Julie's surprisingly chipper considering she had to work two nights this week and she's being mauled by a black tea cozy. The final three -- Kevin, Natalie, and Jordan -- are all sitting in the living room waiting for what comes . Julie spews some word-salad about which part of the multi-part HoH competition we'll see part of tonight, but I start paying attention when she alludes to the fact that all three players will still be in the house on finale night. Sounds like they figured out how to avoid the possibility of a tie with a six-member jury. But first!
We flash back to the beginning of the first part of the three-part HoH competition, with the final three all standing on a rolling log, hanging onto keys suspended above them to try to be the last person... rolling, I guess. Kevin says he hopes to take Jordan to the final two. Jordan in turn says she's without allies, so she's just "winging it." So she has the same long-term strategy as before Jeff left,. Natalie thanks Kevin for evicting Michele. "Yeah, thanks," Jordan adds sarcastically.
Then it's a flashback from the flashback, of Michele's eviction and exit. Natalie DRs about how glad she is that Michele's gone because of how much she hates her for reasons that still escape me. Then, back on the log during the HoH competition, Natalie continues shit-talking Michele, claiming she's been after Jeff the whole time, which even Jordan isn't dumb enough to buy.
After about 55 minutes, the log suddenly stops, but nobody falls. The rain, which had stopped, recommences, as does the rolling, now in reverse. Natalie begins to lose her footing, but the string from which her key dangles is apparently also strong enough to support her weight long enough for her to get back on. Then comes the wind, complete with fake leaves and what Jordan claims is "real snow." Then the rain starts again, and the log gets tricky again.
They're still up there three hours later, when Natalie asks if the others are ready to drop yet. "I'm going until the sun rises, wench," Kevin says, not in a friendly way. I imagine he kind of digs being mean to Natalie for Jordan's benefit. Natalie claims that she'll last longer than that. Kevin still vows to hang on, but his hand is shaking. Natalie tries to offer Jordan some lame deal that makes as much sense as any of Natalie's other strategies. More rolling, more wind, more snow. Kevin senses Jordan's weakness and suggests she start shivering to warm up, hoping it'll make her drop. It doesn't, but when the log starts again after a long pause, she falls off with 3 hours and 27 minutes down. Jordan calls it a $500,000 mistake, and Natalie and Kevin gloat at each other. Then, after Jordan goes inside to dry off and worm up, they start bargaining. We flash back to three days ago, when they agreed that Natalie would throw the first phase so she could win the second one. Kevin swears on everything he has that he'll stick to the plan, but tells us in the DR that his word means nothing in the game, and all he wants to do is "boot this biznatch out." Natalie wants to hang for fifteen more minutes, ostensibly to make it more believable (because Jordan's such a wily adversary), and also to get Kevin on record some more. But finally she jumps down. "Are you coming or what?" she calls up. Kevin dismounts, hardly believing himself that he's gotten away with this.
So that's Kevin as the winner of part one, and now Natalie and Jordan will face off in part two. But not before Julie wastes some more of our time.
After the ads, Julie gets on the living-room viewscreen for an announcement. Kevin groans aloud. "I heard that, Kevin," Julie says, as though there's anything she can do about it, and tells them that they're all going to final night. Kevin and Natalie: "What? What!?" She repeats that Natalie and Jordan will compete live tonight for the second round, followed by a third and final round on finale night. Whereupon the winner will become HoH and send the last jury member out into the studio. She leaves them to freak out over that. I'm freaking out over what kind of filler I'm going to have to wade through on Sunday.
We're now at the jury house, with Russell wearing a plastic crown and proclaiming himself king of whoever the houseguest to arrive will be. Jessie, of course, does not recognize Russell's sovereignty. Both Russell and Lydia are pulling for Kevin, but if Natalie shows up, Lydia says she'll need to explain her "big lie" about her age. Still not getting why she cares so much, except that it provides her a convenient excuse to hate Natalie again. I say, why pick just one? They all want to see Jeff as the juror. But when an effeminate "Haaiii!" rings out from the foyer, Lydia thinks it's Kevin. Of course we know it's Jeff, and they're happy to see him, although of course in a not very nice way. They all make some wrong predictions, and Jessie drops the bomb that Natalie's 24. Jeff likes that -- and the ensuing animosity in the jury house against Natalie -- as a sign of hope for Jordan. Because it's not like Jordan has much of a chance without at least one of the other two shooting him or herself in the foot. Jeff plays them the DVD of the week, showing Natalie's coasting in the s'mores-related HoH competition. More wrong predictions ensue, and then there are more commercials.
Oh, couldn't we have more commercials instead of what's coming now? For some reason, they've scraped up four former Big Brotherplayers -- Evel Dick, Danielle, Mike Boogie, and Janelle -- who are all in the studio to catch up and share their opinions on the current season. Danielle thinks Natalie has played the best game, while Janelle thinks the worst move was Jeff's eviction of Russell. Mike, a former Coup d'Etat-holder (though not Coup d'Etat user) himself, enjoyed seeing Jeff get rid of Jessie, as well as Kevin and Natalie's betrayal of Jeff. Dick agrees with that, saying, "Some of the best players don't make it to the end of this game." Says a winner. Julie gives them a chance to talk about Chima. Mike wants to cut her some slack, Dick thinks she was an idiot for losing sight of the end goal, and Janelle and Danielle call her a brat and a diva. Mike, Janelle, and Dick predict Kevin as the winner, but Danielle says she'd like to see a woman win against a man in the final two for once, because that never happens. Mike credits it to men's superior public speaking skills, and nearly gets his ear twisted by Julie for it. Couldn't she twist it anyway? Like, until his head comes off?
1 2 3 4
Okay, now can we get on with the HoH competition already? Or at least the second phase of it? It's a one-at-a-time competition, and Natalie is going first. She's out in the backyard, which is dominated by a big skeeball board, but with ten holes in a row instead of concentric rings. All she needs to do is roll the volleyballs marked with players' name into the holes, in the right order of when they were HoH.
Natalie gets started with two minutes on the clock, and has five of ten balls in place by the time the first minute is up. She's fine on time, but she's having accuracy problems; her sixth HoH ball goes into hole number seven and stays there, impossible to dislodge. She finishes up and hits her button, locking in the clock with two seconds left, just in case Jordan gets the same number of correct answers in one minute and 59 seconds. Julie tells us that Natalie got five right, and Jordan's turn comes after the ads.
And then we get to hear Julie explain the rules all over again to Jordan, who didn't hear them the first time because she was locked in the Diary Room while Natalie was busy being mediocre. Now it's Jordan's turn. As she starts racking up balls, the studio audience gets into it, providing a smattering of applause when she lands one and groaning when one rolls wide. She's got 18 seconds left when she hits the button. Julie sends her inside to wait for the results. But we don't have to: Julie tells us that Jordan kicked Natalie's ass, getting nine answers right. So much for Kevin and Natalie's plan now; it's going to be Kevin vs. Jordan in the final round. Ooh, Natalie's going to regret throwing that first phase to Kevin.
Oh, and now Julie tells us who the seventh juror is. It's a player called... Aaaaamerica. But how can we vote before we know the final two? Well, it's very complicated. If the final two is Jordan or Kevin, you text-message 1 to vote for Jordan and 2 for Kevin. If it's Kevin vs. Natalie, you vote 3 for Kevin and 4 for Natalie. But if it's Jordan up against Natalie, you vote 5 for Jordan and 6 for Natalie. All I know is that when it's this complicated and it's over this much money, someone's going to get sued.
After we get the ads to digest all that, Julie comes back to announce the results to the houseguests. Natalie and Jordan hug while Kevin makes a very convincing "what now?" face. Jordan says she's excited and looking forward to the finale. And sweating. Natalie claims she knew the order, but missed a hole and it threw her off the rest of the way. Awesomely, Julie remarks that it was both physical and mental. I just became a Julie fan for how she pointed out Natalie's failure on multiple levels. I hope it wears off soon.
1 2 3 4
Julie tells us there will be a clip show on Sunday, and a two-hour finale on Tuesday. Then we get to "eavesdrop," which tonight consists entirely of Natalie explaining at length how hard the challenge was. Funny, it didn't seem that hard for Jordan.
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.
1 2 3 4