Big Brother 4, September 2: Burning the Candle at Three Ends

So finally, the HoH room is opened up and the women are there first and the guys slowly drag their butts to the room after it’s been opened. Jun gets all teary eyed because her current ex, Bob, has sent along her Pirate Booty (I love the stuff too… the spinach/kale stuff is fabulous!) and some Mrs. Fields’ cookies, but he also included the Beanie Baby penguin that they got for each other on their first date to the zoo. It’s one of those thoughtful gestures that men do that make you wonder why they broke up in the first place. The women are all gushing over how cute Bob is and they finally tell Jun how thrilled they are for everything she has gotten and leave with Jee still in the room. He finally breaks down (and not in the crying way) and lets Jun in on all of things that went down while she was gone – namely how pissed Erika and Alison were that she got to leave the house and attend the VMAs. Jun is shocked by all of this and she knows she should trust Jee but apparently not since she spills it to the women who all deny doing it. However, we all saw them both admit to being upset and jealous so the “Liar, Liar Pants on Fire Award” that the lovely Andrea Shuman normally gives out to her Meet My Folks participants gets transferred over to Big Brother 4 and is awarded to Alison and Erika for boldly lying even when Jun herself admitted she could see in their eyes that they were upset she got to leave the house.

Filler time part 2. Jee’s birthday. He got a pie from the Big Brother powers that be which was jokingly called boysenberry but Jun said they misunderstood when she asked for poisoned berry. He does get big hugs from Rob and Jun with pretty pathetic hugs from Alison and Erika. I do mean pathetic as if they felt guilty for not running up to hug him immediately.

Leaving filler time for a moment, Alison is now plotting getting herself to the finals with Robert now since she feels that she has the best chance of winning it all if she is sitting next to Robert in the finals. So now she has, in her own mind of course, Robert, Erika, and Jun all taking her to the finals. Of course she’s not talking to Jee about this since it’s pretty certain that he’s toast this week. Okay so if a candle had three ends then Alison is just a-burnin’ them all. I hope she likes hot wax treatments. Wait, we already found out that she does – when she had Justin putting wax on her breasts in the hot tub a while back.

So we head into more filler time as everyone wonders what is going on inside the other house, which means that we have either an update for us about the Loser Lounge or something else altogether. Well it is the latter as the remaining five get to take turns posing as their recently departed HouseGuests in a movie about what could possibly be going on in the house. Jee gets to be Justin, Alison is Jack, Erika is Dana, and Robert, looking a bit like a young Vicki Lawrence with the wig on, is Nathan. (Though there is some switching of parts along the way.) After taping, they will be shown the movie while dining on standard movie theatre fare of popcorn and candy. Actually everyone does a great job finding the attributes that they miss most about their former compatriots. From Dana’s walk to Justin’s back scratching to Nathan’s accent, they nail everything perfectly. I must admit that even I have a good laugh at all of them but of course, we all know they are going to show this tape at some point to the jury. It’s a given.

Enough filler and back to the talk… now remember what I said before about Robert being glad that he and Erika were in the house so they could put things behind them. Well sure enough Erika is in the bedroom with Alison and she’s making Alison promise not to vote for Robert should he make the finals. Alison, who wants to go to the finals with just about anyone, agrees and they both admit to how much they hate Robert. Yep. They used the “H” word here people. Erika buried the hatchet with her ex but she still hates him. Even though earlier in the episode he said that if he didn’t win he wanted her to take the money. And she hates him.

Of course, Alison realizes that Erika has just placed her in the jury and not in the finals so as she’s doing ab work inside with Jun (using poor form as well, my friend Austin, a personal trainer, says) she tells Jun that Erika now has to go. First it was Jee. Then it was Jun. Then it was Jee again. Now it’s Erika. Who will it be tomorrow? Herself?

So finally Jee makes one last ditch effort to save himself from nomination knowing that even if he gets saved he’s most likely going back up since Alison has veto power. He promises not to put Jun up next week if he wins HoH but even if he stays he will still be the main target, sparing Jun another week. Robert, he does admit, can’t stand Jun but Jee also gets Jun to admit that she would want Alison to be the first one out of the house. They’ve had that somewhat secret alliance for so long but will it last past this week?

Not at all. At nomination time, Jun puts up Alison and Jee for nomination (much to the shock of Robert). Now what editing didn’t show us was that Alison knew she was being nominated so she could take herself off and put Robert in her place. Jun says that she nominated both of them since they are the strongest players in the house. It was a strategic move on her part. In the Diary Room, though, she admits that her alliance with Jee is over and she’s severing her ties effective immediately.

Will Alison pull a Marcellas and not save herself from eviction? If so, will she also head to the Hall of Shame for her stupidity? Is Jee really heading to the Loser Lounge? We’ll find out tonight!

Want to keep up with important events in the house? Check out our Big Brother 4 Spoiler Page for news on who wins contests and other ongoing info.

C. Brian Devinney hails from New York City and has appeared on The Sally Jesse Raphael Show and MTV's Big Urban Myth discussing reality TV. You can read his other work on his website, Tales from the City, and can contact him at TheRealityFactor@aol.com.

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