It’s Live Elimination Night! That most magical of nights! Hey, do you think Jessie owns any shirts with sleeves?
I just have to say, the Jerry vs. Libra fight was kind of awesome. I mean, she did have a point: Jerry is very old. Still, they went at it in a way that you don’t usually see this early in the season. This is the kind of thing we see eight weeks down the line when everybody’s so sick of each other they can barely see straight. Anyway, Michelle won the Power of Veto, and elected not to use it. That puts Steven, the gay bullrider, and Dan, the guy who only just now learned that gay people were real, up for Eviction.
I’m still freaked out by the live audience for the Elimination shows. We don’t want to go back to Season One, Julie! The Chenbot tells us that the “Ghost of Brian” still haunts the Big Brother house. That might be a little dramatic for a guy who was in the house for about a week. Unless he died and his actual ghost is haunting the house. Spooky!
There is another reference to Steven as a “champ on the gay rodeo circuit”. Is that a real thing? I just don’t get that Venn Diagram, I guess. I picture people calling the local venue whenever the rodeo comes to town and asking which kind of rodeo it is.
Julie also says that “even the quietest mouse can’t escape the eyes of the cat”. I don’t think that’s a real saying. Besides, wouldn’t a quiet mouse be escaping the ears? Also, I have no idea who in this metaphor is a mouse, and who’s a cat. I’m pretty sure April Sapien is the fish, but that’s as far as I can get.
Dan and Steven share a tender moment, where the two of them reiterate how one of them will be going, at great length. Steven seems more sad about this than Dan, because Dan assumes that he’s going to be safe. Next, Steven sits in with Libra, Keesha, Ollie, and April Sapien. They carefully explain to him why he has to accept the fact that they’re going to vote him out. Steven suggests he could make a strong ally, which completely flummoxes April. Her reaction is hilarious. Steven makes a case, and they’re kind of crappy to him, and then he leaves. Because they only have 168 hours of footage this week to choose from, they include a scene of Michelle entering the room to pick something up and then leaving.
The conversation is edited to make it sound like they want to add Steven to their alliance, but I’m too distracted by their use of the term “floaters” to follow along. I know they’ve used that term to describe unallied players for years now, but it always makes me think of poo.
Angie talks to Memphis about how much she hates April and Libra, who are playing pool outside. Memphis, sadly, has shaved his Morgan Spurlock 2.0 facial hair, as featured in recent episodes. He also appears to have a case of the jimmy legs. And then in a scene that’s edited to look like it’s happening at the same time, Libra and Keesha are talking in the bedroom. But Libra’s outside playing pool! She’s a wizard! Anyway, April comes in to discuss the vote. Keesha makes a good case for voting out Dan, as having Steven as an ally could swing the numbers their way. I don’t know how this happened, but I’m liking Keesha.
We’re back with Julie, and she has questions for the Houseguests. First up is Jerry. She asks if his housemates respect him as a competitor (cut to Libra, wincing), and his answer is basically, “They damn well better”. Julie asks Libra if age makes a difference in the game. Libra says that they should make it even in the future, which again means that two old people can really suck up a team, although she insists that age doesn’t make a difference. Except for when it does. Julie then says that she’s sensing love in the air, as the camera pans to April and Ollie. April loves that Ollie is sweet and can “conversate” with her “on an intellectual level”. I’ve had pasta dishes that can appreciate April on an intellectual level, frankly. Ollie says that his minister father is probably very happy for his “showmance”. Oh, Ollie. Not if he does a Google search.
Dear Ollie’s Father:
Please do not execute the following search “+Ollie +April +humping +broad daylight”. Trust me.
Your friend,
EJ
Now, shaking that particular footage from my mind (April’s foot….), we turn to the Jessie / Renny Feud. Renny’s family, many of whom clearly host their own Cajun cooking shows, tell us that Renny is awesome, and owns many wigs. We learn that Renny used to be a New Orleans Saints dancer, and was “one of the three best-looking girls on the team”. That’s…. sweet? Her children also discuss her breasts. If I ever compliment my mother’s rack on primetime TV, please kill me.
Now it’s Jessie’s family. A series of photographs proves that Jessie has had the exact same head since he was eight years old. His parents assure us that he is very sweet, even if people don’t realize it. We cut between the two families expressing their opinions on whether or not Jessie is a weasel, interspersed with footage of Jessie flexing. This happens about a hundred times a day, I’m guessing.
Back in the studio, Julie’s chatting with Jessie, who’s alone in the HoH room. She tells him he can speak his mind, and an awkward silence ensues. Julies asks him about the perception that he’s a body without a brain, and hysterically, he asks her to repeat the question. “Apparently, I’m the youngest person in the house, so I’m 22.” Wow, he put the clauses in the wrong order and then added a lot of uncertainty for an absolute fact. We do learn that he started working out so he wouldn’t “start doing alcohol-related stuff in the college”. Jessie’s mind is a weird place. When pressed for his biggest weakness, he says it’s that he confides in Michelle. His biggest weakness is that other people aren’t as awesome as he is!
Julie kicks it to the nominees and gives them a chance for some parting words. Dan calls Julie “Mrs. Chen” again, and he talks about all the fun they’ve had this week, and mentions a bunch of things we didn’t see. Stephen cites a bunch of in-jokes that make no sense to us. Seriously, he rattles off about six things that have the housemates in stitches and mean absolutely nothing.
Time for voting! Michelle, Memphis, Angie, and Jerry vote to evict Stephen. After a commercial, we return to the voting. Wow, that was a short segment. I bet Julie had to go to the bathroom. Libra votes to evict Stephen. Well, that’s over. Not that it matters now, but April, Ollie, Renny, and Keesha vote to evict Stephen as well. I’m not really sure what happened here. Nobody thought Stephen would make a good ally? Julie makes it official, Stephen and his giant belt buckle are evicted.
And the crowd goes wild! They’ve had to sit quietly and watch TV for 37 minutes now, so they’re excited to be allowed to applaud. A brief cut to the inside of the house shows the same thing that’s happened at every eviction since the first, where the houseguests hug one another and talk about how tough it was. I think they should swap out footage from other seasons every week, so all of a sudden Will and Bunky are talking about how hard it was for Kent to leave. Nobody would notice.
Stephen sits down with Julie and says that he’s glad to be out, and he’s got a special someone he can’t wait to see. In the pre-recorded goodbyes, Keesha seems authentically shook up. (By the way, I always think that’s weird. Presumably, they record these for both potential evictees, and it boggles my mind how some people absolutely lose it when they’re talking about what is, at the time, a hypothetical situation. It’s Schroedinger’s Cat for fame whores.) Angie apologizes that she couldn’t help him stay in the house. Well, clearly voting to keep him was beyond her reach. Renny is boring. Jessie talks about how much he appreciates that Stephen was impressed by his bodybuilding, and also Stephen has the potential to take his physique to the next level. There’s no way this guy is real. Guys, we’re being punked. Dan appreciates that Stephen taught him about gay people. Hey, April Sapien and Ollie had nothing to say. Oh, that’s right, they were otherwise occupied. (I saw it. I can’t unsee it.)
Apparently Big Brother spent some time projecting video of aliens onto the mirrors in the house. April freaks out, though I’m not sure how she could tell it from her own reflection. Oh, right. The breasts. Nobody believes April, even though they do this almost every season. Then an alien image appears in the HoH bedroom, where Jessie is talking about his arms. Finally, there’s an alien in the kitchen mirror, and Renny stares at it for a long time before deciding that she’s alarmed. I think she realized that fear gave her an excuse to scream and annoy everybody.
Then we see objects disappearing from the house, including cupcakes and a pitchfork. This leads to an HoH game of “Alien Abduction”, where in each round, two players face off to answer a question about a missing item. Winner moves on, loser is out. In other words, it’s not very difficult, but it’s one of those aggressive games that lets you take people out of the running. More importantly, it’s another challenge that’s thoroughly boring to recap, unless somebody slips and falls or misspells a common word. (Hi, Natalie!)
First up are April Sapien and Dan. Dan wins, April’s eliminate. He picks Renny and Libra. Renny is wrong and eliminates herself. Libra picks Memphis and Angie. Memphis wins and picks Ollie and Jerry. Jerry is wrong, and Ollie picks Michelle and Keesha. Michelle is wrong, Keesha picks Libra and Dan. Libra wins, picks Memphis and Keesha. Keesha is right, so Ollie and Libra face off for the right to challenge her. Libra wins, so we have Libra and Keesha for the title! Libra gets it wrong and Keesha wins Head of Household! Yay! Wait, did I just say that? I’m still getting used to this world where I like Keesha. (The preceding paragraph brought to you by Boring Paragraphs, Inc.)
There’s some time to kill, so Julie has more questions. She asks Libra what she’ll do if she’s on slop for a third week. Libra says it’ll get ugly. I thought that’s what happened last night. It turns out, that’s Julie’s only question, so her use of the plural is misleading.
Who’s Keesha going to nominate? She seems sharper than the rest of her Confederacy of Dunces, so I’m thinking she’ll go after the Memphis/Angie alliance. Or else Jessie and Renny to put us out of our misery. Join us on Tuesday for more recapping, and seriously, be careful what you Google.
