Big Brother 4, July 16: Wham, Bam, Goodbye Ma’am

Hey, remember what happened last night? Well then, that takes care of the first five minutes of the show. (If you don’t remember, check out Brian James’ recap.) At least one thing was finally made clear – the announcer talked about “Scott’s expulsion.” Previously, we were pretty sure that he had been forced to leave, but there was still a small possibility that he had left on his own. Now there is no doubt. Well, glad to have that settled, aren’t you?

Tonight is Julie Chen night. And she tells us there has been no shortage of drama. After all, this is Big Brother 4: The X-Factor. Oh, please. She mentions again that Scott was expelled (as if this is a great accomplishment for those behind the X-Factor concept – because there’s nothing we like to see more than a man have a complete breakdown on national television). And tonight Amanda faces possible eviction, as does Jee. Can’t you just feel the drama and the tension?

Rather than interrupt the flow of the show, as Big Brother does, I’m going to move all the commentary by voters to just before the loser is announced, below. So don’t be looking for it scattered in among the other storylines, the way the producers do it.

Before we get to that, Julie tells us that Scott’s departure continued to be felt in the house, and Dana, the karate school manager, found herself in position to shake things up with power of Veto. (Let me get this off my chest now, since Wednesday is my day to recap: If Dana is a karate school manager, why the hell was she acting so scared of Scott, like he was gonna blow and kill them all? Couldn’t she have taken him down with her bare hands? I mean really. It just was all so much acting on her part.)

Anyway, Dana loves being in the position of power with the Golden Veto around her neck. (Don’t you think Marcellas is going nuts hearing the words “Golden Veto” every week this summer? It’s as if it came back to haunt him. Golden Veto… Golden Veto… You can use it to save yourself if you’re up for nomination… Golden Veto…. Heh.) But Jack says there is a perception in the alliance of eight (er, seven) that she is playing both sides and is too friendly with the exes. Jack suggests that they test her bona fides (or, as he says is, “bona feedies”). He says that Nathan should say he’ll put up Justin if Dana vetoes anybody.

Just then, Dana walks in on Nathan, Jack, and Jun discussing this strategy. Whoops! So they try to test her bona feedies and ask her if it would be okay to put up Justin or Rob if she vetoes somebody. She says whatever the alliance wants is fine. Jack thinks that answer helped her pass the test, but Nathan says the best thing to do is just to leave the nominations as they are.

So, quicker than you can say “Golden Veto,” she has a meeting and says she is going to start a precedent and respect the Head of Household’s nominations. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am, the meeting is over.

But privately she also admits that she is playing both sides, and if Justin wins HOH, he’ll nominate Nathan if she tells him to. Hmmmm.

Meanwhile, in the more personal rather than strategic arena, Erika decides to try to clear the air with Rob because it’s been so awkward. But he only makes it more awkward with his responses. He says they were never friends before so he doesn’t want to fake it now. She cries, but he just isn’t budging.

Moving on to other personal areas, we get to the stuff that the editors had to hurriedly add today because it just happened early this morning. First, a little background as we see Dave and Amanda talking. Dave says he has been attracted to her since he first saw her, but Scott (her ex) was around. With him gone, she’s up for grabs, and they have good chemistry. Amanda says Dave is her favorite person in the house.

Probably because this had to be squeezed into the storyline, we don’t see much of what led up to it, but suddenly Nathan is handing them the key to the HOH room for the night. They go into it and we switch to the night vision cameras. They are in bed, kissing, making out, getting serious, their hands start to rove, the covers are moving in very suggestive manners, and then we cut to the front of the HOH door in a way to indicate to us exactly what was going on in there.

When we come back to the room, Amanda says it was nice and Dave says it was great. He adds that his grandma’s gonna love this. In the Diary Room, Dave says he’s a grown man and grown men do grown-up things. Thanks for the explanation, Dave.

You know, after all the trouble the producers have gone to in the past couple years to get sexy, young, available people into the house, you’d think they would have focused more on the first time anybody had sex in a U.S. Big Brother house. I guess they just couldn’t squeeze it in on such short notice – or they expect more in coming weeks.

Moving on to the live portion of the show, Julie says hi to group. She briefly mentions Scott leaving and then asks Amanda how things have changed since his departure. She laughs, Dave laughs, etc. She says it’s been a little more comfortable for her, since they were not on very good terms at times. She got to get to know people a little better. Yeah, I bet…