chiara went bad after Amy left, and became a backstabber. You will be surprised to know that Marcellas's version of events casts him as a heroic figure single-handedly trying to rescue the house from the pit of vipers. He also laments "vote fixing." Which has nothing to do with the scheming he does with Danielle at all. Not at all. Amy asks with a smirk whether Marcellas wants her to put Kiki and Roddy up against each other. He innocents in response that he wants her to do whatever she wants. Danielle, meanwhile, continues to sweat her theory that Marcellas has a deal with Roddy.

Danielle, Marcellas, and Amy have a chat in the HoH room. Amy says that she has made up her mind about the nominations, and her top priority is getting rid of Chiara. Everything else can wait. It is very important to Amy that Chiara leave while she is HoH. Note the pettiness, short-sightedness, and just plain stupidity of this obsession of Amy's. For those of you who like blatant emotional manipulation, you'll enjoy Danielle taking advantage of Amy's lingering guilt about her fight with Marcellas by telling her that Roddy is responsible for "almost tore [their] friendship apart." Which didn't appear to be what happened, but Danielle knows that Amy still feels bad about it, so why not throw it in there? "I don't believe in revenge," Amy says. Uh...all evidence to the contrary, I guess. Perhaps Amy draws a really, really fine line between revenge and jealousy. Or spite. Or whatever this is. Amy smells what Danielle is shoveling, knows Danielle wants Roddy out, and diary-rooms that if Roddy stands any chance of actually being evicted, she's not putting him up.

Amy brings Roddy into the HoH room. She tells him that Kiki is going up, and that she's just trying to figure out who goes up beside her. Amy proceeds to flap her yap to Roddy about the fact that Lisa, Marcellas, and Jason have all been in cahoots with Danielle to boot him. She describes how they all told her right away, in the HoH tub, to listen to Marcellas, because he knew what the plan was. She wants so badly for Roddy to like her, it's just...ow. Even the way they're sitting -- he's in the big chair, she's on her knees leaning her elbows on the ottoman...it has a totally creepy vibe, like she should be coloring and asking for a pony while he reads the newspaper. Bleh. Roddy tells her to make sure that she's the one who ultimately makes the decision, not Danielle. He tells her that his "respecting" her should be more worthwhile than Danielle "bullying" her. It's also probably quite a good approach for him to try here, because he's right enough (about Danielle bullying her) that Amy will buy it, and the ways in which he's wrong, she's not going to figure it out. They hug. She looooves him.

Marcellas comes to see Amy in the HoH room while she takes her braids out (thank God). She tells him that she's decided to act "on [her] own," and put up Jason instead of Roddy. She knows it's not what other people want, but it's her call. He promises to support her.

That night, Roddy invites Marcellas to sit for a while in the hot tub. Marcellas despairs over how difficult it is for him to have a conversation with Roddy while Roddy is all undressed and wet and stuff. In short, once they're in the tub, Roddy offers an extra-super-secret-double-dog alliance, and Marcellas accepts. Probably not so much because it's a great strategy as because Roddy calls him "Mr. Handsome Chicago Volunteer," which appears to make Marcellas ready to faint dead away. You know, Marcellas's defenses against this sort of thing really should be a lot higher. That's not exactly sparkling repartee. That's not even a bar-quality pickup line. Roddy promises to take the two of them through to the end. An enthralled and intoxicated Marcellas is in. He says he feels "exhilarated." And that's not even alliance-related.

Danielle goes to Amy and learns that Amy intends to put up Jason. Danielle presents Amy with the problem of what happens if Chiara is vetoed, presumably on a veto by Roddy. I'm not sure why the obvious answer isn't Gerry, but for whatever reason, it's not. Amy goes on to say that she's "offended" that Chiara is still in the house. Right. Because Chiara is bad and Amy is good, and have you bought your petticoats and corsets this season? They're saying 1862 is going to be the best fashion year ever! "I want to send her out," Amy snots, literally pouting her little lower lip. What Amy winds up doing is extracting a promise from Danielle that she won't vote for Roddy if Amy puts him up. Now, Amy, that was severely, seriously stupid. Why do you think Danielle wants Roddy up so very badly? If she's really ready to boot Kiki, why in hell would Danielle suggest that putting Kiki up against Jason leaves open the possibility of veto mischief, but putting Kiki up against Roddy is no sweat? The only reason Danielle would ever care this much about who goes up against Kiki is that she intends to boot him. Entering into this deal was very foolish on Amy's part.

Nomination day. Everyone is nervous. Ritual, keys, et cetera. Again, Amy is wearing incredibly dark eye makeup, which makes me think she planned to cry her head off and wanted to make sure her mascara ran appropriately. I'm completely serious. Anyway, her nominees are Chiara and...Roddy. Amy explains that her nominations have nothing to do with revenge. She's lying, of course, but so what? She boo-hoos through the entire thing. It's certainly very self-pitying stuff, for someone who spent all week spitting things like "I want her out" through her teeth. This is pretty much the most full-of-it nomination speech ever, and I've seen nomination speeches from Nicole. And Hardy. And Chiara. And Gerry. Shut up, Amy. Amy tells Roddy he's up for the same reason he put Marcellas up -- he's Kiki's ally. When it's over and Amy toddles off to her room to eat cheese and begin what is going to be a nine-hour process of removing her eye makeup, Chiara gets up and storms out of the house. She throw herself into the hammock. Aw, that's just how I used to react to being upset by something like this. Except I was eight, of course. Kiki voices over that she doesn't believe Amy about "not being revengeful." She begins her endless bitchfest about the unfairness of it all by saying that she had no chance for a strategy, because she didn't know someone was coming back. Of course, she did before she did nominations, but hey -- what's a little truth to a self-pitying phony? The second self-pitying phony in this one paragraph? Kiki cries in the hammock, and Lisa comes to see her. Lisa pretends she came to check on Chiara, but I think she just wanted to watch her crying, because sometimes watching girls you hate cry is really fun. Sad, but true. Lisa offers to sit with her, which she totally doesn't deserve, but Kiki sends her away.

In the HoH room, Amy whines about how hard it all was. Marcellas explains in the DR that Amy is needy and desperate to be liked, apparently believing this will come as some sort of surprise to us. Good grief, Marcellas, Amy couldn't be more obvious on this point unless her forehead was tattooed with "I Am Needy And Desperate To Be Liked." Marcellas, unsurprisingly, loved her nomination speech, since it was the same kind of self-congratulatory and utterly untrue crapola he generally unleashes in similar situations. He compliments Amy on how honest it was. Oh, for God's sake. This is completely flatulent and revolting. Roddy knocks on the door, and Amy literally leaps to her feet and runs across the bed to get the door so he can hug her and tell her he forgives her for nominating him. See? See how they're playing this out again? She's so sorry for sucking so much. He forgives her. Sigh. After he leaves, she tells Marcellas that it's all okay, because if she weren't in the house, Roddy and Chiara would have gone up anyway. So much for wanting to make her own decision.

Marcellas, in the diary room, declares insufferably -- absolutely insufferably -- that the nomination of Chiara and Roddy was "the will of the house." Well, let's see. It wasn't the will of Roddy or Chiara, it wasn't the will of Amy, I don't know that it was the will of Gerry...I guess "will of the house" means "will of the half of the house I choose to consider important, which does not include my 'best friend.'" First to nominate Marcellas is my hero, at this point. You'll remember he was snottier than anyone when he was HoH about insisting that nobody's agenda was to be discussed but his own, because he wasn't about to allow anyone to tell him what to do. Here's a hint, Marcellas -- that Hypocrite of the Week trophy is a big one, so I hope you've cleared space on the dresser. ["Eh, I don't care; I still love him." -- Wing Chun]

Roddy goes to visit a blubbering Chiara in the hammock. He sits down and puts her feet in his lap. "I'm sorry I put you on the block again," she weeps. Kiki continues whining that she never had a chance. She says she's going to tell everyone to vote her out, because she can't stand the idea of it becoming "a competition between you and I." ("Between you and I"?) He tells her not to do that. Meanwhile, inside, Danielle visits Amy in the HoH room, patronizingly telling her what a good job she did. At following directions, I guess. Back out in the hammock, Roddy tells Kiki and Lisa that he knows Danielle is gunning for him, partly because she is the only person in the house who didn't say anything nice to him after he was nominated. Oops. Bit of a misstep, there, Queen of Cunning. In the HoH room, Danielle, Marcellas, and Amy talk about how important it is to win the veto. Of course, if Amy doesn't catch on to Danielle's act at this point, she's an idiot, because of course they don't really need the veto that badly if the plan is actually to evict Chiara. Nobody is going to veto Chiara, including (especially) Roddy, because he knows he'd go instead. The only reason for Danielle to be upset about the veto is that she knows somebody might veto Roddy. Catch up, Amy. Danielle is not your friend. Danielle is not anyone's friend, except her own.

Danielle -- thoroughly delusional regarding her own cleverness -- comes to see Roddy outside, as she voices over that it's important to make people think you're on their side. And, of course, because she believes everyone is an idiot except for her, this will work just fine. Roddy, not fooled for a minute: "What's on your mind, Dan-o?" Danielle goes on to say how important she thinks it is to get the veto, and he immediately says, "Then who goes up against me?" She attempts to make Roddy think she might take him out, which he recognizes as bull the minute it's out of her mouth. Danielle says in the DR that if Chiara and Roddy think she's on their side, they might step aside and give her the veto. Wow, she is misreading this game badly, for the first time. Kiki might be fooled, but Roddy? Is not. Roddy doesn't want the veto because he could only veto Kiki, and that would be participating in his own eviction. The idea that Roddy is going to hand Danielle the veto because he thinks she'll veto him? That is ridiculous. Furthermore, anybody who is at all perceptive about the personalities involved would know that Kiki wouldn't hand over the veto, because her desperately needy inner Girly-Girl would think that by vetoing Roddy, she might convince him to fall desperately in love with her, leave the house with her when she's evicted, buy a dog with her, marry her, have children with her, grow old with her, and eventually lie moldering in the grave to her, under matching headstones that say, "Mr. And Mrs. Roddy: America's Sweethearts, United For Now And For Always." Sad, but true. So, Danielle is basically clueless. "Ohh..." Danielle smirks in the diary room, "I'm good. I'm really good." And right there, I hate Danielle. Hate her. Want her out. OUT. She is now the person I most could not stand to see win. I would rather have Marcellas win, or Amy, and that says a lot. Boot her now. NOW.

Danielle goes to see Jason. On green-and-white night-cam, they agree to get Roddy out. "He's dangerous," Danielle says.

Veto competition. New swimsuits for everyone, along with those goofy red swim caps. The competition involves baby-oiling yourself up and sliding down a slip-and-slide. Closest to the end without going over wins. It's boring, like all competitions. Everyone is oily. Gerry wins.

Marcellas and Danielle chat about the veto competition later. "We should all be ashamed that the fifty-one-year-old fat-ass man, the biggest [expletive deleted] in the house, won." You know, it's really depressing that somebody who clearly knows so well how hurtful it is to be treated like crap would so easily turn around and do it to someone else. But here's Marcellas, picking on the easiest target. [Miss Alli's Mom: "It makes me think that empathy is not a learned quality."] Chiara, meanwhile, rants in the diary room that she wanted the veto, but wasn't angry that she didn't get it, because she got a chance to compete for it. Well, she says "compete against it," but you know what she means. This serves as your lead-in to Chiara's Meltdown Regarding the Utter Unfairness of Everything. She complains in the Big Bed Room to Danielle, Lisa, and Jason that, if she'd known somebody was going to come back this week, she wouldn't have gone for HoH the week she got it, because she would have known she needed HoH the week in order to avoid the boot. What a lie. There is no way she would have been able to think that far ahead. I don't think that when she washes her hair, she can think ahead to conditioner. Danielle -- right for once -- says in the DR that Chiara was nasty to Amy, and "you reap what you sow." And Chiara is warming up for a big old chorus of "Bringing In The Sheaves," so get out your hymnals. She continues to argue that it's all terribly unfair. No one is buying. Lisa comments that karma is about to "kick [Chiara] in the ass," and truer words were never spoken. Chiara has a whole theory that she didn't get a chance to strategize. Shut UP, Chiara. Danielle points out, quite correctly, that Kiki's real problem is partly that Roddy hopped out of the tub after thirty seconds, and that one form of strategy would have been telling him he needed to stay in and get it, or the two of them would be nominated. Chiara is so very, very full of it. She is also under the very, very mistaken impression that Josh would have voted to bring back Eric instead of Amy. Hee. Good thinking, there, genius.

And now, a well-constructed sequence demonstrating that basically, Amy and Chiara are equally bad in all the ways in which they hate each other. Petty? Check. Vindictive? Check. Judgmental? Check. Whiny? Check. Irritating, lacking in self-awareness, self-obsessed? Check, check, check. My favorite part is where Kiki says Amy is "Arkansas, Memphis, Tennessee, wherever the fuck she came from, Mississippi trash." This wouldn't really be funny, except that some editor or sound guy who's not feeling too much love for Chiara inserts a little game-show "ding" after "Arkansas" and "Memphis," and a nasty little "bzzzt" after "Mississippi." Of course, as was later pointed out to me, Chiara can be forgiven for the "Mississippi" remark, considering the "Ole Miss" shirt and all. She also takes the opportunity to call Amy "revengeful" again.

The girls sit around the table one evening to drink wine and discuss their sexual histories. Jason makes a quick exit, and we see him playing cards in the Aquarium Room, accompanied by the Touching Music of Innocence, and then a screech of the needle on the record takes us back to the dirty-talk table. Roddy and Gerry sit in the living room playing chess and...listening. The long and the short of it is that the girls manage to have fun together, even Chiara and Amy, thanks to the blessings of booze. They go to the DR to ask for more booze, but it's not happening. The producers are probably not anxious for another round of drunken-revelry-related litigation.

on the list of house happenings is everyone's growing annoyance with Danielle's constant harping on how much the money would mean to her family, how much she needs it, how needy she is, and so forth. She really does go on and on and on and ON about it. It's all for her family. Unlike everyone else, who is just doing it so they can spend it all on booze and magazines, I guess. Roddy tells Kiki and Lisa that he thinks that whole thing is "the biggest con" going on in the house right now. He's right, but Lisa in the DR calls it "mean" that Roddy pointed it out. I think it's fair to say that the flaws in Danielle's strategy are beginning to show. She's a very good manipulator, but she's much too obvious and much too aggressive, and it's beginning to bother people.

Lisa and Amy chat by the hot tub. Lisa says she's feeling "fifty-fifty" about who to vote out, and she asks Amy whether Amy is still "really gung ho" on evicting Kiki. Amy assures her that the gung is still just as ho as it was before. Amy tells Lisa that she just wants Chiara to go on Amy's watch -- if Roddy is up again the week, she'll have no problem booting him. Heh, liar. Danielle agrees with Lisa that they'll remove Chiara this week, and then she goes and talks to Amy. Danielle tells Amy forebodingly how upset she's going to be if Roddy wins because they gave up this chance to get rid of him, and Amy promises that won't happen. Among other things, Amy tells Danielle she wants Danielle to win, and of course, Danielle knows that isn't true, because although she does overestimate herself to the point of delusion, she is not, in fact, as dumb as a bag of hammers, which would be necessary for her to believe that line.

Outside in the hammock, Roddy asks Amy whether he's going home. She says she's doing everything she can. She keeps herself from adding, "So please love me!"

Veto meeting. Gerry manages not to give an annoying speech, and he declines to use the veto. Roddy says in the DR that he's very nervous about the prospect of leaving. As well he should be. Take a moment, incidentally, to observe the downfall of the Goober Alliance. Of the first five people permanently out of the house, four are going to wind up being Goobers. That was one powerful alliance they got going, huh? I think they forgot that the idea of all the co-operation was not to get evicted. Later, in the Big Bed Room, Roddy confronts Danielle about her ongoing efforts to get him booted, and specifically nails her on her efforts to turn Jason against him. She denies it, but she confesses in the DR that what Roddy accused her of was almost a direct quote from what she said about her own strategy. And who obviously tattled on her? Marcellas. Danielle proclaims to Lisa later that Marcellas has "turned." Danielle's rather misguided panicky response to learning that she is as busted as Martha Stewart is to suggest to Lisa that they have to cover by "doing the opposite" of what Roddy expects in order to mislead him as to whether they're trying to get rid of him -- meaning what, boot Kiki? Danielle, you goof. You don't have to worry about what he thinks if you get rid of him. Lisa points out this fact. Danielle acts like she's ruminating on the complexities. Frankly, I think she's got herself tied up in so many knots of strategy that she can no longer see what's obvious. She's about to Houdini herself into a real blunder.

Danielle, Jason, and Lisa talk about being conflicted about what to do, because they really would rather boot Roddy from a strategic viewpoint, but they know Amy really wants Chiara out and will react very badly if they evict him instead. We'll just have to wait for the live show, I suppose. I can hardly wait.

Thursday. Previously, Sheryl Crow needed a brush.

Julie Chen is sitting in the Chenterview area. She has shunned her usual pirate chic, and today has returned to her alternate theme of basing her outfit on reflective upholstery. Her shirt is made of almost the same shiny stuff that was on the chairs in our kitchen when I was growing up. I always thought those chairs were really, really ugly. Of course, the legs were a little more filled out than Julie's. (Rimshot.) Julie recaps recent events. Nominations, veto, et cetera. Julie does her stroll toward the camera as she reveals that, in the house, people are attempting to influence each other's votes and form alliances. She also reveals that even Sheryl Crow was not enough to solve all the personal problems these people had with each other. Maybe if she had sung another song.

We open with the houseguests going into the storage room after the concert to find that they've all been given copies of Sheryl's CD. Not that they have anything to play them on. ["The HoH gets a Discman, and maybe s/he can be prevailed upon to share?" -- Wing Chun] I can say, though, from my experiences with old AOL promotional CDs, that they make attractive, though non-absorbent, coasters. The houseguests also receive autographed t-shirts, and considering the ugly orange color of those shirts, I certainly hope they don't wear them very often in the future.

In the Big Bed Room, Roddy tells Chiara that this week, he's prepared to leave. Last week, he was pretty sure he was safe. (He's wrong, you'll note.) He tells Kiki that if he goes, she shouldn't seek revenge. "Why wouldn't I practice what I preach?" she says sweetly. Why do I think you could easily head for France and wind up in Brazil by attempting to follow the wacky directions provided by Chiara's moral compass? Kiki says that if Amy hadn't come back, Roddy and Chiara "would never be up on the block." Wow. You might want to order some self-awareness, dear. Blue-and-white Amy nominates them again. On night-cam, Marcellas points out to Amy that while Chiara wasn't very nice to Amy, Amy has to admit that Chiara at least didn't nominate her. Amy, staring at the ceiling, intones, "She didn't have the opportunity," and she is so creepy at that moment I can't even believe it. It's partly the night-cam, but...it's partly just Amy. I expect little horns to grow out of her hair and her head to spin around. Kiki explains to Roddy that she's already asked Jason and Gerry to evict her instead of Roddy, but says that Danielle will certainly vote to evict Roddy. Because of Danielle's great love for Chiara, of course. In other news involving not paying attention to anything that's going on around you, Chiara says that Lisa will also vote to evict Roddy and save her.

Marcellas tells Lisa and Danielle that Roddy has to go, because it's "what's right in [their] hearts." It's not strategy, mind you -- it's voting your conscience. God, if somebody doesn't get Marcellas and that damn robe out of the house soon, I'm going to evict him myself. It will require a bending of the rules, but I'm willing to take on CBS to accomplish it. Shut up, you moralistic snot.

Later, Marcellas tips Chiara off that she might want to look at some of her allies and think about whether they're really all that trustworthy. Kiki catches on that he's talking about Danielle, so she has a chat with Danielle. Because you can always rely on people who are secretly scheming against you to 'fess up if you ask them nicely. Surprisingly enough, Danielle does not come clean. Kiki still loves Danielle, though. "Her and I never forced a relationship, it just kind of happened," she says. Pronoun issues continue to plague the house.

Marcellas comes clean with Amy that the vote is going to go against Roddy, not Chiara. Amy goes straight to Danielle. "I feel like I've been used by the house," Amy says. Well, yes, dear. Because you let it happen. Danielle DRs that she felt "compassion for Amy," which I'm sure has nothing to do with it, but for whatever reason, she apparently started to have some doubts about the vote to boot Roddy. Jason, meanwhile, is called to the DR to cast his vote. He sticks his head in the Big Bed Room on his way. "Opposite. Opposite," Danielle says. Okay, here's the thing, Danielle. If you're doing this in front of Amy, she presumably knows you're changing it from Roddy to Chiara, unless you WANT her to think you're changing it from Chiara to Roddy precisely because she doesn't want you to, and why would you want that? Why didn't she just say, "Vote to evict Roddy, not Chiara"? At any rate, a confused Jason winds up in the diary room unsure of exactly what Danielle was trying to tell him. Heh. This is turning into an episode of Hogan's Heroes, with the bumbling and the scheming. And the imprisonment, I guess.

Julie takes us in to talk to the houseguests. They are extremely quiet, and barely greet her. Is this because Kiki is so sad? Wow. It's like a funeral in there. Maybe one of the lizards has scurvy. The houseguests talk about how much they loved the Sheryl Crow show. There's talk about Amy's return, and talk of Gerry's anniversary. And Jason talks about how much he loves everyone. So very, very much.

Voting. First up are Danielle and Gerry. Gerry votes to boot Kiki, and Danielle votes to evict Roddy. Gerry talks pretty intelligently about both nominees, except when he says that Roddy is an "alpha male" the same way that Gerry himself is. I don't know that "alpha male" is really the way I would have described Gerry, not that "alpha male" is a particularly fabulous thing to be on a show like this.

And now, a chance to see the inevitable end of the Greatest Love The World Has Ever Known. Chiara and Roddy have a chat in the hammock, and he basically tells her that she's taken the opportunity to rag on him fairly often, and he's been pretty quiet about it. They show a particular clip in which she makes the obviously jealous catty remark that "not everybody can be as good as" Roddy. He replies that it's "demeaning" to say right to his face that he thinks he's better than everyone else. There's a pretty solid argument to be made that he does think that, but there's also one to be made that if she wants to be his girlfriend, she could talk to him about that kind of thing a little more kindly, not to mention privately. He also tells Chiara that although he's not said much about it, her constant hanging on Jason and endless discussions of her past sexual escapades have not been particularly enjoyable for Roddy. I don't think he ever really wanted to date her, so I don't think these are really the reasons he won't be doing it, but I think they're examples of the more basic things about her that are so objectionable to him that he never would date her. For example, blue-and-white Roddy confronts Chiara about her whining, and she basically refuses even to discuss trying to ease up. In the DR, he comments that he thinks he was nice to her and she didn't appreciate it -- which is basically right back to that whole thing he does with Amy. "She sucks, and I was nice to her anyway! How can she not be grateful?" Well, because, as Chiara says in the hammock, she can sense that Roddy doesn't actually like her very much, and it hurts her feelings. Roddy needs to figure out that when he doesn't like someone, taking her on as a project is not a favor.

Chiara and Roddy both suck in this relationship and should not be in it, is the thing.

In the end, Roddy tells Chiara that the dating thing isn't happening for him -- he just "plateau-ed off" in his feelings for her at some point, and although he feels bad, that's where he is. And that much is fine. But now, in case you've forgotten already how much they both suck, here's another situation in which they both suck -- the exchange of gifts. She gives him a picture of the two of them, in which he truly does look horrible. He hates the picture, and he lets her know it. That is just mean and unnecessary. So then he gives her a book, explaining that it's by his hero, Carl Sagan, and it's very important to him. She's horrified. A book? Yuck. See, he needs a girl who will think that a book is a cool gift, and she needs a guy who won't try to make her read. It's a very good boiled-down version of their issues, actually. Interestingly, I think that's one of the more affectionate things he's done for her -- I think that in his weird way, he thinks he's being respectful of her intelligence by trying to share something from that part of his personality. Of course...yeah, it's not a very good effort on either of their parts. Have I mentioned that they both suck?

In the diary room, Chiara says that her friendship with Roddy is "established," but a romance is not. So they'll have to get together on the outside and pursue that part more. Ugh. To quote a particularly heart-wrenching scene from Party of Five (shut up), "Baby, he's already said no."

Julie returns to the living room to chat up the nominees. She asks how being nominated has affected their relationship, and Roddy says that it wasn't personal, it was strategy (NOT!), so it hasn't affected their relationship. Asked if she agrees, Chiara hems and haws for quite a while before saying that they feel that they "wouldn't be up if it wasn't for another reason," and I don't even know what the heck she's talking about, as usual. Amy hating her? Was that even the question? She makes no sense. Asked about his repeat nomination, Roddy compares himself to Susan Lucci. It seems a little early for that, but whatever. We'll go with it. It's better than any of Paula Abdul's jokes. (Except for her leopard-skin pimp hat. Now THAT was comedy.) Roddy also refers to Chiara as his "good buddy." You can actually almost see her heart tearing in two at the "good buddy" remark. There's a ripping sound. There are shreds flying. They share their final thoughts, which are highlighted by the usual efforts to pretend to be a good sport, as well as Roddy calling Kiki a "knucklehead." Wow. He is so weird. Among other things, he's the unsexiest hottie of all time, in terms of the way he talks to women. Shut up, you cheeseball.

More voting. Lisa, Marcellas, and Jason all talk about voting, but we don't actually see them vote. So it looks like it's going to be four-to-one, but we don't know which way yet.

And now, because they haven't been nominated and we haven't had a chance to look in on their home lives, it's time to visit with Gerry's and Danielle's families. Gerry's wife says he's a great dad, and his kids talk a little bit about how the bikini swimsuit full of slime and the paper towel baby diaper were especially embarrassing. (Miss Alli's Dad taught sex ed, so...B-O-O H-O-O, Gerry's kids. Call me and we'll talk embarrassing.) Gerry's wife agrees with the houseguests that Gerry needs to wash his hands more. Heh. We get to visit a very strange living room at Gerry's house that his wife calls "the Western room" or, in the alternative, "Frontierland." It looks like they've been smuggling decorative items home from Cattle Company every time they've been there for the last ten years. Cows, pictures of people square-dancing, cowhide patterns on the furniture...it's very Gunsmoke. Then she takes us to visit the Tiki Room, their personal taste of the Far East, which features Chinese figurines. ["So 'Tiki Room' is a misnomer. This is Tiki. It's Polynesian, not Chinese. If you're going to have a theme, name it correctly." -- Wing Chun] They also have a bathroom she calls the "Florida bathroom," which has a pink flamingo and light green tiles. It's too bad Don Johnson was in their bathroom in 1985 when he blew up.

Footage of Danielle's husband is followed by our introduction to her son. Oh, no, that's her husband, Javier. Eek. He looks about seventeen. ["Yes. They are now Frank Jr. and Mrs. Knight in my head." -- Wing Chun] Javier thinks Danielle's very compassionate, et cetera. Her daughters are gorgeous. Javier says that it was embarrassing when Danielle talked about how much sex she was going to demand when she walked back into the house. He assures her he's exercising and taking his vitamins. He talks about how they've had problems at times, and then in the diary room, she says the same thing. They talk about how much they love each other, and so forth. Very nice. But dull. Move along.

Amy's one-on-one HoH interview. Typical. I refuse to recap any more of these, because they always say the same damn thing. Well, all right, it is notable that Amy's self-righteousness continues to build as she accuses Chiara of having "mocked [her] values" and "mocked [her] morality." Because Amy would never mock anyone's values or morality. Seriously, Amy, shut UP.

Time for an eviction at last. Four-to-one, the evictee is Chiara. Danielle pretends to be surprised and devastated, which she isn't, and which Chiara is going to know she isn't as soon as she goes home and sees the show. Honestly, I don't know why Danielle bothers with this ridiculous display for the rest of the episode, because as soon as Kiki gets home, she's going to watch Danielle saying "Chiara, you ain't foolin' no one, we're foolin' you," and "We'll get her in due time, Lisa," and a lot of other stuff. It's a lot of crocodile tears wasted, if you ask me. Chiara is going to find out the truth about Danielle about an hour after this fake frenzy of sadness, so you would think Danielle would save herself the trouble. ["My sister and I figured that Danielle was playing it off like she was crying that Chiara was evicted, but really she was crying because she had another chance to get rid of Roddy and blew it again. So in that sense, her tears may have been real." -- Wing Chun] Everyone hugs Kiki, and everyone is sad, because she's so damn needy and so sad about leaving. She weeps all the way out the door. And thank goodness she's gone. I know that, strategically, they should have booted Roddy. But just the fact that I won't have to watch Chiara anymore is such a relief. She was getting pretty train-wreck-ish, and I really didn't want to watch her anymore.

As Julie gives Kiki Kleenex, the other houseguests cry about her departure. I think it genuinely was sad for everybody to see someone leave who was so obvious about how wounded she was by her nomination and eviction. Everyone up until this point had tried to take it with a certain sense of humor, and Kiki was really the first to be openly devastated by being put up and sent home. Jason cries, Gerry cries, Lisa cries, Roddy cries...everybody seems to display some sadness about the crappy nature of her exit except Amy and Marcellas. Because empathy is not a learned quality.

Kiki's Chenterview consists primarily of her whining AGAIN about the unfairness of Amy being brought back and being the one to get her evicted, and then giggling AGAIN about the possibility of being Roddy's girlfriend, even though, as stated previously, that will not happen. She also tries to put a nice spin on her relationship with Lisa, and she's in for a rude awakening on that one when she sees the show at home as well. As much as I often hate this show for being about nothing except how good you are at treating other people like crap, I will give it points for occasionally teaching the simple but often-overlooked lesson, "You should have been nicer." Chiara? You should have been nicer.

Chiara's video farewells are sad. And phony. Deeply, deeply phony -- especially Marcellas's, in which he says that he thinks she's "wonderful," which he doesn't at all, and Amy's, in which she says Chiara "will be missed," failing to add, "though not by me." Lisa is a little better, because she takes the opportunity to bring up once again the fact that long before she voted for Chiara, Chiara voted for her. Hold nothing back, Lisa; you have nothing to lose at this point. Jason announces that he has a crush on Chiara. Yuck. Gerry compares Chiara to his daughter. Yow. I think his daughter may sue. Kiki is turned over to her stepsister to be whisked away to obscurity. At least I hope that is what will happen.

The HoH competition this week is trivia about things that have been said by the evicted houseguests. Everyone except Marcellas and Jason is knocked out on the first question. I think at least Roddy, Danielle, and Lisa threw it. Marcellas and Jason both get the question right, and then Jason wins HoH on the question. Hmm. Everyone hugs -- even Roddy and Danielle. Whatever. It's all scheming at this point.

Because HoH was so short, Julie comes back to the houseguests in the living room. Julie asks Jason about being HoH, and he talks about how great it is, but how hard it is. She asks Marcellas about losing HoH, and he goes into a fairly amusing rant to the effect that Jason is only on the show to upstage him, as he does when they're both running around naked. Heh. I'll admit I would rather look at Jason in that scenario.

Quite weirdly, over the credits, we see footage of Roddy showing off his pit stains. This is tacky, of course, but also a little bit funny. I mean, if you had dodged two bullets in a row, wouldn't you have pit stains? Then Roddy and Jason start talking about how "sarcasm doesn't translate," but I'm not even sure what they mean. It's all very disorienting.

Whom will Jason nominate? Who will be evicted? Will the house solve its pronoun difficulties now that it's without Chiara? Speaking of Chiara and Roddy, will she and he ever speak again, or is it the end for him and her? You and I will be here together again week, so we will have to see what awaits us.