Big Boring: Shake Your Money Maple

For the first ten minutes of tonights episode, the houseguests will be recapping the double eviction.  We saw it last week, show, and then saw it again about two minutes ago when it showed up the previouslies.  I don’t need Hayden to shout shit I’ve already seen twice; it does not add anything to the proceedings.  Well, besides several decibels and issues of potential hearing loss.

I’m not kidding: the entire first segment is a recap of Thursday’s show.  Hey, did you know that Ragan had to win the veto to stay in the house?  And did you know that he was happy when he won?  Were you legitimately interested in what trashy, boring Enzo has to say about any of this?  No?  Didn’t think so.  So let’s get to the part where actual things happen, which is to say: I’m going to go get a snack until this gets interesting.

I’m going to be waiting awhile, aren’t I?

When I come back, we’ve finally picked up where we left off on Thursday.  Ragan and Britney whisper-agree that they need to win; apparently winning this is of some importance on this show.  I’m not sure if you’ve heard.  Man, these people have so much interesting stuff to say!

Ragan’s pretty much figured out that the guys are working together, and thus knows that he’s pretty much screwed.  What Ragan doesn’t know is that Britney’s in the tank for Lane and Hayden (which I discovered after I researched the feeds last week.  I thought things were shady re: Britney’s nomination of Matt, and it turns out that they were: Britney thinks she’s going to final three with Hayden/Lane, which explains why she didn’t even consider putting Hayden up last week).

Unfortunately: yes, probably.

Meanwhile, the Brigade sits in the Have Not room “strategizing”, which means that they sit around and talk about how awesome they are.  They think they’re in a good position in the house (which they are), and they pretty much just have to get rid of a couple more people.  Lane knows that now’s the time to put up Britney, which means that he’d like for Enzo to win so he doesn’t have to deal with it.  Of course, that would require Enzo to win, and we all know how that usually turns out.  Unless it’s a competition with some sort of white trash element, like maybe involving Cheez Wiz or a car with no wheels.

HOH Competition.  The backyard is decorated like a casino, which gets Enzo excited because: white trash.  Casino’s have the best people watching ever, unlike this show (zing!).   The competition will go like this:  Hayden will deal two cards that total 21, and the houseguests will have to roll a ball down a ramp and flip it into a corresponding area in a grid.  Each houseguest will have five balls to launch into the grid:  The person who takes the most balls (that’s what she…nevermind) will be eliminated in each round, and the last person standing will be HOH.  It’s difficult to describe (especially when you’re as hungover as I am), so I’ll just show you a picture:

So it turns out that Lane is really good at this; in the first round, he lands both cards in only two turns.  Ragan does it pretty well too, taking only three turns.  “Who knew Ragan, this bag of bones, could play blackjack so well?” Enzo says.  First of all, you’re not playing blackjack, you’re in a target shooting competition, and secondly, skill at blackjack has nothing to do with size, you dolt.

Go sleep under an overpass somewhere, hobo.

Britney gets eliminated in the first round, sadly.  In the second round, Ragan does terribly and only nails one card, but fortunately for him Enzo still exists.  He Kathy’s the competition but good, missing every section and getting no cards, knocking himself out by default.

Now Lane’s upset because he was going to throw the competition, and instead he has to face off against Ragan in the final round.  Lane takes all five shots to hit both areas, leaving Ragan plenty of room.  Unfortunately, Ragan tanks again and Lane is your new HOH, continuing our inevitable march towards a Lane/Hayden final two.  Sigh.

Britney is predictably psyched about Lane winning HOH, because she knows that she’s likely safe.  Ragan, however, can see the writing on the wall and knows that he’s definitely going up on the block.  He’s so depressed about this that he stomps off to the cabana room to have a pity party and talk to himself, which we all know is my favorite thing.  Hell, at least Brendon talked to Rachel’s ghost; Ragan’s just muttering incoherently.   You know what would have helped you avoid this?  Actually playing the game and forming an alliance.

“What’s an alliance?  Wait, you mean I’m NOT on Top Chef right now?”

“So, who wants the pawn spot?” Lane asks his friends (everyone but Ragan).  “Not me!” Britney insists, “I just had it.”  The consensus is that it should be Enzo, since he’s spent the entire summer sitting on his ass pretending that he’s charming and interesting.

Time to see Lane’s HOH room!  He got a green hard hat (which is apparently what the new guys have to wear on the oil fields) and a letter from his family.  He tells us a bit about how he works for his family’s business, schmoozing people and taking them golfing and generally being lazy.  He reads his letter from home, and his animals and/or relatives all have hilarious cartoon names like Titan, Gunner and London.

“Breaker and Sasquatch are doing great, Magnum and Freebird are eating a lot.”

The fact that Lane’s family probably has an absurd amount of money has not escaped Hayden and Britney.  Britney even admits that she may not vote for Lane in the finals because of it, since he doesn’t need the money.  “LANE’S DAD HAS AIRPLANES,” Hayden Natalie’s.  Well, if you didn’t spend so much money on hairspray, you might be able to have your own airplane someday too.

Enzo has finally put together the fact that if Ragan wins Power of Veto that the pawn might be in trouble, so he decides to try and get Britney put up on the block, which is probably not going to happen, at least initially.  Oh, Enzo.  “It’s not that hard, just put up Britney!” he shouts in the Diary Room, frustrated.  Well, maybe, I guess, win something so you can do that?  Idiot.

After the commercials we watch Enzo pretending that the weight bench is a spaceship, checking the wings and pretending to take off while Britney watches and wears a tiara (I guess it was her birthday recently).  They all laugh uproariously at this, because they haven’t seen anything that’s legitimately funny in several months, which means the bar is set pretty low for humor.  I call it the Two and a Half Men effect.

“Man, let’s put Charlie Sheen in a penguin suit this season!”

Time for Lane to encounter this week’s P-Box.  He’s shown a “money tree”, which is a dead tree with money hanging all over it.  Also gold chains, for some reason.  Is the tree an aspiring rapper?  He’s no DJ Roomba, I’ll tell you that.

MC Maple

Lane decides to go on ahead and open Pandora’s Box, because the producers require it.  Once inside, he gets to pick three envelopes from the tree.  If he picks the right three, he could win up to ten thousand dollars.  For each envelope he picks, the house will receive a punishment.  Some of the envelops have very little money in them, though, like the first one Lane picks, which has a whopping seventy-nine dollars inside.  Nice!  The second envelope only contains twelve buck, and the last one hilariously has eventeen cents inside.  So now the houseguests will have to endure three punishments and Lane will receive a check for ninety-one dollars and seventeen cents.  “I might be able to fill up my car with gas,” Lane jeers.  What the hell do you drive, a tank?

Yep, pretty much how I feel about this season.

Lane knows that he’s gotta tell the rest of the houseguests what happened before the punishments start showing up.  Of course, the houseguests don’t believe that Lane only made ninety bucks off the whole deal.  What’s even better are the punishments, the first of which is actually pretty ingenious: all of the cups and utensils have disappeared from the house for a week .  The houseguests have to eat with their hands, which is pretty shitty.  Of course, this comes naturally for white trash Enzo, who eats out of garbage cans on the regular anyway.

“Man, this sure beats dragging all those cans to the recycling center.”

Up in the HOH, Britney badgers Lane about nominations.  He tells her he’s going to put up Ragan and Enzo.  Britney promises Lane that she won’t take Ragan off the block if she wins the Veto.  ”But if Enzo wins the next HOH, I’m gone,” she admits.  I think it might be safe to rule out scenarios in which Enzo wins stuff.  Britney wants Lane to put up Hayden as the pawn, and he flat out turns her down.  Britney does that thing normally reserved fro boyfriends and girlfriends: “What, Hayden’s more important to you than me?  Maybe I will use the Veto on Ragan!”  Lane, in response:  “Well, if you’re on the block you’ll have to use it on yourself, won’t you?”  Nicely done, sir.  That’ll end the discussion quickly.

Time for nominations.  There are only two keys in the box; the first one is Britney’s (cue Enzo’s stupid trashy face looking upset) and Hayden’s is second, meaning that Ragan and Enzo have been nominated for eviction.

Again: WIN SOMETHING.

Ragan’s put together that he’s completely by himself here, and knows he has to fight.  Enzo’s typically bitter about all of it, bitching about how keeping Britney safe is “the baby move”.  Well, once you actually do something besides sit around and complain, get back to me.

Lane feels me: he has no idea why Enz-hobo’s whining so much since he hasn’t won anything anyway.  Word, Lane.  “Maybe Britney should stay and you should go!” he says.  That’d be just fine by me.