Triple Threat

S14E13

Julie's dressed for the funeral of Queen Jadis as she reminds us that it's Frank's third nomination and Janelle's third game, but only one of them will make it through the evening. All this talk about survival and lives on the line kind of cheapens actual survivors, doesn't it? And then, after previouslies and credits, Julie tells us that it's Day 34, and reminds us that tonight is the first eviction since the game was restarted. Which makes the evictions just that much more humiliating.

We flash back to this week's Veto meeting, in which HoH and PoV-holder Danielle saved Wil and nominated Janelle in his place. In the aftermath, everyone but Janelle acts shocked, which is curious because Janelle is pretty much the only person in the house who is shocked. Britney goes in to find Janelle and put on an act about how blindsided she is about this, while Mike does a whole act for the cameras about how awesome he is, bragging that he made himself the de facto HoH. Janelle goes into the HoH room to confront Danielle alone, which Danielle is so not prepared for. Still, she acquits herself well, by claiming she heard Janelle was coming after her. But at least Janelle doesn't suspect her, because as she correctly DRs, "She couldn't have come up with this on her own." Danielle lies to Janelle that she'll probably stay instead of Frank, and Janelle coldly takes her leave.

Danielle's visitor is Dan, who's proud of her for graduating from "the Big Brother School of Dan," and tells her, "You're about to get one of the best players to never win this game out of the house." That almost sounds impressive.

Dan then invites Janelle to talk one-on-one, and she quickly accepts. In the storeroom, he claims to be as surprised as she is, but clumsily tries to pass it off as a "girl thing." Yeah, Dan, that sexist crap might work on Mike, but Janelle is...well, Janelle seems convinced, actually. Dammit. Dan lamely suggests Janelle try to drum up some votes, and adds that the coaches will be screwed if she leaves. Which is what he actually used to think. If this weren't awkward enough, Mike blunders in, grabs some groceries, and wanders back out in uncomfortable silence. Before Janelle can pick up on the weird vibe, Dan makes some supportive noises to Janelle that he totally doesn't mean, but Janelle figures she can secure five votes.

She starts with Joe and Wil, assumes Ashley and Britney are on her side, and approaches Jenn and Ashley individually as well. Just to cover her bases, she meets with Britney to confirm her loyalty. Britney lies that she's on board with keeping Janelle, and even acts worried about Janelle's fate. That's a smarter move than Britney probably realizes, because if she acted too confident Janelle would assume -- correctly -- that Britney knows something she doesn't. As it is, Janelle wonders if she's missing something, while Britney continues to play dumb. Janelle continues talking about what a mistake it would be to evict her -- and, unfortunately for Britney, she seems to be taking Janelle's point. That's the thing about Mike's evil plans: they lose potency without continuous exposure.

By M. Giant

So Britney rushes back to the HoH room to whine to Dan, Shane, and Danielle about how she feels shitty lying to Janelle. "And someone's gonna have to remind me why we're voting out Janelle again?" Well, exactly. You're voting her out because Mike Fucking Malin convinced you Mos Eisley stormtroopers that it was a good idea. "This is not the evictee you're looking for. Move along." They remind her that Janelle is... kind of mean. Britney doesn't seem convinced, even enough to avoid crying about it in the DR.

Back in the studio, Julie says we'll be checking in with Ian and Ashley's families for their take on the "real-life Big Bang twosome." Just when Julie stops irritating me every time she opens her mouth, she busts out a line like that.

One ad break later, Julie conducts the group Chenterview, starting by teasing Frank in his spiritard and making him do a lame cheer on live TV. Julie asks Mike if he's gotten over his crabby mood about being dropped into the game, and indeed he is. I suppose getting a bunch of losers (and Dan) to carry out his petty second-grade vendetta against a woman who wouldn't give him the time of day in the real world can do that. Julie turns to Jenn (I know, she's still there!) to ask what it's like to be competing against the coaches. Jenn makes like she isn't frozen in panic at the very prospect, and then there's a clip package of Ian's humiliating day as a dog in the house. Some of the houseguests actually look a little uncomfortable watching it. Ian tells Julie he's loving the whole experience, including the penalty costume.

And then, as if in intentional contrast, there's a whole montage of Ashley being stupid. Across town from Ian's, Ashley's folks watch the couple's awkward slop date, and her mom claims Ashley isn't the ditz everyone thinks she is. Which tells me Ashley's mom might be a ditz. She approves of Ian and wants Ashley to make a secret alliance with him, like that would be remotely secret. And it turns out that Ian's mom is the one who compared them to Leonard and Penny in the first place. Fine, Julie can stay another week.

It's time for the vote, because why bother with an HoH interview when Danielle's clearly a puppet? Instead, Julie goes right to the living room viewscreen and lets Frank give his nominee speech. He delivers it high-school debate style, saying he's been keeping it classy and advising them all to do the same. "You sound like Ron Burgundy," Julie tells him in a rare moment of spontaneity when he sits down. Okay, she's back in the black again. Janelle offers to help anyone who votes to keep her and says no hard feelings if they don't. Time to vote. As usual, the least suspense-generating vote is first, in this case Mike, who of course votes for Janelle to leave. Jenn also votes to evict Janelle, big shock. Joe's maintaining his loyalty to Janelle and his habit of wearing his chef's jacket on eviction night. Wil votes to evict his former coach Janelle, I guess because he's either on board with the rest of the house or because he's just that offended by her lack of admiration for him. And after that turnaround, going to ads with the votes at 3-1 is not exactly a cliffhanger.

We come back to Ashley's vote to evict Janelle, making its all but a foregone conclusion. And for that matter, it's not looking good for Joe week either. Unless of course Joe wins Head of HA HA HA HA. Britney sadly says she's voting to evict her favorite person in Big Brother history. That's the necessary five, but as always, everyone else has to vote. Shane votes for Janelle, clean-shaven for once and wearing a suit jacket and his hair like it's third-grade picture day. Dan gets his Eddie Haskell on as usual with Julie, calling her Mrs. Chen and saying she looks ravishing, only to be told that Mrs. Chen is Julie's mother. Dan says he has to evict Janelle, and Ian adds his vote to the blindside landslide.

Once he's back in the living room with everyone else, Julie gets on the viewscreen and tells Janelle she was evicted on an eight-to-one vote. Quiet hugs all around, with no fireworks like some of Janelle's exits. She walks out of the house to a cheering studio like a conquering hero in an electric blue dress. "Here we are again," Julie greets her as the remaining eleven houseguests mill around inside quietly.

In the exit Chenterview, Julie tells Janelle she kept it classy, and remarks on her surprise at being nominated. She wonders why Janelle doesn't seem surprised to be here now, and Janelle figures everyone wanted to backdoor her, "because I'm a strong player." Julie asked her why she hit the reset button, given her chances of winning the coaches' prize. "Because I wanted to play," Janelle shrugs. And look how that worked out. Julie wonders why Janelle wanted Frank out -- and still does. Janelle confesses to being scared of him, and admits that it might have hurt her game, even though she wasn't the only one. Julie brings up that coaches' summit in the HoH room and asks why she hesitated when Mike suggested putting up two of her players, Joe and Wil, up against each other. Janelle claims she was protecting her players, and also didn't want word to get out that she'd be willing to ditch them so easily. Because that might have resulted in her eviction.

Julie alludes to her rivalry with Mike, and wonders if he can win. Janelle thinks he's too much of a target, and is rooting for Dan. Why? "I love Dan." On to the farewell videos. Dan tells her about the alliance of six to backdoor her and how it was out of his hands. Britney apologizes for being part of the plan, Joe screams a deafening vow to avenge her, and Mike slimes out an immature farewell that I'm not even going to bother to quote. Seriously, he taunts her so obnoxiously he might as well be sticking her stupid braid in an inkwell. "He's such a loser," Janelle chuckles, and gets bleeped when she calls him a douchebag. Well, she may not have kept it classy all the way to the end, but at least she's classier than Mike. Yes, Janelle just lost Big Brother for the third time, but he's going to have to be Mike Malin for the rest of his life. Have you noticed how I hardly ever use his nickname in these weecaps? That's because I refuse to refer to a grown man as "Boogie." This week I've realized that nobody's asking me to.

Time for the live HoH competition. This one is called "Big Brother Battle of the Bands." Players (not including outgoing HoH Danielle) will compete two at a time, racing to identify whether a cheesy song being played over the backyard refers to an HoH, PoV, or coaches' competition that's already been played this summer. If nobody buzzes in, they're both eliminated. The first match-up is Wil and Jenn, according to a random drawing from earlier. The first song starts out being about pretty much every competition so far, but at the lyric's eventual mention of a mattress, Wil hits the HoH button. That's a correct answer, so Jenn's already out.

Wil picks Joe and Mike to go against each other. Mike wins that one, and picks Wil and Ashley. She gets it right almost immediately, so maybe the ditz thing really is an act. It's hard to say, because she looks like she actually has no idea what's happening. She puts Shane and Britney up against each other, which is either evil or stupid. I know which way I'm leaning. Britney wins the question in any case, and puts Ashley up against Ian. Way to break up the showmance, Brit. Looks like she's leaning a different direction from me. Ian beats Ashley, and then calls Dan and Britney up for a round that Britney nails (or which Dan threw, or will later claim to whether he did or not).

Ian, Frank, and Mike are the only other three players still in it, and she calls up the latter two. Mike hits the "Veto" button before the words even start, I guess purposely throwing it to Frank. Who presses the "Coach" button, but the cheap-ass game panel won't light up on his side after the other side's been activated, so he has to call out "Coach." That was weird. Britney and Ian are up against each other by default. She just beats Ian to the right answer, so the final round is Frank vs. Britney -- and Frank wins it. Well, it looks like he'll have a second week of not being nominated. And I'm sure we can look forward to more self-congratulatory guffawing from him and Mike in the DR.

Back in the studio, Julie has the final group Chenterview and asks Frank how he feels right now. Like he's going to say, "Meh." Julie credits the spiritard and signs off. I guess the only question remaining is whether the Silent Six is going to stay together. God knows they probably aren't going to be silent.

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.

By M. Giant