Big Brother 4, August 1: An Eye for an Eye, a Pot for a Kettle

Previously, the HouseGuests need to shut up for voting off my favorite HouseGuest, Dave. Now who’s going to electrocute stuffed elephants and otherwise keep me entertained? Sniff. OK, so Stock Booming Melodramatic Announcer #38 doesn’t exactly say that, but I know it’s what he meant. Cripes, Dave’s even out of the credits already, the buzzards! Speaking of which, oh, look! There’s Dana’s credit! It’s really odd that even though it completely wasn’t intended this way, the first four people to leave the Big Brother house were two couples - Scott & Amanda and Michelle & David - who left in that exact order, one couple at a time.

Jack tells us that for a split second when Julie “Groucho” Chen mentioned his name first when she announced Dave’s eviction, he thought he was the one going. “Julie chopped my chicken in half!” he exclaims. That’s odd; Julie never struck me as the violent type. He really should report her to the ASPCA if that’s the case, although what that has to do with Dave’s eviction is anyone’s guess. Jack goes on to say it was a bad feeling losing such a loyal, steadfast guy; Erika concurs it was sad for everyone. Dana tells us she didn’t want David to leave, but she had no choice.

Gee, Dana, I must have missed the gun to your head at the veto ceremony! Oh, what’s that? There wasn’t one? Well, then SHUT THE HELL UP, BUZZARD’S CROTCH - YOU NOMINATED HIM OF YOUR OWN FREE WILL AND NOW HE’S GONE!!! HE’S GONE AND HE’S NEVER COMING BACK AND IF IT WEREN’T FOR YOU DOING THAT, HE’D STILL BE THERE!!! HE’D STILL BE THERE, YOU HEAR?!?

Er… not that I’m bitter or anything.

Robert gloats to us about how great it is that Dave is out this early. Shut up, Robert. Alison wails to us that she voted for Dave to stay and wanted him to stay. Erika admits to us that in some ways it was actually better that Dave went instead of Jack because Dave was a target, which made it hard to have him as an alliance partner. As much as I think she and I both hate to admit it, she has a point. Justin says that it hurt having him leave the house, but from their perspective it was the only strategic move they could have made because he wasn’t on their side and was funny, athletic, and smart, which made him a huge threat. From his perspective, he has a point too. There - see? I haven’t completely lost my objectivity.

Dana rants to us that she can’t believe how this all worked out - she nominates Alison, Alison wins the luxury competition, Alison takes Nathan, Nathan wins the Veto, and Nathan vetoes Alison! “It’s like, ugh!” she grimaces. Well, now she knows most of our reactions to her. She tells us that she was trying to keep her hopes up as she was watching the Head of Household competition, but there were two people she did not want to win - Nathan and Alison - and Alison won! In flashbacks, we see Dana at the Head of Household competition unveiling her new improv character, Lemonpuss. “What the hell went wrong? What happened?” she asks us. Well, you filled out the application to be on the show, and - oh, you mean why is Alison is still around? Simple. If you wanted Nathan and Alison gone, that’s who you needed to nominate - NATHAN and Alison. Instead, you put her up against Jack, leaving her ally Nathan free to win Veto to save her, which he did, and it wound up being the latest in a long line of “but I meant…” nominations. If you meant that, you needed to have DONE that. “Nathan and Alison are a two-headed monster!” rants Pot - er, Dana, then continues, “actually, probably, together, they’re a head and a half!” Um… sure.

“How ironic!” crows Alison Morissette to us. “Dana put me on the block last week for personal reasons? The tides have changed - and they’re in my favor. Seeing as how Dana decided to argue with me on national television (we see a brief snippet from Wednesday’s episode where Alison mentioned playing with honestly, Dana cracked, “Honesty! That goes on a lot around here, don’t ya think, Julie?” and Julie, finding nothing about “honesty” on the teleprompter, told them she was staying out of it), she should probably just walk out the door right now and save herself a week of hell! I’m going to be a BITCH!” Yup, unlike that emotional, grudge-harboring Dana, Alison is obviously playing completely logically. I’m starting to wonder if she’s part Vulcan. Robert opines to us that he’s sure the animosity has something to do with Dana growing close to Alison’s ex, Justin, and Alison being territorial about it. To illustrate what a complete prize Justin is and why he would be worthy of such a duel, this is accompanied by a shot of him being completely engrossed by something on his sock.

Alison parades through the kitchen twirling her key and announces that she’s about to unveil the Head of Household Room. Nice to see that she’s remaining humble and hasn’t gotten drunk with power or anything. She enters the room with the usual Pied Piper-like procession of gawkers and gets misty-eyed when she finds a shirt with her boyfriend’s football number on it and a picture of the two of them together. She may as well give it a rest; I’m sure he’s dumped her by now. She also gets her “Meow Meow” stuffed cat from home, which is blue to match her elephant. I guess color coordination of stuffed animals is one of the things they teach you in beauty pageants. She got Ashanti for her CD request, in case you’re like me and are curious about that sort of thing. Jack tells us the mood was as somber as he’s ever seen it for the unveiling of the Head of Household Room, which makes it sound like a SoHo gallery. He notes that people filed out fairly quickly. Sure enough, we see Justin and Dana slip out of the room quite somberly and sit and pout in the living room, followed shortly by Robert. They grouse about Jee taking his sweet time in there and order Jun to tell her “f**king Korean ex-boyfriend to get the f**k out here.” OK - between this and Erika’s seemingly racial outburst a couple of weeks ago, I’m starting to wonder if Jee doesn’t make self-deprecating cracks about his heritage and the others just ape that. “He’s assuring his safety; we all are,” Jun deadpans. “Oh yeah? What do you think I have to do?” cracks Dana. Nah, too easy. Jun tells us that Alison being Head of Household means that Nathan is the actual Head of Household and she’s just a figurehead, but I’m thinking Alison’s too independent and impetuous to take her marching orders from him. Jee finally comes out and joins the others to catcalls of “Sellout punk bitch!”