Julie welcomes us to the two-hour season finale, looking like the Emperor from Star Wars if the Emperor wore knee-length periwinkle and facial glitter. Then, after a whole season's worth of previouslies, we're back in the studio, which has been outfitted with additional bleachers to accommodate a bigger crowd (which we'll see includes, among others, Evel Dick, Mike Boogie, and the final three's families). Julie reminds us that we're down to the final three -- Natalie, Kevin, and Jordan -- one of whom is about to become the final HoH, as long as it's not Natalie.
Jordan and Kevin both tell us in the Diary Room how happy they are that Natalie screwed the pooch and is out of the running for HoH. It works out well for both of them, really. Natalie, in turn, says she needs to be both of their best friend to get taken to the final two. Yes, that's a solid strategy. Another solid strategy would have been to not suck so much at the competitions in the first place.
After the phase-two HoH results are announced, Kevin and Natalie have a subdued conversation in the red room, where Natalie expresses her doubts that Kevin's going to stick to his promise to take her with him. Which she has good reason to do, but he's maintaining the façade that they're still BFF. Must have been hard to know how much of this to edit into the finale, before the producers knew it was going to be moot anyway.
Later, Natalie is summoned to the DR. While she's gone, Kevin wants to confirm that Jordan is "on board." Kevin assures her that he'll take her to the final two instead of Natalie. Jordan gives Kevin the same assurance, but tells the DR that she's going to take Natalie if she gets to the end, because she thinks Kevin will get more votes as a result of having won more stuff. She's giving the jury way too much credit. And I'm counting the juror called America.
Kevin goes to camp out in the backyard, leaving Jordan and Natalie alone in the kitchen. Natalie gives Jordan the worst "let's keep in touch" speech ever, and Jordan blows the whistle on Kevin, saying that he's promised to take Jordan to the final two (to Natalie's notable lack of surprise). Jordan says she plans to take Natalie if she wins. She even tells us in the DR that she means it.
morning, Kevin meditates outside, wondering aloud if there's any final-two scenario where he can win. He doesn't think it looks good. Natalie joins him and assures him that there are scenarios where he can win. As long as, of course, he doesn't evict Natalie, because Natalie would vote against him. Eventually Natalie gets tired of listening to him talk, thinking that it means he's considering going back on their deal. She stomps inside, announcing, "You just made me upset." Like that's hard.
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.
So now we're all caught up with what's been going on between these three when they weren't faking an evening of special reminiscences for our benefit, Julie gets on the living-room viewscreen for the final-three Chenterview. She starts with Kevin, asking what Big Brother has taught him about himself. Kevin says he's learned to have more confidence, as shown by how far he's gotten. Well, the night is young. Julie asks Natalie what she'll miss the most. Natalie gives a content-free answer about living with a house full of people. Julie's final question is to Jordan, asking how the experience has changed her, being away from home for the longest time in her life. She basically says she's a grown-ass woman. In case you were wondering how they were going to fill up two hours, that right there is how.
Time to check in with the jury house, which Jeff is enjoying. He and Russell are expecting Kevin to show up , but Jessie expects Michele, so Lydia does too (which Jeff totally calls her on, amusingly). When Michele walks in, looking pretty swanky, Jessie throws himself a big obnoxious celebration. Russell, however, is disappointed to see her. Michele breaks the news about the Pandora's Box twist that resulted in Natalie's engagement. Jessie plays it cool. "How's her boyfriend? Is he a tool?" Jeff asks. Hee! Lydia tells Michele that Natalie's 24, which Michele isn't surprised to hear. She is a little surprised to hear how much everyone in the jury house hates Natalie now.
Michele plays them the DVD of Natalie's HoH reign, which makes everyone hate Natalie even more. Even Jessie says he would have voted for Michele over Natalie. If someone doesn't take Natalie to the final two, that person is going to be very regretful.
After an ad break, we're back in the jury house for the evening deliberations in the backyard. The five jurors -- Jessie, Russell, Jeff, Michele, and Lydia -- take their seats, looking for all the world like a bunch of barflies who just decided to play Supreme Court. The only consensus they come to for now is that they're stuck with a final three who weren't big winners in the game. Jeff and Lydia get into it a little bit over their respective allies, Jordan and Kevin, each defending his or her partner rather sharply. Russell gives Jordan credit for glomming onto a strong player like Jeff, and Jeff and Lydia start sniping at each other again. They move on to Natalie, who Russell characterizes as an intentional "loser," while Michele says that she attached herself to other people. Jessie takes exception to that, but Jeff insists that Natalie's age is irrelevant; overall, she acted like a twelve-year-old. Jeff is totally on tonight. Lydia starts building a case for Kevin, pointing out that he evicted Jeff, for instance. Things get personal, as Jeff and Jessie exchange potshots, and Michele admits that while she once thought the jury should vote dispassionately, she's now angry and bitter. But of course all this discussion is pretty pointless, because in the end they all agree that they're going to have to wait to hear the final two's answers to their questions. And wait until they know who the final two are. Yeah, that.
So now it's finally time for the third stage of the HoH competition. Jordan and Kevin are sitting on opposite sides of a divider, while Natalie sits alone off in the kitchen. Julie tells them this is going to be a quiz about how jurors completed certain statements. The first one forces Julie to provide two possible Jessie quotes about the best thing in the house: A) "The ladies, oh yeah" and B) "time to work on my amazing calves." Which are two pretty funny things to hear Julie Chen say. Only Kevin gets it right. The question is about Lydia, who says her most irritated moment was when Jeff got the Coup d'Etat. Jordan gets that one, so it's tied. Again, they both give different answers about what Russell would change if he could go back in time, the correct answer to which is how much he told Michele. Jordan gets that point, and the lead. The audience is totally on her side, by the way. Jordan gets a question about Jeff wrong (even the audience knew that one), which means they have a tie going into the last question. Finally, they have to guess who Michele thinks needs a reality check the most. Well, that's not going to break a tie, since the correct answer of Jessie is obvious to anyone. So out come the tablets for the tiebreaker questions. Julie asks them how many total votes to evict have been cast so far this season. Kevin visibly does math in his head, while Jordan looks so blank that Julie might as well have asked her how many quarters are in an hour. But she guesses 50 against Kevin's 80, and since the answer is 51, she's the final HoH. She can't even believe it herself. And when she stands up, I can't believe what she's wearing. A black tube top and hot pants? Is that really appropriate finale attire? Well, at least she looks more reasonably dressed than Julie.
Once we're back, Julie gives Natalie and Kevin a chance to plead their case to Jordan. Natalie rapidly blurts out a lot of talk about her loyalty and basically begs Jordan to keep her in the game. Kevin tells Jordan they've never come after each other, and tells Jordan she's "Gucci," which I assume is a compliment. Jordan looks embarrassed by all the attention, or perhaps by their speeches. I can relate to the latter. Julie reminds Jordan that she's guaranteed at least $50,000 as the second place winner, but now she's got to decide who to bring with her for the final vote for the $500,000 grand prize. Jordan stands, awkwardly tugs down the hem of her shorts, and gives a rambling speech of her own that ends with evicting Kevin. Jordan tells him she feels terrible about it, but he assures her he's cool with it. In fact, he lingers so long that he forgets he has to leave. It's like he's never seen an eviction before. Eventually he wanders out. Jordan and Natalie are left in the house, both congratulating each other, and both trying to assure Jordan she made the right call. Natalie seems to be doing a better job of both.
Kevin begins his exit Chenterview by admitting that Jordan made the smart move, and saying he's not angry. Julie brings up Kevin's plan to boot Michele so he could use Jordan to get rid of Natalie, and basically asks how that worked out. "Julie, why are you asking me that?" he wails. All he'll say is no regrets. Julie asks him to say what's most important in a winner without giving his vote away, and he says it's who played the strongest strategically. Yeah, I think Julie was looking for more of a non-answer than that.
Farewell messages. Jordan repeats her apologies for evicting Kevin, saying she wouldn't have a chance against him. "I don't know what went wrong," Natalie tells him. Both sucking up to him for his jury vote, clearly. Do any of these people know that it's not just the jury yet, and that America gets to vote? I hope not, because I'm looking forward to watching them find out.
Julie announces the entrance of the jurors one by one: Jessie, Lydia, Russell (where's his suit? And the buttons on his shirt? And one of his shirt tails?), Jeff, and Michele. Once they take their seats, Julie makes them guess who the final juror is before bringing out Kevin. Hugs between Kevin and all the jurors except Jessie. Julie asks what Lydia's thinking. "Well, we have two witches in the final two," Lydia says, classy to the end. Julie breaks the news to them that Jordan won the last HoH and evicted Kevin. No DVD for them this time, though.
Julie is ready to move onto the jury questioning. Apparently the first five jurors have agreed on three questions each for Natalie and Jordan (six questions I have to recap?!), but don't worry, Kevin -- you'll get to ask them one of your own. (seven questions I have to recap??!?)
Julie gets on the viewscreen to alert Jordan and Natalie that the questioning is about to begin. Russell starts things out by asking Jordan what her initial strategy was and how it changed. Jordan says she originally planned to "lay low and not trust everyone." Which changed to trusting everyone the first week, then trusting no one the second week. Finally she decided to be herself. She's still yammering when she runs out of time, which demonstrates that she is still sticking to that strategy. Lydia asks Natalie who she thought her biggest threat was. Natalie says it was Lydia herself, coming between her bond with Jessie. Jeff wants Jordan to understand that that the question he's asking comes from the whole group: "Other than aligning with me, what was your best move in the game?" Jordan doesn't deny the premise, and says it was getting rid of Kevin. Michele asks Natalie that since she's 18 and "supposedly engaged, "why was it critical that I tell the jury your engagement news? Were you hoping this would influence our votes?" Natalie claims it was just because she was so excited and proud of the news that she wanted her friends in the jury house to know about it, which is why she lied about it when it first happened. Jessie boredly asks Jordan why she deserves to beat Natalie. Jordan says she's proven it by winning the two final HoH rounds by herself. The studio audience cheers for her. Russell asks the last question to Natalie -- why she deserves to win over Jordan. Natalie says she stuck with her strategy of aligning herself with strong competitors. Because two of her examples are Ronnie and Chima, neither of whom even made it to the jury house, that doesn't really make her case. Oh, and she forgot to mention her last ally, Kevin, which Jeff doesn't fail to quietly point out. And when she says she never backstabbed her alliance, there's not a straight face in the house. Other than hers of course.
Julie gives Kevin his one question, which is to Jordan. "What did you do better in this game than Natalie?" After blathering that they were a lot alike (which is just about the worst thing Jordan could say about herself at this point), she says they were both true to their alliances. Jordan says she's won competitions but finally winds down with a non-conclusion. At last, Julie wraps things up and reminds us that the seventh juror is America. Dammit, the jurors seem to know that already. I was so hoping to see their faces. Oh, well, I still have the final two's reactions to look forward to, right?
After the ads, Julie lets them make their final speeches. Jordan babbles about being true to herself and her alliances and flying under the radar. She acknowledges that Natalie has more friends in the jury house, but repeats that she won competitions on her own. She goes on much longer than she needs to, right up to a very abrupt ending. When Natalie's turn comes, she says she didn't feel she had to win competitions to get to the end. She claims that Jeff putting her up against Jessie with the Coup d'Etat proves that she was a competitor. She talks about her futile vote to keep Ronnie, wanting vengeance for Jessie and Chima, and staying true to Kevin. Finally she stops talking and sits down before I need an ear transplant.
Julie says it's time to vote, and invites them up to the key box one at a time, saying they'll have a chance to make one comment when they vote, as long as they don't give anything away. Jessie goes first. He tells Jordan, "Hakuna mataata," which doesn't say much. Lydia simply tells Jordan, "I love a good blonde." Russell says he chose the person who played the best game throughout, and adds, "Congrats to you both." Jeff tells Jordan he's proud of her. The audience "aw"s. "I'm voting for the strongest female in this game," Michele says flatly. Kevin says he was going to vote based on looks, but since he says they both look cute, he's voting "strictly strategic."
Finally, Julie tells Jordan and Natalie that there are only six jurors, so the seventh juror is America, and voting has going on for days. They don't react. Fuck! This show never lets me have any fun! I'm dropping a letter grade just for that. Julie herself inserts America's key and... throws us to ads, teasing us with appearances by the non-jurors, now that there's nothing anyone can do about the votes they've already cast.
Oh, and another sign of how they're filling two hours? Normally I do this in near-real time, pausing a few times during the show and catching up by zapping the ads. But tonight, when the ads come, I'm already caught up. Which does make for easier recapping. I think I'll raise the episode a letter grade for that.
There's a long montage reminding us who early evictees Braden, Laura, Casey, and Ronnie are, and they're revealed to the audience in the studio. Ronnie is of course wearing a t-shirt with the square root symbol over the words "all evil." Julie starts off with him, asking what surprised him the most watching at home. Before answering, Ronnie congratulates Natalie, and says that all the lies he was accused of paled in comparison to Natalie's. Ronnie tells Jordan, "Natalie has lied to you more than anybody ever could." He tells her that Natalie's 18, and Jordan's like, "Shut up!" Kevin's blown away, while Natalie just laughs at how awesome she is. Ronnie's pretty pissed at Natalie for any number of things, but Julie says they should move on, adding that Natalie's probably lucky that Ronnie isn't a juror. We'll see how much good that does her. Julie asks Casey what the biggest mistake in the game was, and Casey tells Jeff he shouldn't have believed Kevin and Natalie's lie about Russell coming after him. Kevin looks busted, while Natalie is again pretty shameless. Julie plays them all a whole series of clips of Kevin and Natalie (and to a lesser extent Lydia) plotting to deceive Jeff, complete with Kevin calling Jeff an idiot for buying it. After that little package is over, Julie asks for Jeff's reaction, and Jeff makes the point that I made at the time, which is that it was true anyway, per Michele. Well, that was kind of a bust. Julie asks Braden what his biggest surprise was, and Braden says it was Jessie's way with the ladies. Thanks for your insight, Braden. And that's it from the early evictees. Sorry, Laura, looks like you got screwed over again.
Oh, but when Julie comes back to talk about Chima, she asks Laura for her reaction to Chima's behavior. Laura gives Jordan a noisy shout-out, and says Chima sucks for walking out, not only because of all the people who would kill to be on this show (as though that's a demographic we need to feel bad for) and, more importantly, leaving her alliance in the lurch. Kevin agrees, and although Julie leaves the floor open for anyone who wants to defend Chima. Surprisingly, there are no takers. Gosh, I would have thought people would be lining up to criticize Big Brother's treatment of Chima on its own live broadcast.
, just for fun, Julie plays the clip of Ronnie's eviction, when he called Michele the worst human being he ever met. She gives Michele a chance to respond. Michele's cool with it, saying it was just a melodramatic moment. Ronnie apologizes, and Michele accepts the apology. I'm sure they would hug if they could stand to look at each other right now.
Then Julie brings up Jessie's description of his relationship with Lydia as "platonic." Then she plays the clip of Lydia climbing out of his bed in her underwear. Then she reads Jessie the Webster's definition of "platonic," just in case that word does not mean what he thinks it means (which, admittedly, is a possibility). Jessie looks busted. When Julie asks if it's still going on in the jury house, Lydia conspicuously doesn't answer. Russell is shocked by this, wondering where he was when this was going on. "Probably yelling at someone," he figures. Point to Russell.
Julie then asks Jeff if his relationship with Jordan will continue. He jokes that he's waiting to see if she wins, but when the laughter dies down, he demurs. Julie polls the crowd about the two of them going to Hawaii together, and even though they seem to be overwhelmingly in favor, all Jeff will say is that she's on the short list. If that list is as short as her pants, it's a very short list indeed. Speaking of which, when Julie throws us to commercial once again, and Jordan, thinking she's already off the air, gets up and tugs down the hem of her shorts once again, with a marked lack of grace or decorum. At least we don't hear her saying she's sweating.
Back from the ads, Julie rattles off some stats Phil-like before starting to reveal the votes. America's vote is revealed first, since there's no suspense there: 11 million people voted for Jordan. So did Jessie and Lydia. Russell voted for Natalie, at least sparing her Memphis's fate of a unanimous loss. And with Jeff's vote going unsurprisingly to Jordan, we have a winner. She gets up, tugs down her shorts, and hugs Natalie, and the two of them walk out to a storm of confetti. Jordan screams and hugs her family before the other houseguests converge on her. It's pandemonium in there. Julie tells us we're about to hear who America's favorite player, but not before one last ad break, which I don't get to fast-forward at all.
Julie reveals the last two votes: Michele and Kevin voted for Jordan and Natalie respectively, giving Jordan a vote of what Julie calls "Five to-do." Well, actually it's more like eleven million and five to-do. Jordan talks about her plans for the money (house, college, car, and a conspicuous lack of her own damn airfare to Hawaii). And then Julie reveals the unshocking news that Jeff won America's Favorites Houseguest by a wide margin, and hands him the envelope. It doesn't look like there's room for a $25,000 prize in there, but Jeff seems pretty happy anyway. Julie signs off, and we're out. The end. Let's all get back to our lives now, shall we?
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.