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.
With a double eviction night, we spent most of the time in competitions or live banter. Very little of this gives any headway to humorous content. That being said…I will do my best here, but in exchange for what will probably be a sub-par post at best, I am offering up the second and final “Q&A With A 7th-Place Loser” edition of my write-ups for the season, where I will try to respond to every question that is posted in the comments section at the end of this post. On with the show!…
We begin with the aftermath of Daniele being tossed on the block as a replacement nominee against Kalia. While Kalia makes a beeline for the kitchen, Dani decides to continue to be one of the only people left in the house interested in playing the game and starts working for votes.
She begins by hitting up Shelly in the backyard, swearing on the life of her grandmother that she will “never nominate Shelly ever”. That’s a bold statement. Never EVER? Dani needs to think this through some more in case at some point later in life she’s ever put in the precarious situation of power where she has to nominate two people to have their skin made into a football.
Regardless, Shelly buys into Daniele’s plan, and (forgive me for biting my tongue after a season of going against everything I am about to say) I begin to think that Shelly is finally playing the game properly. She actually gets some more balls and puts the plan into action to flip on Jeff & Jordan, starting with trying to get Adam’s vote for Dani. Shelly makes some intelligent and valid points to Adam as to why he’ll never make it to Final 2 if he continues to play with JeJo, however it doesn’t go so well, due mostly in part to Adam’s insatiable man-crush on Jeff. Next we’re treated to some cut-scenes of Adam telling “Big Jeff” that he likes his hair and Adam standing creepily in Jeff’s personal space while Jeff works out.
Later in the day, a device shows up in the backyard that the houseguests can use to practice for an upcoming competition. It’s a curvy ramp that is used to maneuver a ball across it. Adam describes it as a “big ol’ snake showing up in the backyard”, but what he’d really like is Jeff’s big ol’ snake showing up in his backdoor. While everyone practices for the comp, Shelly tries to grab Rachel’s vote for Dani. Wisely playing to Rachel’s fragile and unstable emotions, she slips in that Jeff threw the veto competition that sent Rachel’s FEE-YON-CÉ home. On any other season, this would send Rachel into a tizzy where she would explode on Jeff and call a house meeting to put everything on the table. But this is a special season where Shelly can somehow say anything she wants to every houseguest without ever getting called out on anything, so Rachel (for the first time in two seasons) remains completely calm and rational.
Thankfully after the commercial break, Julie Chen teases that just minutes before going live this evening, Shelly was called out for her season of duplicity. This should make for a good Sunday night episode, which does nothing for what’s happening now. Thanks for tickling our nuts a bit, Chenbot – how about some real action! Double eviction? Sure, why not!…let’s get to it.
The nominees jump right into their eviction speeches, and Daniele burns the clock rambling like every other lunatic who is on their way out the door. Little does she know that her best shot at safety this week lies in Kalia, who uses her nomination speech time to channel the masterful Lawon and simply says, “VOTE FOR ME!” Wow! – if the houseguests just listen to Kalia, then Dani’s got a shot this week! The votes come rolling in, and Dani loses on a 3-2 close call. But Daniele’s not the biggest loser during this round of voting…that crown goes to Adam, who apologized to someone that he had known less than a week for voting to evict his estranged daughter. Newsflash, Adam – Dick most certainly hates you infinitely more after your obnoxious obsessive fanboy antics. Stick to giving your shout-outs to washed-up cast members of “Beverly Hills 90210”.
As we “eavesdrop on the houseguests” preparing for the next HoH competition, we hear Kalia say something that America can finally all get behind – “Pants, please don’t fall down”. Before the comp, Chenbot conducts a lackluster interview with a very bitter Daniele. The only highlight is Rachel cranking the crazy up to 11 during her goodbye message with insane hypocrisy and contradictions like, “I don’t even care about your jury vote” immediately followed with, “You are arrogant”; and then “You are rude” immediately followed with, “You are pretty much a horrible bitch”. That’s why we love ya, Rach!
The next HoH competition is the all-too-familiar “Before & After” competition where the houseguests have two events that occurred, and they need to pick if one event happened before or after the other. Here’s how it went down:
ROUND 1: Did Keith hump Jeff in a cow suit before or after Brendon dressed up like Captain Douchebag for the veto competition?
Everyone says “Before” and gets it correct.
ROUND 2: Did Kalia drool over hundreds of pepperonis on two giant pizzas before or after Daniele got cornholed?
The correct answer is “Before”. Only super-competitor Adam gets it wrong and is eliminated.
ROUND 3: At an eviction ceremony, did Dominic insightfully tell you all that you suck at this game before or after he said, “I think you all need to man up…except for Shelly…she’s got enough man for everybody”?
The correct answer is “After”, and everyone but Kalia and Jordan are eliminated.
ROUND 4: Were jerky and jelly beans revealed as the have-not food before or after houseguests put balls in their mouth for a veto competition?
I’m not going to yell “favoritism” here, but let’s not gloss over the fact that the final round question was all about eating. Oh, and guess who wins?…Kalia.
Before the nominations begin we “eavesdrop on the houseguests” for the second time. And for the second time, Kalia does not disappoint in the entertainment area as she belches like a drunken hobo and proceeds to say, “ewww – I look gross”. Impeccable timing, CBS!
Kalia wastes no time nominating Jeff and Rachel, and then it’s right outside to the veto competition! This one is called “Clowning Around”, and the houseguests have to dig through balls to find some clown shoes in a box. Jordan is the only one not playing in this veto, so she gets to sit on the sidelines next to (appropriately enough) a big clown. Porsche’s mastery of digging her hands in balls brings her a well-deserved victory, which causes angry Hulk-Rachel to smash and crush the balls in her box (that’s what she said?).
Rushing right into the veto ceremony, Rachel somehow is not a totally emotional erratic spaz and manages to make a mature and highly out-of-character speech. Jeff, on the other hand, is completely in character by saying virtually nothing of substance. Porsche decides not to use the veto to save anyone, saying that “it’s what Daniele would’ve wanted” – but only because of what she read in Adam’s NY Times bestseller, “How To Be Best Buddies For Life With Past Big Brother Players That Don’t Care About You.”
The second round of nomination speeches commence, Rachel still remains normal (boooooooring!), Jeff spends the whole time talking to Shelly, and Jordan begins her marathon crying session that is still going on as I type this, four hours after the show has ended. Jordan votes for Rachel. Porsche votes for Jeff. Adam asks if he can call Dick to see what he would do, and after Julie tells him “no”, he fights through confusion to vote for Rachel. Shelly fumbles the word “Jeff” six or seven times with no coherence, and Julie takes that as a vote, so we have a tie. Kalia needs to break the tie, so she votes to evict Jeff (leaving more red velvet cake for her), and the house is left with five useless idiots and a Rachel.
Julie Chen gives her second exit interview of the evening with the second bitter overly-entitled houseguest – this one complaining that “no one in the house has a sac” (Shelly?). Double eviction night is over, and we “eavesdrop on the houseguests”. Again. I’m done.
Q&A TIME!
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).