Now, we will get on to this whole new HoH business, but this is a recap, and I'm obligated to tell you how everybody dealt with the loss of Kaysar. I know it bugs a lot of people when I call Kaysar the most overrated player ever in the history of Big Brother, but, come on, it's true! I am not going to deny that he is perhaps the most popular contestant in Big Brother history, but Kaysar proved that he was a boy playing a man's game. That man is named Dr. Will, and none of Kaysar's solemn, rationalizing, overused, talk about how he was "not meant for this game" is going to change that fact, and to tell you the truth it shows how lame Kaysar is when he's using Jase's excuse to talk about his elimination. Kaysar would brag about how he is not scared of Dr. Will's game, but if this is the showdown Kaysar was envisioning than he looks like a chump, and Dr. Will gets better with every passing moment.

Once again, we had to hear from the houseguests about how difficult it was to get rid of Kaysar. James said that his game play sucks, but that he is a good person. Kaysar is a good person, but he's playing for the same reasons as anybody else, and that is the money. George said that Kaysar's elimination was the hardest one for him, but don't they say that every week? And wouldn't it have been easier on George if he, I don't know, VOTED TO KEEP KAYSAR IN THE HOUSE? Then we get Erika, who says that Kaysar made her not think about the game, and she must not have been thinking about it when she decided to vote him off.

It was bad enough that Kaysar played so dumb that he got himself eliminated, but it looked like his words were going to taint some of the other contestants, namely Chicken George. Janelle was going around saying that she was mad at Chicken George because he swore on his kids that he would vote for Kaysar. I haven't had a chance to follow the Live Feeds very heavily lately, so I am not sure if this was true, but the portion of the conversation the producers showed made no mention of George promising Kaysar anything other than he'll see what he can do, and you never know what happens.

Like I said, there could have been other conversations the producers didn't show, but there was something strange about Janelle complaining about sneaky players because she was complaining about George's tactics to Dr. Will, only the sneakiest player in the history of Big Brother. It is this kind of hypocrisy that makes you turn on people that you have previously rooted for. What's next? Is she going to complain to Howie that Mike Boogie masturbates too much?

Erika won the HoH competition, but there seemed to be some issues with some of the equipment. I chalked it up to bad luck, because several people had problems buzzing in. It happened one to Mike Boogie, but since the results of the whole thing were mostly in his favor, he didn't complain. The same cannot be said about Howie. After Howie was eliminated, he made a big deal about the whole thing. Now I know that he was upset, but other people were affected by it and the real reason that he complained was not because of the "technological technical difficulties" or some sense of fairness, but because nobody from his alliance won and he knew that he would be targeted. If Janelle or James had won, Howie would have shut his mouth.

The producers did not share my take on events and decided that the HoH competition must be redone. Now obviously I have not been on the side of season six, but I am going to try and be impartial for a bit here. Howie was the only one who was eliminated because of technical error, but I am not sure to what extent these buzzers were not working. Boogie had a malfunction, and so did James. If you are going to redo the entire contest, I think you have to prove that Howie was using the equipment correctly AND that his equipment put him at a disadvantage compared to the others. Maybe Howie didn't tap it correctly? He and Boogie have been using the jack shack a lot, so maybe their wrists were tired or their hands were slick from lotion, or their palms were too hairy and it affected their performance in the game.

Other than Howie complaining, you can't tell from the tapes that the problems weren't user error. In the round where Howie was eliminated, James also had a problem with his button, and he had the sense to see that his answer was not lit up and press the button again. The producers saw differently, and saying that they are very concerned with fairness and the integrity of the game, decided to redo the ENTIRE HoH competition. I am all for transparency within the game, but let's be honest here, this game is not about integrity.

If we want to talk about unfair, Howie had the most unfair advantage because he came in with three other people from his season that he had a proven alliance with. Dr. Will got to come in with Mike Boogie, who is not only an alliance member but also a business partner. If we are talking about fairness and integrity, shouldn't everybody get a chance to play with somebody who they were that close to in the game? Shouldn't Danielle have been allowed to bring Jason, or Jase allowed a couple more of his four horsemen? If the game was about being "fair" they never would have allowed the viewers to vote for the All Stars, because that is not "fair", it's a popularity contest.

The houseguests went back outside, and they brought back Julie Chen. They didn't actually show her face, so maybe she was actually back at her hotel room, but I had this image of Julie in pair of pink Early Show pajamas and bunny slippers, hair in curlers, and cucumber facial mask slathered all over, still smiling and saying "Ready houseguests? The power is up for grabs!" Seriously, knowing that she had to wake up in three or four hours to do the early show on the East coast, let's give it up for our Chenbot for that overtime!

Using more conventional Big Brother methods, Julie Chen presided over the second HoH competition. Erika, who had been a good sport when she learned she might lose HoH, was eliminated from the game, and you could tell she was visibly upset. Howie? He also lost fairly early, but he didn't seem too upset about things this time, and he surely had no reason to be very mad because Janelle ended up beating Mike Boogie to win HoH!

HoH version 2.0

Wow. I like Janelle, and think that it was a very clutch performance of her to win. In typical Janelle style she said, that she was their to crush dreams, and in the space of a couple of hours she went from person most likely to be going home to the person who had the most control over the house. For some reason, I just couldn't relish the victory. Howie and Janelle celebrated like they usually do, and I agree with Marcellas that Janelle and Howie are poor sports. They complain when they lose, and like to rub it in your face when they win. I loved that attitude when they were going against the friendship, but this year, all of that bravado and arrogance is sort of misplaced.

I was thinking of getting all worked up and saying that the producers wanted a do over because the fix has been in for Janelle, especially after Kaysar was eliminated, but everybody had an equal chance to win. Therefore, I don't believe that the producers redid the competition specifically because they wanted Janelle to win, but I understand those of you who are upset. The whole thing made me feel like I was watching the 1972 Olympics gold medal basketball game, and the winner was being decided not by "fairness" but by politics.

I think Danielle said it best. She doesn't hate Janelle, and even if you do hate Janelle, if she keeps winning competitions like she does, how can you not give her the money? The must upsetting part about this was that Janelle needed this win to stay in the game because she could not play for veto, and now Janelle was probably going to send her home.

Howie and Dolly sitting in a tree?

If you are not a fan of Season Six, you do have one hope, and that is the coup d'etat. The houseguests got their first clue, which was a sheep with a pink bow. There are lots of sayings that involve sheep and the Big Brother house. Our Live Bloggers guessed "A wolf in sheep's clothing" and James suggested "pull the wool over your eyes", but the really high level thinking came from Danielle. The sheep had a pink bow, so she assumed it was a female. Dolly, a female sheep, was famous for being cloned. Cloning involves DNA, which in Big Brother terms means Project DNA or Do Not Assume.

A little while later, Erika also guessed "project DNA", but for every good guess, we had an equally stupid guess. Actually, there was only one other person who made a guess, but it was so dumb that it easily made up for the other people and their intelligent answers. George grew up on a farm and he knows that a female sheep is called a "Ewe". "Ewe" sound like "you" so George guess that the phrase was "You are expected to expect the unexpected". Seriously, not even Howie is that dumb. I have my own guess Chicken George, "Ewe are an idiot".

The best part of this segment came when James was talking to Howie and Janelle about his answer, "pull the wool over your eyes". I thought that it was a common expression, but Howie and Janelle had no clue what it means. James then proceeded to explain to them how it meant that basically the person is blind to things that are going around them, like, I don't know, James selling out their alliance. Every time I convince myself that Janey has control of this game, she does something like this to make me question her intelligence.

We haven't heard much about the on again/ off again romance between Will and Janelle, but we did finally get our first shower scene! OK, it wasn't a shower scene so much as it was Will sitting in a sink using that sprayer thing to hose himself down. That sink is the only place in the house that has hot water thanks to Janelle, and although I find it highly disturbing that Will decided to wash his balls where people prepare food and wash dishes, he and Janelle had a frolicking good time underneath the spray.

After seeing that Will had no problem hosing himself down on the counters where people prepare food, it was very appetizing to watch the houseguests in their food competition. I thought that this was one of the better food competitions ever. The houseguests had to make seven dishes involving slop, and there would be three guest judges that would score them on their creations. Each dish corresponded to one day of the week, and if the houseguests received a score of at least 10 (out of a possible 15), they would win food for the day. If any dish had a perfect score, the houseguests would win a barbecue.

The competition was unique, but these food competitions where the whole house competes are not that interesting, because they rarely ever lose. We found out that the judges were going to be three former houseguests, so you knew that the evaluation was not going to be that tough. With that being said, it was fun to see everybody working together in the kitchen, and the houseguests did come up with some interesting dishes.

The judges were Jun from Big Brother 4. She won that year and the producers made a big deal about her getting really fat during the end of her season. It didn't seem like she was that big now, but there was something really going wrong with her makeup. We had Marvin, from season 5, who finally got rid of his stupid dog collar and managed to go the whole segment without saying "personal indictment". Finally, we had Nicole from season 2, who we met earlier in the season. She is best known as Dr. Will's in show romance, and some say he used her to win that half million dollars.

I would rather have Jeffrey Steingarten and Natalie Morales

The slop dishes were slopcrisp with vanilla ice cream, slopfredo, slopcakes, all star slop cupcake medley, slow roast slop pasta, slop burritos, and slaffle (slop waffles). It would have been a lot more interesting if Alton Brown was there to comment, but instead we got Marvin, and as expected, the judges were not too tough on the competitors. Nicole made a big deal about how much she didn't like Will's slop cupcakes, but in the end, his creation was enough to win them food for that day. There was only one dish that didn't score enough points to win food, and that was Danielle's slopcakes, and the slaffles managed a perfect score meaning there would be a new grill in the Big Brother backyard.

For the most part, I thought a lot of this show was boring. Maybe it was because I already knew a lot of the outcome or maybe I was depressed because I was going to have to suffer through another week of Season Six's reign of stupidity. Thankfully, there was a lot of good strategy going on towards the end that made up for what I consider a lackluster broadcast.

Having Danielle on the block was going to be a huge conflict of interest. Obviously, James and the rest of the Legion of Doom wanted to save Danielle, but Janelle was not having any of it. Dr. Will told Janelle that she shouldn't start a war, but Janelle had other thoughts. She said that she is not starting the war, but she is going to finish the one that Danielle started by going after her alliance.

Oh Janey, what the hell are you talking about? Did she forget about week one when she nominated Danielle for eviction? Is Janelle the only person who can try and get back at somebody for nominating her? And how about Erika? Shouldn't she have a reason to want to come after Janelle since Janelle put her up on the block? Let's not forget Chicken George. Did Janelle forget it was her alliance that put him up on the block and wanted to get rid of him?

The worst thing about all of this, other than the term "Float herd", perhaps the dumbest name for an alliance since the Santa Monica van boys days, was that Janelle was staying loyal to the two people who talked the most shit about her in the house! Danielle wants to get rid of Janelle because she is a good player, but it is James who has been calling her a fat bitch and Marcellas is right there with him. Ironically, James wanted Janelle to put up Marcellas, but she wouldn't do it. Janelle is afraid Danielle is going to come after her, and you know what? She is probably right.

After a somewhat amusing segment where Will, Boogie, Howie, and Janelle played around in the water while playing air guitar, it was time for the nominations. James had been doing a lot of work on Danielle's behalf, but it looked like Janelle had made up her mind. She said that the lines have been drawn, which is a pretty great observation since she drew the fucking lines in the first place.

Janelle started the nomination ceremony by saying that if you are going to declare war on somebody, you better finish the battle. She said that she tried not to make it personal, but when somebody takes out her alliance and best friend in the game, she can't help but make it personal. Then went on to say that she made her decisions based on who was loyal to her alliance, which again is odd since James has been nothing close to loyal, but his reward was that his name was called out first. And what about Marcellas? He's been talking plenty of shit, what was his punishment? His name was called soon after James.

Erika had mentioned earlier that Janelle is scared of female competition, and looking at her nomination history, I can see how that would be the case. Before this week, Janelle was responsible for putting five players on the block, and four of them were female. This week, she increased her ration by adding Erika and Danielle to that list. Adding to my confusion over Janelle's behavior, she told Erika and Danielle that it was nothing personal, even though she had just said a few minutes ago that she was going to make it personal.

I said at the beginning that it would be one of the more heated weeks of Big Brother. Janelle might have been talking bullshit when it came to her nominations, but putting Erika and Danielle on the block is probably the best decision for her. I mean, would wish that she would get a clue, because once again, the people benefiting from her decisions are still Chilltown. At the end of the week, they are once again going to hanging around, and nobody has even spoken a word about how dangerous they can be in a long time. The nominations are going to make it a very interesting week. How interesting is it? Well, at the end of episode, Erika said that Janelle would find out that she is just a girl from a small town named "Chill". What is that supposed to mean? If you needed a clue, the next scene showed Mike Boogie and Erika kissing in bed.

Oh man?! Has Erika been part of Chilltown this entire time? The producers did give us a misdirection before with all of the Mr. and Mrs. Smith talk, which turned out to be false, and we have no clue how drunk Erika was when she kissed Boogie, or even when it happened, but if they were in an alliance it does make sense. Think back to Mike's birthday when he was licking whip cream off of Erika's leg. Would any girl let Boogie get that close to their thighs with his tongue without knowing him first? Erika used to be a bartender, has dated in the Big Brother world before, and Mike runs nightclubs and restaurants. This alliance makes sense, and it might have been going on since the beginning.

So, what does Chilltown do? They need to keep Danielle, but obviously there is a reason for them to keep Erika. If this romance started in the house, I have no reason to believe Boogie wouldn't drop Erika in a second if he felt it was right, but if it started before the game, how does he not fight to keep her in?

The wild card in all of this is the coup d'etat. The producers ramble on about integrity, but let's think about this a moment. What the producers have done, by saying that the coup d'etat will happen Thursday and not providing us the answer is give them a way to change the game, no matter what the outcome of the veto competition is. The producers haven't told anybody what the answer of the coup d'etat is. If they wanted to, they could pick anybody with a reasonable answer and say that they were correct. Danielle would qualify, James would qualify, and if anybody picks "wolf in sheep's clothing" they would probably qualify as well. Say the producers are happy with the nominations, they could choose not to name a winner, and since none of us know what the answer was supposed to be ahead of time, there is no way to double-check that they aren't trying to manipulate the results, and to me, that is an offense worse than an equipment malfunction.

I literally have no clue what is going to happen. I can't stand Chilltown, but their ability to stay in this game without focusing any of the spotlight onto them has to be applauded. People are going to start heading to the sequester house soon, and surprisingly, the two people with the fewest enemies are Mike and Will. How does that happen?

What did you think of the episode? Were the producers right to redo the HoH competition? Did Janelle make the right nominations? Will Chilltown work to save Erika or Danielle? What is your guess for the answer of the coup d'etat?

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Posted by J-Unit on August 14, 2006 10:48 AM