Big Brother 3, August 1: The Decoy Actually Stays

As we begin tonight's episode, it looks like the producers have decided to attach a name to the Eric/Lisa/Roddy/Chiara croud, as hostess Julie Chen calls it the "couples alliance." Shouldn't they let people in the house decide what is or is not an alliance? Anyway, we start again with Marcellas going on about how the decoys are the ones who go. It's nice that he sees it now - too bad he didn't see it before he caused one of those decoys to leave.

But Marcellas is afraid that Amy will somehow get the votes - perhaps because she keeps complaining about not wanting to be voted out unanimously. If she tells this person and then that person that they should vote for her so it's not unanimous, suddenly she has a majority. Yeah, like that'll happen.

Still, Marcellas thinks Josh will vote to keep Amy, and Josh does indeed go to Roddy to present that possibility. He's shot down. Be a good boy, Josh, and go fetch the paper, will you? Chiara says there will be repercussions if Josh chooses to vote to keep Amy. Oooh. This is from the woman who voted against Josh last time, mind you, in apparent contradiction to what "the alliance" (whoever that might be these days) wanted. Still, Josh makes a comment to some of the others about how they have to break up the couples.

In the same vein of not wanting a unanimous vote, Amy is outside whining that Marcellas has hurt her feelings because he doesn't want her trying to get votes. She claims Marcellas does not want her to have a single vote. Marcellas goes to tattle on Amy to Danielle and Chiara, and Danielle brings Amy inside to nip this in the bud. Amy denies saying what she just said, and Marcellas confronts her. He gets rather pissed off at her and she tears up. "I wouldn't campaign against you," she says. "You did," retorts Marcellas. Ouch.

This leads into Chen addressing the houseguests and asking Amy and Marcellas if they've mended fences. Yes, Marcellas says. It was a momentary glitch. Must have been some other show. Amy says it was obviously the editing because they didn't actually have a fight. What kidders. But Chen shows that she has virtually no sense of humor by saying something stupid like, "they were unedited." You're so funny, Julie.

Comedy Woman moves on to Josh, asking what it's been like to still be around after thinking he was going to be leaving. He screams with delight and then says, "You don't mess with the Jew!" In another wickedly funny retort, Chen says she's not going to touch that one. Wow. What an ad-libber.

Moving on to Eric, she asks how difficult it was to decide not to use veto. Eric starts on a joke about how "Vito" was not pulling his weight and had to go. Funny Girl is not amused. She tries to get him to answer the question. Josh goofs off some more and Chen actually says something almost close to being funny. A writer must have been speaking into her earphone as she tells Josh, "Settle down, Beavis." Obviously, she has a career in stand-up.

Anyway, Eric says it was a strategic move. Chen retorts with, "That's not what you said in your sleep." Ah, a scripted reference. She then asks Lisa about the most interesting thing Eric has said in his sleep. Lisa says it was the previous night when he serenaded her with reggae and didn't remember it at all the next morning.

Next up is Gerry. Chen asks him what his students should learn from his experience in the house. He quotes the infamous, "Can't we all just get along?"

Dropping the live discussion, we move to the first couple of people who voted. Normally I hold this 'til the end of the article because otherwise it gets intrusive with the different people coming up at different times. But this time the results were made plainly obvious, so I figured now was the time to mention it. Instead of Chen saying we will see their votes, she says we will see what their thoughts were as they prepared to vote. Hmmm. Chiara is first, saying that Marcellas should stay because he's kind and has played fair. Amy should go because she is not a team player and came in thinking that she has certain qualities which could help her, but instead they have hurt her. Eric says everybody has their flaws and Amy knows hers. Marcellas is mysterious about how he feels, so that makes him a wildcard.

OK, no vote. At this point, I immediately knew the vote was unanimous against Amy. Why? Because if there was even a single person who voted against Marcellas, they would have shown that person in this timeslot so there would be a hint that maybe - just maybe - Amy might sneak by. But they didn't even have that.