Previously: Nothing happened, and I weecapped it. Tonight: John's sort of a bossy leader. There are snakes in the food trial. There's a "killer" loose in camp that's scaring a showering Torrie. Everyone wants to win. Opening credits. Damien and Myleene welcome us to Day 16, and remind us once again what happened last night: It RAINED in the RAIN forest. The world almost stopped over it. Tonight we can vote. And then on Thursday, two "celebrities" will be eliminated.
In camp, Stephen gives John a pedicure and does his best gay voice. It's weird, but I guess you do what you can to entertain yourself in the jungle. Torrie has always thought John would be a great leader. John has to assign chores to campers. He gives Janice and Holly dishes, Lou latrine, four people get to collect wood. He asks Sanjaya to clean up his area, and everyone to clean theirs up, too. Lou has to bite his tongue to keep from telling John not to be such a bossy leader. John tells everyone they have to wash their hands if they're going to touch the food. He even threw out rice once because Stephen touched it. John will no longer give anyone food if they don't wash their hands. Holly hopes this cracking the whip will be for the best. Patti tells John he's taking this camp leader thing too seriously. Stephen thinks it will be an interesting week with John as dictator. Commercials.
Myleene and Damien stand behind a table that has a basket, a pineapple, some sort of small trunk or box and two little carved monkey things on it. They don't explain it, but then why would anything they do ever make sense? They tell us the celebrities have had 17 cameras on them for the past 16 days, but what will happen when they're given one camcorder of their own? Back in camp, Stephen wants to make an in-the-jungle slasher film directed by Lou. Stephen doesn't want sex scenes, but Lou's like, "Hey! Who's the director here?" Stephen's executive producer. Stephen's wearing a knife headband, and they're using watered-down ketchup as blood. They also somehow have a scary mask. Patti tells us that Lou's quiet and thinking out scenes, because he's really into it. Sanjaya is super-excited, because Lou is "so creative"! Lou says he's stealing from every slasher flick ever made, and he's just going to kill everyone off. Really?! Please really do kill people off, because that would be awesome. Lou falls in the water, and then says he got his feet wet in horror films that way.
Holly's been cast as the cute, sweet girl in the jungle, and she has a little love scene with Sanjaya. Lou thinks some of his cast showed real chops. Janice says it was a thrill just to watch Lou in director mode. She thinks he should be "awarded something great." Like an Oscar? John and Stephen mock Lou, but Stephen's also pretty into it. John says he's going to be in a Lou Diamond Phillips classic, and now he can tell all his friends. He spares me making fun by saying, "I've worked with Lou Diamond Phillips. How many people can say that." Long pause then: "How many people want to say that?"
John gets a scroll about the food trial. Each team has to select one person to compete for food. Losers will get beans and rice. The women choose Torrie because, as Janice says, she's "a brick shithouse." Lou's going up for the guys. Torrie's confident since she beat him last time, and he's not getting too cocky or underestimating her. They head to the jungle clearing and find Damien and Myleene. Damien tells them not to look to their left, but they do and there are snakes. The food for the winners is a pasta dinner, with olives, mushrooms, garlic and more. The competition is called "Snake Strike." In a large tank with 35 snakes are stars numbered 1 through 5 in each team's color. They must reach into the tank and get their stars in numerical order. It's sort of complicated because there is only one slot to get the stars out of, so they'll have to pass their stars from hand to hand -- using various hand holes -- until they get them over there. They can forfeit by saying the show's title. Whoever finishes first wins. Ominous music and snake sounds as the game gets started. ... And commercials.
Myleene and Damien welcome us back and tell us John will have to make a difficult decision later, "live," and the phone lines will open later. They remind us of the trial and send us back to it, where we go back in time and have it explained again. "Snake Strike." Collect stars. And they start. Snakes slither around, and strike, but is it real? Lou's working his way around with his first star. Torrie's kind of in his way, so he reaches way across and manages to get his first star through. Torrie picks up a star and works her way back to her star mail slot. She gets one, too. Lou gets his second. It's not all that exciting, despite snakes occasionally striking at Lou and Torrie, and them having to move snakes out of the way. Lou stays ahead by one, and a snake crawls out over the tank. Then another one does, too. Snake trainers are throwing the loose ones back in. They both have their final star and are working their way to the slot. Lou wins by seconds. Torrie's disappointed in herself again. She's sick of barely losing, and says she wanted to cry for the first time in this competition.
On their way back to camp, Torrie says she's not looking forward to telling the other girls she lost. The guys are so happy to hear they get to eat Italian food. The women are all so nice to Torrie, telling her that pasta's too fattening and clogs you up (that last part was Janice, of course, who knows all about being clogged up). Commercials, then Myleene and Damien tell us what happened, what's to come, and then they send us back to camp.
Janice wants Sanjaya to put "guy-liner" on. He does it. John tells Patti that Sanjaya looks very gay when he does that for Janice, like her performing monkey. John thinks that's not attractive to a girl, and when Sanjaya asks Holly what she thinks, she tells him it looks like he has a bruised eye. John says in his confessional that he thinks Sanjaya changes -- becoming subservient and effeminate -- when he's around Janice. John thinks it's weird how he goes from being smooth mack daddy talking to Holly to not being Sanjaya. Then John's all, "But maybe that is the real Sanjaya." Janice talks to Sanjaya about gay bars, and Holly tells Sanjaya she feels like Janice wants him to be gay or something. He agrees that she really does, and that a lot of people want him to be their gay best friend, and he's good at it except that he doesn't like guys.
In the confessional, he says he does hair and knits, so a lot of his friends call him their "straight gay best friend," because they do stuff a lot of people would do with their gay friends. Holly asks him how it's gay best friend if he's not gay, and shouldn't he just say "best friend." He says that a gay best friend is different -- that it sucks that it's the term, but it's the term that's come to be. In the confessional, Holly says calling yourself gay if you're not gay is insulting to the gay community. Or possibly it's insulting to the girl who really, really wants you to be straight and not call yourself gay. Sanjaya tells Holly he connects really well with gay people because "we understand each other." He says they flirt with him and he's all, "No, but I'll hang out with you." He explains that he was raised by women, so he's connected to his feminine side, but he is attracted to women. It annoys him when people think he's gay, because "Gay people are awesome!" Okay, so the logic is flawed, but I think I get it. He's saying he's not gay, but who really cares if he is? And I agree. Sanjaya tries to hit on Torrie, and then he walks off, and Janice is like, "Please."
Back to Damien and Myleene, who remind us of yesterday's rain in the rain forest, and how we didn't get to see our immunity trial live. So now we get to see it, but not live. Damien welcomes the celebrities to the jungle clearing for the immunity trial, "Up In Arms." It's simple: Celebrities use a pole to hold up a bucket. Whoever can hold it up for the longest earns a spot in the final week. Damien asks Stephen how much the trial means to him. Stephen says he's passing on the trial, because he doesn't want his potential victory to come by chance; he wants it to be confirmed by the American people. Um, okay. Whatever, dude. I think he's the opposite of John, who wants to control is own destiny. And John makes more sense to me.
Competition stars and Janice is out immediately. She falls into the water after her slime bucket falls on her head, and I don't know how others can avoid falling when the person to them falls and splashes them. Torrie gets the giggles and her slime is seeping out of her bucket on her. So she drops it completely. Torrie's out. Patti's looking good, but she says her wrist is hurting. John tells her to just let it go and get slimed. He tells us his strategy was to talk people out of their game. He starts to get a little slimed, but catches it before the bucket (which is actually a box, by the way) falls. Patti's out, then John, leaving Lou, Sanjaya and Holly. Holly really wants to win. Sanjaya's hand is in a really painful angle. Holly accidentally grabs her pole with her second hand, eliminating herself. It once again comes down to Sanjaya and Lou, and Sanjaya says he knew Lou could hold it forever, so he lets go and Lou wins immunity once again. Lou's "ridiculously pleased" to be guaranteed a place in the final week. Inspirational music plays. You know what? That's what annoys me about this show, and where it fails in a way Big Brother doesn't. It has a slime competition and then tries to pretend it's inspirational. Big Brother knows what it is in a way this show clearly doesn't. It needs to just embrace the grossness and cheesiness instead of trying to then get all touching. Because that is just not working. Commercials.
Damien and Myleene remind us what will happen later this week, and then tell us we will get to vote soon. Then they remind us what happened earlier. They send us back to camp. Lou announces to camp that they have some popcorn, because they get to watch the movie they made tonight. They're all so excited. They get a tiny little screen. Opening credits say "I'm A Celebrity Productions Presents," "In Association With Stephen Baldwin," "A Lou Diamond Phillips Film," "Celebrity Sleepover Camp." The movie starts out with Holly walking through the jungle, where Sanjaya scares her, but then greets her. Patti walks by randomly. Sanjaya and Holly, playing themselves, fall in love on camera. [How meta! - Zach] A gloved madman grabs a knife and then kills the celebrities. Stephen gives the award for best scream to Torrie. Stephen laughs that this might be his best work. He finds Lou dead in the toilet and then tells John that Lou's dead. John: "What kind of dead?" Stephen: "His head is in the toilet." John: "So's his career." I love Lou for directing this movie and making fun of himself.
Stephen's hilarious in it, actually. John says it's the best home movie he's ever seen. Janice fights the bad guy awesomely. Stephen is impressed by the breakout performance by Sanjaya, who is in love with Holly on film. Patti's totally embarrassed to watch herself on film, you can tell. She tells us she's happy that bad acting is all that was required. With everyone killed, the movie's over. They all clap, I actually loved it too. I hope they show that whole video online. Lou says the filming of the movie was great, and the outcome was beyond his expectation. His expectation was that it would totally suck, but still.
Dinner time. The guys are happy to see their Italian food: basil, garlic, bread and more. Sanjaya sings while he cooks. John says singing for Sanjaya is liking talking for Janice: It's constant. Torrie says it's annoying, too. John asks him to stop, and Sanjaya says no one can tell him not to sing, because he's a singer. He starts singing about John, and dancing. He won't stop singing. Stephen wants John to throw an onion in Sanjaya's mouth. Janice reminds us that Simon hated him and he won nothing on American Idol. He keeps singing. About vegetables, and America, and John Salley. Everyone hates it. Even Holly. It's hilarious to watch, but I can see that it would probably be annoying to have to hear all of. After all, we're just getting the highlights. But without stuff like this, this show's nothing but fake drama and "live" non-challenges. Patti asks him to stop. Stephen considered ripping his esophagus out. Sanjaya gives a cute, British, "Sorry." Myleene and Damien are on the bridge, about to give John a big decision. Commercials.
Back with Myleene and Damien, who are just outside of camp. They're going to head in to give John the toughest test of his leadership so far. Wait, will this be harder than requiring people to wash their hands if they want to eat? Because that seemed pretty difficult for him. They head in to camp and greet everyone. As usual, the celebrities say "hi" to their loved ones, since they know they're live. Damien asks John if he's enjoying being leader. He's loving it, especially the bed. Damien says that Lou won immunity and is exempt from the public vote this week. They congratulate him. Myleene once again asks John if he's enjoying himself as leader. He again says he is. She's all: We'll just see about that, and then tells him he has a very difficult decision and he must make it alone, and it has to be made right now. He can grant one person immunity from this week's vote. He can choose one fellow campmate or himself. They give him 20 seconds, and he immediately says, "Myself." Um, duh. He would be an idiot to choose anyone else. Janice shakes her head about it, but no one else seems to think he did anything wrong. Including me. If you want to win, you play to win. Unless you're a total clown, like Stephen Baldwin. Damien and Myleene say that two people will go home on Thursday. Then they leave and the celebrities yell their live "hellos" to everyone they know.
Holly says with those two safe, only one other person will be in the final. But I think this just keeps them safe through Thursday, when two will be eliminated. There have to be more eliminations early week before the finale, which I think must be at the end of week, right? Please don't tell me the show will stretch into the week after that. I can only take so much. Back outside of camp, Damien and Myleene remind us what happened, and then open the phone lines for Patti, Janice, Stephen, Sanjaya, Torrie and Holly. Two of them will be gone on Thursday. We're finally getting somewhere, then, right? We'll see.
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DeAnn is a writer and editor in Portland, Oregon. You can contact her at twopmodmars@gmail.com.