We knew we had a busy schedule in front of us when the Chenbot received us in turbo mode. No sooner had our eyes gazed on her distractingly tattered jacket than she was already off and running to her studio, leaving but a trail of dust outside the Big Brother house. This was Chenbot speed we had never seen before. I don't know if maybe she had a new micro-processor or a few extra gigs of RAM installed, but within the first five seconds of the show, Julie was already lowering herself carefully to the couch while suggesting, "Let's take a live look inside." That's right. Two distinct Chenbot operations at once. This was gonna be a crazy night!

Unfortunately, in the Chenbot's efforts to speed this intro along, we missed out on what was fast becoming one of my favorite awkward traditions of the week. You know what I'm talking about. Julie's labored head-swiveling as she feigned looking at the plasma TV behind her. The unique combination of dead-air and robotic torque has an exhilarating effect, second only to Julie's patented move of springing from the couch like a Jack-In-The-Box gone wild.

Anyway, with the helmet hair looking smaller and well-kempt (unlike last week's cowlick minefield), the Chenbot alerted us that tonight would see another twist hit the household. "America will have a chance to turn the Big Brother game upside down," Julie promised. Would a house guest be returning? It's what Julie's been hinting at! I had so much Chencitement built up in me that it was all I could do to resist fast forwarding to the big secret. BUT FIRST I knew I had to watch Julie Chen say, "But first!"

Well, she said it and segued into a segment about James, noting that the loss prevention manager had now found himself in the spotlight. What, pray tell, could this new scandal be?

Picking up after the veto ceremony, we found Kaysar struggling to accept his fate. "I'm used to the pressure," he said diabolically. "I like it." You know, if John Woo were to ever make a sequel to Face/Off, I think Kaysar would be perfect for the lead. But that's only because I'd really like to see him grab at his face and do that little "Face... off. Face... off" thing. You know he'd be a natural fit.

Upstairs in the HOH room, The Friendship found themselves all huddled on Maggie's bed as if it were a life raft in the middle of the Pacific. Actually, upon second viewing, April was cast off in a chair, but that's probably only because Maggie didn't want to get that old person's smell on her sheets. Anyway, as The Friendship probably dreamed of running through a daisy field holding hands and talking to birds, Maggie noted, "How funny would it be if the four of them vote to keep Kaysar and we four vote to keep Janelle? That'll let Janelle know 'You're f*cked too.'" That would be HILARious. It would be like the time when your alliance all voted you out of the house -- also known as last week.

Anyway, as you might remember, on Tuesday, James swore on the Bible that he would put Howie and Rachel up for eviction if he were Head of Household. Of course, he reneged on his promise, thus prompting the scorned Friendship to go around and alert Kaysar and Howie and Rachel that James had sold them all up the river. "Someone from my end hasn't been playing a clean game," Kaysar told us. "Slowly but surely I started to realize it was James." Way to go, Kays. James has been the most flip-floppy of all, and you just now suspect that he's been playing dirty? Oh well. I didn't really matter what Kaysar thought because it was so obvious that he'd be leaving tonight. This was reinforced by CBS's foolish attempts at misdirection, starting with the suggestion that The Friendship would keep Kaysar around to help oust James. C'mon. We might be dumb, but we're not Cappy Dumb. No need to patronize us with this segment.

Posted by B-side on August 5, 2005 4:54 AM