Sunday
Mike wins a silly HoH competition, and with it a ticket to F3. Erika actually thinks that he's going to nominate Will in addition to Janelle, in part because being nominated will make her feel like it was a "ho-mance." Mike says that he cares about her far too much for that, which he doesn't at all. He admits that he's going to hell for what he's doing to her, as if that somehow makes it less disgusting. Which it doesn't. While Janelle is just playing around with Will and knows he has a girlfriend, Erika appears to actually like Mike, and he specifically talks to her about how great it's going to be when they get out of there and so forth. He is coming off like the biggest piece of crap ever, and it's only getting worse. Anyway, everyone knows that what really matters this week is PoV, so it's all kind of inconsequential, which is why we have to watch a lot of footage of stuff like Erika and Mike talking about having babies. Gross. But Mike puts the two women up anyway, and it's not clear, but it looks like the plan is to evict Erika. Why Mike would go along with that I do not know, but it looks like Will has the reins as usual.
Tuesday
Erika and Janelle are on the block, but after Janelle wins again, Will goes up. Seeing her fate begin to look grim, and somehow disillusioned by her relationship with Mike (hard to imagine), Erika decides to take matters into her own hands. She approaches Janelle and pounds on her for a while, trying to get the message across that they're both being played by Mike and Will. Shockingly enough, it actually works, especially after the women finally compare notes and find that they've been told exactly the same things about being secret Chill Town ninjas. Once they start to talk, Will very quickly catches on that he's in trouble, although Mike is sure that "those bitches" won't steal the show. But steal it they do, as Janelle boots Will, a development that Will takes pretty much in stride, but that leaves Mike literally slack-jawed on the living room couch. (Looks good on you, punk.) In the HoH competition that follows, which would normally be about endurance, Mike immediately steps down, taunting Erika and Janelle about how they both have to take him to F2, so he doesn't need to compete. He is really, really pissed off, which is awesome. Unfortunately for her, Janelle is so surprised when Mike drops out that she takes her hand off the key she's supposed to be holding, and Erika immediately wins, making it not very much of an "endurance" competition. Oh, and at the jury house, Howie is emerging as a villainous bully, because he is precisely the kind of person who is only a fun guy when things are going his way. So your F3 are Janelle, Erika, and Mike. He's convinced he goes to F2 no matter what -- we'll see.
Thursday
One of the things that makes reality television completely freaking fascinating is the tragedy-of-the-commons aspect, in which people gradually pick off everyone who could beat them late in the game -- meaning everyone likable -- in order to improve their individual chances of winning. The result tends to be an end-game combination of people who were able to stay in through brute strength by winning competitions (see: repeat immunity winners on Survivor), people who were able to stay in because they were considered so unlikable that no one would vote for them, and people who were able to stay in because they did so little that they were never considered to be threats. None of these people are necessarily the ones who anyone thinks should win. It's a show in which theoretically, the players choose the winner -- not only at the end, but week after week throughout the season. Nevertheless, they almost always wind up putting themselves in a position where they are choosing between two potential winners they don't want. Because, see, the final two are Erika and Mike, because Janelle biffs the final competitions and Mike doesn't think he can beat her in a final, so he takes Erika. Erika, who is embarrassing herself and everyone else by appearing to have forgotten everything she knew three days ago about how revolting, deceptive, dishonest, and unsanitary Mike is and putting her mouth on him voluntarily. Mike, who sits right down and tells us -- without irony -- that he has used this "ho" for all she was "good for," and now he's done with her. It's tempting to look at this final two in terms of who deserves more emphatically to be cursed with the loss, especially because it's hard to accept the idea that Mike will do this and there will be no punishment. But of course, the fact of the matter is that whether he does or doesn't win half a million dollars -- he probably will -- being himself is his punishment. The punishment for being empty is emptiness, not poverty. The punishment for inability to feel the things that normal people feel is numbness, not losing at this or any other game. The punishment for antisocial behavior is your alienation from all social structure, not the experience of shame. Enjoy that convertible, though. I'm sure it will make the harm you've knowingly done a lot easier for your mother to stomach.
What I love about Big Brother is that it's almost over.
Sunday
Previously: Janelle won lots of competitions, was twirled, was called a princess, and pretty much did as she was told. Erika convinced herself that the world was so short of available men in their thirties that it was necessary to put her mouth on Mike's mouth, and somewhere, a single guy in his thirties was like, "Hello? How about a little love for the flatulent, rabies-stricken cockroach fetishist?" But alas, Erika had already settled.
Danielle's eviction in blue and white is accompanied by both the weirdly slasher-movie-like piano music we've come to expect and Will's DR explanation that nobody should have been surprised at what happened to Danielle after the same thing happened to so many other people before her. Janelle says that the eviction was "emotional" because Danielle is such a good player. That's why, of course, Janelle once said of Danielle, "That great player has to go." Oh, wait. She didn't. Mike says he was "proud and happy for her" that Danielle went out "with her head held high." I'm sure that knowing she didn't let Mike down in terms of class and dignity means everything to her. You always want to hear the warthog tell you that you look pretty. And then we slide to color, and Erika talks about how it was so tough to evict Danielle, and she just hopes Danielle, who declared her intention to vote for "the strongest player," might think that she's the strongest player and give her a vote. I do not think that's going to happen. I think to Danielle, part of being "the best player" involves being "not the person most directly responsible for evicting Danielle." And then, of course, we relive the quick eviction of George. Janelle initially thought of nominating Mike, of course, but she didn't, because Will told her not to. Apparently, the most impartial source Janelle could think of for wisdom about whether to nominate Mike was Mike's closest ally and best bud. Hilariously, in the DR, Janelle says that she lies in bed and thinks about former houseguests. She refers to this as "studying." That is awesome. If I could reclassify my daydreaming as "studying," I would have several additional degrees by now.
Erika says that she was rooting for Will or Mike, because she was so sure they wouldn't put her up. Will tells us that the whole overdrive thing was terrible for his game, which is typically slow and methodical. That's completely true, too, which makes one "completely true" for Will this season, I think. He's right that one of the things that makes him good is that he often doesn't expect to convince people the first time he brings something up. He's perfectly happy to wait and raise an issue again later, which I think is how he helps them feel like they're not being handled. I mean, in the "overdrive" show, Will wound up having to pretty much just order Janelle to do what he wanted, even though he punctuated it with compliments and twirling, and even Janelle would have caught on if he had to do that every week. "Janelle listens to me because she's in love with me," Will says plainly, which is kind of sad, but true. She's not in love like Erika is, with the visions of long-term happiness, but she's in love like high-school girls are, all swoony and out of her mind. It's particularly unfortunate because her reason for being "in love" with him is that he says things to her like, "Who's the hottest girl in the Big Brother house?" So she's not so much in love with Will as in love with the concept of an endless stream of uninterrupted flattery.
Anyway, as we see, Janelle nominated George and Erika just like Will told her to. Mike: "Will has done unbelievable work on Janelle using his charisma and sexual magnetism, and miraculously, the two of us are still here." I'd have to say that's the first time I've ever seen a dude talk about his best buddy's "charisma and sexual magnetism." You hardly ever see guys at football games like, "You know, Dave, I bet you could get us a couple of free hot dogs, and all you'd have to do is use a little of that, you know, charisma and sexual magnetism."
Will now explains that for once, he was definitely trying to win the veto competition in order to get rid of Erika, and that he tried so hard he broke his thumb. Mike tells us that Erika probably doesn't know that she saved herself from going home. Janelle says she was "a little disappointed" that Erika got the veto. Our long and dull reliving of the speeded-up week (ironic!) continues as Mike discusses how he obviously knew he'd be put up rather than Will. But of course, George was evicted. "His legacy will live on. He will be sorely missed," Mike says. It's amazing how Mike manages to talk down to anyone, let alone everyone, given who he is. Like...dude, you're on TV, doing nothing, and you know a bunch of other people who have been on TV doing nothing. What am I missing about the fundamental awesomeness of your existence? "Chicken George is the only person in the jury house who I have not blatantly misled and lied to," Will DRs. "I guess you could argue that Chicken George may vote for me if I was in the final two. I, personally, am going to miss him a lot." George leaves, and then we slide to color for the second time, and these are your final four. Erika, Mike, Janelle, Will. Janelle says that it feels like the mom and dad got evicted and "the kids are left all alone at home." It sounds like fun, but when you can't invite anyone ever and all you can eat is oatmeal, it's just not the same.
DR phone call. There's no real joke here, except that Mike and Will are laughing over the fact they're not evicted, which...isn't a joke. It seems just about right that this joke has emptied itself of all hilarity just as the show coughs its way to the finish line. I do like the way Will is kind of holding his thumb up like a dork the entire time, like he has no idea what to do with it.
Janelle tells us that she didn't think she would make it this far, which is completely untrue. She manages to congratulate herself and say that the "odds were against" her, in spite of the fact that she came into the house as a well-known dominant player in competitions who also happened to be part of a four-person alliance. The idea that she can conceive of a universe in which she was the underdog is how you know that the word "underdog" has lost its meaning except as applied to cartoon characters. Anyway, the final four all congratulate themselves as Mike tells us again that the final four is all about "Operation Double Date." He calls Janelle "the buxom blonde," and he calls Erika "Miss Body Pilates." At this point, he still thinks that Operation Double Date is all in fun, of course, and he thinks that rhyming makes him cool.
Erika tells us that she wants to be to Mike in F2 if possible, because he'd be easier to beat than her other options. She also thinks that it would be "cute" to have "the two lovebirds" in the final two. Speeee-yack. You're not lovebirds, lady. You're an oblivious ostrich, and he's a disease-ridden pigeon. Fortunately, you shall never reproduce. Mike tells us that Erika thinks that if they get to F3, he's taking her to the finals. "That ain't happenin'," he whispers ostentatiously. Of course, Mike is talking about an F3 with the two of them and Will. Things would play out quite differently with the two of them and Janelle. But I'm sure Erika isn't smart enough to see that coming, right? Nah. She's just a girl. Nothing to worry about. What kind of trouble could she possibly cause?
There is some making out between Erika and Mike, and there's one part where they have to blur her ass in a way that's really quite unusual. It's hard to explain, but we're viewing her from behind, and she's leaning forward, and it appears that they're blurring the part where her ass turns into...her front, if you see what I mean, and her bikini is so tiny that something is being seen that should not be seen, and it's this kind of thing that makes this show so irritating. Do I need a gynecologist's-eye view of anyone? No, I do not. Pile that on top of how totally icky it is to see her and Mike make out to begin with, and my stomach is in full revolt. Mike congratulates himself in the DR on being the "king of reality showmances." He reminds us about Krista, as if any of us have ever forgotten. He also says that he had two "targets" in his mind when he came in -- Diane and Erika. You'll notice that because Erika had a spectacular breakup of which Mike was well aware (being highly connected to the incestuous world of reality-show gossip) and Diane is Diane, he had pre-selected the women most likely to suffer damage from being dicked around. You think that's a coincidence? Yeah, me neither.
Anyway, Mike goes on: "Number one rule in showmancing? Don't ever get real feelings for the person." Erika, on the other hand, DRs that "there might be real feelings," and that she and Mike are "a match made in Big Brother heaven." That must be a very, very strange place. I envision a lot of white robes that aren't worn very often.
And now, Janelle and Will. They flirt; he manages to avoid actually doing anything with her while still making her feel like maybe he will later...it's the same game as always. In the DR, they explain that they both have significant others, and she's so far gone, she doesn't even know how far gone she is. Will then has a solo DR session in which he draws the line between a "flirtmance" and a "showmance," saying that in a flirtmance, like what he has with Janelle, it's just flirting and you don't actually do anything, unlike in a showmance. I have to say, I've seen obsessive-compulsive professional organizers taking on 10,000-piece paper-clip collections that don't compartmentalize as much as Will. He adds that some people probably think he has a showmance with Mike. "There's nothing wrong," he says, "with two men...being in a hot tub...together sometimes." And then he pauses, smiles at us, and says, "Right?" We see a shot in which Will appears to be hiding from Mike inside an inner tube so that they don't look at each other's nakedness in the hot tub. And then he adds, "I think it's a bro-mance." Hee. I have decided that the way I would most enjoy Will is if the diary room were the only way I ever had to experience him.
Erika and Janelle smoke and talk later. Erika tells us in the DR that she used to smoke, and then she quit smoking after her grandfather died of emphysema. But now, of course, with all the stress, along with her body's underlying knowledge that if this is all it's going to kiss, it might as well give up, she started smoking again. Mike explains that he doesn't think smoking is "very attractive," and adds that it makes Erika look old, and her breath smells bad and stuff. The idea of using him as a barometer of attractive behaviors leaves me speechless.
Now, it's time for the HoH competition, and first, they have to change into their outfits. It turns out that everyone is dressing up as a referee. Oh, how droll. Erika laments that the outfits make her look like she has "no figure." Of course, that's because she does have no figure, other than the bags, so if the bags are covered up, there's no figure. Janelle fares better, being what a friend of mine would call "a girl made of girl," rather than a girl made of, say, pipe cleaners.
Outside, the backyard has been transformed into a miniature football field. The football theme actually has nothing to do with anything, but given the stupidity of the competitions, the least they can do is put down some elaborate trappings. The actual contest itself requires guessing which day certain things happened, and however many days off you are, that's how many "yards" you have to move backwards, and then whoever is the closest at the end -- in other words, whoever has the smallest total when their errors are added up -- that's who will win. If you know the game on The Price Is Right, Mountain Climber, where the music says "Ohhh-dee-ohh-dee, ohhh-dee-ohh-dee," and all your mistakes have to be small enough that you don't go over the cliff, and you usually win if you say $15, $25, and $35 (well, those were the prices of my youth; it might be more now). It's a distant relative of that game.
First question: on which day was the first person evicted? Will and Erika say 13, and Mike says 11. Mike was right; Will and Erika move back two. Okay, we need to cut to the chase or we'll be here till Christmas; the questions continue, and they're all equally cerebral, and ultimately, Mike is the big winner. (That's how you can tell how cerebral they are.) Mike tells us during the competition that he and Will actually didn't throw it for once, so they're probably very relieved that Erika didn't win. It's great how he says this all seriously, how important the competition is, while the serious music plays and we watch him standing there in his referee costume and his bad-ass terry-cloth headband. It's like it's Halloween, and he doesn't know it. Will points out, however, that it really doesn't matter that much who wins HoH, except to that person who gets the free trip to F3. To everyone else, it only matters who wins PoV, because that person will be the one who decides who goes home. Erika says in the DR that it's "kinda hot" that the "bad boy" she's sleeping with is going to nominate her. I throw a handful of nails at the TV out of sheer frustration. Will repeats that he didn't care whether the new HoH was him or Mike, as long as it wasn't Erika. Of course, he should have cared a little, because while the HoH competition isn't worth much, it is worth one thing -- it ain't you going home .
When Will and Mike head inside, I have my only moment ever of missing Marcellas, because Mike is padding around in no shirt and just the referee pants, and he looks incredibly stupid, but also like he's trying incredibly hard to look cool. I wonder if anyone told him before he went prancing around like this that he looks like a malformed ballet dancer who can't actually dance. Marcellas could have made something out of that, and it would have been beautiful. The two boys sneak into the storage room and do their little jump-up-and-down thing with the wuh-wah-wah-wah music, because the funk band thinks girls are dumb. Will tells us that their plan is to get the women hating and suspecting each other so much that either of them will be determined to take the other one out. Mike refers to this as "old school, bro." I have to say, I think it's a little more like Old School, without the part where it's funny on purpose. I loved it when I learned that Old School is actually one of Mike's favorite movies, because I'm pretty sure he doesn't consider it a comedy, or if he does, he doesn't understand the way in which he is the punch line.
Later, Janelle, Mike, and Will talk about what kind of ring Janelle would demand when she gets married. The guys are both surprised to hear Janelle claim that she wouldn't need much of a ring. Neither of them believes her. She predictably takes offense, yawn. Mike decides to cause trouble by suggesting that they all have a "crazy weekend in Vegas" and Janelle and Will can do a "fake, cheesy wedding." Will does not think this is hilarious. In fact, Will kind of wants to strangle his idiot friend. "Why would we do that?" Will asks through a strained, insincere grin. "'Cause you guys do your little flirt thing," Mike answers. Janelle looks confused, and for once, it's not because of the vocabulary being used. She answers that maybe they'll get drunk and they'll really get married. "That's what I'm hoping for," she chirps on the square. Will speculates that he will then spend an entire week getting it annulled. "Why would you do that, Will?" Mike asks. A chirping-cricket effect is cranked up in the background as Janelle stares at Will. "So that we could get married in Minnesota and have it legit," he finally says. It's depressing, because Janelle clearly thinks they're going to go off and go to the prom together, despite the fact that she knows Will has a girlfriend. Not the best decision-making, there, you might say. You get the guy, you lose. You don't get the guy, you lose. It's really pretty simple.
Mike gives the tour of his HoH room. You know you couldn't avoid it forever. This whole ridiculous gimmick has entirely lost its luster now, but basically, he gets the gifts of Spaghetti-Os and powder blue furnishings. Will kind of can't believe that Mike likes Spaghetti-Os and is happy to have them. I think whoever shops for the house likes Mike a little bit less than I do. Will tries to get the girls to take a bath with him and Mike in the HoH tub, but Mike encourages them all to just move to the big hot tub outside.
So now, they're all in the hot tub, drinking to their own awesomeness, and Will is getting revenge on Mike for the wedding business by asking why he and Erika don't just get together and have a baby. Will tells us in the DR that the "loud clicking" is Erika's biological clock. I'm not sure those jokes are going to be so funny to guys after this week, when we learned that there's a good chance that "as men age, there is a greater chance of new mutations in their sperm." So much for a substantial chunk of one of your natural advantages, smarty-pants. Anyway, Will tells Mike and Erika that if they have a baby, they will have been much more thoughtful about it than many people, especially since they have a doctor to oversee the proceedings and advise them. Will announces that the baby shall be called, "Chilliam." Erika obligingly laughs, but she's not serious. That name is not on the list she has come up with at all. You can look in her notebook. She then DRs that she wants to have a baby with Mike, which I so, so hope is not serious. Will asks them if he can deliver the baby, and Erika says that he can. "One of the major ploys of the week," Mike says, "is to really cement my relationship with Erika. You know, she's in her mid-thirties now, and she needs to start thinking about the future, and I was...willing to do that. I am willing to do anything at this point to make sure Chill Town gets to the final two." I'm kind of hoping that some kind of supernatural curse is in effect, where the 10,000th time Mike says "Chill Town," his head will explode like a potato in a microwave. I refuse to give up hope.
And then Will and Janelle are in the hot tub, and she tries to get him to make out with her, as she's been doing for, like, ever, and he DRs that from his perspective, "Operation Double Date worked too well." Will says that Janelle is all over him and wants him to kiss her and sleep with her and stuff. Wow, easy to feel sorry for him, isn't it? "I'm done," he tells her in the hot tub. "Well then I'm done, too," she says petulantly." "Good," he answers, and then he mutters, "psycho." Of course, she gets offended, and he calls he on the fact that she's clearly not used to not getting exactly what she wants all the time. Janelle drunkenly slurs that he annoys her. "Then let's not even be friends," he says, and she agrees. Janelle, proving the correctness of precisely what he's saying, which is that she already sees herself as his girlfriend, tells us that they had their "first argument." She calls it "really bad and messy and awkward," although it looks to me like she's just slurring drunk, and it's not really awkward for him in the slightest, except that she's acting like a nutbar. She leaves the hot tub in a huff, and Will DRs that she's "easily angered," and he's now concerned that Janelle will get PoV and evict him.
So, of course, Will and Janelle have to have a talk. She's wearing her usual one-shoulder-on, one-shoulder-off combination. They talk in the storage room, and Erika listens at the door as they have what appears to be a completely meaningless make-up discussion. I completely don't understand why these two insist on whispering all the time. WE CAN HEAR YOU, DUMMY. And even if we couldn't, isn't it sort of the deal that you give up your privacy when you go on a show where there are 4,000 cameras on you at a time. Anyway, Erika does, according to her DR session, learn that Will seems to have told Janelle the same thing he and Mike have been telling her, which is, "You're staying, baby! She's the one who's going." When Mike comes upon Erika listening at the door, he immediately bursts in on Will and Janelle, and Erika completely misses the boat and thinks that Mike is just the worst spy ever. Not too bright. "I will definitely be in charge of teaching our child spying lessons," she says. Mike will be in charge of headgear, presumably.
So when Mike has been supposedly shooed away and has taken Erika with him, Janelle whines to Will, "I just -- I don't want to be in the house with heeeer. She upsets me." She is...really too old not to have any fucking coping skills. Will promises he's going to do everything he can to get rid of Erika, and now they hug, and they make up, and squeeeeee! But Will does repeat to her that she's used to getting her way with everything, and that she's not used to the fact that he doesn't give her whatever she wants. And then he twirls her, and that, of course, makes everything better. "You always make me smile," she twitters. And...like, of course he does. He always tells her she's pretty, and that's all it takes. She seems to think that being told she's hot constitutes an effort to have a relationship with her, and I just do not get that at all.
Later, Erika and Mike lie in bed, and she says that she can't wait to get him out of the house. And she doesn't mean that in the way in which it would be awesome. She means it in the way in which it is pathetic and probably dangerous to her health. Mike tells her that it's great how they respect each other enough that they're not trying to "push things." She says in the DR that she wouldn't have expected to "meet [her] mate in the Big Brother house." Oh, Erika. "There will definitely be something between the two of us when we leave." Yeah. And it's catching. Back in bed, Mike murmurs, "I mean, we'll never forget this. You know what I mean? People don't have this in their lives." You can kind of tell she spends all her time around reality-show people, because this isn't just bullshit; it's bad bullshit, and if she knew anyone normal, it wouldn't affect her. It's not even worthwhile bullshit. In the DR, Mike says, "Erika is going to be extremely hurt after the show." He adds, "I'm a bad, bad person. I am going to hell." And he says it with unmistakable pride.
Will, Mike, and Janelle play cards. Mike talks about how the PoV winner will have all the power, and Will mutters that as long as one of the three of them wins, everything's fine. Janelle claims that she doesn't really believe them that she's safe, but I think we know that's a pile of horseshit. She believes everything Will tells her, even though she knows she shouldn't. Erika takes Janelle's place in the card game for a minute, and basically, they tell her the same things they told Janelle. They promise her that she's the one who's going to stay. Erika tells them right out that she thinks they're telling Janelle the same thing, and Mike tells us in the DR that he and Will laughed uncomfortably when Erika "jokingly" said this. Of course, Erika isn't joking at all, and he's the only one who laughed uncomfortably -- Will was unfazed as always. Will doesn't really do "laughing uncomfortably."
Erika wants to know whether Mike is putting her up. He admits that he's thinking about it, yes. The guys tell her, quite correctly, that it doesn't really matter much who Mike puts up, because whoever wins veto will be the one who isn't up when the vote comes around. Of course, I guess it matters because Mike might win veto himself, but for the most part, it isn't important. Erika tells Mike that her concern is more that for him to put her up makes her look like "a ho-mance." That's a lovely expression; I wonder when that came up. So basically, Erika just asks him not to put her up as a dignity-preserving device, because they're sleeping together and everything. Will continues to insist that Mike certainly can't nominate him. I don't know, actually, why they didn't just give her what she wanted here. It's true what they're saying -- it doesn't matter very much who's nominated. If Mike does win, he can always switch her in for one that he wants anyway. Why make her angry? Tell Janelle exactly why it's happening -- tell her that it doesn't matter, and that they did it to pacify Erika, but that as long as Erika doesn't win the veto, she's going home. It's just not sensible to give Erika more reasons to be unhappy. I think this is a serious misstep, and it seems to genuinely come from some stupid idea that at some fundamental level, Mike can't nominate Will, even if it clearly makes little difference.
When we return from commercials, it's nomination day. Mike stares at the increasingly irrelevant wall of pictures. Janelle says that she plans on being put up. Erika says that she doesn't know what Mike will do, because "[He] can't nominate the mother of your children, right?" Yeesh. Make it stop! Mike says that he feels "very relaxed." Will says that he will "flip out" if Mike nominates him, swearing to rip off Mike's orange fedora, but then he remembers that Howie already went there, and he admits that in fact, he doesn't really care. Mike says that he's doing "whatever it takes" at this point, and he doesn't care about anyone. He is so hateful.
Mike brings out the big nomination box. Will chooses to spend this ceremony eating some yogurt, which detracts from the drama a little bit, and which also looks unreasonably cocky -- just another way to unnecessarily piss off Erika. Once Mike is finished talking, the only key to come out of the box, to no one's surprise, is Will's. Mike's explanation is pretty much that he wouldn't have gotten so far without Will, so he felt like he couldn't nominate him. He turns to Erika. "You are far too special and have meant so much to me in the house to ever be some girl who kissed a guy on a reality show and got did wrong [sic]," Mike says, as he salivates over the prospect of doing her wrong.
Erika tells us that she hopes it's not "bros before hos." But they've tipped her off, I think -- she knows that there isn't much reason to nominate her unless they want to send her home. She knows that they're probably winking at each other behind her back. Janelle says that the other three are all after her, and now she's going to go after Will and Mike. Good timing, that. Wait until you're in a position of non-power, and then make your move. Mike tells us that he and Will are in the perfect position: "If one of us doesn't win All-Stars, it's going to be a crime." Will, for his part, is shocked that as a winner, he has a shot at winning again. "That's going to be pretty monumental," he tells us.
Tuesday
Julie Chen welcomes us, and her shirt is...wow. It's camouflage, sort of, but it's also clingy and...it's really weird. I'm not sure I know where you would wear that, unless it was to a casual Friday cocktail hour at the Army recruiting station.
We begin with the Jury House for the week, where Cabo San Lucas is directly in the path of Hurricane John, so as James explains, they have only been given a couple of hours to pack and move. When they get to the new place, it looks pretty good to me, too. Although it does have Howie in it.
We watch as James and Marcellas sit poolside and read, while Howie leaps into the pool. Not so much with the reading, I don't think. Marcellas declares that they now need more chlorine in the pool. Marcellas says something in the pool needs to die, and Howie is all, "Oh, yeah? I think your attitude needs to die," and the banter's not exactly Hepburn and Tracy. Howie complains that Marcellas is so negative all the time. I have to say, being around Howie would also make me negative, although it would make all of my bacterial cultures positive. When Marcellas says that he's only negative around Howie, Howie comes back with an accusation that Marcellas wasn't voted out because he was a good player; he was voted out because no one liked him. This is certainly a race to the bottom. I think it's going to be a squeaker! Marcellas says everyone hated Howie more than they hated him. Now there is a vote I wouldn't mind seeing. James smiles to himself while trying desperately to stare down at his book and possibly be dissolved into his deck chair. Some yelling happens, and Marcellas decides to insult Howie by calling him "fingerless," among other things, which...dude, you can't go to the physical deformity. You know better than that. In an interview, Howie breaks the news that he has nothing nice to say about Marcellas at all. "He's annoying, he's relentless, he's a baby...he's just probably the worst houseguest in Big Brother history." Marcellas and Howie yell at each other a while longer; Marcellas thinks that Howie isn't as good-looking as he thinks he is, and Howie thinks that he has Marcellas dominated in every way, and I would rather watch two ice cubes in a melting contest than sit through any more of this. James, who agrees with me, says that he'd love to see George or Erika show up, because Howie would pick on them for a while and get the hell off Marcellas's back. It's interesting that that's James's read of the situation.
That night, under a full moon, the three men wait by the door to see who comes through the gate . "It would break my heart to see Danielle walk through that door," James says. But walk through the door she does. James looks legitimately very unhappy, and he retreats into the house, while Marcellas hollers, "Nooooo!" and runs to hug Danielle. Of course, as Danielle hugs James, she says, "I got scumbagged." By which she means "I lost." It turns out those are the same thing. Danielle tells us that she was sort of touched by how shocked and unhappy the guys looked like they were to see her, and it made her realize they were really pulling for her. Or that they hate Will and Mike, in the alternative, not that she adds that part. The four members of the jury drink a toast, and Howie just hopes that George will show up . I think Howie may still be holding a small grudge; what do you think? As it happens, George is making his way into the house as we speak. And, for some unknown reason, he's wearing a wrestling helmet. When Howie tries to throw some random bully bullshit at George for breaking their alliance, George takes it in good humor and just laughs, "Guess who went out before me, Howie?" Howie doesn't want to guess. "Who was going to waste an HoH on a fat chicken?" Howie says back with an obvious angry edge. Such a good sport.
George produces the DVDs of the evictions of himself and Danielle, and the little group starts watching, and immediately, Howie starts in talking about how "ugly" Erika is. Does Howie not know what...Howie looks like? Because I get that some people are into those gym bods and everything, but face-wise? Howie is not good-looking. Howie is fug. I don't get where he got the impression that he was gorgeous. Anyway, when George makes a joke after his nomination to Erika about how he might be "the strongest player" and Erika jokes back, "You're pretty up there," Danielle turns and coldly says to George, "She never thought that." Ha! Oh, Danielle, you're such a daring truth-teller.
Howie continues to hassle George, and much like Marcellas once did, George tells Howie to shut up, because he doesn't have to listen to Howie's bullshit anymore. "Georgie," says Howie, "Did I make it very clear in this season that if people want to betray me, they'd be personally attacked?" George stares straight ahead and repeatedly tells Howie to shut up. "What part of that didn't you understand?" Howie says menacingly, and now George turns to Howie, a hint of warning in his tone, and says, "Shut up." I think it's safe to say that George has officially had enough. Danielle senses this, and she finally reaches over to try to put a stop to it. "You shut your fat ass, you fat-ass!" Howie yells at George. It's a good thing that the people Howie doesn't like are all fat-asses, because I don't know what he would do to deal with anyone else. George chastises Howie for being "a ten-year-old," to which Howie responds, "You suck!" Well, I guess George will have to take back that insult. Finally, George is done, and he gets up and tries to leave, but Howie keeps yelling. Danielle finally takes over. "Are you mad because he outplayed you?" she says to Howie. George insists that's exactly what it is, but Howie says, "Not at all!" Convincing! He turns back to George. "You suck too bad to get nominated. You suck too bad to waste an HoH on." Howie continues yelling. George offers Howie a "sucker," by which he means either a pacifier or a lollipop; both are funny. Howie -- I swear, I am not making this up -- rips off a voodoo doll of George that he has been wearing around his neck, and he hurls it to the floor. There are moments when I picture the craft projects I could have done; the letters to friends I could have written; the toilet-paper prison inventions I could have come up with instead of watching this show.
James, in an interview, says that the whole thing escalated ridiculously, and that Howie needs to get it through his head that the kind of stuff he's angry about is part of the game, and it's nothing to freak out about. "This 'personal attack' stuff, it just needs to stop." George returns to the couch, but he sits on the opposite end from Howie. "Now that we've separated the two little boys, can we go back to this video, please?" James asks. "Absolutely, Sir James," Howie says, all snotty. "Thank you, George, for remaining an adult," James says pointedly. I love how James and Danielle have become the sole voices of sanity. It's making them both a lot more appealing.
We go back to Julie, who tells us that we will soon be checking back on Janelle and Erika to see whether they're as gullible as they look.
When we come back, Will and Mike are out in the backyard, and Will is saying to Mike what he said to us the other day, which is that the thing about romancing the women "worked too well." He says, "Who would want to date us scumbags, I don't know. But they do." In the DR, Will says, very interestingly, that Erika has a "strong spirit" and is "kind of a maverick." It's been clear for some time that she makes Will nervous. He's been after Erika for a long, long time. After having seen Erika take out Danielle, Will says he knows that she could go after Janelle, but she could also go after him.
Erika comes outside and talks to the guys, telling them that she's nervous about being sent home by Janelle at this point -- the same place she went out in her own season at the hand of one Alison Irwin. Will tries to tell her that there's nothing to worry about as long as Janelle doesn't win PoV. Erika DRs that she trusts the boys, sort of, in a way, and then Will tells Mike that he needs to be serious about trying to beat Janelle in the PoV. Will goes inside and tells Janelle what she wants to hear, about how Erika is moping and whining, and he doesn't like her at all, blah blah blah. Janelle haughtily announces in the DR that Erika is "playing for second place," because she couldn't beat Janelle or Will or Mike. "She's kind of an idiot," Janelle says. Boy, I sure hope Janelle lasts longer than Erika, don't you? Otherwise, that's going to look pretty bad. Will assures Janelle that she has nothing to worry about as long as Erika doesn't win PoV.
Later, Will and Janelle sleep in the giant bed in the red room together in night vision. Janelle announces in the DR that "emotionally, he does have me," as if we didn't know. In bed, she tells Will she wants to tell him something. He comes over to her. "This isn't a showmance, and I want to be with you," she whispers, continuing in the mistaken belief, borne apparently of the failure to watch the show that she herself is currently on, that the microphones cannot pick up people whispering. Will's body language demonstrates total distaste at this announcement as he pulls back from her with a hearty "Oh, right." I really don't think he actually wants this to happen, what with the girlfriend and such. I think he was more comfortable when they were a little more on equal footing emotionally, before she started getting all hearts-and-flowers about it. I don't think he's been fair to her, but I don't think he intended to have her get all serious about it.
When we return, it's time to watch the veto competition. As Julie explains, the PoV winner, unless it's Mike, will be the person to cast the single vote that will put someone out. In the backyard, the houseguests find another goofy-looking setup. Basically, they have to pull houseguests' faces out of a pool of goo, and then they have to put them on a puzzle board. It's just trivia questions about past events. It's dressed up, but it's trivia questions about past events. Which mean Janelle will win, which she does. Will admits that he didn't even really try, because he didn't really care, being pretty confident he wasn't going out anyway: "I know I'm not leaving this week." Way to invite that karmic whap, doc. Dear Will: Your karma called. You don't want to know what it said. He also doesn't even recognize the picture of Alison when he first pulls it out, and he admits that he thought it was Jennifer Aniston. Get ready for the Jennifer Aniston legal team to be on your ass in a jiffy, there, dude. Anyway, Erika comes pretty close to winning, but she and Janelle are both shuffling faces around at the end, and Janelle hits on the right combination faster. Of course, upon her victory, all Janelle wants is to throw herself at Will, and she kisses him on the mouth, which he finds unusual enough that he mentions it later. "I'm guaranteed to be in the final three," he says, "because Janelle's going to keep me." Erika, in the DR, pretty much knows that she's toast. Janelle tells us that it was a big relief to win. "This was a tremendous advancement to me," she says in her patented, mangled way.
Erika almost immediately tries to pull Janelle off for a chat, saying in the DR with hilarious resignation that she was forced to try to appeal to "Janelle's sense of logic." You can tell that Erika realizes how unlikely to succeed that strategy sounds as soon as she says it, given that, as far as we know, Janelle doesn't so much have a sense of logic. Trivia questions, yes. Logic? Not so much. It's hard to lie in bed and study for logic, after all. Erika tells Janelle she knows Janelle is going to evict her, and Janelle wants to know why she thinks that. Oh, I don't know, genius. Because you're in love with Will and want to have his babies? "You can't beat Will," Erika says. "You want those two against you?" Janelle makes it clear to Erika that she thinks she can beat anyone who remains, though she doesn't want to say so. Erika also mentions that the jury would love Janelle if she took Will out.
Will overhears some of Erika and Janelle's conversation before they head inside, and as he and Mike sit around, he explains with some disdain how Erika is scrambling for her life. Mike says that it makes him feel better screwing Erika over, due to the fact that she's being such a bitch as to try to fight for herself. Will says that this just goes to show Erika isn't sweet or anything. Right. Because a sweet girl will let you get over on her, right? A sweet girl doesn't even try to get anything for herself if it's her or you, right? Mike DRs that Erika is "grasping at straws" since she's "the odd person out." He says that this way, "it's nice and easy. Janelle can kick her out, I can look like the supportive boyfriend...I haven't been eating a lot of desserts this summer, but, uh, apparently sometimes, you can have your cake and eat it too." Boy, is he ever feeling pleased with himself.
But Erika and Janelle are chatting upstairs. Erika tries the "Will doesn't need the money" speech, and that's a horrible argument, because Janelle just points out that she herself does need it. Erika says that she's talking second-place money -- Erika won't beat Janelle anyway. Janelle -- who is wearing her prom crown, barf -- says that she doesn't think Erika will take her to F2. Erika swears that she will. "What if I give you my word on my mother?" Erika says. Janelle DRs that she's having to decide who stays and who goes, and she's just been lied to over and over. "You know who the biggest liar is to you in this game?" Erika says. Janelle hesitates and pitifully says, "Boogie?" Erika just gives her a "girl, please" look, and Janelle admits that the biggest liar to her has been, of course, Will. Erika tells Janelle that Will and Mike are not going to promise her F2. They won't. And Erika will. "I won't take Boogie," she says. "I promise you." Erika DRs that she's not going to go out without fighting, and she's not going to "let these boys run [her] out of here."
Now, Erika and Janelle adjourn outside, where Will and Mike are working out, but the women huddle on the couch. I love the fact that Mike is trying to look all tough while working out in what appear to be polka-dot walking shorts. Erika tells Janelle she's "over these two boys." She also says this: "They think that you and I are a joke. Like they've manipulated us." Janelle stops to think about this. Erika says that the guys have obviously been trying to pit them against each other. She also reminds Janelle that Will pays her all kinds of compliments, but doesn't promise her F2. It's like Erika has been possessed by the brain of...someone with a brain. Erika vows again that she will take Janelle to F2 and she will take the boys out. Janelle considers this. "Promise?" she says weakly. "I promise," Erika says. And then Janelle says, "Would you like some wine?", and Erika agrees, and the two of them head inside together.
When Janelle and Erika are gone, Will, lying on the ground doing some kind of leg stretches or ab exercises or some such, says to Mike, "Boogie, I'm going home." Mike doesn't get it. Not too surprising. I think he was flexing at the time. No blood to spare for thinkin'! Will points out that not only are the girls hanging out together, but he's getting no eye contact from Janelle, and it was Janelle who asked Erika to go inside. It's a very bad sign. And he's right, of course. And Mike would never pick up on it, of course. In the diary room, Will says that "Operation Double Date has become Operation Double Mistake." He says that things right now look very, very dire for him. "This is our show," Mike says in the backyard. "These bitches think they're going to steal it from us." I wonder if he has any idea how that sounds. How horrible, but also how...much like the guy at the reunion with the hair plugs and the Viagra whose much younger girlfriend is in the bathroom making out with someone better-looking while dessert is being served. I mean, does he not know he's on the road to becoming that particular guy? Will tells Mike that there isn't anything more that he can do, really -- if Janelle's gone, she's gone.
Inside, Erika is pumping Janelle up into a girl-power frenzy, toasting her and being all, "Let's do it." Janelle wants that promise that Erika will take her to F2. Janelle says that Erika's promise sounds pretty good, but she still doesn't know what to do. That night, Janelle and Erika talk outside while the boys are, presumably, asleep. Erika smokes and tells Janelle that booting Will is her best move, which she's saying "as a friend and as a woman." And as a smoker, and as a reality-show contestant. She asks Janelle to think about all the shit that Will has pulled, promising that Howie and Marcellas and whoever would be safe. She doesn't understand why Janelle would trust Will about anything. "It's complicated," Janelle says. It's not complicated, Janelle. You want him for your boyfriend, even though you know he has a girlfriend, because he twirls you around and calls you a pretty princess. That is many things, including dumb and pitiable, but it is not "complicated." Erika takes another puff. "I think they're a couple of liars," Erika says.
And then: Janelle says, "Did he tell you that you're part of Chill Town?" Erika laughs and confirms that this is what she was told. Janelle and Erika proceed to compare notes -- finally -- and realize that they've been told all the same things all along. They laugh and curse their own stupidity. "They think they got us," Erika says in disbelief. "I'm so embarrassed for my actions," Janelle says, and it's not as bad as it sounds -- it's said in good humor, with the right mix of head-smacking and actual embarrassment. "I totally screwed up this whole game!" Janelle immediately realizes that she and Erika must have been laughing stocks all summer -- presumably among fans. Yep.
So now, Julie takes us to the living room and the F4. She asks Mike about the fast-forwarded hour, and he says that it was very stressful for him. She then talks about how close the four of them who remain really are. She asks Will what he thinks of himself and Janelle. Will says he thinks that they'll be "good friends." Janelle says "friends" too. Erika says "definitely friends, for sure." She says that as to romance, "who knows?" Mike says that if he's in F2, they can see how Erika's vote goes, and then they'll see. It's so disgusting, because he's saying this because he can, you know? He's saying things just to be able to say later that he said them right to her face and she couldn't even do anything. It's like...this is the kind of personality I associate with people who would get a sexual thrill out of pooping on others. Because the only thing gives them a charge is finding someone with whom they can test the bounds of revolting treatment without being refused anything. To her credit, Erika blanches visibly at this, and although he tries to say he's "just having some fun," he's...not. Will tries to break up this moment -- because I'm telling you, the cruelty for cruelty's sake to basically harmless people's faces just so you can fondly recall later how you humiliated them is not Will's MO, so much -- by saying, "I hate everybody." Heh.
Julie asks Janelle who she's most surprised not to see in the final four. Janelle offers Danielle. Fascinating question, Julie. And now, it's veto time! Janelle vetoes herself, and obviously, this forces Mike to put Will on the block, much as he hates to do it. "I can't believe you're nominating me," Will chuckles. So now, it's time for Janelle to make her vote. But first! Commercials. Game certainly does move at a breakneck pace, doesn't it?
When we come back, we finally will be hearing Janelle's decision. But first, of course, each nominee will be given a moment to argue why he or she should be kept. At this point, it's kind of like letting both the beers in the fridge explain why you should drink the other one, Erika says that she thinks Janelle is a great competitor, and she's sure Janelle will make the right choice. She barely refrains from winking, you can tell. Will tells Janelle that everyone in the jury house hates him, so for his personal safety, he'd like not to be sent there. He knows, though; you can tell. Janelle stands up. She says that it's very difficult, in spite of the fact that she's back in the "Baby Make It Nice" shirt, and she's made mistakes all summer. But now, she's "done making mistakes." She says that "for Marcellas and Howie," she's voting to evict Will. Way to suck up. I'll say this for her: she knows Marcellas. Will isn't thrown by his eviction at all, it doesn't appear -- he gives her a hug, and he gives Erika a hug. "Hug it out," he says to Mike over by the door. Mike is the only person in the room who didn't know this was going to happen, which sort of makes sense. There's a logical correlation between a complete lack of self-awareness and a complete lack of other-people-awareness. Janelle apologizes, and Will promises her it's fine. When he's gone, Janelle and Erika shake hands.
Will makes his way out to Julie Chen. Inside the house, Mike congratulates Erika with great bitterness. He is stunned, and he is incredibly angry. It's kind of this combination of feeling panicked that his friend is gone, as well as angry that his "charisma and sexual magnetism" performed about as well as the Green Bay Packers. It's sort of...the emperor's dick has no clothes, you know? Janelle and Erika retreat to the bathroom, where they enjoy how completely shocked the boys were. And then...well, maybe the best shot in the history of the show happens, as -- in the middle of a live show -- someone has the presence of mind to show Mike sitting in the living room, his mouth literally hanging open in a way you usually aren't going to actually see. I mean, it's typically just an expression, you know? Not this time. His mouth is hanging open, tongue-depressor-style. A mouse could walk right in, and I, for one, wish it would. Erika tells Janelle she's "awesome," and the two of them enjoy a two-handed high-five. So...a high-ten. Or whatever. In the living room, Mike seethes. What has become of all his plans? What?
Julie asks Will, settled on the couch across from her, how he managed to lose control of the game when he so recently appeared to be running everything. Will tells Julie that there are only so many lies you can tell, and that you do what you can, but it was all bound to catch up with him at some point. It's weird how subdued he is -- not bitter-subdued, just kind of like he stopped turning the crank on whatever the persona was that he felt bound to adopt. Julie asks him whether he should have maybe worked a little harder at winning that last veto. Will tells her that his strategy was not to win anything, and he went with that strategy until the end. That's a terrible answer to a good question -- there's no question that his decision to lay back on the theory that it didn't matter what he did, if indeed that's what happened, was an enormous strategic blunder based on a misreading of the situation. It was probably his biggest single fuck-up, aside from not letting Mike make Erika feel better by not nominating her.
Julie asks what went wrong with the famous Operation Double Date. Will says that you can't actually control everything that happens, which I think is his real answer, and which doesn't satisfy Julie at all. How can someone who won the game before think that it might be partly luck? Impossible! Julie wonders whether Will underestimated Janelle. Will quite correctly says that the one he probably underestimated was Erika, who is, after all, responsible for his being booted. Janelle certainly wasn't going to get there on her own. Unfortunately, in Will's dumbest moment, he says he also thinks that this is a choice that Janelle will probably regret at some point in the future. Julie wonders why, and Will says that they were good friends and "had something very interesting," and he just thinks she'll probably wish later that she'd done it differently. I have no idea what he intended to say there, but it came out sounding a little too older-brotherly for my tastes. Julie wonders if Will's comments about regrets mean that now, they can't be friends anymore. Will quickly backpedals, telling her he's not saying that at all. He has only good things to say about Janelle, and in fact about everyone else who was in the house. Because Julie is absolutely not interested in anything that happens in the house that does not involve Janelle, she asks him again, as she pretty much did earlier in the show, whether the flirting with Janelle was real or play. Will gives a sort of mealy-mouthed answer in which I think he's trying not to disrespect Janelle while also trying not to get dumped by his girlfriend, so there's a lot of "well, a lie can become real, but to me, it was a game" sort of stuff. He says that they were playing each other equally, and that he's sure that Janelle will be saying the same things about him. It's interesting how he doesn't feel obligated to gloat about his ability to control her, like, at all.
Julie asks about Mike and Erika's showmance/"ho-mance" thing, and Will immediately looks very wary. He says that Mike is "not the kind of person to anger," and he's not sure what the situation is with Erika at all in light of what's just happened. Julie asks whether Mike would have gotten this far without Will, and Will says neither of them would have gotten as far on their own. Mike's goodbye message is predictably about their great friendship. Erika gloats, big-time, and she says that he and Mike are found out, and that the girls got together and talked, and they got busted. Janelle says that he "talked her into things" over the summer, and all her mistakes were because of him and Mike. Will repeats that he respects everyone, and he totally has no hard feelings toward any of them. The irony? Will, who probably played a better game than anyone evicted up to this point, is the very first person who was not booted because of surplus awesomeness, according to his own analysis. Will, you are a complex and crazy bird, but I do have a certain affection for you. May we never meet in person, so that I never have to give that up.
Back from commercials, it's time to begin the famous "endurance" portion of the final HoH competition. Julie sends the final three into the backyard. There is a giant volcano waiting, and each of them has to clamber up onto it and stand against the side with their back to it. The object of the competition is to stay on the volcano and hang on to their overhead key. If you let go of your key or your feet touch the mat beneath them, they'll be eliminated. Julie asks if everyone understands. Erika asks whether both hands have to be on. "For now, yes," Julie says. Janelle, hanging on with both hands, says she's ready to go. The competition begins now.
About ten seconds in, Mike says, "Hey, Julie?" "Yes, Mike." "Remember Richard Hatch?" "Yes, I do." "They both have to take me to the finals." And he smugly smirks, takes his hands off, and jumps down from the volcano. Looking over in surprise, Janelle says, "What?" and momentarily takes one hand off her key, and then puts it right back immediately, hoping no one saw. Mike smiles as he says to them, "You guys, you can't take each other. You have to take me. You won't make that big a mistake." This is so ridiculous. First of all, Hatch knew better than to try to show people up by (1) doing this in the first ten seconds; or (2) declaring that they "had" to take him. He hung in for two and a half hours, and when he got down, he said he couldn't hope to beat them. I'm not saying it will necessarily backfire, but Hatch knew enough not to try to grind people's noses in it unnecessarily. Furthermore, he's not nearly as safe as he thinks. It's probably true that Erika would have to take Mike, but it's not at all true that Janelle would. Janelle versus Erika, she gets practically every vote. Janelle versus Mike, she doesn't get Will's, to begin with. She probably doesn't get James's, she may not get George's...the idea that Janelle would have to take him to the end is absurd, and she's the one who seems to have the knack for challenges. This was not a good move.
Julie throws to a commercial, because they have to, um, check something. Oh, and "things are about to erupt." Well, in theory.
When we return, Julie informs Janelle that they did indeed see her take her hand off the key, so she's eliminated. Janelle immediately declares that she absolutely did not take her hand off the key, which is a lie, and which she knows is a lie, because she put her hand off as fast as she could. The competition having ended early and the script disrupted, the three of them sit around the backyard, not even knowing what to do, given that whoever built that volcano isn't even going to get to see it erupt. There's a waste of your prop budget if ever there was one.
Thursday
My favorite part of this introduction is that the previouslys show the volcano both shaking and erupting witih pink goo, neither of which it had the opportunity to do on the show itself. Poor volcano-making artisans. At least they got that moment of glory.
We begin tonight with Julie Chen in her off-the-shoulder red top and black pants. You can tell that she and Janelle are from different sects of the same religion, because Julie half-exposes both shoulders, which Janelle fully exposes one shoulder. Maybe one shoulder means you're single, and both shoulders means you're married to your boss.
Julie reminds us how Will was thrown out on Tuesday, and how Mike's "jaw is still on the ground." Julie and I have the same favorite part of that episode!
In blue and white, Janelle evicts Will. Mike says in the DR that as Janelle started her speech, he got a bad feeling. Will, of course, already knew, and had already warned Mike that this would happen, but because Mike can't comprehend the idea of being bested by a woman, and because he's stupid, he simply ignored the caution that Will was trying to give him and, if the people who watch the live feeds are to be believed, he also started treating Erika coldly and indifferently, vastly increasing the likelihood of this very thing happening. Erika, for her part, tells us that she was "in awe" of Janelle and her awesomeness as she evicted Will. Erika lies back on the DR chair and waggles her feet, so excited is she about the prospect of getting over on the men who thought they'd gotten over on her. Janelle says, however, that evicting Will was just terrible for her, because she had to lie to him. What she means, of course, is "I'm afraid it will make him less likely to be my boyfriend."
Mike goes on to say that he wasn't concerned, because he "thought [Will] owned Janelle." That's too bad about that, there, pumpkin. He declares himself "totally flabbergasted." And then we see footage of when Mike snottily congratulated Erika, and Erika walked by him and said "Checkmate." Heh. As Mike tells this story in the DR, you can feel how incredibly angry he is that she's right -- that she spoiled his plans, that there was nothing he could do about it, and that she, at this point in the game, simply outplayed him. So for that reason, he of course resorts to an attack on her sexual morality: "Showmances can be very effective for you. It kind of turned into a ho-mance. And [he smirks] I'm just glad that America now knows that Erika is in fact a ho. So I've used that girl up for all I need, I've gotten myself in a position to win this game, and, uh, that's all she was good for."
Let me tell you something about Mike, which I freely admit is speculation, but on which I would bet money: Mike hates women so much he can barely function. Mike hates the women he sees in clubs, he hates the women he saw in the house, he hates the women who have more power than he does in the entertainment industry, he hates the women who work for him as waitresses, and he hates the women he has sex with. I'm not talking about lack of respect -- I'm talking about a bone-deep, barely-restrained malice, which you can see in this sequence. In a guy like Mike who's basically a coward, it manifests in a very particular pattern, which I am willing to bet he has repeated many times. What he does is locate a woman who is a better person than he is -- a kinder person, a person with more going for her, a person people like better than they like him. And his goal is to find a way to make her feel, and look, powerless and worthless. In fact, Erika probably became less interesting to him after she started to seem goofier and more pitiful. She was a better target for this particular scheme when she was stronger, before she went back to smoking and started talking about babies. She was a better target when she was the sort of catlike hottie, the bikini emeritus, a little more weathered but also a measure more intelligent than Diane or Janelle. That's the one it feels good to hurt. As she fell apart mostly on her own, probably from isolation and leftover bad feelings from the breakup that had her in tears in an earlier conversation with Kaysar, I'm sure Mike did indeed lose interest. What's the fun of degrading someone who degrades herself?
Because make no mistake -- with a guy like Mike, it's about the devastation. It's about the hurt he can cause. It's about causing anguish and humiliation and seeing her cry. This is the difference between Mike and Will. Will can certainly be accused of being indifferent to the fact that he's probably going to hurt Janelle's feelings, and especially of being overly devoted to the unrealistic expectation that everyone should know going in not to believe what he says, so what happens is their own fault. And, in a broad, over-the-top kind of way, he'll joke about ripping out hearts, especially at points along the way when it's clearly not happening. But I think that for the most part, Will likes and enjoys the women he flirts and fools around with. He may not respect them in the way we'd all wish, but I don't think he dislikes them. I don't think Will sees his life as an emotional snuff film, wishing he could hide behind a door to see the women whose feelings he hurts crying and hating themselves. Mike? I think Mike would love to be behind that door. Mike would kill to have video of Erika in therapy, sobbing over how bad she feels. I think he's so obviously ineffectual around people -- he's so obviously reliant on the trappings of having been on television and owning restaurants with Ashton Kutcher and wearing the shirts from his own establishments and creating this ridiculous white-rap persona that would be out of date even if he weren't ten years too old for it -- that this is all he has, is causing pain on purpose. I think it makes him feel like he exists, like he can control his environment, like there's a button he can push that will make something happen. Otherwise, how do you know you're still there, right?
Because this is not just gloating about game play or fooling people into voting the way you want. Mike just went on television and laughed about revealing a woman he's been sleeping with and making out with for weeks to be a whore. A whore. I can't help but think...are you thinking she's a whore when you're kissing her? Are you thinking she's a whore when you're in the bathtub with her? Or did she only get to be a whore when she didn't do what you wanted her to do? Because correct me if I'm wrong, but the traditional use of the word "whore" involves trading sex for money, and the more generic use of the word "whore" involves cheapening yourself. It's the treatment of your dignity as if it has no value, and the selling of the things you'd usually consider to be beyond commerce. In which case...isn't it Mike who's the whore? Isn't it Mike who slept with her to get closer to half a million dollars? If she slept with him out of strategy, she did nothing worse than he did. If she slept with him out of genuine emotion, then she's a fool, and she's fallen for a game she should have seen coming a mile away, but what on earth does that have to do with being a whore? I shudder to think -- I shudder to know -- what would have been publicly done to a woman who did what Mike did. Imagine a woman who enters into a romantic relationship with a man who is obviously falling in love with her, who engages in sexual activity of whatever kind on camera, who laughs privately about how she's just using him to get farther in the game. Would he be blamed? Would it ever even occur to a woman in that situation to argue that the guy was a whore? I think it would not, and if she tried it, she would never sell it. She would be blamed. And certainly, she would be called a whore. It's an interesting thing, isn't it?
In truth, I think what Mike is so happy to think he's proved isn't so much that Erika is a whore, but that all women are whores. He doesn't think he's shown anything peculiar about Erika. He just thinks he's shown that she's no different from any other woman. They can all be used, they can all be humiliated, and then they can all be forgotten, because it's not like there aren't a few hundred million other ones just like them. Some of them may look smart or cool or clever, but they're all whores. I think, in fact, that Mike believes he defiled her, and I think that's what's pleasing him so much. He loves it that he humiliated her. He loves it that she's wound up in a situation that's so perfectly degrading. He hates her, and he could still fuck her any time he wanted, and that's what makes him feel like he owns her, and he wants you to know it.
Will fades to black and white.
Erika and Mike talk in the kitchen about how shocked he is about Will's fate. He claims to be happy for Erika. In the DR, Erika says sarcastically, "I think the baby plans are probably put on hold for now. I think he's a little upset with me. I kind of had his best friend booted from the house." Mike talks for a while that Erika deserves credit for being "a backstabbing witch." Damn right she does. He tells Janelle that she made a smart move getting rid of Will, and that Will would have beaten any of them, because Will is "a legend." I love the fact that Janelle, who actually evicted Will, is not a whore. Just Erika. Just the one he was in charge of controlling and didn't. For her part, Janelle thinks that she and Erika are having "the last laugh." Unfortunately: not "last," so much as "current."
We relive the volcano HoH round, and how quickly it was over. Mike jumps down, blah blah blah. Mike tells us that he quickly decided to reference Hatch and skip out. He knew that the women would beat him, not that he wants to say it quite that way. He says that he'll take his chances in part two. We are also reminded of how Janelle denied taking her hand off, even though she did, and of how Erika was crowned the winner. Erika says in the DR that she was actually planning on throwing it to Janelle, and she didn't even get a chance. That may well be true. Janelle says that she wanted to win, since she's the competition princess or whatever, and she just has to concentrate on winning the one. She doesn't have much choice, I guess.
Mike, after the volcano bit is over, stomps into the house and into one of the bedrooms, where he sits on a bed, puts his head in his hands, and mourns Will's departure. Oh, but first, he throws some stuff around. Heh. Mike says that "the girls struck some sort of deal." Think so? Nah! Mike says that he'll miss Will. "I just don't know what happened," he says. Girls are so crazy!
Outside, Erika and Janelle talk. It turns out that Erika had warned Janelle that she thought Mike would throw the competition. Janelle says in the DR that she was shocked he did that. "Crazy," she says. Erika tells Janelle that she'll be fine and she'll beat Mike in the round. Erika adds in the DR that she just hopes that Janelle will beat Mike in the round of HoH, and she has "all the faith in the world" that she will. At this point, she genuinely seems to want Mike out, and this is the part that I just...do not get. "Boogie is pissed," Janelle observes.
Later, Mike tells us that he's never been in the house without Will. He says he's "very upset," and then in the DR, he cries. He cries. Because that's how much he feels exposed. I think that without Will, and without the ability to extravagantly claim that he's fooling women all over the world, he knows that there's just not a hell of a lot to him. My favorite part is when he snorfles into one of his own assy, ugly, hipster-y hats. Looks good on you, you pitiful fucker.
Outside, Janelle and Erika speculate about what Mike must be thinking. "He's thinking, 'I'm all alone in this house, and I'm miserable,'" Erika predicts. "If any woman has ever been played by a guy, she should feel great for what Erika and I have just accomplished," Janelle says. Eh. I've certainly never been played that bad, but I mostly just was glad that (it appeared) Erika wasn't going to be left quite the big heap of mess that it looked for a while like she might.
Mike, on the other hand, says that he has to "regroup" and figure out how to play without Will. Hilarious tinkly piano music plays, and then there's this great moment in the DR where Mike picks up the fake phone for the hysterical cackling, but it just pretend rings and rings. Okay, that was pretty funny, which means that undoubtedly, it was not Mike's idea.
Julie tells us that Mike and Janelle are about to compete in the HoH competition's second round. Exciting, no?
When we come back, Julie is standing in front of the giant "Head Of Household" screen. It's time for Mike and Janelle to compete in a second round. When they all get into the backyard, there's a convertible (Solstice!) floating in the center of this giant ring of scaffolding. Basically, they'll be suspended on a harness, and they'll have to work their way around the outside of the ring, adjusting mirrors so that laser beams are redirected wah wah wah...it is, for once, something other than trivia questions, since it requires the dexterity to maneuver around the ring and to adjust the mirrors properly. When Janelle reads the instructions out loud, the word "Solstice" is read to rhyme with "poultice." I guess she hasn't "studied" the dictionary too much.
Janelle climbs up. At the beginning, she has no difficulty whatsoever winging her way around the scaffolding. She says in the DR that it was "hard," but you can see at the beginning that she can do it; she just gets sloppier about it as the game goes on. She also complains that she had trouble figuring out how to line up the lasers. She does eventually complete it. When Mike gets out there, he's got his head covered in little ponytails, because it is his ultimate quest to die in a fiery blast of ironic awesomeness, in which everything that makes him more than obviously a complete asshole is revealed to be a sign of greatness, he is adored more than Will as he should have been all along, and he takes over the world, ponytails and all. He screws up one laser, but other than that, he seems to work a lot more smoothly than Janelle did.
When the scores are checked, Mike did it in 1:57, and Janelle did it in 3:45. Although she later complained endlessly about how unfair it was to have a competition involving upper body strength (according to live-feed viewers, she announced that the show "wanted" Mike to win), that explanation just doesn't hold up when you watch the competition. She got herself around the scaffolding just fine; that part doesn't account for it taking her twice as long as it took him. As she said while she was doing it, it looks like she just had a hard time getting the lasers to line up. She's really not good at everything; she's mostly just good at trivia questions, so it doesn't really require a fix for her to lose, the way she apparently thinks it does. Erika goes on to say that she's disappointed that Mike won, because she'd rather be competing against Janelle, given their girls-against-boys thing. Yeah, that's not going to stick, either. Janelle isn't happy that she won't be playing in the final round. And as much as I've grown to dislike her, I'm not happy about it either. Mike dedicates his victory to his mother, promising her the car. I am simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by the idea that he can, in the same hour, speak earnestly to the camera about getting goodies for mom and speak equally earnestly about how pleased he is to have proved that the woman he's been sleeping with is a whore.
Erika and Mike talk later, and now she's wearing the crown, the better to continue the tendency of the endgame this season to play out like the Sexual Stereotype Follies. We have princesses! We have dirty sluts! I'm kind of waiting for someone to come out dressed in a habit or a nurse's uniform, or maybe like a cheerleader. They discuss the fact that neither of them wants to sit in a final against Janelle, and Mike offers to take Erika if she throws the last part of the HoH to him. They agree that they wouldn't vote for each other if screwed, and Mike reminds her she wouldn't get Will's vote if she booted him, either. As if she'd get Will's vote anyway. He talks about how he was trying to "threaten" her with this, but honestly, she already knows that, and she wouldn't get Will's vote against Janelle either. In the DR, Erika says, "I hate him," and leans over to cover her face. But then she says, "And I hate the fact that I'm still attracted to him."
Buh-WHAT?
Oh my God, Erika, dear, you are beyond help. There is no excuse for being attracted to him in the first place, given his revolting persona, the fact that he calls himself "Boogie," his rat face, his meanness, his lack of respect for anyone, his stupidity, and now your knowledge that he was lying to you and trying to take advantage of you, so what, exactly, is the attraction? Like, I get that it's hard to sleep by yourself after not sleeping by yourself, I do. I get that you want somebody to pay attention to you and kiss you and whatnot. I get that sometimes it feels like anybody would be better than nobody. But anybody really isn't better than nobody if the anybody is a toxic, woman-hating creep. Seriously, sister, get a grip. You're way too old to plead ignorance, and now you're just complicit.
At any rate, Julie takes us to the living room to talk to the final three. She tells us that the game will be over in five days, which is the first piece of good news I've heard in quite some time. Julie asks Janelle about evicting Will and whether she misses him, and she starts to tear up. Mike goes on for a while about how he's never been here without Will, and how he looks to his WWWD bracelet and so forth. Then Julie asks Erika why she and Mike aren't sleeping together anymore, and Erika hedges and says she doesn't know, instead of saying, "Well, the thrill is gone," which would have been her best bet. Or possibly, "Weirdly, he hasn't had an erection since Will left." That would have pleased me, only because it would have bothered Mike. Mike says that they're both "getting really focused," which...is neatly constructed, in that it's the opposite of true.
And now, Will visits the jury house. Danielle has taken over making eggs for breakfast, and she says that she's just hoping all the "losers" can have fun together. Later, the jury prepares to wait for the arriving houseguest. They agree that if it's Janelle, they'll need ice cream, and if it's Will, they'll need sunblock. Howie, of course, says he doesn't want it to be Janelle, since he wants her to win. Will makes his way up the sidewalk and opens the door. "Reap what you sow!" he says, and they all applaud. Howie kisses him on the cheek. Marcellas looks pleased, and he tells us that he's very happy about it, since it's "sweet poetic justice." Will promises them that he got "the worst boot" in the show's history, laughingly promising Danielle it makes everything in her season look like child's play. "Doctor, not you," George moans as Will brings him inside. "It happens," Will says good-naturedly.
They all sit down to watch the video. When Janelle uses her "for Howie and Marcellas" line, they all recognize she's just scamming for votes, but Marcellas smiles happily anyway, and tells us that he was so excited -- eeeee! -- that Janelle dedicated her booting of Will to him. "Marcellas, don't you believe that crap," James says, continuing his trend of being the most likable person in the jury house. Danielle interviews that "girls talk," which...okay, it's a stereotype, but it's also a little bit true. I think it's more that "people talk," especially when you fuck over several who know each other and just pray they won't talk about you, but...the point is valid. "I will give credit where credit is due," Will tells the rest of the people in the house, "They spanked my ass on both cheeks, they're still red, and it still hurts." Ha! Oh, Will.
Now, Julie brings us back for the final part of the HoH competition. Julie announces that this competition will involve completing statements made by people who are at the jury house, and the answer will be either A or B. Most points at the end is the final HoH. The first question is George's opinion of the most annoying thing about the house. They both correctly predict that George said it was the mess, rather than Howie, which is kind of surprising. Did Danielle say she was afraid to have her family see her drunk or crying? Drunk. They're both right. And so, incidentally, is Danielle. I'm not sure Danielle being drunk was a "moment." Will said the most shocking moment was either the fast-forward eviction or his own eviction. Interestingly, a lot of our EEFPs thought this was a gimme question that Erika would have to have known, but other ones thought it was an obvious setup between Will and Mike that Will would give the obviously wrong answer so that only Mike would get it right. That disagreement suggests to me that probably, neither of those theories are right. I certainly think either answer to the original question could be plausible, depending on Will's frame of mind. I'd be surprised if he said his own eviction, but I'd be surprised at the other one, too. It turns out that Will said the fast-forward eviction was most shocking, which Mike gets right and Erika gets wrong. They give the same answers for all the rest of the dumb questions, so Mike wins the final HoH. Mike is in your final two, folks. Talk about a house full of people getting the finale they deserve.
So Julie tells Mike that he's getting at least $50,000 for second place, and he's about to decide who will make it to the final two with him and who will go home. He yells, "What's up, Concord?" Population of Concord: "Oh my God, we will never get laid again if you don't shut up."
When we come back, Mike, Erika, and Janelle are sitting in the living room. It's time for the women to beg for mercy. Erika claims she's "always had [his] back," and she also says he'd have a better chance against her than against Janelle. Janelle, on the other hand, says that Erika has discovered that he and Will were "playing everyone," so if he takes Erika, she might tell them that. And Janelle...wouldn't do that? What is she talking about? She is making no sense. A speech based on numerology would have been better than that. "And I was so easily influenced, I think I'll lose anyway," Janelle adds. Yeah, that's not any better. Anyway, Mike stands up and evicts Janelle, as you knew he would. He claims to "adore" them both, as is common with this particular brand of woman-hater. He loves the ladies! He gives Janelle a final twirl as he throws her out, and then he offers her champagne at one of his cheap-ass restaurants on her way out. And if she's lucky, her waiter will be some dude who was on Chains Of Love. And when the door is closed behind Janelle, Mike and Erika go right at each other and kiss. They both do. It's not just her. They both do. And it's completely, utterly, wildly detestable.
Erika and Mike walk around the house, and she hugs him from behind, and GROSS. He realizes that he's probably just won the money. He's patiently tolerating her arms around his waist, because he can't be bothered to shoo her away.
Julie has trouble interviewing Janelle, because she can't do what she's done with every other evicted houseguests for the last several weeks, which is to ask her what she thinks of Janelle. Instead, she asks Janelle whether she believes her own eviction was strategy, and Janelle agrees that it was. Julie congratulates Janelle, her personal hero, for winning so many competitions, and then she asks Janelle what was the flaw in her game. Janelle, of course, says that she was too awesome, in that she was too trusting of other people. Julie wants to know what mistakes Janelle was referring to when she booted Will and talked about not making any more mistakes. Janelle references nominating Marcellas, which she somehow continues to see as an enormous turning point. Julie also asks about her feelings for Will, and Janelle giggles and says, "I'm not going to say that right now. I'm too embarrassed." In other words: "I want him for my boyfriend, even though I know he has a girlfriend, because I am keen to invite myself to a place we like to call Heartbreak Hotel."
In Janelle's goodbye video, Mike calls Erika "Scrubika," and of course, Janelle covers her mouth with her hands and giggles, because men who degrade other women are hilarious. Erika, of course, was pretty much the same. When it's not happening to you, it's like the most awesomest thing. Hee hee hee! Erika says that she's really had a great time with Janelle, and she admires the way that Janelle put her head in front of her heart and sent Will home. Janelle tells Julie that they're just both "so sweet," which makes it hard to understand the giggling at the cruel name-calling on Mike's part, but...whatever. Julie tells Janelle they'll see her when she comes back to vote for Mike in order to try to score points with Will. You know that's what she's going to do, right? Janelle is in full-on pursuit, and there's no way she'd vote against his friend. She's done what he told her to do pretty much the whole time, with one brief exception, and she's going to go right back to doing what he wants. Janelle thinks that she's getting a boyfriend out of this deal, and who knows? Maybe she is. She certainly isn't going to blow her chance by voting against his best friend.
It is explained that Janelle is going to win a $25,000 Rupert Prize for being popular with fans. Well, it's not explained that it's for Janelle, but it is, just as it was for Rupert. At least it's not a prize as big as the winner gets; that's what really burned.
When we return, Julie asks Mike whose vote he thinks he has, and Mike names Will, of course. Erika thinks she's probably going to get Howie's vote. Heh. I'm not even sure about that. Howie doesn't like women too much, either. Mike says he's concerned about Danielle and James.
So on Tuesday, we will all get together again, and we will try not to...you know, grieve. I'm going to tell you one thing: I was not a Janelle fan this season (as opposed to last season), but I would take back every word I ever said about her to get her into this finale instead of Mike. She's just kind of goofy. He ruined the show for me.