Big Brother 4, August 8: Hubris ‘R’ Us

Next up - Erika tells us that there may be no music in the Big Brother house, but that won’t stop them from dancing! Oh, good grief - what is this, Footloose? Alison teaches prim ballerina Erika how to hip-hop dance in the backyard. She scoffs to us about Erika’s attempts to get down with her bad self, but I would point out to her that she’s not exactly funky fresh on the G tip herself, there. Erika tells us that Alison is an incredible dancer, and I don’t notice any obvious signs of brainwashing. Justin regards their efforts with his arms folded and tells us that their dainty hopping and skipping drives him nuts, but when we see his attempts at dancing, which would send Elaine from Seinfeld running screaming from the room, it’s clear he has no room to talk about anybody. “I don’t think I’m that bad!” he protests to us. That’s right, Justin - keep telling yourself that. Robert tells us the only decent dancers in the house are himself, Erika, and Alison - everyone else should just forget it. To illustrate the point, Nathan does this wiggling move with his butt where it’s anyone’s guess if he’s trying to dance, lay an egg, or relieve his constipation. “That’s how we do it!” he exclaims. Alison points out to us that it might be better if he refrained from doing it if that’s the case. Erika tells us that Robert’s actually quite a good salsa dancer and that was how they met - at a salsa club. They dance for the group and while it’s hard to tell without music, they really don’t seem half bad.

The focus remains on Robert as we… oh, good grief. Apparently Addiction Roundup is becoming a new weekly feature on the show. Last week we had Jee’s efforts to quit smoking; this week, Robert tells us about his alcoholism. I mean, not to belittle either one individually as they’re certainly serious issues, but when you have them coming so close together like this, it starts to smack of sensationalism and emotional manipulation and veer dangerously close to Afterschool Special and Lifetime Movie of the Week territory. At this rate, who’s going to break down about their heroin addiction next week? Eh, maybe on some levels it’s effective. I mean, would you want to take after Robert or Jee in any way?

In any event, Erika and Robert sit by the pool and she asks him why he decided to stop drinking. He tells her it was getting worse and worse and he was finding himself drinking in the morning to the point where he couldn’t get up to take his daughter Elena to school. He tells us he’s an alcoholic and he was drunk every day and neglecting everything to the point where he lost his job and his car and was about six months away from becoming a bum on the street. Instead, now he’s a bum on national television. (I’m sorry; the set-up was just way too perfect.) He tells Erika this realization was horrifying and he knew he hit rock bottom and was hopelessly addicted when he didn’t eat for a week and needed two drinks just to stop his hands from shaking when he filled out a job application. He reminds Erika that toward the end of their relationship she used to tell him things like, “Oh, honey, a drink already?” She admits that she can see it in retrospect but it wasn’t full blown at the time. She notes to us that toward the end of their relationship Robert did start drinking more and becoming extremely depressed. Robert tells her that when they went shopping together he’d be craving a beer and that as soon as she went to work he’d get a six-pack and start chugging. He tells her it’s been a year and eight months since his last drink and tells us how important that is to him. He tells her he could notice the physical improvements right away when he stopped and she asks him rather pointedly if part of his 12-step program is making amends with people. He agrees and says he’s sorry for everything he put everyone through.

At this point they show a clip of his utterly adorable daughter as he tells us he was always too sick or hung over to do anything with her back then and starts crying and OK - UNCLE, editors! Enough with the emotional blackmail! I’m not made of stone here! He continues to cry as he tells us that for Father’s Day, she made him a card in which she listed all the reasons why she loves him and among them were things he didn’t or couldn’t do while he was drinking - getting her to school on time, taking her to the movies - and we see footage of the two of them hugging and I’m only reaching for the Kleenex because a speck of dust got in my eye. I swear. Shut up. Erika tells him she’s glad for him and he tells her he doesn’t let himself get too proud of himself and just focuses on taking it day by day. Erika tells us he hasn’t taken one drink in the house even though there’s alcohol all around, which she finds really commendable. We see a final shot of him drinking cranberry juice with a bottle of champagne right in front of him on the table. I’d just like to point out that as much as I think it’s great that he turned his life around and really seems to care about his daughter, it’s still possible for me to find him an ass overall. You can’t manipulate me that much, editors.

Jack and Erika admit that they feel bad for Nathan. Jack tells us the mood is actually fairly upbeat among everyone except Nathan, who feels like he has targets all over him and is forced to see alleged ally Alison courting the Three Stooges shamelessly; as of last night she’s been spending all her time with them. Erika notes that you can’t turn on your alliance because then nobody wants you. Not to mention any *cough* Dana *cough* names, but this would seem to be true. Jack and Erika talk about how getting Head of Household hasn’t been all that critical for them and hey, let the Stooges do the dirty work of getting rid of Nathan and Alison! Erika says they haven’t had to be in the position of pissing anyone off with the nominations, and with eight people left it’s still anyone’s game! I really like these two so I hate to break it to them, but once Nathan and Alison are gone, WHO ON EARTH DO THEY THINK IS GOING TO ALLY WITH THEM?!? That’s the one flaw I have with them: their thinking isn’t flexible enough to realize that the Original Eight is basically dead as a doornail and they need to start cutting some side deals with individuals rather than in essence drift along in a life raft and hope for the best. As if reading my mind, they congratulate themselves on being OK and say they need to stay out of the way all the way to the finals. Yeah. That’ll happen. It’s times like this when I wish I could jump through the TV screen and shake some sense into people.