I found myself at a party once, hanging out with a friend-of-a-friend type who has an impressive creative pedigree; if I explained to you who he was, you'd realize that he's probably the very last person you'd try to take on in a battle of wits, because the resumé alone will tell you that it's just...really, really not a good idea. As it happens, as we were chatting, we were cornered by Captain Annoying, a self-important blowhard with almost no social skills who learned of Friend Of Friend's impressive credentials and manhandled the small talk in the direction of picking a fight with both of us about a pretentious, annoying movie he loved that we both thought was crap. (The analogy would be, "Oh, you're the restaurant critic at the New York Times? I want to ask you something. I just love the Crepe House. Don't you? Oh, you don't? You don't? YOU'RE CRAZY! HOW CAN YOU NOT APPRECIATE THE CREPE HOUSE? I bet you've never even BEEN to the Crepe House, have you, High And Mighty Restaurant Guy! Hey, we're bantering now, aren't we?" At which point, in the Captain's fantasy, the restaurant critic would immediately burst into tears and give the Captain his job.) So FoF and I sat there, and the Captain dug himself a bigger and bigger hole, making a bigger and bigger jerk out of himself, and FoF and I sort of listened and responded and, it must be said, occasionally egged on the Captain for each other's benefit, because the show of assholery that he was putting on had now become pretty funny. Later, after the party, FoF and I were talking with a couple of other folks, with the Captain long gone, and FoF explained that in retrospect, he felt bad. He talked about the phenomenon of feeling yourself turn on someone in a situation like that -- how at some point, he and I had started having fun with each other at this guy's expense. And he felt weird about it, and kind of guilty, in spite of the fact that the Captain completely brought it on himself in every way, and was being enough of a jerk that he deserved it.
What FoF had identified, I later realized, was his fundamental discomfort with the bullying instinct. He knew that he was huh-huh-huh-ing with me, socially, at the expense of this guy, partly bonding with me over making a fool out of him without his noticing. The Captain didn't really realize he was being laughed at, which makes it a lot less malicious than shoving people into lockers, but he was right -- it's still a bullying instinct. It's still separating someone from the herd and making them a target so that you can have a good time.
So that's where I thought we'd start -- a few thoughts on the bullying instinct.
Previously on The Dick Show, Starring Dick: America's Player, Eric, decided to form an alliance (along with his lady friend Jessica) with Dick and Daniele, leading many parts of America to attempt to return America's Player to the America's Player Store for a refund, but: nothing doing. "The rock'n'roll dad," as the announcer calls him, because "the rape-threatening dad" doesn't sound as whimsical, managed not to get his ass booted, in part with the help of Jen's vote. Daniele became HoH, which was gross for many reasons, not the least of which was that it made Dick so very happy. Jameka and Amber were betrayed, went on slop, and were nominated. But Daniele really wanted to get rid of Jen, so Jen received the classic back-door treatment, designed to ensure that she had no chance to play for the POV. Daniele took Amber off the block (after receiving promises that Amber would never nominate Daniele, would vote how Daniele wanted her to, and would personally paint Daniele's nails with glitter every day for the rest of her life) and put up Jen, who was fairly obviously and not-so-suspensefully doomed, a fact that those in charge of this show will now attempt to spend an hour working around. What will happen tonight? Will Dick come up with any new forms of sexual assault that would be hilarious ways to kill women he doesn't like? Find out tonight. Except for the last thing, which they probably won't share.
Credits. I hope you're not watching.
Julie Chen and her surprisingly tasteful black dress welcome us to this fine, fine program. Julie talks about what a big week it was, and how Dick and Daniele are "dominating the game." Julie reminds us that, at the veto competition, Amber and Daniele won a trip to New York to be on Power Of 10, CBS's new game show, here on CBS, which is now airing on your local CBS station, on CBS. Julie promises that the live voting will occur soon.
But first! We blue-and-white back to Jen's replacement nomination, where Daniele lied about her reasons for nominating Jen, arguing that it was "nothing personal," when, in fact, it is completely personal. In the DR, a surprisingly shaken-looking Jen tells us that apparently, Daniele is "a liar" and they aren't on good terms after all. I'm not sure how Jen can be so surprised, but then, Jen's personality is hard for me to get a lock on, and I'm never sure whether she's mostly dense (I think so) or weirdly savvy (I don't think so). Jameka tells us that she's happy that the replacement nominee is Jen, to which you should give a hearty "duh." Daniele does her usual "don't be mad at meeeeee" routine, telling Jen maybe they can "talk later." Jen, still stung and surprised, comments to Daniele that it's "weird," because Jen wouldn't have done the same to Daniele. In the DR, Daniele perma-smirks that Amber and Jameka aren't threats, unlike Jen, who's very unpredictable. Daniele fake-apologizes again, and Jen fake-accepts.
Jen is peacefully working out on the treadmill when Dick walks in to try to upset her and start a fight with her, knowing that when she's working out, she won't walk away as easily as she would otherwise, so it's a good time to pick on her. He continues to harangue her about how much everyone "resents" her saying she isn't there for the money. Apparently, the rest of them have chosen to interpret this as a rejection of Big Brother's fundamental aspiration, which, as you know, is to lift people up. Jen counters that the money isn't the only reason to do the show. He continues lecturing her about how much everyone resents her for believing and saying certain things, and when she calmly counters that she never said those things and doesn't believe those things, Dick finally says, "Why do you keep saying 'no' when I'm telling you what everyone is saying?" Apparently, he came to inform her of all the things they hate her for thinking, but she's not allowed to point out that she doesn't actually think those things. Dick taunts Jen about how nominating her will be great for Daniele, because everybody hates Jen and wanted her nominated. Jen smiles and tells Dick that Daniele would never have gotten her vote anyway. "If I was you, I'd concentrate on staying, instead of being a bitter bitch," Dick says. It's funny to watch how, after all these weeks, it still utterly unhinges him every time she doesn't rise to the bait when he tries to upset her. He's kind of obsessed with her in this certain way, in that he literally is unable to leave her alone. Until she coughs up the response that he wants, he is going to keep this up, you can tell.
Jen visits Daniele in the HoH, taking her up on that offer to talk. Daniele tells Jen that she's a threat strategically, and Jen points out that she helped save Dick. Before she leaves, Jen wishes Daniele a good trip to New York. Pretty nice of her, considering. Jen vows in the DR that she always gets the last laugh, because she always has a good time. We'll see.
Later, Amber and Daniele are called to the DR. Presumably, this is the beginning of their trip. When they're gone, Dick, Jameka, and Jen lounge around outside, with Dick smoking the whole time. Jen tells them that she doesn't think she can go to sequester -- it will make her crazy. Jen considers not going and giving up her vote, and of course, Jameka feels that this has "degraded the integrity of the game." I'm not sure if there's anything less degradable than Big Brother. I'd have to think about it. Inside the house, Jen packs stuff into bags. Not only that, but...she starts frying up some turkey burgers. You will remember that Jen is on slop. Dick goes outside and gloats to Zach and Eric that Jen is defeated, and she's packed. Jen heads outside, where she tells the group that she's cooking food. Dick claims that she "can't eat it," and Jen, who knows she's going, reminds the rest of them that this is not actually jail, and she can eat whatever she wants. Hilariously, when she goes back inside, Dick contemptuously says, "She wants attention -- same as always." You know, it's really intolerant of Dick to expect everyone to be humble and non-attention-seeking just because that's the way he is. Some people like attention, Dick! You may not be able to understand it, but you should try to be patient with it.
Inside, Jen, flush with the knowledge that she's going home anyway, heads for Dick's stash of cigarettes. She takes them into the storage room, where she opens them, stomps them, and breaks them. She tells us that she also intended to pour bleach on them. She also adds that her "packing" earlier was actually her hiding her clothes from Dick, knowing that he would freak out at the loss of the cigarettes and try to vandalize her things. Jameka mentions the cigarettes, and Dick goes inside, saying he's going to put the cigarettes in the HoH room. It's too late, though -- they're gone. When she ignores his demands to know where they are, he says, "Bitch, I was talking to you." The tone is right out of a movie about an abusive husband, dude. Totally creepy. She ignores him. He pursues her for a while, berating and insulting her. As Dick desperately ransacks the house looking for the cigarettes (making his attacks on Amber for drug use kind of funny), he finds Jen's clothes, and he takes them to the HoH room to hold them for ransom until he gets his cigarettes back.
Later that night, outside on the patio, Jen eats some food, because fuck this shit, seriously. This is the first genuine "fuck this shit" move I've ever seen on this show, and good on her, just for that. Jessica hilariously refers to Jen as a "cheater" in the DR. Hint: it's cheating if you hide and lie, nitwit. This is an intentional foul. Zach disappoints me by also buying the "cheat" line. She's not a cheater, idiots. Your choices when you're on food restriction are (1) follow the food restriction; (2) suffer a penalty. She's choosing (2). It's not cheating. Jen is called to the DR, of course, where she is informed that she will receive a "penalty vote" when the votes are cast this week.
Outside, a confrontation finally goes down between Jen and Dick when he walks up to where she's peacefully eating and intentionally blows smoke right in her face before sitting down to smugly continue taunting her. (It isn't explained, but the reason he's taunting her is that no sooner did she destroy his cigarettes than the show replaced them, despite the fact that he had been allowed to steal her clothes from her.) Fed up, she tries to knock the cigarette out of his hand, at which point he intentionally burns her with it at least two times that are clearly visible. She continues trying to knock it away, particularly once he starts poking at her with it.
In case you're keeping score in the penalty game, we are now at Unauthorized Turkey Burger: 1; (Hopefully) Unauthorized Intentional Cigarette Burns: 0.
"You're burning me on purpose! You just burned me on purpose," Jen says in disbelief, near tears, obviously thinking this is going to get some kind of a response, since this show has, in the past, thrown a guy out of the house for hurling a chair at no one. Jameka drags Jen away before it gets, I guess, worse? Than one contestant intentionally inflicting cigarette burns on another? Dick has now poured iced tea over her head and burned her with cigarettes, in addition to repeatedly threatening violence, both sexual and not, against her. It would seem to me that once a guy who constantly talks about violence actually crosses over to burning someone with a cigarette, you might remove him? No matter what the effect might be on ratings? I guess I'm just overly conservative.
All Julie Chen says is, "Coming up -- we'll ride along with Amber and Daniele as they're whisked away to New York to play in the CBS game show, Power of 10!" Did she watch what just happened? Am I high?
After commercials, it's the trip to Power Of 10. I'm not recapping a commercial for a show I don't even think is very good, so all you get is that they take a trip to New York, they appear on a game show, and Nick is there, kind of like Daniele's phone-a-friend. Amber just gets her cousin. More about this on that other show, which you can look up for yourself. I'll be over here pouring bleach on CBS's cigarettes.
To the living room. Let's check in with the houseguests! Julie asks Amber and Daniele about what their "day of freedom" was worth to them. Their answer? They liked it! Oh, and Daniele thought it was "well needed." Julie moves to Jen, asking her what it's like to be the first person to ever break the food rules. Jen could give a shit at this point, and she's careful to throw in that she was upset with the show and this was her response, which is great, because it makes it clear that there's more to it than "Dick was mean to me." Julie then goes to Eric for a segment about how he always loses bets and runs around either in women's clothing or partially nude. Thrilling stuff. Eric finds himself absolutely hilarious, as non-room-reading bullies often do.
It's almost time for voting. I so want this to be over. For Jen, mostly. I don't even care whose fault it is anymore; seeing her in that house is just uncomfortable.
We come back to Daniele's HoH interview, in which she winds up admitting that she wants to take her dad to the end, because she knows he's horrible and she can beat him. Giggle giggle! Deserves whatever she gets, that one.
Julie reminds us that the person voted out will join Dustin on the jury, and then the nominees get their chance to speak. Jen stands up and explains that she considers herself positive and honest, so she clearly doesn't fit in, and she's glad to be leaving. Heh. Jameka stands up and yammers irrelevant things about how glad she is to be here. And then it's time for Julie to remind us all about Jen's penalty vote. And then: voting, at last.
Amber votes to evict Jen. Dick sits down in the DR, cheers for himself, and tells us he's "thrilled" to vote to evict Jen. Eric comes in, sits down, and tells America that "we happily vote to evict Jen." What you have just seen, from these two guys? It's the bullying instinct. It's so gratuitous, what Eric is doing here -- he's showing off. He's trying to impress you with what a nasty prat he can be, because he's forgotten that in a few months, no one will care about him anymore, and what he will have to show for his experience, in all likelihood, is just this. Zach and Jessica vote to evict Jen, but neither makes a big production out of it.
Julie promises to "give Jen the bad news when we return."
When Julie is back, Jen is told that she's out, 6-0. Amber gives Jen a hug. Jameka does, too. And Zach. I think all of those were relatively sincere. Daniele's? Not so much, as Jen recognizes when she mutters to Daniele, "I'm glad you had my back." "I'm glad you told lies!" Daniele responds. Burn! (Not in the "lit cigarette" sense, of course.) As Jen is on her way out the door, and is almost to the door, Eric -- reading from the book, Your Tiny Penis: Embrace Its Power -- throws an insult at her back: "Jen, as happy as you are to be leaving, we're happier to see you go." Jen pauses at the door. "That's...perfect," she says. Amber says something you can't really hear, and Jen says, "I won't." And then she adds, "Make sure to tell Jess." That's an interesting comment, huh? Jen exits the house at last. "Real people!" she says happily. Heh. She heads over to Julie Chen.
Back in the house, everybody gloats about how great it was getting rid of her, because they don't realize that now, they're all going to need a new hobby now. Especially Dick. And that hobby? Is going to be one of them. He can't not. It's all he knows.
Julie congratulates Jen on being so "compelling" and unpredictable. Unfortunately, Jen does not show her unpredictability by pouring something over Julie Chen's head. Julie brings up Dick pouring tea on Jen's head, the unitard, and the way Jen cried over her picture on the wall. She doesn't mention the threats of violence or, interestingly, the cigarette burns that were shown only a few minutes ago. Julie asks Jen what her strategy was, and Jen says she didn't really have one -- she decided to enjoy the experience, and it would last as long as it lasted. She says she knew they'd have to back-door her, which is just what happened. Julie talks to Jen about how Dick said "mean things" to her -- presumably, Julie is talking about "mean things" like how he'd anally rape her until she bled to death. Julie asks whether Jen thinks Dick is really like that, or (hint hint! Help a network out!) is this just Dick's strategy? Basically, Jen says she doesn't really care whether it's real or whether it's strategy -- either way, it's "inappropriate." Apart from the hilarious understatement of the word "inappropriate" here, I'm so glad she said that. Because: honestly, who cares? Who would employ declaring that all women are bitches as "strategy"?
Jen's goodbye messages are just as you'd think: Jameka's is grudgingly conciliatory, because God has already decided what she's going to say; Eric's is phony, because apparently, he didn't realize he was going to be a spiteful bastard on her way out the door and he was hoping for her vote; Dick's is gloating; Jessica's is boring; Zach's encourages her to vote for a nice person with integrity (HINT!); Daniele's is weirdly senseless and passive-aggressive; and Amber's is cluelessly well-intentioned, without any big words.
HoH! The game involves questions about opinions offered by past houseguests. Everyone is sitting atop dunk tanks, and Jen, in the Chendome, has her finger on a big button (heh). Each question will have an "A" or "B" answer. Hold up a paddle for your answer. If you're right, you stay dry. If you're wrong, Jen hits the button and dumps you, and you're out. If everybody's wrong, however, nobody gets wet. Last one staying dry is HoH. The first question, everyone gets right. The second question knocks out Eric, who looks really pissed off that Jen put him in the water, which delights me. He's one of those guys who actually thinks nipple rings make him someone else. The third question knocks out nobody, because everybody got it wrong -- Kail actually said she'd give her Bible to Dick, not Jameka. question knocks out Amber and Zach. So we're down to Jessica and Dick. And the last question asks what movie various houseguests compared their experience to. Kail said Animal House and Nick, who is either brilliant or a total asshole, said Love, Actually. Who said Meet The Fockers, Joe or Mike? The answer is Joe, and Jessica gets it right. Dick doesn't, and Jen actually gives a "HA-ha" as she dumps him so hard his feet fly up out of the water. Awesome. Jessica is HoH, and I don't really take any satisfaction in that, I find, because all this means is that we'll spend the week watching her be jerked around by Eric. It's true that it's not Dick, but I suspect he'll still spend the week tormenting whomever is the target of his wrath/boredom/pathos. Of course, Eric treats Jessica's win as his own.
And now! Whom should Eric get nominated? My guess? Amber will "win" this question again, because the same bar-dwelling assholes who've been autovoting for Dick all season will keep doing it, and America will declare that not even intentionally burning someone with cigarettes because you don't like her will keep us from wanting you to stay around. We are so awesome.