Matt Hoffman (BB12) returns with his review of the latest Big Brother episode. You’ll find him here at BBN each Thursday & Friday all season. Read Matt’s past articles.
Thursday night’s Big Brother was the equivalent of being in a hospice. You know what the end result is going to be, and you know that it’s going to be bad – but you still just sit there and wait out the inevitable. Julie Chen kicks things off as usual (rocking a sweet 90’s-era pants suit) with a recap of this week’s events. It’s not often that the Chenbot shows actual human emotion, but even she doesn’t waste any time pointing out how stupid Lawon is and laughing at him.
Back in the house, we see the aftermath of the veto nomination ceremony. Lawon couldn’t be more proud of himself (or more delusional, for that matter):
LAWON: If I do get voted out of the house, I have a 99% chance of coming back into the game with super powers.
Close. You actually have a 100% chance of not coming back into the game. And you best hope that whatever super power you receive gives you the ability to deflect a lifetime of personal ridicule. It’s only once every 10 seasons that a homosexual African American makes the type of colossal game blunder that you have, so you have quite a ride in store for you!
LAWON: So take note, America – Lawon made the boldest move that anyone could do in the Big Brother house.
Yet another statement that is completely correct, but for all the wrong reasons. It would be a “bold move” for me to put my hand down a garbage disposal and turn it on, but that doesn’t mean I should go brag about it to all of America. Lawon is so bad of a player that it’s actually awkward and uncomfortable to watch. Kalia tries to justify keeping Rachel in the house because she, too, drank the “whoever is evicted is definitely coming back” Kool-Aid. Even Jeff (hardly the poster boy for intellect) picks up on the fact that Kalia is a total strategic failure and calls her out for being stupid. When Jeff is making personal attacks at your mental capacity, you know it’s looking bleak.
Lawon’s taking home all the awards tonight. After stealing the title of “Biggest Bonehead Move” from Season 3’s Marcellas, Lawon also kicks me out of the top spot I’ve been holding onto for “Worst Liar”:
LAWON: I am SO PISSED I was nominated.
SHELLY: Yeah, that’s too bad. Keep fighting, though.
LAWON: WHY WOULD I VOLUNTEER?!
SHELLY: Huh? No one said you volunteered.
LAWON: Ummmm….uhhhh…Volunteer? Who said anything about “volunteer”? GIRL, you must be hearin’ CRAZY things. I’m gonna go outside.
[Shelly follows]
SHELLY: Lawon, did you volunteer to go up?
LAWON: Me?! What?! Volun…I’M APPALLED! Now WHY would I go do something as smart as that? D’oh! – I mean as STUPID as that! I said STUPID!
SHELLY: Why would Kalia put up someone that she’s close with? It doesn’t make sense.
LAWON: I am going to get to the bottom of this before I walk out that door.
SHELLY: But you have the numbers to stay if you want.
LAWON: I mean…um…Rachel could persuade…wait, no…uhhh…DID YOU SEE THE HE/SHE IN THE BACK YARD?! I was like WHAAAAAAAAAT!!! KA-PLOW!
Shelly’s suspicion of Lawon brings her up to the HoH room to ask Kalia if Lawon volunteered himself to go up. Kalia, whose spine is completely detached from her body and is now hanging in the storage room ready to be taken out with this week’s trash, wastes absolutely no time in instantly selling out Lawon.
SHELLY: Did Lawon volunteer himself?
KALIA: You bet! And then he wants to get out so that he can come back with special powers, and then Dani and I are going to make a deal with Rachel, and then when Lawon 100% comes back into the house he will most certainly have a power that will allow us to begin breaking up your alliance!
…
…
…
Uh-oh. I think I’ve said too much.
SHELLY: You do know that I’m about to run downstairs and tell Jeff and Jordan everything, right?
KALIA: Sure, whatever. Hey – can you pass me that Twinkie?
Meanwhile, Rachel says that she has to do “anything she can” to stay in the game this week. For once, “anything she can” does not involve some sort of activity that will shame her entire family, and the mere act of her existence alongside Lawon is enough to ensure she’s going nowhere. After making some fake deals with Kalia and Dani, Rachel goes down to the Have Not room to tell Jordan all about it. I’m starting to think that there’s more than one Shelly in the house because every time two people get into a private conversation, it takes one of the Shellies no more than 10 seconds to bust into the closed room and say something like “what’s going on here?” or “so, what are we doing?”. Even more bizarre than that is the fact that, without failure, people continue to always let her in on everything that they are discussing! In a matter of three back-to-back scenes, Shelly gets info from Lawon and passes it to Kalia. Then she gets info from Kalia and passes it to Rachel. Then she gets info from Rachel and passes it to Dani. I keep hearing about Shelly being this “masterful strategist”, but the inability to shut your mouth for 5 seconds does NOT make you a great social gamer. It makes you…well…a female. In fact, I can’t see any possible way that she is not hanging by a thread off the cliff that overlooks You’re Busted Canyon. She’ll be called out sooner than later. And hopefully with a Brenchel House Meeting™.
Delusion continues to circulate in the air of the Big Brother house as Kalia and Dani contemplate why oh why Rachel could ever have any reason for not taking their super-sweet deal. Gosh, numbskulls, I don’t know – maybe because she is 100% safe without the assistance of you ninnies? Maybe because she doesn’t want to align with the only two people in the house next week that will have massive red targets on their back? Maybe because with Brendon out of the house she actually is opting for “playing the game” over “dry humping the day away”?
After the break, we join Julie with the houseguests in the living room:
JULIE: 41 days in the house, and you’ve passed the halfway mark. Does the game get easier or harder at this point
JEFF: Definitely easier, Julie. But it has less to do with the time we’ve been here and everything to do with the fact that this is the second week in a row that the person being evicted has basically volunteered to go home. My strategy is to just lock myself in a room, hibernate for another month or so, and wake up in time for the final three.
Next up is the part of every Thursday show when we see a pre-taped package where the families of one of the nominees comments about what a great player their son/daughter/mom/dad/husband/wife is and how supportive everyone is of them back home. Since Rachel’s on the block and she has spent the last month-and-a-half embarassing everyone that associates with her in the real world, Big Brother decides to dig up some of Rachel’s old enemies from Season 12. Namely Ragan and…wait, who’s that handsome little troll?…Matt! (don’t blink or you’ll miss me)
After the obligatory setup shot to make it look like I (who resides in Chicago) was just simply passing through Hollywood and figured I’d pop into Ragan’s to see if he wants to watch “Big Brother” together, we get to see a series of updated pictures of Ragan and I out-of-our-minds intoxicated. We also get to hear that Ragan is keeping the faith that I will one day turn on my 34-year stint of heterosexuality and current devotion to my beautiful wife in favor of doing gay stuff. Dare to dream, buddy!
The rest of the package is us watching whatever CBS decided they should make us be looking at tonight, and we also get to see some great never-before-aired footage of Rachel with mayonnaise on her face talking into the Have Not room camera to Brendon. She says how difficult it is with him being gone and how she’s “thinking about what he would do”. Well let’s be honest – I think that if Brendon was alone in a room talking to a camera, we all know exactly what he’d do. Finally, in comparing Rachel to the killer in a slasher movie who keeps coming back, Ragan says that we can “pump bullets into her, decapitate her, or set her body on fire”. This is great news that I hope the D.R. lets the houseguests in on, as it could really liven the season up! (can we make it an “America’s Vote” thing?…cuz I’d text 80102 for “decapitate”)
After the commercial break, Julie questions Kalia in the HoH room about her week in power (or Jeff’s week in power…or Dani’s week in power…or Lawon’s week in power…ugh – I’m confused). Kalia rambles nonsensically about “growing wings and flying” again (in case you missed her killer nomination speech). But really she spends most of the time doing what she’s done all week – sucking tenaciously onto the ass of Jeff and Jordan. First off, Kalia – they can’t hear you; and secondly, they don’t like you. Kalia heads back downstairs (pitstopping in the kitchen on the way for a quick mid-show snack…she hasn’t eaten in literally MINUTES!), and then it’s time for the nomination speeches.
Both speeches are the worst we’ve seen so far this season and serve no purpose other than to remind us that there is a twist happening. Oddly enough, people clap after Lawon’s speech like he had delivered some profound presidential address. Voting begins, and after five weeks I’ve decided that Shelly’s weird “hand thing” in the D.R. is her jonesing for a cigarette. Even when the vote is 5-0 with only Adam left, Julie still clings to her false sense of suspense:
JULIE: Adam has stayed neutral this week, but now…he must pick a side. How will he vote?
Wow, Julie – you’re right! I stupidly figured that Adam would go along with every single other person who has since voted. But now that you mention it, maybe he’ll throw us for a loop and vote completely outside the entire rest of the house.
As I wait in baited anticipation for Adam’s rogue vote, he just ends up following along and putting in his hit for Lawon, which sends Lawon packing on a 6-0 sweep…
…OR DOES IT?!
Just as Lawon is about to leave and go collect his 100% free magical super power, Julie stops him and calls everyone back to the living room:
JULIE: Lawon, you may come back into the house. But first…you have to battle one of the ex-evictees, as voted on by America or planted by SeeBS. There is no power, and because you are such a consummate fool and Rachel is still around, you can probably expect to be taking on Brendon and also subsequently getting your ass handed to you on a platter. If you’d like to just walk out the front door now and avoid any further inevitable shame, you are more than welcome to do so.
LAWON: I’m gonna COMPETE, Julie! And when I win, I’m going to GET that special power!
JULIE: No, Lawon – you’re not listening. There is no special power.
LAWON: HAHA! You FUNNY, Julie! Just please tell me there ain’t no HE/SHE in the backyard again! I CAN’T BE SHAVING NO HE/SHE NO MORE!
Lawon’s expression upon hearing the full details of the twist is priceless:
And Rachel’s expression is endless fodder for message board Photoshop threads all over the internet:
(prize awarded for the person who finds the most creative place to insert a penis into the image above)
Out back, we get to check in on the four evictees. They learn that they’ll be competing against Lawon, and couldn’t be happier. Keith is already plotting out his new alliance – “The Regulator Angels”. In what can best be described as “the least shocking thing I’ve heard all week”, America has **cough** “voted” **cough** that Brendon should have a shot at coming back in the house! Julie then goes over the rules of the competition. She says that there are 150 balls, and I begin to think that Lawon may actually have a shot now!…
…But not for long, as this competition quickly becomes a complete and utter slaughter. Through nightmarish memories of Rachel’s shrill cheerleading, Bookie predictably beats the snot out of Lawon, sending him home (ironically in an Ivy League sweatshirt – I’m sure Yale is proud) as we bear witness to what is the most legendarily idiotic blunder in the history of Big Brother. Lawon is stunned, Rachel straddles Brendon, and I refill my prescription pain killers to get through the bonus season of “The Brenchel Show”, starting this Sunday on CBS.
“Big Brother” – it was nice watching you for a week. You will be missed.
For more of Matt Hoffman’s ramblings follow him on Twitter @HeadOfHoffhold and stop by www.TheGremlinCave.com. Also, be sure to check out Matt’s video recaps of the Big Brother season on www.RTVZone.com (@RTVZone).