Big Brother: Rachel’s Sweet 16

Previously on Big Brother: Kalia won HOH, causing me to jump up and down in my living room and accidentally put my hand in the ceiling fan.  Then I cursed.  Kalia then nominated Jeff and Rachel; I was happy, but managed not to put my hand in the ceiling fan again.  It’s too much to hope for that Rachel will go home before the jury house, so I’m gonna tamp that excitement down for now.  I don’t want to ruin that wonderful possibility; it’s beauty is too delicate, like the wings of a butterfly.

Rachel got nominated on Sunday, and thus did not get her way, and you guys know what that means: time to act like a four-year-old!  Rachel whines that Kalia is just doing whatever Daniele tells her to do, despite the fact that getting rid of Rachel also helps Kalia a great deal.  Nevermind logic, though: there’s still a whole bunch of marbles to lose!

Rachel takes her toys, stomps out of the sandbox and goes to tell her mommy, Shelly.  Shelly literally begins begging Rachel not to throw a tantrum: “You have more class than this!” Shelly says, pounding the furniture.  She does?  I guess I’ll be eating my words when the hot new thing at Fashion Week this fall is crying in bushes.

“WHY IS EVERYONE ATTACKING ME? IS IT BECAUSE I’M HEINOUS?”

And then Shelly starts crying too.  Over Rachel.  Being nominated.  Rachel:  “If this is just a game, why do people constantly make personal attacks at me?”  Well, because they’re not actually personal attacks.  They want you out primarily because you’re a competent competitor and because you made it clear that you were going after them.  If you also happen to be a batshit crazy freakshow who spends all her time making everything about her, that’s kind of…not their problem.

To prove my point, Rachel goes and starts pretending to pack her shit up, so that Jordan can make her feel better, because this whole thing is Rachel’s Super Sweet 16 and the Maserati her dad got her is taupe instead of pearl, so now it’s time to throw a tantrum and storm off.   Jordan, the poor thing, is now tasked with pulling Rachel off the ledge.  “Daniele took Brendon out of this game, just to hurt my feelings!” Rachel whines.

Once again: no, Daniele didn’t do it “just to hurt your feelings”.  Not everything is about you, Rachel.  Daniele took Brendon out because you guys 1) spent a week threatening her, 2) turned her into a scapegoat so everyone would attack her, and 3) she needed to take you out to have a shot at winning.  Strategic, not personal.  I mean, I’m sure it was personally satisfying because both of you and Brendon are monsters, but that is beside the point.   Taking something personally and having whatever it is be actually, legitimately personal are two different things.

“I can’t do it without Brendon!” Rachel whines.  Jordan, under her breath: “Oh my God.”

I feel you, Jordan.

“Now that Brendon’s gone, I have taken on the role of taking care of Rachel,” Jordan says, “and believe me, it is tough work.”  Jordan then proceeds to say exactly the right things to Rachel: they’re all sheep, everyone loves you, I’ll buy you a pony later if you stop crying.

I’m really starting to think that Jordan might be sort of secretly smart.  Wait, hear me out: Jordan’s not book smart, necessarily, but she is people smart.  In fact, the lack of book smarts is almost an asset: her brain is so free of, I don’t know, not information, per se, but…clutter?  And that allows her to see people almost exactly as they are, react appropriately, and come off looking like the greatest person in the world.  Once you see it, you can’t unsee it, and it sort of makes her awesome.  Just watch, I’m telling you, I’m not crazy.

Daniele and Porsche lay around in the other bedroom and listen to Rachel going crazy through the wall, laughing.  Porsche pretty much tells us straight-up that she’s distancing herself from Rachel because Rachel is bananas.  She also tells Daniele that she’s up for voting Rachel out.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a floater.  Nicely done, Porsche.

Kalia retreats to the HOH room and starts crying because she actually had to play the game.  Seriously.  That is why she’s upset: because she had to do something.  What Kalia says: “I’m not afraid to come here and play.  If I lose, I want to lose because I played hard.”  What Kalia is actually saying: “I am scared of everything.”

Kalia starts eavesdropping on Jeff bitching to all the actual floaters (and also Rachel and Jordan) about how they need to form a team, and commit, and fight their battles together, and anyone who doesn’t commit is a pansy, and all sorts of other high school coach-y bullshit because Jeff has integrity, you guys.  Jeff didn’t mind so much when these same people were blindly following his alliance, but now they’re apparently sheep.

Then Kalia cries some more because she made Jeff mad.

Ugh.

Time to pick players for the veto competition.  Kalia draws Adam, Jeff draws Shelly, and Rachel draws “House Guests Choice”, and picks Jordan, because she apparently wants Jeff to be taken off the block.  What the fuck, Rachel?  So dumb.

Shelly takes Jeff and Jordan into the Have Not room to try and solidify their alliance, because apparently she wasn’t happy with their applause volume when she got chosen for the veto. Jeff and Jordan very rightly doubt Shelly’s commitment to Sparkle Motion, because she’s been playing both sides for almost two months.  Shelly gets all faux-offended and storms out, and Jordan and Jeff just sort of shrug their shoulders, because whatever, they have other stuff to deal with, but then Jordan starts crying because she has just had it up to here with people acting like fools.  Jeff responds by throwing his hands up and accusing all the women in the house of having their periods.  That is not a joke, it really happened.  What is this, 1974?

Only in this area.

Jordan starts to laugh at him, which I hope was the point of that, because if not I am really grossed out.  Jeff goes to do damage control with Shelly, who also starts crying and tells Jeff that her sole intention is to get he and Jordan to the end.  Oh, she’s one of THOSE people who think it makes you a good person to get someone else to the end and then nobly fall on your own sword.  Suddenly the awful period joke doesn’t seem so gross by comparison.

Oh, then Jeff offers to make out with Shelly, who turns him down.  A nation of cat ladies hurl a thousand spotted calicos at their televisions in frustration.

Veto Competition Time.  Everyone’s wearing togas, because these people the modern day equivalent of philosophers.  Rachel immediately starts crowing about how she knows exactly what they’re doing, and then tells Shelly that she won’t tell, because every day is Rachel’s birthday.  Porsche reads the story of Sisyphus, who was cursed to roll a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down every time he thought he was done.  Sounds like recapping this show. ZING!

Rachel would be the boulder (or pair of boulders, in this case).

Anyway, the houseguests competing have to roll a ball up one side of a little hill-shaped ramp, then run down the other side and catch it.  The first houseguest to do this 300 times wins the power of Veto.  Oh, and if the ball touches the ground, the count resets to zero.  Awesome, this is gonna be fun to watch and not boring at all.

OH MY GOD SO BORING.  Everyone runs back and forth for eleventy million minutes.  Jordan:  “Whenever you would roll the ball up, sometimes it wouldn’t go all the way up to the top and it would roll all the way back down from where it came.”  Riveting stuff.  I can’t wait for the tell-all novelization.

Meanwhile, Rachel’s busy being competitive, which in this case involves becoming so intense and freaking out so hard that she literally cannot control her limbs, which is delightful to watch.

(insert joke about Rachel on her hands and knees)

Adam’s doing well at something for once, which surprises even him.   “Right now, Adam’s got more balls than Jeff!” Jordan tells us. Once she realizes what she just said?

Whoops!

Kalia gets to around a hundred before she drops her ball.  She realizes that she was so far behind that she’ll never catch up, so she just sort of stops competing and starts cheering for Jeff, which pisses Daniele off.  What Kalia says: “I really want Jeff to win because I’m not sure what Adam would do with the veto.”  What Kalia means: “I don’t really want Jeff to win, but I am completely terrified to make anyone mad at me, because I am a coward with a victim complex.”

Man, I was really starting to like her after Sunday.  This is pathetic.

Jeff beats out Adam and wins the Veto.  In his celebration Diary Room session, he keeps referring to himself in the third person.  This is unacceptable.

And, HEY!  Rachel starts freaking out after she loses!  And Jordan has to grit her teeth and console her!  I know!  On Rachel’s special day and everything.  How dare they.

wwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

“I love it when everybody wants you to do bad and nobody cheers for you,” Rachel whines.  I’m sure Daniele would really sympathize with that, since you just did it to her two weeks ago during the endurance competition.  These people and their selective memory.  It’s like, they can remember that there are eighty-three lamps in the house, but not that they did exactly what they’re bitching about not two weeks ago.

Jordan has decided that she doesn’t care if Kalia puts her up, mostly because she knows she’s not going home anyway, but also because now’s a good time to feed into Jeff’s Kalia hate and appear to be supportive of him, even though Jordan clearly doesn’t care that much.  “I will come after her!” Jordan says, not at all convincingly.

Kalia pulls Jeff and Jordan up into the HOH room as part of her continued effort to try and get daddy and mommy to take her out of time out.  She tries to tell them that she only nominated Jeff because she wanted him to play in the veto to keep Rachel from getting it, which everyone (including Jeff) knows is a total lie, since he’s the second choice to go home.  Jeff gets pretty smart-assy with Kalia here, and I can’t say I blame him.  Kalia’s continued insistence on being a total wuss in this episode is pretty ridiculous.

Kalia then promises them both that she won’t put up Jordan as the replacement nominee, which is also stupid.  I mean, a guy is sitting there yelling at you, the damage had clearly already been done.  Maybe cut your losses and put up his girlfriend anyway?  Man, Kalia is the worst this week.

Adam’s turing 40, so he’s going to cut his beard off.  Then he looks like this:

…which is old.

Rachel approaches Kalia in the HOH room.  Rachel has an offer: “You know what I’m capable of,” she starts.  Lately?  Having hysterical freak outs and then psyching yourself out at challenges, mostly. Rachel offers to work with Kalia if Kalia puts someone up who Rachel can beat.  Because she is an idiot this week, Kalia thinks this is a good idea, because it puts her back in the good graces of Jeff and Jordan.  OH MY GOD WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT THAT?  CRUSH THEM.

Kalia tells Daniele about the conversation she had with Rachel.  Kalia tells Daniele she wants to get out of her shadow and play her own game, which will apparently involve keeping Rachel in the house.  Because Daniele is not an idiot, she thinks this is an awful idea.  “It’s time for me to start playing my own game instead of mine and Daniele’s game,” Kalia says.  Well, your game IS Daniele’s game until Final 2, dummy.  This is dumb.

Is she about to sneeze? From anger?

Later, Kalia tells Porsche and Lawon that she doesn’t feel comfortable with the twist, and Lawon says that he doesn’t mind getting evicted and coming back.  Lawon thinks he’ll come back with some sort of special power or something.  Kalia can’t believe her luck, and Daniele’s actually sort of on board, too.  Daniele thinks that she can strike a deal with Rachel for a week of safety, keep her in the house, then have Lawon walk right back in.  And if he doesn’t?  Well, they don’t care too much about that.

Again: this is dumb.  If Daniele thinks Rachel’s going to stick to a deal instead of taking Daniele out for getting rid of Brendon, she’s crazy.  They should just take Rachel out.  If she comes back, guess what?  She’ll still be coming after them anyway.

Of course, for Kalia this is all about Jeff and Jordan.  Kalia: they don’t like you.  That’s how it is.  Deal.

Time for the Veto ceremony.  Jeff uses the veto on himself, duh.  Kalia puts Lawon up in his place, duh.  Kalia thinks this is a win-win for her because she’ll “gain Rachel, Jeff and Jordan”, which: no you won’t.  Lawon thinks he’s some sort of evil genius, which: he is not.  Sigh.

Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind so much if he left.