Julie's dressed like the Ingalls' covered wagon as she welcomes us and the live audience to eviction night, when we can expect Jessie or Angie to be evicted. And after a replay of the PoV meeting, Angie says she'll do what she needs to do, and Jessie remains arrogantly assured of his own safety. The one who's having the hardest time with this is Michelle, who's completely distraught about having to choose between her two closest allies/friends. It probably wouldn't help if someone told her that it's not really up to her.
Outside, the Jessie/Memphis/Angie/Michelle axis is chilling on the backyard, wondering where they went wrong. Well, as they say themselves, there was the not winning HoH, not winning PoV, and then Memphis's blow-up with Jerry. So later, Angie approaches Jerry, warning him to look out for himself. Jerry says that Jessie, Michelle, and Memphis had been acting cocky all week. After he makes a friendly gesture to Angie, Memphis (watching from across the yard but not able to actually hear him) interprets this as meaning that the decision has been made to keep Angie. So Memphis goes to the HoH room to confront Keesha -- still hosting a stressed-out Jessie and trying to assure him that he's safe -- and totally exaggerates what Jerry just said to Angie. "Huh," Keesha smiles. Like she cares what anyone thinks at this point.
Meanwhile, Angie is telling Michelle what Jerry actually said, which pisses her off and sends her off on a mission. She goes to report to Memphis and Jessie, and they're all loaded for bear after hearing that. And Jerry is up in the HoH, denying to Keesha (and Dan and April and Renny) that he told Angie she was safe. When Jerry returns to the kitchen, Michelle is lying in ambush for him, and thing you know, he's in a shouting match with her and Jessie, while Angie smiles to herself at the discord she's sown. Well, that should... do nothing to help Angie. Well done.
After the ads, Julie promises that the house is about to be "shaken up." Yes, that would be Tuesday's earthquake, the first such event for most of them. I was actually in L.A. on Monday, so I missed it by a day. I blame Jessie. The houseguests all freak out to varying degrees, except for Jerry, who joins everyone outside still thinking that someone had moved the whole building. "It's Jerry, he's an idiot," Memphis DRs.
That night, Libra looks out the kitchen window to see Jessie, who gives her a hostile kiss and wave bye-bye. Jessie calls her the most "deviant" person in there, although I think he means "devious," unless he knows something we don't. The women inside (which is to say all of them save Angie) agree that Jessie should be done now.
And then the morning, Jessie calls Jerry "Father Time" to his face and makes a fart noise at him. After hearing about that, Keesha is more and more tempted to decide on axing Jessie, just to teach him a lesson. And later, while Libra, Ollie, and April exercise in the yard, they arrive at a consensus that the need to pitch Keesha on evicting Jessie. So that's what they do, and Keesha seems receptive. Which means she won't.
We're back live in the studio, and Julie drops the news that the airplane banner we saw the other night "had nothing to do with Big Brother." Awesome. Julie greets the houseguests in the living room via viewscreen and starts by asking Michelle about her reaction to seeing the banner. Michelle doesn't really answer, beyond to say that she thought "Ooooh." Alas, Julie doesn't try to pin her down on whether she was actually able to read it. Julie asks Memphis why he went off on Jerry so quickly the other night after Jerry called him a womanizer. Memphis admits that he blew up, and would rather get "punched in the face" than have his character impugned like that on national television, because it makes it really hard to get into women's pants. Julie then asks Jerry if he still thinks they're "a great bunch of kids," like he said the first night. Jerry says yes, and that he apologized to Memphis, which Memphis accepted. Julie asks Jerry if he apologized to Michelle. She has to remind him about that incident, but he says he hasn't apologized and doesn't regret anything he said. Or remember it, I don't think. Renny gets tonight's audience question, which is, "What was the best thing about celebrating your birthday in the Big Brother house?" Was that literally the most boring question they could find in the whole audience-question box? Renny even gives a boring answer.
Time for the HoH Chenterview. Julie starts with a hardball, asking Keesha why she blames Angie for Steven's ouster. Keesha says that Angie didn't stick up for Steven when it counted, leaving Keesha to take the heat. So it would have made no difference anyway, and Keesha's just got a stick up her ass about it. Julie's question is about how long Keesha plans to keep her word to Libra. Keesha says it'll be until the end, but when Julie asks the follow-up question of whether she's more loyal to Renny than Libra, Keesha says she is. So that sets up a potential conflict that I'm sure will never pay off. Audience question: before Keesha won HoH, did the housemates underestimate her? Jesus, are we sure this is a live audience and not some text-generating software? Keesha definitely thinks she was "underested." Hard to see how that's even possible.
1 2 3 4
Before the voting, Julie lets Angie go first to plead her case. Her speech is a warning: the half-million dollars will be won by an individual, not an alliance or a majority, so they all need to look out for the biggest obstacle to winning that money themselves (the implication being that it ain't Angie, and it's hard to argue that point). Jessie stands up, wearing a t-shirt that should get him evicted on general principles. His argument is that he stood up for himself, and won't be disrespected. Thanks for that news flash, musclehead.
Memphis is the first to enter the DR to vote, and he votes to evict Angie. So do Michelle, Jerry, and Renny (which tells us that Keesha decided to keep Jessie) and Libra (which confirms it, and makes a majority). April, Ollie, and Dan make it unanimous. Funny bit: Dan again calls Julie "Mrs. Chen," and this week she finds the gumption to correct him: "I am married, but Mrs. Chen is my mother." I just hope that week Dan calls her "Mrs. Moonves."
After the break, Julie breaks the news that Angie's leaving. It's quiet as everyone hugs goodbye, and after she's gone. Michelle cries into the kitchen sink while everyone stands around uncomfortably, like it's a funeral where everyone hates each other. Out in the studio, Julie tells Angie "nice try" with the speech, and asks her whether she buys Keesha's rationale for booting her. Angie starts tearing up as she says she just didn't really fit in with the other girls. Julie actually comments on her emotional level, and goes to the farewell messages.
Jessie rambles about how Angie will do well with people who aren't insane. Jerry says she's a "cool cat" and they'll miss her. Memphis will also miss her, and Michelle vows revenge. End of messages. Julie brings up Angie's habit of wearing Brian's knit cap after his eviction, and asks if there's some significance. Angie says no, she basically just did it to bug everyone. Genius strategy, there.
Time to find out America's Player: It's Dan, which should throw a bit of a wrench into his plans to lie low. Which is probably why you picked him in the first place. Dan laughs as he reads the briefing letter aloud in the DR, and then debates it in front of us before ultimately deciding to accept.
Tonight's HoH competition looks like a suicide pact, with the ten remaining houseguests minus Keesha standing on a building ledge attached to a fake wall. They're facing out, but they have a railing running behind them to hang on to. And whoever stays up the longest gets to be HoH. The wall tips forward and shakes in imitation of an earthquake, complete with dust cascading down on them. We watch this for a while as nobody falls off and nothing happens whatsoever. Anybody want to give odds on Julie not saying "It's going to be a long night"? Oh, and we're given instructions to vote on who Dan should try to get nominated. If you want to vote that bad, you can probably figure it out.
1 2 3 4
After the last commercial break, Big Brother fires up the wind machine. Julie tells them to "hang in there... it's going to be a bumpy night." Shit. We leave them still shaken and dusty, and we hear Memphis telling Jessie to take his shirt off. I don't know if that's because he wants to see Jessie let go and fall, or if he thinks Jessie can just Hulk out of it. If Jessie does either, it's after the credits end. Maybe Memphis just hates that t-shirt as much as I do.
Talk about the houseguests in our forums. And don't forget to vote for your favorite reality shows and contestants in our annual Tubey Awards.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.
1 2 3 4