After some previouslies showing us how the BB11 house became a Ronnie-free zone (complete with his class-free departure where Michele was concerned), Michele Diary-Rooms that Ronnie is just bitter at not even making it to the jury house. "The Big Brother encyclopedia did not get past week four!" she says. Whatever Michele's faults may be, she knows how to make me happy. Lydia is also happy to have gotten to stick around, but she's less excited about her suspicions that Jessie tried to vote her out. Jeff DRs that where Ronnie is concerned, what comes around goes around. Jessie DRs that Ronnie will be avenged, although he looks too bored to go into it right now. I think he means Ronnie will be avenged if he gets around to it, or feels like it, or remembers a word he said once he leaves this room.
We also flash back to the moments after Ronnie left, and we see why Russell was so somber afterwards: it's because Jessie and Natalie have revealed their disloyalty to him. Conversation turned to the mystery power, whose owner remained a mystery to everyone but Jeff, who secretly has it and decided to keep his powder dry for the coming week. Just as a reminder, Jeff has the "Coup d'Etat" power, which means he'll get to overturn one or both of the HoH's nominations at the eviction ceremony. Don't forget to pretend to be worried about it, though, Jeff.
Chima is thrilled about having won HoH, but this is less exciting news to Russell and Lydia, who both figure she'll come after them. In the DR, Jeff reminds us that he's got the real power this week. After the HoH competition, everyone comes back into the kitchen and talks about the mystery power, which they're calling "the wizard." Everyone except Jeff, that is, who's off to one side eating a sandwich. He's like the killer in the jail cell in that story in The Usual Suspects; the one who falls asleep is the one who did it. Well, I guess I can't accuse him of overselling it.
In the pool room, Michele and Lydia both expect to go up as Lydia paints part of her hair black. Chima, meanwhile, talks to Natalie about who to put up in the coming week. Then it's a mass visit to Chima's HoH room, which includes a letter from her sick mom, not that we get any details at all. Which is fine. I don't need to know what's wrong with Chima's mom, after all. Kevin congratulates her on being the first female HoH of the season. Michele DRs that she's not sure where she stands with Chima (aside from the fact that Michele tried to vote her out in week one). So she attempts to remedy that by hanging out with her in the HoH room after everyone else leaves. Chima thinks out loud about putting up Russell. That's about it.
Russell makes good on his vow to start kissing some Chima butt up in the HoH room. He apologizes for their argument shown last week (which I guess must have been real after all), but she doesn't seem entirely receptive to what he's saying. She DRs that she just needs to decide whether her distrust of him is enough of a reason to put him up. Well, I guess that would depend on any reasons she might have for putting up someone else, of which she has thus far shared none.
In the backyard, Jeff and Jordan watch Ted the spider spin a web. They speculate about where spiders' webs come from, and where baby spiders come from, if you know what I mean. Jeff speaks for all of America when he finally asks Jordan, "What do you think about all day?"
Everyone hangs out in one of the bedrooms as Chima tells a personal story. This sometimes occurs, but I think this one wins all of them: "I was raped by a serial killer." See? Hard to beat that one. She says she fought and escaped, even though her attacker had a gun. Eventually, he was caught, tried, and executed. Everyone seems very impressed with Chima's strength and spirit. What the hell am I supposed to do with that? I mean, unless she goes into the Diary Room and says she made it up? Which doesn't seem to be happening. I don't think I'm going to hold out for that possibility.
Later, Jordan tells Jeff that she thinks they'll be nominated this week. Jeff assures her that they'll be cool, but he doesn't tell her that he's got the mystery power. I suspect that if he does, he gets it taken away. Jordan is for some reason convinced that Michele has the mystery power. She clearly underestimates America's ability to dial its phones.
The weirdest thing happens now: the front doorbell rings, and Natalie runs to let in...Jeremy Piven. He's wearing a shirt, tie, and a face-scruff, greeting them all and charmingly herding them into the living room. If it were me, I'd be getting in and out of there as fast as possible, but he actually chats with them a bit, asking how long they've been cooped up in there and speculates that Lydia will be the first one to lose it. He clearly is not a regular viewer. He admits, "I've been in here eleven minutes, and I'm about to have a complete emotional breakdown." He's actually there to tell them about a "luxury competition," which is to get to see his new movie, The Goods. He plays them the trailer, then sends them out to the backyard for the competition. But as if this isn't weird enough. Jeremy Piven Diary-Rooms about how they seem like nice kids. "I don't think I would last very long at all," he tells us. I'm wondering how much extra money it took to get Jeremy Piven not only into the Big Brother house, but into the Diary Room.
They discover the backyard cluttered with crap, including a couple of cars. They split up into two teams: "shirts" and "ties," with Jeff, Kevin, Lydia, and Michele on the ties team (which means they wear ugly plaid ties) and Jordan, Russell, Jessie, and Natalie on the shirt team (which means they wear ugly plaid shirts). Jeff manages to get over being on a different team from Jordan. Chima explains the rules. In keeping with the movie's theme about a used car lot, each team has to "sell" cars, and the way they do this, in the fevered imagination of the show's producers, is to load the back of each station wagon with different items of crap strewn around the backyard. Each item has a different point value, and the team that gets the most points crammed into their car in five minutes -- along with their own useless carcasses -- wins. Plus one member of the winning team gets a cash prize, whereas the losing team will be the week's Have-Nots. As HoH, Chima sits this one out, but she does get to pick a team to root for, and if that team wins, she gets to join in the screening too. Chima picks the shirts team, because her allies are on it. Or, as Natalie DRs, "She knows we're winners."
With five minutes on the clock, the competition begins, with the shirts having no compunction about stealing he other team's crap off the ground. Once the back of each car is totally stuffed, the whole team also has to cram in and close the doors. Jessie of course uses this challenge as an excuse to rattle off his measurements for us.
Now it's time to unpack. The ties team racks up 399 points, but the shirts team collected 410 points' worth of crap, thanks in part to a giant teddy bear that Jordan insisted on stuffing in. That leaves the cash "competition," which is simply the four members of the shirts team plus Chima grabbing check envelopes and opening them, and the person with the highest amount wins that amount. The largest amount ends up in the envelope Russell opened: ten thousand, which is a dollar more than Natalie's check. Russell plays it cool. Especially for Russell.
Lydia comes along and drapes herself across Jessie while he's lying down. "Can't breathe," he informs her, so she gets up and leaves, as you do when the friend you have just lain down on is suffocating. Lydia DRs that she's still going to be his friend even though he voted for her eviction. Jessie seems prepared to test that statement by angling for an ass-massage, until Natalie comes along to hijack him from Lydia. Lydia, unsurprisingly, is annoyed.
Jessie comes into the HoH room to say goodnight to Natalie, who apparently not only gets to share the HoH bed with Chima but is also acting like a jealous eighth grader about Lydia. In fact, she threatens to blame Jessie if Lydia ever puts her up. Classy.
So now we get little rom-com montage of Jessie and Natalie missing each other, until Jessie returns to the HoH room to tell Natalie and Chima that they're all he has and he doesn't want to piss them off. Natalie and Chima respond by saying that Jessie needs to win over Lydia if he's going to be friends with her. What they're really thinking is that it's time for Lydia to go.
Do I need to do the America's Vote for the Have-Not food this week? Fine, the options are jalapeno peppers and pepperoni, squeeze cheese and kimchi, or sweet pickles and anchovies. Half off all that sounds fine.
Commercial for The Goods. What a coincidence!
It's the day for Chima's nominations. Michele is hopeful that she'll be spared given their shared hatred of Russell. Russell is worried. Jordan is too, because she and Jeff are not in the favored side this week and she's not bright enough to realize why someone else might be a priority. As for Chima herself, she tells us that her nominations are both strategic and personal, which usually means they'll be ill-advised in both senses.
Chima calls everyone in for the nomination ceremony. She pulls the first key and the safe people are, in order, Natalie, Jessie, Kevin, Michele, Jordan, and Jeff, leaving Russell and Lydia as the two nominees. Chima says nobody should be surprised with Russell's nomination, and claims that she named Lydia to keep her from voting to keep Russell. Which I'm sure everyone will believe.
In the DR, Lydia calls Chima the "mama bear," protecting "baby bear" Natalie and coming after "lone wolf" Lydia. What's Kevin in this analogy? A confused moose? Russell tells the DR that he's swallowing his anger in order to stay in the game. Jessie says, "I'm worried about the mystical wand power. Or wizard man, or mystical being, or the unicorn that's going to come out of nowhere and say, 'Jessie, you're gone, go home!'" Me too, except for the worried part. Jeff says he thinks Chima is determined to get Russell out, but reminds us that it's up to him, not Chima. Assuming he uses it, that is. Don't forget to play up Jeff's secret alliance with Russell on Tuesday, producers!
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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, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.
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