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.
Kicking things off is a recap of Jeff’s nominations – Porsche and Kalia. Looks like Porsche may get a glimmer of camera time this week! Exciting for her, but on the other end of the spectrum with Rachel not in power, not nominated, and away from her vile other half, she should be going through some major “attention withdrawl”.
Kalia defends herself in the diary room by saying that Porsche should be booted because she doesn’t do anything except host competitions, whereas Kalia is here to “bust her butt”. So far all I’ve seen Kalia doing is expanding her butt, however I’m not a live feed viewer, so what do I know? Daniele gives the “That’s What She Said” quote of the night with, “There’s always the question – what if [Jeff] backdoors me?”
After nominations, Daniele makes the mistake of trying to talk game with Kalia in the kitchen. Bad move, Dani. Way too many distractions in that room:
DANI: How does it feel?
KALIA: [barely comprehensible through a mouthful of every allowable have-not food mixed together in a bowl] Being on the block?
DANI: Yeah.
KALIA: Meh. [gobble, gobble, gobble]
DANI: I’m the last one who hasn’t been on the block yet.
KALIA: [chomp, chomp] Mmm.
DANI: Are you listening to anything I’m saying?
KALIA: I’M GONNA EAT YOU!
Meanwhile out in the back yard an equally riveting conversation is going on…If you’re riveted by ass-kissing and egocentrism, that is:
ADAM: I thought you were going to nominate Daniele?
JEFF: I know what’s up. I’m good. Don’t look me in the eyes. I am the Great And Powerful Jeff!
ADAM: You make a good point, Jeff.
JEFF: Who asked you, monkey? There was a lot more I wanted to say in my speech, but I was worried that all of the awesomeness would shoot out of my body like lightning bolts and hurt someone.
ADAM: Sometimes you say more by saying less, oh Great One.
JEFF: I like that. But you still are dirt to me.
ADAM: You showed me how to be classy in this game.
JEFF: Keep studying, young one, and some day you too may be a homophobic misogynist like Big Jeff.
ADAM: If I win veto, I would let you tell me what you think I should do with it, Master.
JEFF: Rightfully so. Now fetch me some technotronics!
[SIDEBAR: It should be noted that both the humor and repulsion in the above dialog comes from the fact that almost none of it was made up by me for comedic value, and actually went down exactly as dictated]
More idiotic conversation continues in the kitchen later on when Rachel feigns concern for Daniele’s glum mood. When Dani says she’s fine, Rachel shows that she’s as much of a therapist as she is a chemist by hypothesizing that Dani’s sorrows stem from her turning 25 years old this week. After giving sage advice about how “25 is the beginning of life”, Rachel tries to empathize with Daniele by telling her, “One time when I turned 25, I was really depressed too.” Daniele does her best to ignore Rachel, so unfortunately we don’t get to hear about all the other happier times that Rachel turned 25. After another round of incessant antagonizing, Dani has had enough and she walks outside. Rachel tries to put on a fake smile as Daniele leaves for the backyard, but it ends up looking like she just smelled a fart. As soon as Dani’s outside, Rachel shakes her head and does her patented Rachel Pout™, except that she stares directly into the camera that isn’t filming her. This actually makes it even more looney-tunes than it would’ve been if she had pulled it off as-planned. Poor attention-starved Rachel. No cameras want to play with you this week.
Time to draw names for the veto competition! Because of Daniele’s veto ticket, seven people will play, and only one person will be sitting out this week. And after the names are drawn, that person is…RACHEL! Hahaha! I love it! Taking camera time away from Rachel is like depriving a person with diabetes of their insulin. She gets feverish, near comatose, and (in extreme cases) could end up dying. This is a risk we’ll have to take this week, however. Hang in there, Rachel! You’ll do something batshit crazy enough to get you back on screen in no time, I’m sure!
After a week of dressing exactly like she appears in all of our heads, Jordan is finally allowed to remove the “humilitard”. This process takes place over the course of one of the most awkward and sexless stripteases I have ever witnessed. The whole debacle culminates in Jeff getting the stinky sweaty unitard portion of it thrown at his face, which is enough to get him all hot-and-bothered for Jordan, so they retreat to the HoH room to do whatever uncomfortable cuddling ritual couples do when they treat each other like football buddies instead of romantic partners. Unfortunately, their scandalous rendezvous is interrupted with a discussion on the correct pronunciation of the word “mischievous”. After 10 minutes neither of them can figure it out, and since there’s no third graders in the room to help them, they just decide to go to sleep.
Leading up to the veto competition, Kalia tells Daniele that she has a hunch the competition will be something that they are good at. If Kalia is right, then we’re in for the annual veto competition where you complain into a bucket, eat as much out of it as you can, and then sleep the longest. Truly regretfully, Miss Kalio read her tarot cards wrong, because we’re left with much worse…
…ZINGBOT!
My least favorite part of last season is back (okay, after Brenchel…and after the Brigade…and I guess not as bad as the Saboteur twist…come to think of it, maybe this was my favorite part of last season), and it hasn’t gained any more wit in the last 12 months. Zingbot unleashes with mediocre “zings” about Jeff’s boyish facial hair, Porsche’s ever-growing ass, Dani’s family drama, Adam’s generally disturbing appearance, Shelly’s scrotum, Kalia’s uselessness, Jordan’s destiny of eternal loneliness, and Rachel’s limited vocabulary. Rachel uses her zing as an opportunity to once again throw out one of her tiresome “No ____ gets between me and MY man” catchphrases that stopped being funny somewhere around episode 3 of last season.
The veto competition is basically to put pieces onto the shell of a robot in the fastest time possible. That’s it. We know that we’re not missing some hidden complexity because they choose Jordan’s soundbyte to describe the rules. Adam tells us that he’s “not going to try and win”, and Shelly says that she “absolutely does not want to win the veto today”. As if either of them had any other options. Since everyone playing in the competition is pretty much terrible at everything they do, Jeff pulls out an easy win. The veto he gets is connected to a huge gold chain, which we all know is obviously symbolic of Jeff’s god-like stature in the house. Or he’s a rapper. One of the two.
With Jeff having all the power, Porsche, Kalia, and Dani are scrambling. Kalia settles comfortably into her world of delusion as she tells Shelly that she is “busting her ass” and that “people are afraid” of her and, thus, want to take her out. Yeah, Kalia – all of those power naps really strike fear into the hearts of your competition. Nevertheless, she tries to make a plea to Jeff about how she has “gotten her hands dirty”, and that’s why she should stay. She must have been referring to her bold HoH move of getting a major threat like Lawon out of the house after he petitioned for himself to leave, right?…epic maneuver. Porsche also tries to make a deal with Jeff, but he (like the rest of us) doesn’t remember who she is, so he writes her off. Daniele’s the last one to try to hit up Jeff:
JEFF: I’m a little nervous about if I kept you around. What would I be offered?
DANI: Well, like…whatever…like, 100% safe…like, ummm…definitely, whatever…I swear…like, 100%…no, definitely I swear…like, whatever.
JEFF: Even after dating Jordan for two years, I have absolutely no idea what you just said to me.
Before Jeff knows it, the veto ceremony is upon him. Porsche is first to plead her case, but she just ends up re-hashing the rules of Big Brother and complimenting Jeff:
PORSCHE: I would like you to use the veto on me so I can get off the block and keep playing and compete in this game, and I like your hair.
[SIDEBAR: I really REALLY wish I was making that up, but it was 100% transcribed authentically as aired]
Kalia also takes this opportunity to waste our time explaining how Big Brother works:
KALIA: In this game you are responsible for yourself, and the only way you keep yourself safe is you win the veto. And I didn’t do that – you did.
[SIDEBAR: Again – TOTALLY not modified at all. These people are just THAT dense.]
Kalia gets confused at the end of her speech and thinks that she has to convince herself to use the veto, so she says that if she stays in the house “there is the chance to have a lot more red velvet cake.”
Jeff ends up using the power of veto to take Porsche off the block and put Daniele up in her place. With the confidence bestowed upon him from his gold-chain thug veto, he punctuates his replacement nomination with a hard-ass cocky speech about regret and Julie Chen. Just as the episode is about to end, Rachel makes one more desperate grasp for camera time the only way she knows how…with a new modification of her stupid catchphrase – “Nobody comes between me and MY alliance!”. Ugh.
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).