Predictably, the season begins in earnest with bloat, as fourteen cast members (instead of twelve) enter the house. The producers attempt to convince America that the four highest vote-getting women are Erika, Diane, Nakomis, and Janelle, and that the four highest vote-getting men are Kaysar, Jase, Howie, and James. They then announce that the other six being put in the house are Will, Danielle, Alison, Mike Boogie, Chicken George, and Marcellas. In other words, they would like you to believe that every single one of the famously popular people this show produced prior to last summer -- Will, Marcellas, Danielle, and Alison -- all failed to get as many votes as Jase, James, Erika, or Diane. That, I do not believe. But however we got here, here we are. The rest of the house immediately notes the severe overrepresentation of the cast of Big Brother 6, and begins to plot against it. In a development that will not surprise you if you follow media gossip, Kaysar is obsessed with Will, and sees the entire season through the lens of one enormous Kaysar Versus Will standoff, while Will and Mike grouse ridiculously about Kaysar being "arrogant." The HoH competition brings a new twist, which is that there are two HoHs, and if they can't agree on nominees, then they are the nominees. I like that, and find it fascinating. The first two HoHs are Jase and Janelle. Danielle immediately starts loudly scheming, although she doesn't seem to know what she's scheming for, and in the end, she and Alison wind up scheming themselves right onto the block. It's a pretty good kickoff, actually, if you enjoy the sociology of the deranged, which I do.
She's Julie Chen. And she wants you to lie down and admit that this is "the Big Brother we've all been waiting for." You may not realize you've been waiting for it, but you have. It only felt like you were hungry for a big cheeseburger. In fact, you were waiting. For this. Now eat it!
Julie is in the...well, she's in whatever you would call the front "yard" of a "house" that isn't a house, provided it didn't have any yard signifiers like grass or trees but only had a wooden walkway, a bunch of almost certainly polyester plants, a few perplexing light fixtures, and a few cameras. Julie reminds us about the seventy-five houseguests, and the six seasons, and of course the battling and lying and everything we sat through an hour of two weeks ago. She again says that "the best of the best" will be back. Welcome to Big Brother: All-Stars. Don't say nobody told you where this boat was headed when you find yourself bent over the rail in about two weeks, dry-heaving and begging for your mama.
Creepy Control Voice takes us on a lightning-fast tour of the house. He reminds us that here, "more than fifty cameras watch your every move, and seventy-six microphones eavesdrop on your every word." If I start with the FBI jokes this season, we'll be here until November. Suffice it to say that I expect a swift condemnation from the Bush administration regarding the recklessness of Creepy Control Voice in revealing the presence of the microphones and cameras, because now our enemies know that we're listening. And by "our enemies," I mean "my enemies," by which I pretty much mean "Alison."
Tonight, says CCV, "the best players of all time" are coming back to take another shot. And they will be "living in complete isolation." It is an interesting definition of "isolation" they use on this show. When there are more than six people to a bathroom, my sense of isolation tends to diminish. CCVs reference to "competing for food" is accompanied by shots of Shredded Wheat and Raisin Bran. Do they eat Shredded Wheat? Seriously? I don't know why I expected they would just eat Peanut Butter Doughnut Cocoa Flakes, but somehow, I did. It's like I think they're living all summer in Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead or something. Oh, and they'll compete for power, in the form of the Veto and the HoH spot. Each week, they'll boot somebody, and at the end, one person will be left. Unfortunately, CCV announces that more than fifteen million votes have been cast regarding which players should make it into the house, meaning that there was just as much silliness and auto-voting and insanity as there is on American Idol, and that the results will reflect not so much who is liked by the largest number of people but what tactics were used for voting. It is safe to say, after all, that one in twenty American men, women, and children did not individually cast a vote for a contestant. Honestly, I despise power voting in all contexts, mostly because it rewards the deranged, and this will undoubtedly be no exception. Who, CCV wonders, will be voted in, and who else will be sent in on the well-founded assumption that the American public doesn't know what it likes?
Julie is standing in front of a raised round platform on which a souped-up version of the usual nomination box rests. I don't know about you, but I'm thinking that baby's nuclear. There are keys sticking out of the box, so presumably, those keys will be pulled in order to name those who have been chosen. One by one, Julie brings out the All-Star candidates: Chicken George (can I call ya Chicken?), Monica, Bunky, Mike, Will, Danielle, Lisa, Marcellas, Alison, Dana, Erika, Cowboy, Nakomis, Diane, Jase, Howie, Janelle, Ivette, James, and Kaysar. Julie instructs them all, when they are gathered, to take a look around at the other people. Because one of you will flunk out before you get out of Torts. Wait, I think that's The Paper Chase. Never mind. Anyway, if you do look at the other people, you will note that Diane is wearing an unflattering black and white dress, Dana is wearing pink pants, Alison's droopy shirt is passive-aggressively trying to distance itself from her boobs, and Lisa is dressed like a comely waitress at Don Pablo's. Bunky's shirt has flames on it. A little too literal, there, Bunkster.
Julie adds that they're not strangers to each other this time, because each player knows how the others have played in the past. She does not mention that they're not strangers to each other because for the last couple of years, they have been hanging around at the same sketchy charity badminton tournaments, drinking at the same reality-show in-crowd bars, making out with the same cast-offs from Dog Eat Dog, and wishing they were important enough to be fugged. Julie's announcement is that production, perhaps under the dark command of her Snuggie Bear, has reached the conclusion that twelve players are not going to do be adequate. Instead of the top three men and top three women from the voting, they'll be taking the top four men and top four women from the voting, plus six more, for a total of fourteen instead of the previously mentioned twelve. Julie attributes this decision to the closeness of the voting, which is ridiculous, of course, because the answer to that would just be to take more vote-getters and fewer producer picks, not to increase the total number in the house. It's fairly obvious that the only reason to increase the number in the house is if you...want to increase the number in the house, you know? What do these people think we are, rookies?
Okay, so now, Julie says that she's going to reveal the top four women vote-getters. She pulls out a key. Janelle. No surprise there. I don't get the appeal of her at all, but I know how popular she is. Erika. Erika? I already call bullshit. She's boring, and she was on the show three years ago. : Nakomis. That I can believe, actually. It's the Janeane Garofalo vote, also known as I Love Her, Because She Isn't Like All The Girls Who Stuffed Mean Notes In My Locker. Fourth and last is...Diane. Okay, now I call bullshit even more. Diane and Erika both got more votes than Danielle? I do not believe it. Absolutely do not believe it for one minute. In other news, whoever told Diane that dyeing her hair black would be a good idea did not do her any favors. The number of people who don't have naturally black hair who look good with dyed black hair is extraordinarily tiny, and it does not include Diane. So the first four lucky women, by the grace of either populism or outright corruption, go into the house. Janelle bounces through the living room (literally), offering the voiceover that she was unsurprised to be voted back in. It's nice to have a lot of confidence in how beloved you are, I suppose. The four women run into a room and start claiming beds. As they run from room to room squealing, Nakomis diary rooms that she didn't exactly feel at home with the women she came into the house with, given that they're all...well, I don't want to say "fluffballs," but...fluffballs, pretty much. She refers to them as "very stunning physically" and "fashion-oriented." Heh. "Oh, no, the girly-girls, they're gonna hate me," she says with a hand to her forehead. And stuff mean notes in her locker. I'm just saying.
Diane, for her part, DRs that she has no idea why Erika is an All-Star. Me neither, lady. "She didn't do much of anything on her season," Diane opines. The four allegedly "popular" women wind up settling on a bedroom that has an enormous bed that looks like it would sleep at least four. Erika is happy that they wound up there, because she has "few enemies" sharing her bed. And then she says something I kind of can't decipher to the effect of how she likes to keep her enemies close, and so now, I'm not sure what she's saying. I do endorse limiting the number of enemies who share your bed, though. One enemy at a time has been my rule.
Back out in the non-yard, Julie is preparing to deliver the news to the men of which of them got the most votes. First up, Howie. Eh. Entertaining enough in small doses. Kaysar. Snore! I rooted for him through most of his season, but I'm so over him since he became one of those The Game Is More Than A Game people, which is even worse in this stupid game than in other stupid games. , James. Wow, I never got that dude at all, appeal-wise, but there you go. There go the short memories of viewers, I guess. Aaand the last vote-in is...Jase.
What? More absolute bullshit. I am normally more anti-conspiracy-theory about reality shows than anyone I know, but you will never, ever convince me that Jase and James received more votes than Will and Marcellas in any remotely fair voting process. I realize that viewers have canary-sized attention spans, but it seems to me that the kinds of people who are going to bother to vote tilt toward die-hards, meaning they've probably watched more than one or two seasons. I'm not aware of giant leaps in ratings during the last season or two, so it's not like The Amazing Race, where you constantly run into people who are fans now but never watched the early ones. If there are enough people who remember Erika from three years ago to get her in, for God's sake, I don't believe for a second that there weren't enough people to vote for Marcellas or Danielle, who were only one season earlier. That's not even to mention Will, who was a phenomenon in his time beyond anything Erika could dream of, and I'm not convinced three years ago can possibly be that much of an advantage over five years ago. My theory is that some of these people didn't even get considered in the voting portion, because they were locks to get in. And we'll get to who they are in a minute.
Howie is way too excited on his way into the house. That's a lot of "woo" to bring to the table this early. Jase DRs that he was pretty aware pretty quickly that there was an overrepresentation of Season 6. And: seriously. Bleh. It would look even worse to Jase at this point than it will in a bit, of course, because there are only eight people in the house, and four of them are from the same season. Jase and Nakomis manage a warm greeting, which is nice. Howie is already enjoying rubbing up against Erika. He tells us in the DR that "there were some All-Star boobies" in the group. That's going to be funny to me for about three episodes, if that, so I hope he makes the most of it while it lasts.
Kaysar does a diary room in which his hair is ickily slicked back, and he says, "Big Brother 6 is definitely here to stay. You can't evict us all at once." Hello, sense of entitlement. Erika follows this with her DR in which she also notes the large number of S6 folks. Fortunately, Julie is outside, saying that it's not over yet. When we come back, she'll be giving out six more slots to people about whom America doesn't care at all, like Will and Marcellas. Yeah, sure.
Back from commercials, we find the remaining twelve tense individuals standing around waiting. Julie asks whether anyone was surprised not to be voted in. "I'm in shock!" Marcellas says, and as much as I don't like him at all, he's got that much right. He goes on to tell us that he's "America's black gay sweetheart," which isn't how I would have said it, but I agree that if you're going to reach back as far as Erika, there's no way you don't get Marcellas in a clean vote. And then Julie asks whether they're surprised by anyone who did get in, and the women in particular seem to be nodding knowingly in a way that I think stands for "Erika." Do they want to say who? They do not. I never felt bad for Ivette before. This is new to me.
So, Julie has six keys left to distribute. The first one goes to Will. There's a big shocker. , Danielle. Mm-hmm. She jumps up and down and heads in. Marcellas. He screams, "Yes!" and takes his key, hugs Julie while squealing, and finally goes over to the door. "Can't imagine what would happen if he didn't make it in," Julie ad-libs, going outside her programming for a moment. up: Alison. That is not a surprise, as much as I don't like her. up: Mike. Bleh. I've heard the speculation that Will would only go if Mike could get in, and it wouldn't surprise me a bit. Final key: Chicken George. WHAT? Wow. Now that, I did not see coming. "That's so cool! Yeah!" he says. Cowboy and Ivette both look devastated. I think Lisa is weirdly relieved, and probably feels now like she wishes she hadn't even gotten involved. She already had her half a million. So the producers spiked the show with all of the potentially controversial people (Will, Mike, Danielle, Marcellas, and Alison) plus George. My theory is that with popular sweethearts the producers knew they wanted (Janelle, Kaysar, blah blah blah), the public was trusted to vote them in. But the controversy-creating contestants -- particularly those who (unlike Ivette) wouldn't throw the balance of seasons off even more -- they chose in advance as producer picks, and they never were part of the voting calculus. I just don't believe Jase got more votes than Will. I just don't. But that's pure and unadulterated speculation, so don't go by me.
Danielle's first DR of the season is Danielle at her most...Danielle: She says that everyone was happy and hugging, and then she says, "And I was thinking, 'This is all nice, but eventually it's going to get ugly.'" This is when Danielle starts to bore me. She has to think about strategy all the time, not in a specific way where she has a specific strategy, but she just has to think all the time, "It's a snakepit! I'm the most tricky! I'm the one who's the most on the ball!" I find it...dull, ultimately. You need to be doing a specific thing, not just being all "This is scandalous!" and pointing at the camera.
Chicken George: "Me making it here was like a donkey winning the Kentucky Derby." Ha! They're all kind of being exaggeratedly nice to George at this point, treating him like he was admitted to the house at the request of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
As Danielle and Marcellas hug, he DRs that they "will never be friends," apparently as a result of game play from four years ago. Oh, brother. I am familiar with Marcellas's ability to hold a grudge for a matter of years, but I must admit, I never anticipated he would remain quite this angry over losing, especially when he is famous for having dug his own grave. Danielle, for her part, says that Marcellas has a chip on his shoulder, and he can't look at her because she's "a strong woman," and he can kiss her booty. Those two are off to...just about the classy start I would have expected.
Erika goes into a room where some of the women are talking, and she sits beside Alison. They exchange an awkward greeting, at the close of which Alison tries to do a sort of "I did what I had to do!" thing. Erika DRs that Alison was responsible for getting her out, and three years later, "there's a possibility that she's changed." Oh, good Lord. I understand being pissed off if people are assholes, but still being pissed off three years later because they got you voted off? She's as bad as Marcellas. You can't be mad about people voting for you! Can't! Cannot! If you're still angry over people voting you off, then you're in no condition to play the game again, would be my impression. Alison plays it a little bit more simply, just interviewing that they hate each other, so, whatever.
In the kitchen, Chicken George is way too happy, and he seems to be explaining that he plays Vegas. Or something. "In my normal life," Mike says -- referring to the life he has in which he plays social host to people from Fear Factor -- "I would never hang out with a middle-aged man named Chicken George." All middle-aged men named Chicken George breathe exaggerated sighs of relief. Chicken George, meanwhile, asks Mike and Will whether they've ever seen Snoop Chicken Foot. "Snoop Chicken Foot?" Mike asks, and smiles indulgently at George. George raps as follows: "They call me Chicken George, from the first Big Brother show, I got voted off and Julie said I had to go." It's the shit you can't make up, people. "He's a minnow among sharks," Mike comments, very reminiscent of his "extras and stars" rant. Only this time, he's kind of right. I think George is exactly a minnow among sharks. His season was completely different, and he's way too needy to survive among these people, with the exception of the fact that they're all very likely to forget all about him and let him stay an inordinately long time, because voting him off just isn't a priority.
In the kitchen, Will and Mike are talking. I realize other people have ceased to think Will is cute, but I still think he is the one of the prettiest men I've ever seen. It's something about the eyes and the eyebrows, I've concluded. He asks Mike where Kaysar and James are. "Clearly, they have something brewing," Will observes with a smile. One or the other of them says he wants Kaysar gone, calling him "a smug ______," according to the yellow captions, and basically, as long as the "______" was something appropriately negative, I kind of agree. "We're going to have to hurt him in a very painful way," Mike says. Good to know that a tool remains a tool, even in a brand-new box.
And then, Mike is in the diary room, where...well, let me set the scene. Bleached hair. Striped headband. Matching striped wristbands. Florida basketball jersey. None of this is being made up by me for effect. He explains to us that America's love affair with Kaysar is hard for him to understand -- he mimics the way we all apparently hug Kaysar in our dreams and speak to/of him with cooing wonder -- given that Kaysar "loves himself." Of course, I don't disagree at all that Kaysar's overweening affection for himself makes it impossible for me to like him at all anymore, but hearing Mike complain about another guy's capacity for self-love is going down like battery acid over here. He and Will stand on the balcony looking down over the dining room, and one or the other of them makes a comment about looking down "at all the victims." James calls up to them and calls out the first alliance, which is pretty amusingly dry, really. Because, you know... everyone kind of already knows. In a DR session I'm glad they elected to televise, James mentions that Will and Mike are not only friends outside the house, but they own businesses together, so it's pretty obvious that they're going to operate as a bloc. Mike settles himself on a big couch, as James's voiceover discusses that Will is Batman, and Mike is Robin. Will turns to Mike and says they need to "shore some stuff up," but Mike just wants to sit back and play it cool. Will -- as he keeps dorkily doing throughout this sequence -- tips his empty champagne glass to his lips. There's nothing in there, twit, and it's coming off like a nervous habit. Feeling insecure?
Alison coquettishly calls up to Will, "Is it nice up there?" Calling her bluff, Will says, "It could be a lot better if you'd come up here." She theatrically rolls her eyes, and she then DRs that Will just isn't interesting to her at all: "He thinks the world of himself. And that's fine. Somebody has to, because I sure don't." I will tell you this right now: she wants him so bad she can barely keep her clothes on, and she's not hiding it very well. "I'm glad he likes himself, because I sure don't" has never been used in any other way. In fact, I think the words "I sure don't" pretty much seal her fate.
Kaysar decides to go all bad-ass by calling up, "Don't make yourself comfortable, Will." Kaysar gives one of the funniest DR interviews I've ever seen, in which he says, "I'm definitely looking forward to the challenge between Dr. Will and I [sic]." Because clearly, this is going to be a clash of the Titans. The one Titan who won, and the other Titan who...couldn't get past the halfway point even given an extra chance. Why would Kaysar think this comes down to him and Will? There are a gazillion people in the house who got farther than Kaysar. There are few people in the house who didn't get farther than Kaysar, as a matter of fact. Having a lot of swooning fans doesn't make you a genius, there, genius. Kaysar goes on to not only call Will "full of himself," which: thanks, Captain Obvious, but also "a punk." That is one of the least creative and least accurate insults I have ever heard applied by one contestant to another. "A punk"? Will is many bad things, most of which are far worse than mere punkdom, but he is not actually a punk. What Will is, however, is short of material, as he repeats in the DR his old "circuitry and wires" line, which seemed relatively spontaneous when he first said it, and seems...not so much, at this point. Boo!
"They don't even know what's gonna hit 'em," Will says, looking up at the camera. That glass? Still empty, nitwit. The entire group shares a champagne toast once Will fills up again. And...commercials.
When we come back, the plasma screen behind Julie reveals that it's time for the Head of Household competition. Private bedroom and perks, blah blah blah. Also the "responsibility" of nominating people. Julie also says that there's "a big twist" in tonight's competition, and they're all in the living room to hear about it. She tells them, in short, that the rules for this week are that there will be two winners. Two HoHs. They will have to agree on the two nominations, and if they can't agree, then they have to go up themselves. That twist, I kind of like. Not for any particular reason, except that it's interesting and will change the way people have to play. The houseguests seem appropriately horrified, adopting various expression of slack-jawed idiocy. Julie directs them to walk into the backyard.
Marcellas terms the backyard something like "a gay disco," and I...can't disagree, especially if Marcellas says so. There is an awful lot of tricksy lighting. The game of the evening is "Falling Stars," and basically, they split into two groups, so it's played in two rounds. For one round, seven people stand on pedestals on a rotating platform, and the other seven people swing a fifty pound fake "meteor" on a rope and try to knock the pedestal-standers off. Last person standing is the first HoH. Then you switch, and the pedestal people become the throwers, and you do it all over again. Got it? Standing on pedestals for the first round are Howie, Erika, Will, Mike, Marcellas, Jase, and James.
Julie announces that they're going to "add some color" to the competition, so between the "launchers" and the pedestals, an orange fountain suddenly erupts. It's hard to believe that you could reach a point on this show, especially this early, where you'd be like, "Okay, too much," but there it is. The orange fountain is too much. "Not cool," Mike says in disgust, and I kind of have to agree, even though it's him. It's garish but lame. It's like Vegas, only...if Vegas were in Wisconsin. Nevertheless, the competition is going forward anyway, with or without my approval of the decor. The guys on the pedestals, facing all the orange goo that the meteor will be flying through, decide to peel their shirts off. Diane DRs that this was okay with her, since the guys all have fairly nice bodies -- not that this means, she assures us, that she will fall in love with Evil Dr. Will or anything. She would never! Heh. Fair enough, lady. I can't knock a joke at your own expense.
The first with the rock is Nakomis, who winds up and takes out Howie. Alison DRs that she was very relieved to see a S6 person go on the first shot, since there are so many of them. Then, Danielle steps up. She interviews that, of course, Marcellas was her "biggest threat" (...why?), and that she was just being "real." Because if there's one thing Danielle just loves to be, it's "real." She misses. Kaysar says that he didn't want to hit Will -- he wanted to hit Will's "right-hand man" instead. Why not Will? For secret reasons, known only to Kaysar. It's all part of his master plan, where he and Will wind up locked in an endless dance of strategy. Kaysar swings, and indeed, Mike goes down. Mike proceeds to interview that he fell on purpose because being HoH makes you "a target," and I actually suspect that he and Kaysar are full of shit with regard to this entire sequence to similar degrees. That is to say: very much.
Janelle swings and hits Erika, who hops off. Nakomis has her second shot, and she takes out James. He DRs that she clearly enjoyed herself, putting "all 120 pounds and forty tattoos" into the shot. I feel my first sense that he might be the one Season 6 person I might wind up liking. Diane swings at Will, who grabs the asteroid, jumps onto it, and proceeds to swing through the fountain and back to his pedestal, where he tries to get back on. Never do it the easy way when you can do it the fancy way, right? He DRs that he thought this might be so intimidating that he would make everyone afraid of him, but it flopped, and he landed "up in the goop." Heh.
So, it's just Marcellas and Jase standing on the pedestals. And the shooter is Danielle, who totally misses Marcellas by a mile, but Jase grabs the asteroid and throws it at Marcellas, who is now out. Wow. So it's Jase as the first HoH, and he earned it a little bit, right there at the end. Jase tells us that he sees no problem with being HoH as long as he can blame the other person. Now that guy knows how to think the right way!
So now they switch, and the pedestal people are now the launch people, and so forth. Howie takes the first shot, and he misses on the main stroke, but he hits Nakomis on the backswing. Will steps up and takes a long, looping shot that circles around Alison and hits Kaysar, who's out. Again, Will is overly fancy, but it's not like it didn't have the desired effect. Will tells us in the DR that he thinks Kaysar has "an air of arrogance that's undeserved." Of course, no one is more arrogant than Will, at least if irony and lack of irony are considered one and the same, but I think Will's argument is kind of like the one I was making earlier: if you're going to be all I Am A Game-Playing Genius, you shouldn't be the single person who has been evicted more times than anyone else there. Will has repeatedly attributed much of his own win to luck, but nevertheless, there is a certain set of bragging rights that comes with having won, and Will has it, and Kaysar doesn't, and if Kaysar wants to be taken seriously, he's going to have to suck it up on that part of the equation, because otherwise, it's just sour grapes.
James tells us that he didn't actually care whom he hit, as long as it wasn't Janelle, because Janelle was his choice for HoH. He takes out Diane, as it turns out. Marcellas steps up. He tells us that he wanted to go after Danielle, but he misses her just like she missed him. There's a metaphor there, I think, as far as shared ineptitude. Jase steps up, and he says that he was going for Janelle, because he wanted her gone from the beginning. He hits the wrong blonde, however, and takes out Alison. She won't be happy about that, I'm thinking. Now, Erika steps up and manages to not only hit Chicken George and knock him down, but knock him down in a way that causes him to fall almost vertically such that he appears to crack the base of his skull on the pedestal. "Erika almost killed Chicken George," Will announces matter-of-factly in the DR in exactly the way he has of making me laugh for no particular reason. "Did you guys see that? She just broke his back." For her part, a laughing and horrified Erika DRs, "I killed the Chicken Man!" Fortunately, George is alive...for now. At least Will is a doctor. If George had been seriously injured, Will could have given him a chemical peel.
Howie takes out Danielle, so Janelle manages to -- by doing absolutely nothing -- become the second HoH. I don't like these competitions where it's all about who decides to take you out or not, so I was pleased that Jase at least did something. Janelle did nothing, but hey, there she is anyway. I have to say, hearing Howie refer to his friends as "Jedis" is going to get incredibly old incredibly fast. You have to win, or at least seem ultra-sneaky, to be a Jedi. You can't just...be there for a while, save yourself with a few vetoes, and finish third. Anyway, the big winner is Janelle, who's jumping up and down in spite of essentially being ballast throughout that challenge.
Julie reminds Jase and Janelle that they will have to agree on the nominations, or else it will be the two of them up for eviction. Alison DRs that it sucks that Janelle is the other HoH besides Jase and that they have to agree, since Jase would undoubtedly have gone after Janelle's group, and obviously, she's not going to go along with that. Will DRs that he "can't wrap [his] brain around Janelle," and he adds that he suspects she'll nominate him. Danielle states the obvious, as usual: "Now is the time for those two to start playing on each other!" Only she says it like it's a secret. Oh, and she adds, "Let the games begin." Games, indeed! Games!
We come back from commercials, and Jase and Janelle are doing an uncomfortable joint DR that they're HoH together. They look to be enjoying this about as much as they would enjoy an extremely bad blind date. If you've ever overheard a very bad blind date (the one I overheard most recently involved a woman who was horrified that her younger relatives called her "Barb" instead of "Aunt Barb"), you know how painful that can be. They invite the rest of the group to visit the HoH room with them. When they get there, the room is decked out with the usual comfortable beds and cookies and whatnot. Janelle articulately says, "The upstairs HoH room is a completely different feeling. You walk in there, and you're like, 'Wow, it's awesome.'" It's almost like being there, isn't it, when she makes it that vivid? Jase shows everyone pictures of his girlfriend/fiancée and her daughter, and he tells us that he's no longer just playing for himself; he's playing for the lady and the kid. While I don't entirely buy the transformation of Jase just yet, I will say that with some people, falling in love with an adult does a lot to vault them into adulthood. The group admires the room, and the tub, and Mike adds, "When I won HoH, I got a bag of peanuts and a comforter." Heh. He's a tool, but that was moderately funny, and true. It did kind of used to be the Doritos room. Will rather idiotically interviews that if he won, he wouldn't even sleep there, because it's a "waste of energy." I immediately note that Will is at his least appealing when he is trying too hard in a way he can't sell as satire, and that? Was it. I have a theory that preposterous broad strokes have to be done in a way that looks effortless to the point where you can't believe the balls-out awesomeness. [Two names for you: (1) Jeff Buckley; (2) Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. If you know what I mean, then you know exactly what I mean.] You can't go all pinchy, and when Dr. Will is pinchy, he is not fun.
Am I the first person to ever mention Dr. Will and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in the same paragraph? I'm pretty sure I probably am. Hard to believe.
Anyway. Everyone in the room becomes fascinated with a "spy screen" that lets the HoH room spy on various parts of the house. Alison indignantly points out in the diary room that she was always reduced to spying through regular old windows. For some reason, I find all this "I had to play Big Brother uphill both ways" talk sort of amusingly endearing. "These people are spoiled rotten!" Alison observes.
The morning arrives, and silly music plays, for reasons that are sort of unclear, as Jase and Janelle have a talk. He implies to her that he's happy to join in on whatever her action is, nomination-wise. Not a bad possibility to broach, considering that he's got to figure she's got four people in her group, so you might as well see what the options are for tagging along. Janelle mentions Will, and Jase grins, saying that Will is "smooth" and "cannot be reckoned with." Janelle is unhappy with Mike for trying to knock her off the post. I guess she thinks he should have just...closed his eyes and swung? They both try to avoid throwing out names, until Janelle mentions that if they were to put up George, she thinks George would go. She immediately drops this, though, and she persists in trying to get Jase to give some ideas, telling him to start with who he doesn't want to nominate. He just stands pat.
Elsewhere, Danielle tells George and Alison that she's just had a thought. She needs to talk to them: "When something comes to me strategically, it's like -- come here, I'll tell you!" She drags them into a corner. Danielle now DRs that nobody had approached her, so she decided to "stir the pot." And she makes a frantic "stir the pot" motion, which is not as amusing as she thinks. Danielle, like many people, has read a little bit too much of her own press about what an evil genius she is. "What can you do to make people uneasy?" she DRs. Why would you want to make people uneasy if they're uneasy about you? That makes no sense! She is a nut. "You've got to cause doubt!" Not about yourself, idiot! How complicated is this? Jesus. Anyway, Danielle's brilliant comment to Alison and George is that if Jase and Janelle don't agree, then the two of them go up, and the rest of the house might have the votes to get rid of Janelle. Alison looks momentarily pleased. She counts votes, and she seems to think it has promise. Now, what's interesting in retrospect is that I'm not sure Danielle meant this as a suggestion rather than a caution. I don't know whether Danielle just assumed that Alison and George would like Janelle better than Jase, but I almost think she meant this as a warning that the rest of the house might take Janelle out.
If that's not what happened, then Danielle doesn't really have as much of a head for strategy as she thinks she does. Because she says, "She has to be told." "Janelle?" Alison asks disbelievingly. Danielle laughs. "I'm just saying." See how that makes so much more sense if you think Danielle was warning against that happening? Alison explains in the DR, quite correctly, that saying you want to tell Janelle makes no goddamn sense if -- as Alison interpreted the conversation -- Danielle was offering this up as a plan. So all this did, in the end, was make Alison unsure of what Danielle is up to. Congratulations, Danielle. You have now stirred the pot and brought attention to yourself. In fact, when Alison asks Danielle which side she would vote against if Jase and Janelle were to not agree, Danielle doesn't say. So what's your point, Danielle? You don't stir the pot just to make people not trust you; that's idiotic, and it's not at all the way you played last time at the times you played well. You stir for some reason. Because...what was Danielle's plan? To have Janelle voted off? Not to have Janelle voted off? You can't call people aside and say, "I have a mastermind plan that someone could use to take out Janelle, but I might vote against it." Danielle ends the conversation: "I give information. You take it the way you use it." Again, trying to sound tricky. Again, not succeeding, because this just doesn't make any sense. Danielle tries to make this less stupid by saying in the DR that she has alliances only to herself. And nobody's saying you have to have an alliance. But you need a plan, and pursuing two diametrically opposed plans at the same time is not a sensible way to go.
When Danielle is gone, Alison says to George that they need to float this idea to Jase. George shrugs and says, "Probably." He DRs that this is a very different game than the one he played. Which: good catch, sir. Elsewhere, Danielle presents her idea to...James, who is on Janelle's side. And she says to James that Janelle is in "jeopardy." But it's not at all clear what she's saying or suggesting, so James just walks away with the opinion he expresses in the DR: "It just felt like Danielle was trying to use me, and it really pissed me off." Seriously, Danielle: it's not anybody's first rodeo. They're not preparing to hang on your every word.
Outside, Alison shares the Danielle Plan with Mike, Diane, and...Jase. Jase immediately tells Alison that he's pretty sure Danielle is with Janelle and friends, which...as I said, on repeat viewing, that's what I think, too. I think Danielle actually approached Alison and George to say that Jase might intentionally refuse to agree in order to get Janelle off, and this was something to be avoided. Because, again, what she said to James was, "She's in jeopardy." I think Danielle just had no idea that the rest of the group was actually more interested in booting Janelle than Jase. If that's the case, then it's a good example of not getting the lay of the land before you start in. Anyway, Alison shares with the rest of them the weirdness of Danielle wanting to tell Janelle about this idea.
Jase says in the DR that on the one hand, he thinks that Alison is on the up and up about breaking up the S6 group. But on the other hand, the idea of leaving himself on the block on purpose seems kind of risky. No shit, dude. He decides that the safest thing for him to do is go to Janelle before she hears about it from someone else. As it happens, George, Alison, and Jase wind up approaching the HoH room as James is inside warning Janelle about the possibility of her winding up on the block if Jase refuses to agree. When he sees that this meeting is ongoing, Jase basically blows off Alison and George and goes inside to talk to James, Kaysar, and Janelle. Janelle earns my enmity by declaring in the DR that she is "very offended" that anyone is trying to get her out. Her! Janelle! America's Sweetheart! How dare they! What is she thinking, that it's a competition or something?
Jase tells us that he's "infiltrated" (heh) the group from S6, and that he's basically trying to play both sides a little bit. Always a risky strategy, dude. Wait, how did I wind up halfway rooting for Jase, of all people? Mercy. Anyway, James interviews that Jase has freely asked to join up with S6, and then James adds that he trusts Jase more than Kaysar or Janelle. Jase...tells us that he isn't at all trying to be in with them. He's just trying to make them think that. And now James is pushing hard in his meeting with Kaysar, Jase, and Janelle that although he likes Danielle, he did not like the bit where she went off on this Disagreement Plan at all. If, in fact, Danielle was actually thinking at the beginning that she was protecting Janelle, then it has backfired hysterically, because Janelle's DR involves the statement, "If Danielle's going to come after me, I'm going to go after her." Good one, there, Danielle. Way to make it all coherent.
After the commercials, we return to find a screen that reads, "Nominations Today." Alison has a seat with Jase in the hammock, and she runs down the plan, which is that she, Mike, Will, Nakomis, and George are all totally dedicated to getting out the S6. So with Jase, that would make...five votes. In a house of fourteen, where there will presumably be twelve votes if Jase and Janelle go up. The hell? So that means that Alison didn't get support -- or didn't seek it -- from Diane, Erika, Marcellas, or Danielle. Interesting. Anyway, she brings her I-have-five-votes plan to Jase. Alison presses Jase about the possibility of disagreeing, although she acknowledges that she'd be very hesitant to do it if she were in his position. Jase tells her that his most trusted people are her, Diane, and Nakomis, and that Will and Mike he would pick up just for the hell of it, just for the time being. "I'm not going to put up you, for sure," Jase tells Alison.
And now, nominations. Will tells us that he thinks that as a winner, he's destined to be nominated, and anyone who doesn't nominate him is "an idiot." Mike doesn't anticipate being nominated. Danielle hopes that Janelle and Jase went with not agreeing, because it would mean she won't be up, at least. Janelle and Jase emerge with the big key box. Janelle says that they'll do it the normal way, and the first key Jase pulls is Marcellas. Marcellas pulls the key of Erika. Erika pulls Nakomis. Nakomis pulls Diane. Diane pulls James. James pulls George. George pulls Kaysar. Kaysar pulls Mike. Mike pulls Howie. And Howie pulls...Will, and that's it. So the nominees are Danielle and Alison. The two schemers. Two who chose to draw attention to themselves. I have to say, at least Alison had a plan and she tried to execute it. So that's it for the ceremony.
Danielle acknowledges that she got bitten by her own stupidity. Janelle bitches that Danielle "overplayed her cards a bit," going so far as to pot-kettle that Danielle is used to having a whole bunch of people behind her. Considering she's famous for a two-person alliance and you're famous for a six-person alliance, you're not making yourself sound too smart, there, Janelle. For his part, Jase says that everybody had this great plan, but in the end, the stupidest thing you can do is let yourself go up on purpose. And: seriously. I kind of wanted him to go along with it, because I already find the entire S6 group insufferable, but you have to be sane, and it's not sane to be on the block for no reason. Alison: "America might like Janelle -- I hate her. I'm probably going to pull her out by her fake hair and her fake boobs and drown her in the pool." Hee. I mean...officially, according to canon, you can't side with Alison against Janelle, but: hee. Fame and public adoration wears a lot better on some people than on other people, Ethan ZohnandStephenie LaGrossa, and I fear that it has not had a good effect on the relentlessly canonized Janelle and Kaysar. I can't stand either of them already, which will make for a nice season of spluttering hate mail. I can't wait!
Oh, and Will is really put out not to be nominated. Because he has, in fact, changed...very little. And isn't that what an All-Star season is all about?