Friday, July 30, 2010

Searching For Signal: #145 - “Big Brother” - Season 12, Episode 10

Okay, so there’s the review of the last episode, which mainly deals with Andrew going off the rails at the Veto Ceremony. Other than that, same old.

Then Julie appears, wearing an odd dress with some ill-advised zipper placement. She babbles about Matty for a while, and mentions that two floaters are on the block. Which begs the question. Who in this house isn’t? Sigh. I miss Janelle.

More shots of Andrew being weird, which leads to another series of Taxi Cab confessions in the Diary Room as people ponder Andrew and his twistedness.

Britney: “I’m so confused!” This doesn’t surprise me, Britney. It certainly shouldn’t surprise YOU. Then again, by some random fluctuation in the world, you will probably end up in the final four. Just sayin.

Rachel: “This house is full of haters!” Whatev. You really need to calm down.

Kathy: “I have no idea what that speech was about!” Agreed. But the same thing could be said about your cosmetic skills.

Andrew: He still thinks he did a really smooth thing. I’m thinking the short shorts from the surfboard competition have caused permanent damage. Just a guess.

Cut to Brendon and Rachel in one of the 412 rooms. She’s all mad at Andrew, snarling and crying and gazing with hatred upon inanimate objects. Speaking of, Brendon tries to calm her down by telling Rachel that Andrew’s speech was all planned. Wrong move. This makes Rachel twist off even more, thinking she’s being kept in the dark. Brendon proceeds to kiss her to make her shut up. They have the sex.

Britney, Lane and Ragan (there’s a combination), sitting around and discussing the exciting Veto Ceremony. They think that Rachel was faking her reaction, which is interesting, since she really wasn’t in on the staged drama. Then something shiny catches Lane’s attention and the conversation is over.

Matt calls Andrew up to the HOH Room. Dude, people are very suspicious about your little performance. Andrew appears shocked, thinking his delivery was sterling and worthy of awards. Not. Matt: You need to talk to people and try to get their votes.

Rachel and Brendon on the patio, snuggling yet bickering. She’s still mad about not being informed of Andrew’s plan. He tries to be appeasing and repentant, but she doesn’t understand either of those words, so he gets frustrated. In desperation, he utters “I love you!” and then buries his head among the twins. She completely ignores this and keeps harping. Um, Brendon, there’s your sign. Run.

Brendon in the Diary Room: “I might have just lost the best thing I ever had.”

You’ve known her three weeks. And she didn’t even care when you said the L word. Why are people so stupid?

Scene with Kathy and Ragan, where she reveals that she has had cancer, and the treatments led to leukemia. “My son needs a chance at a better life.” Okay, no idea if this is a true story, but if it is, Matt is more of a dog than ever.

Ragan in the Diary Room: He was originally going to vote for Kathy to leave, because he really likes Andrew (go figure), but now he’s reconsidering. Then he recreates Liza Minnelli’s showstopper from “Cabaret”. One of the grips filming the scene cries.

Next we have Kathy talking to Kristen, sharing the details of being pregnant at 18 and how the people in high school treated her for such. Kristen appears sympathetic. Andrew, across the courtyard, glares at the two as if Satan just arose and spit in his face.

Andrew in the Diary Room: “I resent not getting emotional support from these people.” Really? Then perhaps you should actually try talking to them instead of beating on non-responsible objects in the swamp room and bellowing animal noises.

Cut to Andrew crying in the swamp room, then digging for gold in his nose. Nice.

Kathy is about to step into the communal shower, with Kristen nearby, gazing into a mirror and trying out various movie-star hairstyles, when Andrew suddenly marches up. “You two are playing me like a fiddle. Don’t do it anymore!” Then he turns to scamper away, because he’s SO manly.

(You can almost hear the BB producers going “Where did THAT come from?”)

Kristen is not impressed. “I don’t appreciate that at ALL. We’re gonna have a nice little chat.” As Kathy finally escapes into the shower, hoping to wash away the slime of the Big Brother craziness, Kristen marches off to find Andrew.

And they get into it, big time. To be fair, Kristen tries to remain rational and fair-minded. But Andrew has gone off the deep end, completely delusional and spewing paranoid crap. Kristen finally has enough. “You’re gonna dig your own grave!” Andrew counters with the unoriginal “YOU are gonna dig YOUR own grave!”

The entire house hears the yelling. Oh boy.

Matt, Enzo and Hayden in the HOH Room, once again trying very hard to not at all hide their alliance. The general consensus is that they need to keep Andrew in the house as a distraction, because he’s so messed up. On the flip side, Kathy will target them for having nominated her. (But Kathy can’t win squat. How can she target you?)

Back to Julie: “Matt told a lie, and created a controversy outside the house.” Ya think?

Boring commercials. I already have a Swiffer, thanks.

Jules again, and she chats with the houseguests. There’s a boring Rachel segment where we learn nothing new. Then Julie queries Lane about what he misses from the real world outside, and he surprises no one by saying he misses spot-lighting and fishing. (Another debit for Texas.) Julie ends the roundtable by making fun of Britney teaching Enzo how to speak proper English. Julie appears to be really invested in this, cackling gleefully as Enzo is made out as an idiot. (Not a big leap.) Then Julie announces that there will be a one-week break from anybody being on slop. Everyone in the house appears to be on the verge of having sex with her out of gratitude.

We get to meet Matty’s wife, to hear her thoughts on being portrayed as a helpless woman with a bone disfiguration. “He lacks all common sense. I don’t agree with what he did. But I did try to help Matt with his letter.” The one where she basically supported his lie. Nice. I guess everyone has a soul mate.

Quick sound bite from Julie: “Is the Saboteur twist really over?”

Commercials. Did you know that perfume is really cheap at TJ Maxx? Wow.

Back to Julie, talking to just Matt in the HOH Room? Any qualms with the lying about the bone disease? Nope. Don’t feel bad? Nope. Do you have any chance of not going to Hell? Nope.

Eviction Ceremony and the “Save Me” speeches.

Kathy: Very nice, very to the point. I’m going to be myself in this house, do what I think is right, and if that gets me evicted, so be it. (Actually really starting to like her, despite the frightening mascara.)

Andrew: Goes immediately into full rant mode. He trashes Kristen and Hayden, revealing their love fest, and then proceeds to inform every one of the houseguests how the two, especially Kristen, have privately belittled all of them. (Some of this is true, most of it reeks of full-tilt delusional madness.) And he goes on and on. And on. Everybody is stunned. Kristen, furious, tries to get a word in, but Julie cuts her off (“You don’t have the floor”) and then she cuts Andrew off. (Commercials are coming up, people, don’t jack with that.) It is one of the most vindictive Eviction Ceremonies we’ve seen. I’m slack-jawed. (Granted, this often happens.)

Time to vote.

Kristen (fuming), Rachel (laughing), and Britney (totally flummoxed) vote to evict Andrew.

Back to Julie. She informs us that we’re heading into the sacred commercials, but my eyes are glued to the monitor over her shoulder where we can see Andrew and Kristen still yelling at each other in the couch room. To be a fly on the wall…

Commercials. Did you know that you can rent-to-own a waterbed?

Julie again, grinning from ear to ear. Twisted houseguest reactions always result in stellar ratings. Yay team! We see the rest of the house vote, and it’s unanimous. (Ragan, the last to enter the Diary Room: “I vote to institutionalize and evict Andrew.”)

He gone.

So then we have the exit interview between Andrew and Julie, and it’s really kind of pointless. He’s obviously lost his mind and can’t really justify his behavior. The only thing of any worth is gleaned from the “goodbye” videos from the houseguests, where Rachel, because she’s SO grounded in reality, accuses Andrew of trying to come between her and Brendon. And men liking other is men is so WRONG. (“Eeeewwww!”)

Really? You are dead to me now, Rachel. Word.

Time for the live HOH competition.

Two people at a time try to buzz first and answer questions about past competitions. Winner stays alive and picks the next two houseguests. Loser is out of the game. Rinse and repeat. It actually gets very intense, and people keep picking Rachel to try to get her out. Surprisingly, she does very well, and she eventually wins HOH. And immediately bursts into teats. I mean tears.

Cut to Julie. Next week we’ll be opening Pandora’s Box. (I didn’t know she had closed it.) We could possibly see a new saboteur introduced, with America picking who will get the offer to go two weeks as The Saboteur and win $20,000 if they make it. Vote now! Okay, “let’s eavesdrop on the houseguests”.

Back to the courtyard, where Rachel and Kristen are screaming and threatening each other.

Roll end credits.

What the hell?

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