Big Brother: Natalie Has Eight Letters In It! No, Wait.

In the aftermath of the Matt eviction, Natalie tells us that she somehow “feels responsible” for his eviction. I’m sure he probably blames you too, because that’s just how he rolls. Sheila tells us that she’s going to “seek vengeance” for the eviction. She will do this by acting batshit crazy until everyone runs screaming away from her. Oh, wait.Natalie then tells us that Matt was her soulmate (which makes me cringe in embarrassment for her), and she feels a sense of loss. Then the cruel, cruel editors show us Natalie trying to kiss Matt on his way out the door while he brushes her off, and then she wants a hug and clings to him and it is gross. Then Sharon uses finger quotes when she says “soulmate” as she tells us about how sad Natalie is. Ha. Everything Natalie says should probably have ironic finger quotes around it.

Then we flashback to Adam winning HoH through sheer guesswork, which I find to be strangely appropriate. Natalie tells us that she couldn’t be “more happier” (see? Finger quotes) that Adam won. Then she tells us that the “evil side of the house” (by which she means James, Chelsia, Sharon and Josh) can suck it. I think it might be up for debate which side is the evil side. How do you pick between one group of tools and another? It is an impossible task. Choosing a side in this particular battle is like, going to be a scene in Saw 5.

As Adam packs his stuff up to move to the HoH room, the parade of people come in to suck up to him. Sheila asks him to “be (her) hero”, because everything is about Sheila. Man, she sucks. Adam tells us that he didn’t want to win (which, then why did you buzz in and guess? Was he trying to lose? He’s not that smart) but now he has to make a choice. Yeah, it was probably kind of dumb for him to win, because other people were definitely ahead of him in the boot order, there.

And now the sad music starts up as Natalie stares at the memory wall and tears well up in her eyes as she stares at Matt’s cheeseball picture. She mopes around the house and people give her hugs as she tells us that she’s only going to be emboldened by his eviction and come back twice as strong. I mean, she doesn’t use the word “embolden”, because…yeah.

Anyway, it’s all bull as she tells us that she’s not going to be sad because she’s “used to getting close to guys, and then them departing”. Hmm, I wonder why guys always leave her? Could it be because she collects latches onto them like Gollum from Lord of the Rings and collects locks of their hair and is Kathy Bates from Misery after five minutes? Nah, it’s got to be something else.

In the pantry, Natalie tells Chelsia that she’s mad at James for going back on his word to her after their agreement during the last HoH competition. Chelsia tells her that she’s playing for herself and not for James, so whatever happens to him is fine. Natalie tells Chelsia that someone from her side is definitely going home this week. I hope it’s Josh!

Natalie tells us how done she is with James and Chelsia, spelling “done” D-U-N, and I certainly hope that was on purpose. I mean, she’s dumb, but she’s not that dumb, is she? Anyone? Then she tells Ryan that she’s done being “Nice Natalie” and that “Nasty Natalie” is coming out. First of all “Nasty Natalie” does not exist; people with mean sides don’t have names for them. Natalie isn’t mean, she’s just dull, which is completely different. Also, I would like to refer you to my previous theorem regarding the use of finger quotes re: Natalie.

And now, my favorite part of the episode. Sharon starts baby-talking to the gerbils in that high-pitched voice that I swear every single girl in the entire world uses when they see something cute. Josh sits there eating his cereal shooting daggers at her while Sharon goes on and on for hours, oblivious. First of all: word, Josh. Then, Josh (in confessional) is like: “They do not understand you! They don’t have the capacity for English!” I like to imagine that Josh is talking about the other houseguests and this is all editing to make it look like he’s talking about the gerbils. I can name (wait for it)…four houseguests that probably don’t have the capacity for English that are in the house RIGHT NOW.

Then Sharon is telling one of the gerbils not to eat his own poop, and if you watch closely, you can’t see her mouth when she says it. She probably totally saved Sheila from eating her own poop and they spliced it into this scene.

And now we reach the point when it becomes clear that the people who make this show hate every single houseguest. The gerbils have now taken up residence in the diary room, on the chair, and are squeaking while the captions read: “Sharon needs to go on the block this week for sure. She is crazy!” Hey, when you are forced to watch idiots for 24 hours a day, you tell me what you wouldn’t do to amuse yourself.

That is golden, right there.

And now it’s time to see Adam’s HoH room, and I just realized that we will get to meet his family, which terrifies me to no end. The door opens, and the first thing we see is a self-portrait of Adam himself, dressed in a suit and tie, making finger guns at the camera. FINGER GUNS, people. We also see pictures of him at like ten years old, and he looks seriously exactly the same as he does now. That DON’T MIND ME, I’M TOTALLY NOT THE ONE KILLING THE NEIGHBORHOOD CATS IN MY BASEMENT look.

So then there’s all this baby food all over the place. It’s in his gift basket, and his fridge is absolutely packed full of it. Yeah, he’s one of those creepy people who eat baby food. I can’t believe I didn’t guess that before.

The next morning, Josh gets up and brushes his teeth while Sheila dries her hair, and she starts bugging him about who he thinks will go on the block. He tells us that he loves messing with Sheila any chance he gets, so he takes the chance to jab at her by telling her that it’s probably going to be the two of them. Of course, she then freaks out, faux-threatening Adam all over the place. While Sheila Yosemite Sam-s around the bathroom, Josh quietly takes Adam outside and promises him safety while they make a deal. Well played, Person That I Hate But That Seems To Be Doing Cool Stuff This Episode.

Josh tells Adam that he just screwed with Sheila by telling her that Adam was going to put her up, so they agree to go inside and mess with her a little bit more and rile her up. Adam tells her that James tried to teach her a lesson last week, so he’s thinking he might do the same thing this week since she was so mean to him. Of course, she goes nuts and all of a sudden it gets really serious, and now Adam wants to put Sheila on the block. Well, that worked nicely for Josh.

Luxury competition! Everyone will be competing for an opportunity to see the movie “21″. In the backyard, there’s a fake casino set up. Josh tells us that it was just like landing “on the Las Vegas strip”. So must have gone to the skanky part, then. Basically all these cards will flash on the screen with different values and HGs faces on them, and when you see a combo that adds up to 21, you buzz in with the houseguest names. It’s not very well explained at first, but you grasp it once you see it in action. Also, I love when they make these guys do math and spell things. It’s like watching a second grader do homework.

The first person to four points wins the tickets, and they can bring along three people of their choosing. The competition begins, and we discover that Ryan is apparently some sort of idiot savant. James quickly gets knocked out for getting one wrong, as do Sheila and Josh. Ryan keeps racking up the points (somehow), destroying my worldview. Maybe he has Asperser’s? I might have to start calling him Ryan-man. So, Ryan wins the math competition (my head just exploded), and he chooses to take Adam, Natalie and James along with him. Adam throws in a twist, however. Ryan can risk the tickets in one hand of blackjack for a chance to take a trip to Las Vegas. If he loses, the four houseguests that he didn’t pick get to see the movie instead.

Ryan decides to take the game (because after all, it’s…a movie) and ends up with an 18 in his hand. The music gets all suspenseful like he’s maybe going to hit because the editors are dumb. Adam, as the dealer, has a three showing, and he flips over a ten, making his total thirteen and making the odds look not too shabby for Ryan. Then Adam flips a six and ends up beating him, so Chelsia, Josh, Sharon and Sheila get to watch the movie instead. Well, the movie does have Kevin Spacey in it, so it’s debatable who the real winner is here.

Organ music starts playing, and I think maybe we’re getting more hot Bible action from Adam and Ryan, but we see Natalie sitting in the pink room praying to God out loud like she is Amber. In fact, whenever anyone prays out loud on this show, I’m going to call it “Ambering”. Terminology! She opens her eyes and has some sort of revelation, heading outside to talk to Sheila, who is working out on the elliptical. Natalie proceeds to tell Sheila all about how she was praying, and asked God for a sign about the game, and when she opened her eyes she saw the curtains in the room and there were eight of them! OMG! And there are groups of eight everywhere in the house! It’s like Area 51 up in this bitch.

She starts telling Sheila all about the groups of eight everywhere, about how there are eight pillows (and here, the editors get awesome, because: cut to shot of four pillows), and eight pictures hanging (shot of two pictures), and eight sayings on the walls (shots of seven sayings, with one twice). Natalie is like, “I’m going to go count stuff now!” and runs back into the house. Sheila looks relieved to be away from the crazy. You know, exactly how everyone else looks anytime she leaves a room.

Inside, Natalie sits in the living room surveying her surroundings. She peers at the stuffed elk on the wall for like an hour, the editors suspensefully showing us shots from the elk’s perspective, like it’s a Hitchcock movie and there’s something on the wing. Natalie just stares back at it, wondering if there are eight letters in the word “elk”.

Small table time! The houseguests return from lockdown to discover that the table has shrunk. And there are eight place settings! With eight chairs and eight cups and eight plates! Natalie looks around, marveling at the coincidence. She makes no connection between this fact and the number of people remaining. In the confessional, she tells us that this must somehow mean that Evel Dick is coming back, because he was on BB8 and there are 8 letters in his name. And the sad thing is that she’s totally right (as flashback helpfully shows us, he’ll be in on Tuesday, and thank Amber I’m not recapping that douche again), but in a completely wrong way. If I were a producer, I’d spend the remainder of the season making all of Natalie’s crazy predictions come true, just to mess with her head.

In the backyard, Nat plays pool with Adam, who tells her that he’s considering putting up Sheila because he wants her out of the house, not that I blame him for that. Natalie, grasping the game really well, tells him all about how that’s probably not a good idea numbers-wise, laying out the scenario that he has to put up two people from the other side in order to keep himself safe. It’s really scary when Natalie is right. First Ryan is good at math, now this. I need to be held.

Back from commercial, Adam decides on his nominations. After he calls everyone into the kitchen he tells them that he thinks what he did really wasn’t that bad, and that he’ll explain afterwards. Natalie is the first one safe, then Sharon, Ryan, Josh, and finally Sheila. This means that James and Chelsia are nominated.

Adam very deftly turns James’ remarks about Matt and Natalie back on him by pointing out that they’re a pair, which makes them very dangerous. What is up with dumb people being smart this episode? Maybe it’s the baby food.