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?

Searching For Signal: #144 - “Big Brother” - Season 12, Episode 9

We have the typical review of the last episode (nothing new) and then a round of Diary Room appearances:

Rachel: Totally thrilled about she and Brendon not getting nominated. Oh wait, there’s that backdoor thing, isn’t there? Hmmm. Her enthusiasm dwindles and her hair goes flat.

Andrew: Whines about being a pawn. Still does not achieve any level of charisma or awareness about the fact that people don’t necessarily care for him.

Hayden: “Matty nominated two floaters! What the hell?” Then one of the production assistants politely asks him to shove the hair out of his eyes and actually face the camera.

Kathy: “Matty’s nominations don’t make sense!” Neither do your creepy spider eyelashes. I think that makes it a draw.

Matt: I’m playing to win! Crickets chirp.

Scene with Andrew in the swamp room, wandering around aimlessly and talking to himself. He says the word “stupid” at least 30 times. Did somebody turn on “Rain Man” while I went to the bathroom?

Rachel and Brendon in one of the bedrooms, smooching away, celebrating their temporary safety, and figuring out who is going to be on top this time. Andrew, because he has some twisted radar going on, bursts through the door and interrupts them.

Kathy goes to Matt. “Can we chat?” They wander up to the HOH Room. Kathy: “I’m not gunning for you at all.” (Um, what about that vote to send him home?) Matt: “Then win Power of Veto. I don’t care.” Kathy: Seriously, I’m not gunning for you. Then she blinks, and the amount of mascara flakes dropping downward causes foundation issues for the house.

Matt in the Diary Room: “I don’t believe her at all.”

Hayden finds Andrew in one of the rooms, with Kristen trailing along because she can’t let her boyfriend out of her sight even though they are supposedly on the down-low. Both of them to Andrew: “We had no idea” that Matt was going to nominate you. “We are shocked!” Andrew pouts and mutters words of suffering. Hayden: “If I win POV, I will pull you off.”

Hayden in the Diary Room: “I want to backdoor Brendon.” Production assistant: Hayden, seriously dude, look at the camera. Do you even know what that is?

Weird sequence of scenes where Andrew completely loses it because Rachel put peaches in the iced tea, meaning that the “Have-nots” can’t drink it. (Okay, I don’t really know the rules here with the Slop People, nor do I see the appeal of peaches in my iced tea, but can’t Andrew just brew another batch and put a “No Fruit!” warning label on it?) Andrew goes off into the swamp room and starts making loud, primal noises. Kathy, probably because she recognizes the guttural noises from her childhood in Texarkana when the Bogey Creek monster was running amok, runs to the swamp room to check on him. He whines, she comforts, I worry about their mutual sanity.

Andrew in the Diary Room: He’s all for an alliance with Brendon, but he’s very much against the tag-along Rachel with her annoying laugh, fondness for Clairol and peaches, and whip-lash hair that can cut you to ribbons.

The Brigade is sitting on the patio, once again being very obvious about their secret alliance. The three non-Mensa members are quizzing Matty. Are you going to backdoor Rachel or Brendon or what? Matty has this mystifying thing to say: “It’s obvious what’s going on.” No, it’s not. If you want both of them gone, you should have put one up on the block initially and then backdoor the other, if needed. Do I need to call Mensa and have them review your file?

Matt in the Diary Room: “Now the plan is to backdoor Rachel or Brendon.” Then he congratulates himself once again, for being smarter than anybody, ever.

Scenes of Andrew vacuuming every square inch of the house, followed by scenes of the houseguests making fun of Andrew wanting to be neat and tidy. (Enzo: “He’s cleaning stuff that’s already clean!”) Yes, Andrew seems overly obsessed. On the flip side, based on the piles of debris and nastiness stacked about the house, the rest of the people in here are total pigs.

Time to pick players for the Veto Competition. Matt draws Brendon, Kathy draws Lane, and Andrew draws Rachel. I bust out laughing as the Brigade members squirm and cry over the strong possibility that Brendon or Rachel could win and keep the nominations the same, thus saving their butts.

Scene with Matt in the Diary Room, whining about this development.

Scene with Matt and Lane in the HOH Room, whining about this development. Lane, blue about the roadblocks the Brigade has faced: “We can’t get jack crap done.” (There’s a Texas phrase for you.”) Lane: “Gimme some pop rocks.” Then we get to hear him crunching on this candy for an amazingly long period of time. And that right there, folks, explains a lot.

Quick scene with Matt and Andrew in the pantry, with Andrew really worried about how things are shaping up. Luckily, Matt does not fondle any random fruit in a suggestive manner.

HOH Room with the Brigade members. (What the hell is that thing on Enzo’s head?) They are all bummed that the POV competition might be something scientific, since Rachel and Brendon are both scientists, or at least that’s what they’ve told us. The pity party is interrupted when Enzo spies Andrew on the HOH monitors that survey the house. “Hey, it’s Kosher Cable!” Lane: “I didn’t know the Jews wore Ninja outfits when they pray.”

We’re such a tolerant society, right?

Then we have a montage of Lane talking about guns. As he explains in various scenes, Texans need guns on hand at any moment. “We might be bored that day and wanna go shoot a turtle.” Oh, and he talks about Texans getting drunk, piling in a truck, turning on the hi-beams, and then driving through random fields, shooting anything that looks at them. It’s a shining moment for the Lone Star State. Not.

Time for the Veto Competition.

Enzo waltzes out in a genie outfit with billowing pantaloons. (“Enzo Hammer!” screams an exuberant, and probably drunk, houseguest.) They pile out to the courtyard, where there are various items placed about in an odd county-fair type of theme. (Lane: “It looked like a smarter version of a redneck carnival in Texas.” Lane, are you trying to destroy the reputation of your state in a single episode?)

As the six contestants circle about the yard, trying to determine what’s important and what’s not, Britney hollers at Matt: “Count the candles!”, referring to one of the displays. Okay, wait. If you’re not playing the game, you’re supposed to keep your mouth shut, and just sit there, hoping the camera catches you at an appealing angle and you can get a modeling contract. Why isn’t Julie Chenbot or one of the producers rushing out and putting a muzzle on Britney? Even if she’s NOT doing anything.

Anyway, Enzo is going to ask questions about the various displays. The answer is always going to be an amount, and you can decide to stay or fold once everyone has bid. If you stay, and your bid is the most shockingly wrong, you are eliminated. In the first round, Matt wins but Lane goes down. In the second, Andrew wins but Matt goes down.

Brendon in the Diary Room: So what you have at this point is “the two people who don’t wanna go home against the two people who don’t wanna go home.” True dat.

The third round goes to Brendon, with Kathy booted. (She never had a chance, poor thing can’t count even though you know she has ticket quotas being a police officer and all.) The fourth round goes to Andrew by default, with no booting. The fifth round goes to Brendon by default. Andrew and Brendon have two points each, and you need three to win.

And we cut to commercial. Really not caring for this bogus extending of the drama. Don’t jack with the pacing, people. If I wasn’t blogging this damn thing, I don’t know that I would come back after the shilling for feminine hygiene products. Are you listening, CBS? Probably not.

Boring commercial run, with two of the adverts being for “Big Brother”, and both of them including shots of Kathy slipping off the big wiener. I think we can put that to rest now.

We come back, and Brendon takes the next round, giving him POV. In the Diary Room, he expounds that “Brenchel” is taking over. Okay, here’s the deal. I was totally in your corner until you came up with that stupid team name. Now, not so much.

Then we have Brendon and Rachel in yet another abandoned room, with Rachel doing her trademark “jump and straddle” maneuver on Brendon. Again. I’m trying to pull for you two, but you’ve got to stop with this aerobic sex thing. Not really grooving on it.

Brendon to Rachel, as they frolic and flip: “We have to make sure that Andrew stays.”

Cut to Andrew in the swamp room, banging on something and muttering to himself. Really, you want to save THIS?

The Brigade in the HOH Room. (Side note: Why is the rest of the house not noticing that these same four guys keep piling into said HOH Room every five minutes? And that they all sit side-by-side on the couches when meetings and such are taking place? You people have tremendous amounts of downtime every day. Pay attention.)

Anyway, the Brigade members are fussing about the sorry state of affairs, since it’s fairly clear that they can’t get Rachel and Brendon out this week. During the whole discussion, Matty has one hand shoved into his shorts, massaging his ego. Enzo is wearing some dumb-ass turquoise feather boa jacket thing. It’s time for this group to implode.

Brendon and Andrew in the swamp room, with the night-vision cameras going on. Andrew is all pumped, wanting “to do something to shake up the house.” But don’t let Rachel know. And tomorrow, stay away from me.

Sigh. It’s Andrew. This could go anywhere.

Time for the Veto Ceremony, and the “Save Me” speeches.

Kathy: Brendon, I’m not even going to ask you to use the Veto on me. That would mean risking Rachel. (Wow, somebody telling the truth for once. I’m sure the producers wet themselves.)

Andrew: He goes off on some weird-ass tangent about Rachel and Brendon, and Matty, being in a twisted game of power plays, and that threats somehow get you further in the game. Then he starts bellowinn. “Brendon and Rachel, I’m coming after you!”, followed by “Brendon, give me the Power of Veto!” This mixed message is totally off the wall.

THIS is shaking up the house? Good God.

Brendon, of course, does not use the Power.

And then we end with another round of Diary Room blathering.

Andrew: The house will like me better for appearing to be against Rachel and Brendon. (No, they will think you are off your meds.)

Kathy: This just might save me. (And you just might be right.)

Britney: WHAT was that? (For once, I’m back in your corner.)

Rachel: He’s such a hater! (Oh grow up.)

Brendon: It was risky, but I think we pulled it off. (I don’t know about that. Your special boy is kinda crazy.)

Matt: No one’s gonna believe Andrew. (He congratulates himself for his ability to breathe, then he strokes his ego.)

Roll end credits.