You Are Expected to Expect the Unexpected

Anyone who skipped out on tonight’s live eviction episode of Big Brother didn’t necessarily miss any shocking developments as far as the ouster went, but in terms of Chenbot Malfunctions and nifty twists, this hour was a gold mine. The first twenty minutes were on the average side. We saw some general campaigning by Marcellas and Erika for votes followed by some uninspired interviews. But then the fun began as Julie stumbled on words, chided house guests for being too slow, and then nearly had a meltdown during an intense tie-breaker round of the HOH competition. And speaking of that competition, what a result! I won’t ruin it here, but this week looks like it could be quite interesting. And by “week,” I mean three days. You’ll know what I’m talking about soon enough…The show began the way all Thursday shows do: with the Chenbot standing proud and smiling. She was sort of the sparkly, Asian answer to Sarah Plain and Tall. Anyway, Julie came to us in a dark pantsuit with gentle flourishes of ruffles and glitter. It was pretty much as close as we’d get to seeing her wearing a figure skating outfit — which would be awesome. I’d love to see Julie take on Sasha Cohen on the ice.

Well, the Chenbot gave her standard opening speech, which was happily punctuated by the night’s only “But First.” As we then segued into footage from the house, Julie noted, “Some say it’s really Will and Mike Boogie who are calling all the shots.” You think? The two guys who no one dares to nominate are the ones in power? Say it ain’t so! Seriously. Say it ain’t so. I can’t bare to think that my favorite players have succumbed to such obvious mental games!

Anyway, we then saw as Marcellas reeled from his new perch on the chopping block. As you can imagine, he was not happy, but he brushed it off, saying, “It is what it is.” That, by the way, has quickly become the new, tiresome catchphrase of this season. “It is what it is.” Stop saying it, people. Just say, “Oh well.” It’s much more efficient. But what can you do? It is what it is. Dammit!

Later, Erika asked Marcellas if he was going to talk to Janelle about the situation, but he shook his head and replied, “No, that’s not my style.” He then added, “I’d much rather talk shit about her behind her back.” He then told Erika that he wouldn’t campaign against her, which was nice and all, but of course, as soon as she left the room, he immediately turned to Danielle and said, “D, I still need you to vote for me.” I guess maybe that doesn’t necessarily count as campaigning against Erika but… well…. it is what it is!

For her part, Danielle was caught in the middle of this mess (much like everyone else in this game). “I have a promise with Marcellas and a friendship with Erika,” she said, as if she had any control in this situation. You’re a slave to Dr. Will and Boogie. You’ll do what they say. Don’t try to act like you’re caught between two people!

Unfortunately for Marcellas, Legion of Doom wanted him out. However, kicking him out would be a bold move because it would essentially reveal to Janelle and Howie that something was afoot. Let’s not forget that Chill Town convinced Janelle to put Marcellas up as a pawn and then lied and said they’d protect him. If they didn’t, it would reveal their lack of loyalty. It would be a rude wakeup call to Janelle who’s been frustratingly entranced by these two jokers. Of course, it wasn’t guaranteed that Marcellas would necessarily be going (okay, it was. But just indulge me here for a second). Will had concerns about Erika’s presence in his alliance. “Chill Town is the Beatles of this show,” he told us. “I’m the Paul McCartney and Mike Boogie is the John Lennon. Unfortunately, Erika is the Yoko Ono. She’s been in this band entirely too long.” Does that make James Ringo? Because I could totally see that. But then again, not sure if I buy Danielle as George. I’ve probably taken this analogy a bit too far…

Image courtesy of our trusty intern.

Anyway, Danielle accurately noted that once Janelle realized she’d been bamboozled, there would be no turning back, but then again, it’s not like Janelle’s really in a position of power. Everyone wants her out. Her best bet would be to ally with Chicken George, Howie, and maybe Erika, but that won’t happen because Erika hates her (thanks to Will deflecting attention off of him and onto the floaters. Chill Town strikes again!). So basically, yeah, Janelle’s screwed.

Elsewhere in the house, Erika asked George for his vote, and he replied that he had her covered (granted, he said it in a softer, more nasally way than mere text on a website would imply). Two seconds later, Marcellas then hit up George for some help, and the old man replied, “I have not made any commitments at this point.” Crafty man. He was sort of lying, but then again, he sort of wasn’t. He was basically misleading everyone. Is it sad that I’m sort of rooting for him? What strange things this All-Stars season does to us. Well, just in case George needed any help making up his mind, Marcellas did note that Erika was the one who had eliminated Georgie from two specific HOH competitions — not that Marcellas was going to campaign against her or anything.

Later, he talked with Janelle who reassured him, “You’re not going home. You just have to trust me… I promise you. I promise.” Dammit Janelle. How many times do you have to be fooled before you realize that Chill Town is screwing you over? Did you already forget last week when your boy Kaysar was tossed from the household? Luckily, Marcellas seemed to have a decent perspective on things, and he told Janelle that Chilltown had been coming after her since day one. “But I know they’re not going to be changing their votes. That would be stupid,” she replied. It wouldn’t be stupid if they had the support of other people in the house… like you suspected in the veto competition. OPEN YOUR EYES, JANEY!!!

Well, in an effort to guilt the guys into keeping their word, Marcellas then confronted Chill Town and said that Janelle said that they had promised to vote to keep him. “Let’s keep it real quiet. We are absolutely serious. We’ll give you my personal guarantee,” Will said in an effort to placate the nominee. Marcellas then said he was going to hold the guys to their word (ooooooh!), and after he left, Boogie snickered, “Sucker. You’re going down.” So awful. So awesome.

We then returned to Julie and the house guests, all of whom were dressed for the prom (for those of you who forgot or weren’t paying attention, all week long, we could vote for senior superlatives for the cast on the CBS website). Anyway, the Chenbot complimented everyone on their dashing good looks (for once, George wasn’t the most ridiculous dresser in the room), and when Howie requested to take Julie to the prom, she laughed robotically and said, “Sorry. I have to decline.” DENIED, Howie! With Les Moonves at the helm, it’s a well known fact that any sort of romantic or sexual advances by a third party will be summarily greeted with the NO algorithm.

The Chenbot then asked Howie about how he felt seeing April earlier this week during the Veto competition, and he said that he loved Busto. Julie then asked, “You really do? Or is that a spool of lies???” Oh SNAP!!! CHENBOT TAKES HIM DOWN!!! Looks like somebody’s been pulling thread from the spool of ZINGERS!!!

Julie then decided to needle Boogie about his fight-or-flight response to those “ghosts” last week. “Mike, do you believe in the phrase women and children first?” she asked, referring to how he shoved Erika and Janelle out of the way to flee for safety, lest the ghost of Cappy steal his soul. This was met with general laughter, and as the house guests enjoyed the moment, Julie returned her gaze to us and delivered the first ChenFlub of the night. “Changing the– changing the nominees,” she said, swallowing the words and nearly choking on them in the process. It always starts off with a simple blip — a word stumble here or there. But then It’s all down hill from there, people. I could hardly wait.

After the break, we found the Chenbot happily standing under a candelabra. She hyped up the whole rivalry between Danielle and Janelle — a rivalry which quite frankly, I feel like is not that intense. Sure, there’ve been words exchanged about battles and wars, but it’s not like these two talk crazy amounts of shit about each other. This seems mostly like a product of the producers. Nevertheless, here to talk about the two women were none other than Danielle and Janelle’s moms, Rosalind and Ann respectively. This segment wasn’t particularly interesting. We didn’t learn too much. We did see that Janelle had a lovely transformation from awkward geeky girl to foxy Playmate-in-training. Danielle, on the other hand, had a sweet, lesbian mullet going in high school, and oh yeah, she got preggers at 15, a whole year earlier than we had previously thought. Ann made the interesting comment that Janelle and Danielle really should have joined forces and taken the house by storm, which I totally would have backed since they’re both two of my favorite players, but that will never happen; so no use fantasizing about super alliances that will never happen.

Monster is my favorite movie.

We then returned to the Chenbot who boldly proclaimed the Coup D’Etat, “the most incredible power in Big Brother history!” You know, she was right. Every time someone mentions the Coup D’Etat, I can’t help putting my hands on my hips and saying, “Why, that Coup D’Etat is INCREDIBLE! It’s the most incredible thing in Big Brother history!” She said some other stuff, but I couldn’t really remember because I was focusing on how the ruffles on her top seemed to be blowing around in some unseen breeze (the Chelmet was perfectly still, natch). I just had to assume that a giant fan was blowing on Julie, probably to keep her engines and CPU from overheating.

When we returned from the break, Julie then talked with Janelle, first asking her about James. Janey said that she didn’t really trust him, especially after he so blatantly threw the Veto competition. However, she was gonna wait to see what happened this week before she did anything. Um. Bad news, Janelle. By the time this week is over, it’ll be way too late. Julie then asked her where she stood with Marcellas, and Janelle said they were trying to mend their friendship, BUT she in no way trusted him anymore. And let’s face it: nothings speeds along the mending process like mistrust.

Finally, it was time to learn about the Coup D’Etat (which was the unlucky victim of one graphic designer’s love affair with the emboss feature on Photoshop). We relived the first two clues — the sheep (ewe) and the needle and thread. We also relived the early guesses, including George’s ill-advised submission, “You are expected to expect the unexpected.” What was new this time was Mike Boogie, whose official answer was “You Reap What You Sew” (the ewe and the sewing kit). It seemed like he was on the right track, and his guess was all but confirmed when clue #3, a grim reaper, appeared upstairs and pointed ominously at all the house guests. Later, James told everyone, “We should have run upstairs and kicked its ass!” Yes, that would have been real good. Cut to six months later as you’re sitting in court, being sued by a CBS intern.

Well, it looked like Boogie had this one in the bag, but then again, Janelle had this wonderful guess: “My official guess is sew what you reap.” Oh Janey. Every episode, you kill me a little more.
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Sure enough, Mike won the coveted Coup D’Etat, and one thing we learned was that with this power he wasn’t able to nominate the veto winner nor the dethroned HOH. Also, neither he nor the dethroned HOH could vote to evict the new noms. Kind of sneaky stipulations. It also ensured that Boogie would not be using his power tonight (if he couldn’t use it to get Janelle on the block, why bother?). “I’m speechless for the first time in 40 some-odd days,” he told us. THANK GOD. Now stay that way!

We then went away for another break, and then Julie told the guests that someone had won the mysterious (and incredible!) power. She offered “the winner” a chance to use the power at that moment, but Boogie sat tight, reserving his power for one of the two upcoming evictions instead (after that, it would be null and void). With no apparent change to the nominees, Julie then had Erika and Marcellas address the group. Erika simply said that if she fit into people’s strategies, they should keep her around. Marcellas was a bit more longwinded, saying how he tried to play honestly and blah blah blah. He attempted to guilt people (well, Janelle, really) by saying, “So if you can lie to me and my face, send me out under these circumstances. That’s all I can do.” Certainly no one on Big Brother could ever lie to someone’s face! I’m sure you turned them around with that one, Marcy!

Finally, it was time to cast the live votes. Boogie was first, and he chose Marcellas to go home, thus revealing how Legion of Doom was voting. With only six people voting and assuming Danielle, James, Will and Boogie were all on the same page, it was automatically a done-deal before we even got to the second vote. I probably could have fast forwarded right then and there, but then I would have missed Howie grabbing Mike’s ass as they passed each other en route to the Diary Room. Big Boy likes homoerotic butt clasping!

Julie then asked Howie who he wanted to evict, and he replied, “I vote to evict James. [rimshot!] Just kidding.” Oh Hurricane Howie. Your razor sharp wit cuts us up each time! He then noted, “Um, she’s got too nice of a body, and it’s probably going to come back to hurt me anyway, but I vote to evict Mar-jealous.” Yup, another vote for Marcellas. But sadly, the Chenbot’s pre-installed dictionary did not come with the phrase “Mar-jealous.” Instead, her CPU merely spat out an “undefined” message, causing her to bark, “GIMME YOUR VOTE, HOWIE!!!” Seriously, her circuit board was about to go up in flames.

Luckily, Howie clarified that he meant Marcellas, which, by the way, was surprisingly considering that he was supposed to save him. I don’t know what’s going on with half these people anymore. Next up was James, followed by a big haired Will, both of whom voted out Marcellas. Dr. Will, it should be noted, also asked the Chenbot, “Julie Chen. You like the tux?” To which she replied with, “I LOVE IT.” Looks like that last minute decision to install tuxedo_banter2.1.v.6.exe paid off after all.

Well, George and Danielle followed everyone’s lead, thus resulting in Marcellas’s unanimous (read: boring) eviction. He hugged Erika and then darted out of the house, denying everyone else affection, especially Howie, who he brushed off. Marcellas then marched out to Julie, and amusingly, he kept his big, poofy afro wig on (which was awesome because now Chicken George can’t use it anymore). I particularly enjoyed watching the Chenbot kiss Marcellas as her face seemed to be flattened by the huge wig. “Did you wear this for protection so I wouldn’t hit you?” she asked, referring to how she slapped his forehead four years ago when he had refused to use the veto for himself. Nice callback, Julie. Good to see that for every ChenFlub, there’s a performance upgrade. Then again, maybe it’s related. I knew they shouldn’t have installed those new banter plug-ins. They’re still so buggy!

Kiss of the Robot!

We then eavesdropped on the house guests for a few seconds. Nothing too fascinating was going on. Someone, Will I think, derided Marcellas for his poor sportsmanship, and Danielle bawled in the red room. Just the standard post-eviction chaos. Back in the studio, Julie asked Marcellas how he felt about Janelle, and he replied that she “lies as much as she breathes.” Then again, Marcellas, you were no angel either. But I guess that really wasn’t in question. Chenbot then read a list of anti-Janey quotes by Marcellas, to which he corrected, “I think I said I want to rip her brassy, blond hair out by its black roots.” Good to see that he was on top of his insults. Not that they were rehearsed or anything. He just happened to remember every single word perfectly.

Asked why he was voted out, Marcellas didn’t really have an answer. Her surmised that maybe people knew that ultimately, he still would not have put Janelle up if he had won HOH, despite all his trash talk. “I’m totally incapable of doing that!” he told/yelled at Julie. Finally, it was time for the goodbye videos. George said something dumb about the slop pass, and then James tried to act blindsided by Marcellas’s eviction. “You better not be watching this because if you are, it means Chill Town screwed us over, and your girl shouldn’t have nominated you.” It was pretty amusing watching him keep his non-Legion of Doom façade up. It was also telling the way he sneakily threw Janelle under the bus too. However, since the voting record clearly showed that everyone had voted out Marcellas, it really didn’t add up that James was acting like he was the victim to some mass deception. You voted him out too, dumbass! You can’t act like Chill Town screwed you over if you blatantly participated!

Janelle, meanwhile, said, “I feel now like it was a stupid move on my part. I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me.” Um, yeah. The last thing an evicted person needs to hear is a glorified “Oops!” Will complimented Marcellas on his looks, and then last but not least, a teary-eyed Danielle bid an emotional goodbye to her new friend. Marcellas then explained to Julie how he had hated Dani for so many years, but now he’d found forgiveness, and it felt like the weight had been lifted off his shoulders. This was nice and all, but the Chenbot pretty much cut him off to say that he was going to be the first member of the jury, causing Marcellas to bemoan, “No! This means I have to go to some tacky villa in Tijuana! NO!!!” Alas, the Chenbot had no sympathy as she merely waved at him and said, “Sequester land!” Looks like her Sadism Disk Utility was running perfectly.

After the commercial break it was time to start up the Head of Household competition, BUT FIRST, Julie Chen had some important news. This would be a double eviction week, which meant that the new HOH would have to nominate two people right away tonight. YES! The downside of this is that we miss out on the sheer joy of watching house guests trying to influence the Head of Household, but on the plus side, the unpredictable chaos of impromptu noms might be what we need to shake this game up.

Anyway, it looked like those superlatives we all voted for would finally be coming into play. The house guests walked into the backyard where high school pictures were mounted on giant stars. This caused general excitement, enough that Julie had to regulate by saying, “House guests, settle down!” Uh oh. Excitement overload for the Chenbot! She sooo has the hourglass on her monitor right now. These people better calm down before the entire system freezes up!

Since Janelle was ineligible to play this week, Julie revealed to her that she had been voted the Big Brother prom queen, and as a prize, she got a bouquet of flowers and a tiara. Of course, since this was Janey, she already had scooped up that tiara and was proudly wearing it before the Chenbot even mentioned it. Literally.

We then got to gaze at some of the high school photos. There was George, who looked like a cross between Buddy Holly and Danny from The Apprentice 3, there was James, who looked like a cross between Ralph Macchio and any generic, goofy adolescent, and then there was Erika, a tragic victim of ’80s style and Sephardic genetics. Let’s just say, she’s earned this season’s Most Improved award.

Well, for this challenge, Julie was going to ask the players who they thought America voted for in each superlative category. They’d each have two options, and they’d have to raise their left hand or their right hand to answer (don’t worry, they were outfitted with white gloves on the right and red gloves on the left so as to avoid the inevitable “Is that my left or your left?” confusion on behalf of the Chenbot). For each correct answer, a house guest could take a step forward. The person who had traveled the farthest by the last question would win. Yay!

First question: who did America vote as most intelligent: Will or Danielle? No surprise here. The answer was Will.

Who was the biggest whiner? James or Marcellas? The answer was Marcellas, and only Will got that one wrong. In his defense, he did note, “James whines.”

Next up: worst dressed. George or Howie? The answer: George. As for best dressed, between Janelle and Marcellas, Janelle won.

Julie then asked who was life of the party: Howie or Boogie. Was there an abstain option? I’d vote for Danielle and Janelle, but alas, they weren’t options. Anyway, the winner was Howie, causing Boogie to let out a frustrated, “WHAT???” You could tell he was annoyed, especially on account of him owning several restaurants in Los Angeles. Sorry dude: armbands and headbands galore do not translate into The Ultimate Party Guest. By the way, speaking of Boogie and parties, several months ago, I was watching my favorite Food Network bitch, Giada De Laurentiis, and I noticed that at the end of her show, she threw a little party, and none other than Mike Boogie was there. Why I didn’t get a screen cap is beyond me. I mean, Giada and a Big Brother star in the same place? It really doesn’t get any better than that.

Anyway, back to the questions. Who was most likely to break hearts? Will or Boogie? Answer: Will. At this point, James had been significantly in the lead, but he had stalled out, and was hadn’t moved in about two turns. Would he be able to recapture the HOH crown?

Well, the next question asked who would win a nobel peace prize: Erika or George. Upon hearing this, a modest Chicken George laughed, “Awwww. C’mon Julie!” However, when the answer was revealed to be George, the only person who voted for him was… himself! Yes, he was acting all modest and shocked, but he totally voted for himself to win the peace prize. He’s a shrewd little devil, isn’t he?

Finally, it was down to one question. Believe it or not, James, George, and Danielle were all tied at the front of the pack. All they had to do was answer this correctly to force a tie: who was the biggest flirt? Janelle or Howie. Dumbest, most obvious choice ever. The answer was Janelle, and for whatever reason, James picked Howie (the question was flirt, not awkward aggressor). As a result, Chicken George and Danielle entered a tie-breaker round, causing him to remark, “I made the finals of something!” Congratulations, little man. Now shut up and listen to the Chenbot!

The two finalists had to write down how many minutes total the house guests went with cold showers in the wake of last week’s veto competition. The two quickly scribbled numbers down, and George was first to raise his chalkboard. His pick: 360 minutes. Or as it’s commonly known: six hours??? Wasn’t it supposed to be off all week? As for Danielle, she was still furiously writing on her board, causing the Chenbot to shake and rattle, her pressure gauge about to emit a loud shriek. “Danielle, we have to have an answer. WRITE SOMETHING DOWN!” Julie said. Meanwhile, back in the studio, production assistants were busy mounting plexi-glass barriers, lest the Chenbot were to explode right then and there, sending shards of sharp metal in every which way.

Finally, Danielle raised her board, but the combination of the glare and her sloppy writing made it hard to read. This could only lead to bad things. “Uhhhh…” Julie said, her CPU totally flatlining. “Wait, hold yours straight,” she told Danielle, but then suddenly George moved his board too, further complicating the situation. “George, hold yours straight,” Julie said, hoping to rectify the situation. Well, Danielle’s board looked like it said 308. Or was it 108? Either way, George still won because the final answer was over 6,000. Yeah, they were kind off a bit. Even the Chenbot couldn’t help but giggle a bit by the ultra-low guesses. And just like that, Chicken George managed to win Head of Household! Too bad it would be an abbreviated reign, but that’s okay. The little man was in charge! Mike Boogie was so excited that he literally grabbed his crotch. Better get that jack shack ready…

We then went to commercial, and when we came back we saw… a test pattern! Ack!!

Luckily, we returned to the show about ten seconds later, just as the Chenbot was revealing the double eviction. Everyone sort of groaned, and when Julie told George that he now had to nominate two people for eviction, he looked totally shocked. Poor guy. He finally gets HOH, and he can’t even spend any time thinking about his noms. Well, something tells me he had an idea of who he wanted to go after anyway. He rather quickly and assuredly put James on the block (expect plenty of bitching and whining on Sunday), and then for his second choice, he picked… Erika. Interesting. I thought we might get a surprise Chill Town nomination. Or at least Janelle. But nope. Erika was back up there for the umpteenth time.

And with that the show essentially came to an end. We returned to the studio where Julie explained to us what we’d be seeing on Sunday’s show, and then she turned her head to another camera and said, “From outside the Big Brother house, I’m Julie Chen. Good night.” Unfortunately, while Julie followed her prompt, not much else did. The camera angle remained the same; so we had to watch the wonderful awkwardness of her bidding us adieu while she was looking in a completely different direction. Classic Chenbot.

Psssst! Over here, Julie!

What did you think about this episode? What effect will Marcellas’s eviction have? And what do you think about George’s nominations?