Previously, Nick went home, Daniele lost her shit worse than Amber ever has, and then convinced herself Eric was to blame for it all by jumping to a wild and moronic set of conclusions. Of course, she was totally right, but only because an airplane told her so. It's always interesting to note the ways that Voice-Over Guy characterizes the action in the house, like how he paints Jessica telling Eric he's in danger as a "betrayal" of Dick and Daniele. Because apparently that storied Dick, Daniele, and Jessica alliance that was formed all of ten minutes prior had been torn asunder! Also, Dustin, Jameka, and Amber "turned on" D&D when they sided with Eric. Turned on 'em! Man, I wish everyone would stop being such jerks and do what Dick and Daniele tell them to.
A sleek-looking Julie Chen greets us and sits down to the TV monitor which has live images of Kail and Jen, both in their bunny suits. Dumbest Furry convention ever. Julie gives us the strategery update (Daniele's plan is to backdoor Eric -- will it succeed?) and tells us that America's Player is in jeopardy. To be honest, Eric doesn't look all that concerned.
"But first," Julie promises us that we're about to see the biggest outburst thus far this season. Oh good. We see the veto ceremony again, and Eric reminds us that all he needs to stay are the votes of his current alliance-mates, Dustin, Amber, Jameka, and Jessica. Kail freak-terviews that she felt better about being up against Jen, because nobody likes Jen. Daniele and Dick both say Eric has to go. So Eric heads to the yard to talk to Amber, and she promises him on her little girl's life that he has her vote. We get blue-tinted slo-mo footage of Amber and her daughter, which means that promise is going to be for shit soon enough. Eric, beware! The blue-tinted slo-mo footage!
Dick finds Jen and Kail in the hammock and does his best at alliance building. Which, for Dick, means telling them he doesn't trust either of them and making them admit that if he can "pull this off" and evict Eric, they'll owe him. Jen, of course, is like, "whatever," but Kail's all Stockholm Syndrome now, so she's totally onboard.
So then Dick finds Amber in the exercise room and starts to work her. He bitches, once again, about Eric "standing on the sidelines" and "pulling the strings," which is more of the same "stab me in the front" bullshit that Dick yells about which holds no water in the context of this game whatsoever. , however, he tells Amber that Eric told him that Eric's holding a "horrible" secret about her in his back pocket, waiting to use it whenever to crush her. And indeed, we see flashback footage of Eric telling Dick that Amber told him a story regarding her boyfriend that is, like, the worst thing he's every heard someone do, and if Amber ever turns against him, he'll use the story to discredit her and "ruin" her within their alliance. On the one hand, he's relating to Dick on Dick's level, and you could spin it as strategy if you were so inclined. On the other hand, it's gross. Yes, if you tell someone a "secret" on national television, it's no longer much of a secret. But the glee Eric takes at the possibility of using a personal secret against Amber to "ruin" her makes me think he's a dick. So to speak. Anyway, we get further flashback footage of Amber admitting to Eric that she lied to her boyfriend about being pregnant, twice. I don't watch the feeds, but I think there was more to it than that (I've heard the word "abortion" bandied about, but Lord knows if that's true). But as far as what we're seeing here: gross.
Amber tells this to Dustin, who agrees that it's disgusting on Eric's part, but they can deal with Eric later, once they've used him to get past D&D. So at least Dustin's thinking. Some indeterminate amount of time later, after Amber's had her hair braided, D&D work her over in the yard. Dick keeps harping on Eric's back-pocket secret, and tells Amber she should vote him out before he has a chance to reveal it. In other words, Dick is now threatening Amber with the secret every bit as much as Eric is (or was), albeit indirectly. "Better vote out Eric before he tells everyone how disgusting you are." That's essentially Dick's argument. Daniele reiterates her mission statement that "this week's for Nick," because, as I said on Sunday, she's playing for his ghost. It's a shrewd move, using this "in Nick's honor" tactic on the two people, Zach and Amber, who would be receptive to it, but it makes it all the more funny when Dick goes right back to railing against Eric for being "manipulative." Yeah, don't you hate manipulative people? Particularly in a game where manipulation is the whole point. D&D offer Amber and Dustin a week's clemency if they vote Eric off, and Amber says she wants to, except for that whole swearing on her kid's life. Dick thinks that's retarded, but at least he doesn't say so. At least, not using those words.
Amber brings this offer to Dustin, and we can see she's bought Dick's line that Eric is the one tearing the house apart. She says this deal will buy them a week's worth of safety and allow them to repair all the "damage" Eric did to their alliance with D&D. Oh, Amber. Dustin begs her to play with her brain and not her emotions. He says he wants Dick gone more than Eric. Amber says if Eric wins HoH, he'll either put up her and Dustin or D&D. Dude, Dick has her so twisted. She actually thinks Eric will nominate her and Dustin. She's not budging, she wants Eric gone. Dustin finally says he'll vote off Eric, then, so Amber won't have to kill her daughter to appease Jesus. Amber goes along with this, despite the flashing red "LIAR!" sign above Dustin's head.
So then later, with the entire house either on the couches or in the kitchen, Amber calls Eric out, telling him he's lucky she'd already swore on her kid's life (oh, Jesus), because otherwise she'd be voting him out. She starts yelling at him about telling Dick his intention to hold this secret over head, this shameful lie she told her boyfriend when she was on drugs, and how dare he intend to use that against her in the game. Eric doesn't say anything, doesn't interrupt her, doesn't roll his eyes. I can believe that maybe he never intended to go through with it and he was just posturing to Dick, but that's what you get when you attempt to make Dick think you're cool by sinking to his level. And you know, on the Amber Sliding Scale Of Ocular Wetness, she manages to get through way more of this whole speech without crying than I thought she would. She got more weepy about Dustin's greedy greed and dear departed Nick than she did about this. Speaking of the recently deceased, Amber kind of deep-sixes her own righteousness at the end there as she starts to rant about how Nick was a GOOD PERSON and Eric SCHEMED AND PLOTTED his demise and Nick SHOULD STILL BE HERE. Dustin lets a smirk out while she's doing this, because while her anger may be largely righteous, bitch still crazy. Julie Chen takes us to commercial before we get to hear Eric respond to this, if he in fact ever did.
Holy shit, that was only 20 minutes. Will we ever have time for all the Thursday filler? Like, for example, Julie talking to the houseguests. She asks Jameka about the Amber/Eric confrontation, because, naturally, we all want to hear from Jameka on this subject. Jameka says it was emotional, but that "everything's fine" now. Okay, how? Can we see that part? Jameka also says she regrets giving up the 5 HoH competitions, like, no kidding. Jen says she doesn't regret giving up $250,000 in potential prize money, because she's here for the experience. The experience of being berated by a leather-faced asswipe, apparently. Julie hurls a viewer question at Dustin about why he's always wearing that grey v-neck shirt. Everybody laughs their asses off and Dustin jokes that it is a symbol of his personal consistency. Also, that chest hair needs to breathe!
Filler segment: Dick is a name-dropper. But do the people whose names he drops really know him? Seriously, that's the segment. Turns out, Dick really does know Dizzy Reed the keyboardist for Guns 'N' Roses. No, not the good Guns 'N' Roses; the new one which consists of Fat Axl and the drifters he picks up on the way to the show. Dizzy Reed looks like Ricky Gervais in a braided wig, I swear to God. Whole bunch of other random L.A. musicians -- and Dilana from Rock Star: Supernova -- promise they really do know Dick. So the big news is that...starfucking is so hard-wired into the L.A. genetic code that real musicians from famous bands (and Dilana from Rock Star: Supernova) will try to glom onto some reality TV douchebag's gravy train? Message received.
HoH talk with Daniele. Not interested. Pass. Making excuses for Dick. Eric must go. Et cetera.
Filler segment: Kail's husband speaks! We return to the subject of Kail's Big Secret. ...What, you don't remember? She's a multi-business owner. She owns a grocery store, two restaurants, and a motel. Fuck with that, Trump! Husband of Kail thinks her secrecy is a great plan, because this way nobody knows who she really is. Okay, but what they do know of Kail, they hate. So: good plan! HoK excuses Dick's monstrous behavior towards his wife as "game-play," which will be nice for Kail to see once she's evicted. The churchy organ music pipes up as HoK also gives props to Kail for downplaying her psycho-religious nature, leaving all the really crazy God-talk to Jameka. I'm paraphrasing. And that's Kail: her bunny ears are so big because they're full of secrets.
Last pleas for mercy: Kail begs for another week of barely avoiding the axe. Eric -- his voice quavering, which I'll take as a shout-out to his fellow nominee -- talks about the bonds he's made with his fellow houseguests and the bonds he hopes to repair if he stays another week.
Live vote! Dick cockily votes to evict "that weasel" Eric. Jen and her down-turned bunny ears that manage to make her look even more deranged vote for Eric. Jessica enthusiastically votes to evict Kail. Zach's wearing a blazer over his rabbit suit, so he now looks like Bugs Bunny in that cartoon where he's conducting the symphony. He votes to evict Eric. Jameka votes for Kail. Dustin votes for Kail. So it's 3-3, with Amber's vote left. As you might have expected. Amber, nary a tear in her eye, votes to evict Kail. The music swells up as Julie reminds the house that the evictee must leave immediately. The music crescendos and...Julie has to ask again because her mic cut out. HA! That was awesome. So Julie reveals that Kail is going home, and Dick storms off, muttering "Liars." Daniele is shitting a brick. Dick stares down Dustin as Kail says her goodbyes. While Kail sets up her mic with Julie, we see inside that Dustin is rather stoically lying that he voted Eric out. That's...interesting. He's saying it right out in the open, so this has to be part of a strategy with his whole alliance, but...huh?
Kail, in her post-interview, says if she's have been able to survive this last eviction, her standing in the house would have finally improved, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. She doesn't make any excuses for Dick, which is refreshing, and says that after 40 days living with him, this is the real Dick. (And...oh my God, these people have been living with Dick for 40 days. I'm calling Amnesty International.) Dick's goodbye message to her is super-cocky, all "I doubt you'll be going home, but if so, smell ya later." Dustin's message begins, "Listen, bitch, you've got a lot of growing up to do." Kail laughs at it, and there's maybe a twinge of inside joke in there, because Dustin also says he hopes he taught her something about gay people. That they all have the clap. Jameka, Jen, and Daniele all say they'll miss her. I, on the other hand, will not.
HoH competition. Neither Daniele nor Jameka can compete. So there's a saloon theme here. It's a trivia contest, with two contestants at a time facing off at a Family Feud-style podium. First person to buzz in must answer, and if they're right, the other person is eliminated and they get to choose the pair to answer. If no one buzzes in, both are eliminated, save for the final two. Daniele gets the privilege of selecting the first two players -- which is bullshit, in my opinion -- and she picks Dustin and Eric. Dude, Dustin is fucked if Dick wins. Eric answers correctly; Dustin is out. Eric selects Dick and Zach to face off. Zach answers incorrectly (and on purpose, if you ask me) and is eliminated. Dick selects Eric and Jessica to face off. Julie's question asks which evicted HG said their plan was to flirt with all the girls. Eric buzzes in and Julie goes, "Nick?" Eric's like, "...Uh, is it Nick?" But already Daniele is shrieking from off-mic that Julie gave away the answer. Quit squeaking, dumbass, she's on it. Julie moves on to the question, asking which HG was a multi-business owner. Jessica answers correctly (Kail), so Eric's out. Jessica selects Dick and Jen. The question is another womanizing quote from Nick (hee hee, swallow it whole, Daniele), and Dick incorrectly guesses Mike, so he's out. Nice. Jen has no choice but to pick Jessica and Amber. Amber answers incorrectly, so it's Jessica versus Jen. I like them both, but Jen is probably still aligned with D&D, so: go Jessica! Julie barely gets the question out before Jessica answers "Carol," and apparently her knowledge of her enemy paid off, because she's right! Yay! Eric, as you might expect, is pleased with this development. You can tell by the aggressive fist-pumping. Daniele and Dick look well and truly fucked. About time. Dustin and Eric high-five while Dick literally spits nails. This is all highly enjoyable.
After the break, Julie tells us nothing new, but the "eavesdropping" at the end shows Dick flailing impotently at Jameka and Dustin for their "dishonesty." Jameka's all, "Whatever," and Dustin's all, "Holla!" and then Dick tells Dustin to shut up. Dustin tells Dick to take his orders and shove 'em. Power tripping gets old fast, but this week could be a little fun.