Big Brother 4, July 8: Can You Say “Twist”?

Jee (an ex from Elmhurst [Queens], New York) promises he’s an international player! Oh, whatever, Telly Savalas. Meanwhile, his Queens neighbor Dana, dressed in a karate suit, breaks a board in half and tells us she’ll BREAK THE COMPETITION! Get it? Get it? With that, mercifully, the intros are over.

But not the packing! As we get plenty of shots of their OFFICIAL BIG BROTHER 4 DUFFEL BAGS, we get a quick montage of what basically amounts to Packing Tips For Dummies. Dana’s not looking to fall in love! Erika’s bringing her teeny bikini! Nathan tells us when there’s women around, you gotta look good! Robert tells us they made a mistake by allowing him in the house! Amanda doesn’t want to get sunburn! Jun feels like she’s going to jail! David says he’ll be spending a few months with a bunch of sniveling weasels! Hey, if I can never get that portion of my life back, neither can you.

Now that they’re all packed, we have the Mainly Teary Goodbyes To Family And Friends Montage! Alison hugs her boyfriend and cries! Erika sobs as she leaves her dog! Justin almost forgets his key! Jack… eh, you get the idea. “Let’s get going! I want my money already! WOOOOOOOOOO!!!” shrieks Erin as she rides backward in a convertible. Unfortunately, no low-hanging trees smack her.

Julie informs us that the first eight HouseGuests are entering the front yard RIGHT NOW! Sure enough, they all amble in, OFFICIAL BIG BROTHER 4 DUFFEL BAGS in hand, but she points out that they’re not allowed to talk to each other until they’re inside the house. Oh great, MORE yakking about the SECRET X FACTOR TWIST! Not even ten minutes in and that’s already become this show’s equivalent of THE SHED on Passions. Once she’s successfully pulverized the last remaining ion of this particular horse’s carcass, Julie dramatically intones, “It could change lives forever!” Oh, WHATEVER, Madame Curie. “But first, let’s get this party started!” she “enthusiastically” reads off the teleprompter. Oh, Julie is so not Pink. Eggshell, perhaps. Mother-of-Pearl, maybe. But not Pink.

Julie greets the HouseGuests and introduces herself. “Take a good look at the men and women around you,” she tells them importantly. David is making exactly the same exaggerated “Ooh! Aah!” faces I most likely would under the circumstances. I know I was fairly rough on him in my preview article, but I’m really starting to like him. Julie informs them that among this group could be their new best friend! Or their worst enemy! Or just some acquaintances they halfheartedly tolerate, but Julie’s just all about the extremes tonight, isn’t she? After some more yakking about summer long power struggles and eviction and winning, she finally tells them that they’ll be entering the house in groups of three (plus one group of two, obviously) and will have one minute to select their beds. There are three bedrooms and they each have to choose a bed in a different room. One room is brown with twin beds and is apart from the others. The other two rooms border each other; one’s blue with twin beds, and one’s orange with two king-size beds. Julie dramatically announces the first group: Scott, David, and Nathan.

They head in, and Scott refers to the place as a “funky house” and a “cool crib.” What - no “phat pad”? Nathan remarks on the Austin Powers-ness of it all. Scott takes the blue room, Nathan takes the orange room, and David starts to walk out the front door as he searches for the third room. “You can see how good my short-term memory is,” he grins. He winds up in the brown room, which he calls the “Desert Room” - and sure enough, there are photo murals of palm trees and sand all over the walls, along with a tiny little plaque reading “Another Kia Trading Spaces Original!” He says it’s fine and more comfortable than a lot of places he’s slept (with his being in the army, I have no doubt). He sees the turtles and cries out, “Dude, I got the fricking lizards!” Because lizards generally have big shells and all. I’m sensing David is sometimes not the brightest bulb in the box. As Nathan says he doesn’t want to have to share a bed, Scott tells us that’s precisely why he avoided the orange room.

The next group, Jun, Erika, and Alison, enter as Julie nags them about the “different rooms” rule. Erika joins David in the Desert Room. David tells us she’s definitely an attractive woman. Alison opts for the blue room, where Scott tells her it’s a “fresh house.” Oh, that Scott - ever the hepcat with his up-to-the-minute nineties slang. Jun, the straggler, winds up in the orange room with Nathan. She tells us her first gut instinct was to share a bed with him because he’s cute (presumably because she’s not sure of who else may come along). Nathan then laughs to us that she wanted to shack up and he told her that he’d rather wait and see who else comes along. Oh, I’m sure that sent Jun’s self-esteem soaring through the clouds. Sure enough, she then spits to us that she didn’t want to share a bed with a “boy” anyway, so neener, neener!

Finally, Dana and Jack enter. Dana snags a bed in the blue room; Jack pokes his head in the orange room, decides to pass, and heads for the Desert Room. “I didn’t want to share a bed with an old man anyway!” snits Jun. OK, so maybe not. In any event, Jack says he’s glad he went last because he could see everything available and wound up in a cool room with cool people. Jack calls the beds in the room “burlap beds,” and indeed the mattress and bedcovers seem to be pretty Spartan compared to the blue room; Jack, like David, is fine with it, though, and Erika seems to be pretty affable about it as well. Alison introduces herself to everyone in the blue and orange rooms (to get to the orange room, you have to go through the blue room); she’s incredulous when Nathan says he’s from Oklahoma, causing Nathan to laugh, “Why does everybody get hate on Oklahoma?” Alison tells us she likes Nathan and thinks he’s cool!

The group converge on the bathroom, which has a huge sunken tub. Upon seeing an enormous rubber duck on the tub shelf, Scott notes that Marcellas’s one from last year apparently stayed and grew a lot bigger! (Although he mispronounces it “Mar-SAL-las,” just like Roddy tended to do last year.) The girls test out the built-in swivel stools next to the tub. “Are we supposed to sit here and have conversations?” laughs Alison. Dana thinks this is going to be fun and Jun agrees. Dana confesses to us that she was worried that no one would be cool and everyone would be crazy.

Scott, who is apparently the house tour leader, forays into the living room, finds a bottle of champagne, and notes that there are more glasses than people, so there must be more arrivals. Jack agrees as he and some of the others note the empty photo frames in the hallway. “What the hell’s going on here?” he asks us. There have got to be more people coming in - but who?” Amazingly, Julie lets this opportunity to blather on about the SECRETSUPERDUPERCOLLOSSAL X FACTOR TWIST! go by.