Sunday’s show opens with footage of Steven’s farewell speech, and the show is clearly lying to us here. They feature the “Suck it, bitches” line, but then they go all slo-mo and make it look like everybody was hurt and offended. See, I sort of remember that being the culmination of a long run of in-jokes and my DVR confirms that everybody laughed. Now, however, Michelle and Jerry are offended. In all fairness, Jerry is probably not going to be in on any joke that involves that particular phrase. There are certain things from which we shield the elderly.
Dan hilariously claims that his plan is working “well beyond my wildest dreams”. Considering the first two evictees have been the people in his alliance, and he himself was up for eviction this week, his wildest dreams must have been modest at best. He had assumed that his face would be eaten by wolverines by this point, I guess.
Angie and Keesha are both sad about Steven’s eviction, but not sad enough to vote on his behalf. That’s a very weird aspect of this episode, so get used to it. Libra says that keeping Steven would have destroyed their alliance of eight people. Who would have thought an alliance of eight would be unmanageable? Oh, right. People who know math. Anyway, Angie tells the Diary Room that not having Steven around will let her focus on strategy. I’m not sure how Steven prevented that. Did he practice the tuba at odd hours?
We see Keesha win the Head of Household again. Renny DR’s that she’s happy about this, because they’re friends. Renny refuses to look at the camera in the Diary Room, and she always comes off as really bored about the whole thing. And her voice makes me question whether there is any love in the world, but that’s another story. Libra is excited about Keesha’s win as well. Let’s see how long that lasts. Dan reminds us again that he’s throwing competitions. Other than Dr. Will, people are usually lying when they say that.
Keesha, Renny, Michelle, and Libra talk about how much they miss Steven. Keesha is not sure who to put up, which makes Libra freak out in the Diary Room. Hey, Libra! Want to make sure you control who gets nominated? Win a competition!
It’s time to see Keesha’s HoH room, and there are many pictures of her adorable dog, Gizmo. The picture of her father looks like they surprised him in a parking lot, by the way. Keesha wants to read the letter from her family, so she kicks out everybody but Renny. Because crazy ladies make the best confidants. Renny DR’s about how touching it was, but her complete lack of inflection makes it sound sarcastic.
The two of them discuss their distrust of Libra, and then April shows up. Renny misuses airquotes in a manner reminiscent of one Joey Tribbiani and leaves. Libra and Ollie pop into the HoH bedroom too, and Keesha announces her plan to nominated Angie. They try to convince her to also put up Memphis, but Keesha’s not feeling it.
After the commercial, Memphis is in the HoH bedroom with Keesha, April, and Libra. Keesha, for whatever reason, tells Memphis that she’s putting up Angie. I really don’t know why she has to share that, but I think she likes the drama. Not in a psychotic way, like some people we’ve seen pass through those doors, but, like, if she had a blog, she’s always be shutting it down in protest of something or other. Renny and Angie come to the door, and Keesha turns them away.
This leads an almost tearful Angie to visit Jessie and Michelle in the spa room and complain about Keesha. Then, after Angie leaves the spa, Memphis comes down to immediately share everything with Michelle and Jessie. Jessie is worried about being nominated. Aw, he must have read the spoilers.
Dan and Keesha have a chat in the HoH bedroom. Keesha tells Dan she doesn’t want to put him up, then they both take the blame for the fact that this is the first time they’ve spoken to one another. And then Keesha’s brain does the Homer Simpson thing where she forgets that she’s saying things out loud and tells Dan how cute he is. Then Keesha and Libra talk about how Libra hurt her feelings by doubting her. Man, this is a touchy-feely episode.
OK, this part is great. In the Hippy Bedroom, April (who keeps yawning), Michelle, Libra, and Keesha talk about food, and how much they hate slop. April says she’d even eat pigs’ feet, which prompts Michelle to talk about how much she loves pigs’ feet, pig ears (hey, my dog loves those), and cow intestine. She explains that’s what they eat in Portugal. Then she explains this insane festival where they hang two dead pigs, dressed as a bride and groom, from hooks, and then take turns dancing with the bride pig. She’s making this up, right? Portugal isn’t even a real place! It’s like Stars Hollow or Narnia.
Keesha tells Michelle that pigs have the intelligence of a three-year-old child. Has she met any three-year-olds? That’s not anything to write home about. April assures everybody that pigs are mean, and will eat you. And Keesha brings it home by saying they need to be mean if people are dancing with their corpses. Ha!
It’s time for the food competition. Everybody dresses in 50’s outfits, poodle skirts for the women, and letter sweaters for the men. Jerry manages once again to make everything look like pajamas, by the way.
This is a cooperative food competition, so they’re working together to determine what the whole house will get to eat this week. Now Myndi, with her season of Big Brother recapping under her belt, warned me that competitions are almost impossible to recap. I thought she was crazy, since there are things happening onscreen, and that should be easier than writing about people doing nothing. Well, Myndi was right.
There’s a big wall with hooks on it, and on either side, a giant spinning record with a basket of socks in the middle. One person on each team runs to their respective socks, and by shouting at one another, find a matching pair of socks. They then hang their sock on a hook under a food group. If the socks match, and they hang them on the same hook on their own sides of the wall, they get whatever food corresponds to that hook.
What follows is a lengthy scene of people yelling sock descriptions of varying accuracy at one another. It’s kind of fun to watch, because that sort of thing is inherently funny. It is not, however, very interesting to read about.
There are some highlights, though: April Sapien and Ollie do not communicate well, between April’s description turning into a blur of vowels, Ollie catching every third word, and April changing her mind about which sock he should be looking for every few seconds. Ah, young love. Libra is upset about being paired with Jerry, because she hates old people. Renny, unsurprisingly is really bad at this game, and she actually gets weird background music when she screams her random set of descriptive words at Dan. If you found her voice irritating before, this will drive you to violence.
We see a couple of rounds of this, in which we learn that April thinks that “rhinoceros” and “dinosaur” refer to the same animal. In the second round, Renny loses all sense of coherence, and in the third round, Dan just gives up and picks a random sock so she’ll stop shrieking. Also, Dan compares April and Ollie to The Honeymooners, and manages to misquote one of TV’s most famous catchphrases with “Alice, I’m sendin’ you to the moon.” Close, I guess. (And if I may quote one Philip J. Fry, “He wasn’t an astronaut! It was a metaphor for beating his wife.”)
It’s time to see what foods they’ve won: We’ve got beef, pigs’ feet (seriously?), chicken, deli meat, apples, bananas, squash, broccoli, avocado, corn, cookies, raisins, beer (of course), juice, cereals, and pumpernickel bread. I feel like there are insane recipes just waiting to happen.
And now, we get a scene of Ollie and April Sapien laying down to talk about their feelings. The Internet has taught me that this could go horribly wrong, so I’m ready with the Fast Forward if need be. They talk about their love of self-help books while Ollie strokes April’s hair. April, weirdly, explains that Co-Dependency No More turned her life around, and also that she’s always been “really independent”. So, clearly she read the book while still in utero.
Ollie assures her that he’s working through a lot of stuff, especially that he thinks people are out to get him. Well, you picked the right show to be on, buddy! He starts comparing his relationships to road signs, and when you see the signs, you have to obey them. At one point, he actually yells, which makes me think that all is not well in Ollie-ville. Also, his metaphor ends up at the point where the worst thing that can happen is he ends up in construction. I didn’t know Ollie came from Michigan! April explains there are different types of signs: “Do not Enter” and “Slow Down”, for example. Ollie brightens right up: “Now you’re talking my language.” Hee. If you want to explain something to Ollie, put it in terms of road signs. He tells us in the Diary Room that it’s a “green light” with April. I thought it was “Men at Work”, actually. And dude, remember it’s safer with a traffic cone. The scene ends with them both saying “road construction signs”, which made me laugh so hard I had to leave the room for a few minutes.
Keesha and April discuss strategy, a discussion which includes a shot of Angie making the craziest face I’ve ever seen. I’ve decided that the editors hate Angie, because I think she might actually be attractive, but they wait to put her on camera until she’s doing something weird with her face. They’ve got her looking like a troll most of the time. April assures us that America would love Keesha for putting Memphis up. Do we, as a nation, have a problem with Memphis? Sure, the “mixologist” thing got old instantly, but I don’t think we’ve held a national referendum on hating him.
And now Jessie visits the HoH room to dig his own grave. Jessie doesn’t like that Keesha wants to nominate Angie. Jessie flat out tells her that she has to nominate Dan and Libra. Jessie really hates Libra, by the way. Jessie’s big mistake is acting like Keesha’s some small child, and if she doesn’t agree with him, it’s because she’s stupid.
And now, it’s nomination time. We get the montage of people hoping that they’re not nominated while Keesha stares at the Memory Wall. Libra begins a Diary Room with “I’m a Leo, so I’m…” You know, as soon as people cite the month they were born as a reason for their choices and overall personality, I just hear the voices of the adults on the Peanuts cartoons. Miss Othmar might as well be talking strategy. (On the other hand, I’m kind of surprised. You’d think Libra would be, you know, a Libra.)
By the way, when I am on Big Brother, I’m going to leave the keys of the people I intend to nominate in the wall, so it will be obvious to all. My nomination speech may also include phrases like “crotch rot”.
Anyway, it turns out that Keesha nominated Jessie and Angie. Now, everybody seems to hate those nominations, but I think they were pretty smart. Angie and Memphis are on the fringes of the alliance, so it makes sense to get them out, rather than somebody who can be bullied by majority opinion. And Jessie, damn, he’s just irritating. He and Renny should be up every week just for that reason. If one of them gets the Veto, you’ve still got one threat and one pain in the butt available to nominate.
Dan is ridiculously excited to not be nominated. He tells the Diary Room that it’s “Dan’s Coming Out Party”. Dan, I know you just met your first gay person, but that doesn’t mean what you think it means. He seems to think that he won, rather than just not getting nominated. Dan’s standards are so low, aren’t they?
Wow, there was a lot going on in this episode. Usually, we’re going to be combining the non-elimination episodes into a single recap, but I think we can all agree that Ollie’s comparison of his sex life to freeway hazards really needs some room to breathe. We’ll see you back here tomorrow for the Veto competition, and then Myndi will cheer the elimination of Jessie come Friday. Positive thinking, people. And just maybe we’ll see an actual scene that backs up CBS’ claim in the ads that all the women are into Jessie. My guess is that this will not happen.
