Julie's wearing Goth makeup to go with her peekaboo-shoulder outfit and jewelry from the Fritz Lang's Metropolis collection, a getup which took so long to prepare that she doesn't welcome us into the studio until after both the previouslies and the credits. She brings us up to speed on what a crazy week it's been for the Brigade, with Hayden currently up against Ragan on the block thanks to HoH Lane. "But are the cracks wide enough for Ragan to slip through to the final four?" Julie asks us. I don't think she'd say that if Ragan weren't gay.
After Lane replacement-nominated Hayden to take Enzo's place after the latter vetoed himself, Hayden wonders what Lane's thinking, even though he's pretty sure he has the votes to stay. Britney's happy to be in the final four, and Lane says it wasn't easy to go against the Brigade again, but he's sticking to his plan to keep Britney in the final two. Enzo is glad to be safe, and appears to be very busy at the dining room table building a tiny robot or airplane out of tinfoil. As for Ragan, he says he'll do whatever it takes to stay in the house. I doubt that, since it would take going back in time and blinding Enzo.
Up in the HoH room, Enzo, Hayden, and Lane are celebrating an impending win for the Brigade, at least until Hayden and Enzo start speculating on the possibility of Britney making it to the final two. Lane gets real quiet, but in the DR, he says that Britney has more enemies in the jury house than anyone in the Brigade, so he's thinking he'll take her along. If it's up to him, which I'm thinking it won't be.
Ragan realizes his only hope is to win Britney's vote and, since he's not going to get Enzo's vote, convince Lane to cast the tiebreaking HoH vote in favor of Ragan. To that end, Ragan approaches Britney to talk to her about going to the final two with him, and argues that Brendon and Rachel would have a marginally less hard time voting for Britney to win than Ragan. He runs down all the scenarios for the coming week, and convinces her that it's a good idea to keep him around. "I advise you to talk to Lane," she advises. Phase One of Operation Save Ragan is complete.
Ragan asks Lane if he's there to give away a half-million or win a half-million. He tells Lane that he's not going to win in a final two against any of the other guys, which Lane already knows because Britney told him. Ragan sells evicting Hayden as his chance to make that big bold move that'll win him votes in the jury house. Phase Two may or may not be complete, but we won't be finding out until later.
Upon returning, Julie shows the houseguests clips of them dancing during the "punishment." Hayden cops to being the worst dancer. Julie asks Ragan if that or the sock puppets was worse, and he says he loved both, although the dancing gets the edge. Julie asks Enzo about the penguin suit and whether he'll live it down back in Jersey, to which he says no way, although they both congratulate him for breaking the costume curse. Julie then turns to Britney to ask her about the last two weeks of being the only woman in the house, and she complains about how grossly messy it is. "You're the dirtiest!" Ragan keeps protesting. Voting hasn't happened yet, dude. Anyway, Julie brings the room down by reminding them that the final four is about to be decided, and then it's time for a look into the jury house.
We start by visiting Rachel hanging out in the jury house alone, and I must say she's a little less obnoxious without other people's nerves to get on. We're reminded that Rachel left a message for Brendon to evict Matt during her post-eviction visit to the house a few weeks ago, so she's expecting to see him. But instead Kathy tiptoes in barefoot and hollers, "There's a new sheriff in town!" They hug as though they're happy to see each other, and Kathy tells her about Matt being saved by his Diamond Power of Veto from Pandora's Box. Rachel's reaction: "Ew!"
The week, they sit around hoping "Princess Britney and Ragan" will show up, so they can have "three princesses and a queen." Charming. But of course it's Matt who comes in. Kathy is both happy and sad to see him, because she still thinks Matt's wife has that rare bone disease. Matt reveals that "Evil Britney" evicted him, and Kathy tries to extract an apology from him for evicting her without notice. Which he does, but it's about as sincere as anything else Matt ever says.
Then they get to watch the highlight DVD, showing Matt throwing the HoH competition the week he got voted out, Brendon getting his head shaved after winning PoV ("he looks like a penis," Matt remarks), and Britney replacement-nominating Matt, and coming in for some nasty criticism from the first three jurors. Matt hopes Britney will be following him into the jury house, bit it's Brendon's mandals that walk in . Rachel doesn't even get up from the table at first, because she's so repelled by his loser-stank, but she gets over it enough to hug and kiss him. The nausea is back!
But we're not done with the jury house yet. Matt has an announcement to make. Rachel thinks he's going to confess to being the saboteur, but he says everything he told them about himself is true...except for that part about his wife having a rare bone disease. All three of them are pretty offended, especially Kathy, who's been sick herself. She gets up and leaves the table, disgusted, but it's worth noting that she stays just within camera range. Rachel follows her, calling Matt "the worst person I've ever met in my life." Brendon stays at the table, mildly informing Matt that he's going to Hell, Matt follows the women into the kitchen to try to patch things up, but they're not buying. In fact, Kathy all but accuses him of having sold his soul to the devil. To his very minor credit, he doesn't make a lot of excuses or try to downplay it, although he does repeat his claim that he had planned to give some of the prize money to that disease's foundation. Wonder what he would have done if there hadn't been one? I guess we'll never know. Well, that worked out awesome for Matt, didn't it?
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Julie starts the HoH Chenterview with Lane by asking if he's worried about any fallout from the Brigade after his decision to keep Britney off the block for the week. Lane says he trusts the Brigade, but Britney's looking pretty good for a final two partner. Julie asks if he's really as dumb as he's been pretending to be, and he basically says he's only about half that dumb. At least I think that's what he said. Listening to his answer may have made me dumber. She also gets him to admit that he'd rather take Hayden to the final two than Enzo, which isn't exactly breaking news.
Back to the house so Ragan and Hayden can make their final pleas. Ragan gives shout-outs to his family, including his late father Len, and promises a batch of "ooey gooey yummy cookies" (a reference, I assume, to Rachel's taunting him with them during her visit a few weeks ago when he was a Have-Not) waiting for them at the jury house if he leaves tonight. Hayden sucks up to everyone, and reminds them of a snowboarding trip to Steamboat in January no matter what happens. Well, if one thing happens, Hayden's buying.
Enzo votes first, and it's no surprise that he votes to evict Ragan. Britney also "sadly vote[s] to evict my dear friend Ragan.
So he couldn't quite pull it off, because none of these Thursday-night campaigns ever works out. Julie breaks the news to the house, and Ragan hugs the final four before excitedly going off to meet Julie Chen. He hugs her while everyone left in the house hugs each other. This is too much hugging, dude.Out on the studio couch, Julie asks Ragan why his sales pitch didn't work. Ragan says the group was tighter-knit than he thought, and thinks they made a mistake. Ragan gives them credit for having more loyalty than most seasons, and actually admires them for getting rid of him. Well, that's refreshing, not blaming everyone for cowardice or stupidity or whatever. But then he kind of undercuts it by saying they all knew he would have won had he made it to the final four. Regarding his suspicions of a secret alliance in the house, Julie asks why he didn't act on them sooner. Ragan admits that he would have liked to keep Kristen, but he wanted to protect Matt. Speaking of whom, Julie asks of Ragan whether he regrets doing so. Of course Ragan didn't see the footage we saw from the jury house so Ragan still has the Matt-blinders on, even calling him an "excellent human being," and calling Matt closer to him than his three brothers. Can't wait to hear his reaction to Matt's confession. If Rachel gives him a chance to make one, that is. And then we get the anticlimax of hearing Ragan say he'll use his $20,000 saboteur fee to buy a car.
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Farewell messages: Lane admits Ragan made a great argument, but not enough to break his loyalty to Hayden and Enzo. Britney says she couldn't save him with her one vote and would have only hurt herself trying, and says she's sorry he'll have to go to the jury house with "Rachel's loud, disgusting cackle." Enzo calls him too emotional, "complaining a lot, crying a lot," and asks for his vote in the final two in the same breath. Which, it's a little surprising he has any breath left after blowing that dog whistle so hard. Hayden gives Ragan props for representing the gay community, and Ragan's off to the jury house.
It's time for the HoH competition. The backyard is a winter wonderland, with fake snow and giant nutcrackers everywhere, and not all that much actual wonder, admittedly. The three non-Lane houseguests are positioned behind chicken-wire fences with an outline of a Christmas tree on the front of them. They'll have to reach through the holes between the wires, using just their fingertips to maneuver little glass bulb ornaments into position, and then a star on top. It begins. And given that this is all about fiddly little movements, moving slowly and carefully and accomplishing very little in a long time, this may well be the most boring competition ever. Fortunately Britney keeps dropping and/or breaking hers, which provides some amusement.
It's still going on after the last ad break, and as Julie plugs the week's worth of shows. They'll include an eviction on Wednesday and the beginning of the final HoH competition on Thursday. Yay, after an interminable season, the interminable finale is almost in sight! But for now, back to the interminable HoH competition, where Hayden's in the lead with five ornaments in place, Enzo has three, and Britney's got a paltry one. And now it's snowing, which still doesn't make this interesting. Except that the thick litter of dropped ornaments in front of Britney is mildly amusing. I bet if I had HD, I could look into them and see her and Lane sitting side by side -- at Wednesday's eviction ceremony.
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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