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

Stock Booming Melodramatic Announcer #38 welcomes us in an overhyped manner to the fourth season of Big Brother. As we’re taken on a visual tour of this year’s house, which pretty much looks like Austin Powers meets IKEA meets Vern from Trading Spaces on a bad acid trip meets The Brady Bunch with turtles and human chess, he yammers on about the 13 “daring people” who will enter these hallowed halls. Funny, “daring” isn’t the particular adjective people on the message boards have been unpacking to describe them. He continues on in his overenthusiastic manner as if we couldn’t say the premise in our sleep by now: THREE MONTHS! Of TOTAL CONFINEMENT! With NO CONTACT! From the OUTSIDE WORLD! With ONLY EACH OTHER TO TURN TO! Just then, the Shower of Can We Get On With It Already turns on in an attempt to short out his microphone. No such luck. WEEKLY COMPETITIONS! For FOOD! LUXURY! And POWER! WEEKLY EVICTION VOTES! Only ONE WILL REMAIN! To win a HALF! MILLION! DOLLARS! We get it. We get it already. But THIS YEAR, he excitedly tells us, it’s DIFFERENT! There’s a TWIST! Oh, please. Like that’s original. What reality show in the past year hasn’t had a twist? One that takes the contestants on a fairy tale journey through making connections and sharing intimate moments as part of the process? I think I’ve just recapped every show on this site for the next five years. See you in 2008!

OK, fine, I’ll continue. Besides, I don’t want the Stock Booming Melodramatic Announcer Union putting a bounty on my head for not giving #38 his due. Eight of these people will enter first, he excitedly tells us, and then five of their exes will enter in a twist known as… THE X FACTOR!!! Duh Duh DUH!!! And, he concludes, it all starts NOW - with 13 empty champagne flutes, assorted cheeses and grapes on black plastic trays, and 2 piles of tacky green paper cocktail napkins that clash with the orange sectional chairs behind them!

Credits. Same “DUH duh duh duh DUH duh duh duh”-ing overinsistent violins, same “dee deedle dee deedle dee”-ing piano… Big Brother’s back, alright! I swear, between the TV shows and the live feeds (where it plays when they show the “front of the house” if there’s something the producers don’t want us to see) last summer, this song was burned into my memory for all eternity. I started imagining what the dance remix would sound like. I felt pathetic. Anyway, our 13 HouseGuests are all shown in various states of smiling and yukking it up, as if that’s any sort of accurate representation of what their emotional state will be like for most of this summer. On second viewing, it appears they’ve placed the five X Factor exes immediately after their respective Original 8 exes, but to have known that at the time I would have had to have been as clairvoyant as they expected the HouseGuests to be in the first Food Challenge. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Julie Chen’s back! Whee! I’ve kind of developed an ironic affection for her in the same way that I have for, say, ABBA videos: they’re both just so distinct and predictable and lovable in their unintentional kitschiness. They could get a better host on here, but it just wouldn’t be the same. Julie wishes us a good evening. Let’s see… frozen smile, reading directly off the teleprompter, dramatic walks and pivots at key moments in her script - yup, Julie’s still Julie. She regurgitates the same information about THE TWIST, then says, DRAMATIC PIVOT, that it’s time to meet the HouseGuests!

Thankfully, they keep the usual montages of the HouseGuests just “happening” to find their keys in the course of their daily lives to a minimum this year - because it’s not like Chiara getting her key from Hot Dog Vendor 79 in Central Park last year came across as hokey or contrived or anything. Instead, we just see them get their keys in rapid succession. David tries gnawing on his. “Does this mean I’m leaving?” squeals Amanda. Oh no - they’re just going to relocate the entire production to your house, you twit. Erika twirls pretentiously and announces, “Big Brother, here I come!” Is it too late to send her back? “I am SO SPECIAL!” shrieks Jun. Thank you, Chrissie Hynde.

With that, it’s time for the individual introductions, which thankfully are a lot quicker than on most other shows. First up is David, who gets up off his couch in nothing but boxers and… um… well… damn. We see him find his key in his camouflage helmet and stick out his tongue at us, then he’s at a military base telling us that after special ops, Big Brother’s going to be a CAKEWALK! You know, given the level of subtlety of most of these intros, I’m surprised they didn’t have him holding up a Carvel Fudgie The Whale as he said that.

Next up is Alison, who appears in a black evening gown and tiara - no, really - and tells us she likes to be treated like a princess! Shut up, Alison. Shut up, Alison’s tiara.

Next up is Nathan, who just “happens” to find his key on a basketball court. When he wins Big Brother, he says, he’s gonna buy a couple of these… what? Oil wells? Bulldozers? He’s pointing to these big machine-like thingys that obviously do something important where owning them would mean profit. I know this guy said he was kind of hard to read in his Q&A, but must even his introduction be cryptic?

Michelle (an ex from Boca Raton, Florida) will prove that size… HUGE pullback shot that makes her look 4 inches high… doesn’t matter! Nah, too easy.

Scott is all dressed up in a vest and tie in some stuffy-looking bar/restaurant. He may be polishing glasses now, he tells us, but when he wins Big Brother, he’ll be running things there! Someone’s in for a shock when he finds out just how far that half mil will take him in the Chicago restaurant world.

Jun (which is pronounced “June” as opposed to rhyming with “Hun”) hopes we’ll all love her as much as SHE does! Oy.

David, Alison, and Nathan pack. OK, Nathan is free to stay shirtless this summer as well. Next, Erika does leg lifts and tells us she’ll give her roommates the WORKOUT OF THEIR LIVES, DRAMATIC “SULTRY” WINK! In a perfect world, the Church Lady would pop up from the bushes and ask, “We like ourselves, don’t we, Erika?” This isn’t a perfect world.

Justin (an ex from Pittsburgh) leans over a machine at a gym and tells us he’s going to turn the house into a STEEL CAGED MATCH! OK…

“I love men and men love me and I think I’ll be fine - I just need to fix my broken nail,” says Jun as she packs. Considering that she’s from New York and that every time we’ve seen her so far it’s been sipping cocktails with friends, they’re really not trying to push the Sex and the City angle too hard, are they? Oh, and speaking of sex, David wants to know if it’s allowed on camera! Are you kidding? The producers have an altar set up in a corner of their office where they pray every day for exactly that.

Amanda (an ex from Chicago) tells us she “does it with style!” You know, these are supposed to be introductions, not keychains. Robert (an ex from Los Angeles) stands in front of perhaps the only house I’ve ever seen that looks like it could fit inside my studio apartment and promises we’ll love to hate him! Take the “love to” out of that sentence and it seems accurate enough. Meanwhile, Jack tells us he’s used to lying, backstabbing, and cheating - why, he did it for 30 years in the FBI! At that moment, somewhere in a secret room, someone opens a little black file marked “Vanish Without A Trace To-Do List”…

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.

The HouseGuests grab some champagne and settle around the circular sectional sofa for introductions; Scott tells us that he was scanning the group for potential allies. Erika tells the group she’s originally from Chicago (Ha! I totally called that in my preview!) but has lived in L.A. for a long time and is a Pilates instructor. Jun snarks to us that Erika is a great-looking girl, “surgically enhanced boobelage” and all, but since she’s 33 she’s hit her peak and is on her way down. Me? Ow. Jun tells them that she’s in finance but as they can see she is so not a cookie cutter finance-type person! OK - people who have to emphasize that they’re not cookie cutter? Generally are. Although in this case I will admit that I probably would have pegged her as being in marketing or something. Scott jokes that “cookie cutter” is exactly what he thought when he first saw her and she laughs uproariously. Scott tells us that Jun is very flirtatious and you can tell that she likes to fool around and have a good time. Nathan tells everyone he just graduated from college and is a personal trainer. Dana tells us that Nathan is the hottest thing on the planet! Jun, however, says that she caught him a couple times trying to look up her skirt. Alison says they can call her Ally or whatever they want to! I’ll bite: “nauseating”? Erika tells us Alison is very young, very adorable, and very sweet. Alison tells the group she’s been working as a retail manager to get money to go into law school; she wants to go into health law. Jack find that commendable and there’s some miscellaneous oohing and aahing. Dana tells us she found fault with the shortness of Alison’s skirt; she’d never wear something like that, but she grudgingly admits it looks cute on her. Well, for her part, Alison would probably never wear the black T-shirt Dana’s wearing in her interview; Dana looks pretty in the dress she’s wearing in the circle, but the T-shirt makes her look extremely frumpy.

Dana asks if it’s her turn. “No, we thought we’d skip you,” smartasses David. (Which, again, would be my exact response.) Dana tells the group she’s from Bayside, Queens (now’s as good a time as any to point out that she has a pronounced Queens accent) and that she manages a karate school in the city. David tells us he definitely likes Dana; she seems very forward. Dana admits to everyone that she can be a little OCD about things; she likes things to be clean. Nicole, is that you? David makes a big show of cleaning up the coffee table as everyone laughs. “Don’t mess with a Bayside chick!” smiles Scott; he then tells the group that he’s from Chicago but originally from New York. (Which is the exact opposite of me, if anyone cares.) He says he’s a Scorpio and he loves long walks along the beach! I think he’s kidding. I hope he’s kidding. Otherwise he just quoted 97% of all personal ads in existence. David interviews that at first he thought Scott was gay from the way he was dressed. WHAAAA?!? Scott is wearing a red-and-white striped collared shirt, a big medallion, and a black knit cap. “Hip-hop manqué?” Yes. “Typical gay”? Not so much. (I’m not into the “typical gay” look for myself either, so understand that I’m not saying that from the usual “No gay guy would wear THAT!” vantage point a lot of other gay men subscribe to.) David needs to get out of the barracks more. Scott continues that he’s a waiter for the Chicago Chop House, the top steakhouse in the country. (The name sounds cheesy, but it actually is a fairly big deal restaurant from what I remember, so Scott is most likely quite a good waiter if he works there. And why am I sticking up for Scott twice in this paragraph if I’m not even sure if I like him yet? Damn Libra rising.)

Jack tells them he’s from Birmingham, Alabama, and used to be an FBI agent. David says that if Jack was in the FBI for as long as he says he was, he should be quite good at this! David (and this is as good a point as any to note that he always refers to himself as “Dave”) tells them he’s a former army ranger. He tells us he’s not allowed to talk about his time in other countries because it might jeopardize future ranger missions. Dana from out of the clear blue sky starts gushing to us about how much of a turn-on it is that David was a ranger! It’s very manly! Just like An Officer and a Gentleman! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA. Before you whip out the karaoke version of “Up Where We Belong,” there, you’re making the guy sound like some dashing, sophisticated Richard Gere type that’s going to sweep you off your feet, and yeah, he’s very attractive, but he’s also only 21 - seven years younger than you. Calm down, Mrs. Robinson. Jack is considerably more restrained when he says that because of David’s military background, he thinks they’ll get along quite well. They can talk the same language about discipline and order. Well, that just sounds like a hoot and a half.

Jun tells us that she’s definitely going to play her role of the happy-go-lucky girl and they already think she’s this high maintenance sexy sassy New York chick, but her wheels are turning and she’s “playing the game.” Oh, I’m sure that’s going to be the last time I hear that phrase this season. As they clink their glasses, Julie pops up from out of nowhere to solemnly inform us that nothing can be taken for granted in the Big Brother household - not even food! Well, there’s the non sequitur from hell. Not quite as bad as Tori Amos’s “What you want is in the blood, Senator/I’ve got Big Bird on a fishing line,” but close. By the way, did you know that there was a TWIST? And it involves EXES? And it’s called the X FACTOR? Julie helpfully reminds those of us who have the short-term memory retention of plankton.

Julie tells us it’s time for the first Food Challenge, where the HouseGuests will get to learn some revealing facts about each other, DRAMATIC PIVOT. She greets the HouseGuests through the living room screen, and they manage to stay awake through her prattling on about how they need to earn the food they eat each week beyond peanut butter and jelly. Julie orders them out to the backyard and Dana tells us how much she wants them all to win their first competition together as a group. In the backyard, they find some huge steel beams forming “X”-es over a giant cushioned mat. Oh, this show has all the subtlety of a Mack Truck. In an interview, Alison wonders, “Are we supposed to ride them?” I guess she had her thinking tiara on, because that’s exactly what they have to do, as it turns out. “As you can see, with this competition, X really does mark the spot!” beams Julie. Ouch! Sledgehammers HURT! The two beams are lowered out of X formation so they’re parallel with the mat, and Julie tells them to climb aboard. Once they’re all on, Julie tells them she’ll be asking them true-or-false questions based on their entry questionnaires. Every time someone gets a question wrong, the beams will be raised. If, after eight questions, no more than two of them have fallen off the beams, they all win. So even if they get all eight questions wrong but six of them remain on the beams, they win.

Just then the beams are raised a notch. Jun bitches to us that she was screwed because she was on the end that raised up, and she was wearing a short skirt and she’s sure that everyone could see everything! Oh, good grief, there are more things in heaven and earth than your skirts, Jun! Erika snots to us that she’s a dancer and has incredible balance, so she isn’t worried at all! I break out my trusty giant foam bat and give her a “gentle nudge.”

The HouseGuests are asked questions in alphabetical order, so Alison is up first:

Q: One of the HouseGuests is a vegetarian.
A: False. None of them are. Alison gets it wrong.

Q: More female than male HouseGuests have broken off their engagements.
A: False. Dana gets it wrong.

Q: One of the HouseGuests is a virgin.
A: False. David gets it wrong. As he puts it, how was he supposed to tell - by looking around? But he’s happy no one is because now no one will be uptight about sex! Oh, I think nonvirgins can still be uptight where that’s concerned.

Q: When asked what two creature comforts he/she would bring to a desert island, one HouseGuest said a monkey and a tiger.
A: True. Erika gets it wrong. “Don’t you think that’s odd?” she asks in irritating “upspeak” in an interview. Nathan tells us he thinks he said a tiger, but definitely not a monkey - he would not want to be stranded on a desert island with a monkey! But a tiger, which could seriously hurt him, would be hunky dory? I can tell my World-Nathan/Nathan-World encyclopedia is going to be given a real workout this season.

Dana tells Julie the beams should go down if they get questions right. “That’s not part of the rules, but nice try,” Julie informs her.

Jack tells us he is determined as the oldest HouseGuest not to be the first to fall. He gets the following question:

Q: All of the female HouseGuests said they would miss shopping.
A: False. Far from falling, Jack is the first to get a question right!

Q: One of the male HouseGuests is openly gay.
A: False. Jun gets it right. Well, I’d figured as much from the preshow info.

Q: Less than half of the HouseGuests believe in love at first sight.
A: False. Nathan gets it wrong.

Q: Over half of the male HouseGuests said their favorite female body part is the breast.
A: False. Scott gets it right.

So they only got a total of three questions right, but because nobody fell, they win food for the week. The HouseGuests are naturally ecstatic.

You know. I’m really in the mood to watch a show with a twist involving exes called THE X FACTOR. Got any suggestions? Oh, thanks, Julie!

Finally, FINALLY, Julie tells us that THE X FACTOR is about to be revealed, DRAMATIC PIVOT! She addresses the HouseGuests, who are assembled in the living room once more, and oh Lord, here’s the “Expect The Unexpected” slogan raising its weary head again. She then takes a good five minutes to spit out that five of their exes are showing up, their exes haven’t been told that they are there either, and that they’ll be arriving shortly.

“I wanna go home! I hate Big Brother!” bellows Alison. Funny, I’m not exactly thrilled with her, either. She wails in confessional about how much her current boyfriend is going to hate this! Oy.

David tells them that he won’t listen to their exes if they don’t listen to his. Dana has some serious Carrie bugeyes going on as she yelps that her ex lives in L.A. now! Dana tells us she’s worried that he may show up, while Nathan tells us his relationship ended badly and he does not want to spend a summer with her! (As it turns out, neither of them have to worry.) Jack reminds Jun that she has a double bed and she flips out thinking she may get stuck sharing it with her ex! She admits to us that it’s a creative and definitely unexpected twist even though she hates it. David proposes that they all stick together and form an alliance to toss the exes; they all enthusiastically agree. “Do not hook up with anyone’s ex!” he admonishes the group. “We can hook up; we’ll just still vote them off,” deadpans Jun. Heh.

“Bring them on! Let’s do it!” snots Erika in a confessional. I’m developing this irrational need to want to see her fail. Then she and Jun try to see if they can make out their exes from the blackened silhouetted photos in the hallway. Both of them think they can, and both would appear to be right. Jun tells us she hasn’t even talked to her ex in years. David says he would pretend to form an alliance with his ex and then kick her out just like that; they all enthusiastically agree. Alison wails some more about the situation in an interview and on Dana’s shoulder; Jun notes to us that she’s flipping out. Alison promptly overreacts some more. Her boyfriend knows she’s a little bit of a flirt, so he’s expecting her to flirt a little bit as strategy, but if he sees something he doesn’t approve of, it’s over! Well, there’s a solution to that, Alison, hon. Don’t hook up with your ex! Really, she’s carrying on like her ex is walking through that door with a mandatory marriage certificate when all she has to do is just not flirt with the guy! And if her boyfriend has a problem with that, perhaps it’s time to move on. Simple. Sheesh!

OH FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, how many freaking times is Julie going to bash us over the head with explanations of the X Factor?!? FREAKING PROTOZOA IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN are excitedly telling each other that five of the HouseGuests’ exes are about to arrive! One more mention and even a Passions character could catch on! Anyway, Julie importantly tells us that without revealing THE TWIST, they interviewed each of the exes separately and managed to piece together both sides of the story.

First up are Scott and Amanda, who were engaged for one year. Scott says he’s single now but has been in four or five serious relationships and was engaged once. Amanda says they dated for eight months and then he proposed, she accepted, and they moved in together. Scott says that within two weeks of moving in together, he was like, “What the f**k’s going on here?!?” Amanda says he didn’t like a lot of her friends and could be paranoid. He says it got tiresome that she didn’t clean up after herself and left the place a pigsty. (Scott, you met Dana, right?) They both agree that they would never want to be trapped with each other.

Next: Alison and Justin, whom Alison says “pseudolasted” for seven months. Justin says the reason why it even lasted that long was that for most of that time he was busy with wrestling and she with the dance team. She says as soon as his season ended a totally different person came out! He totally changed! It was the scariest thing ever! He says they now had a bunch of free time so they started seeing each other more, and she would come over drunk and make scenes, sometimes even climbing up his fire escape at 3 in the morning as he was hiding inside the house with all the lights off. “I got rid of him real fast!” snots Alison. Well, I suppose making a guy hide from you in terror would be one way to do it.

Jun and Jee dated for five-and-a-half years. He says they lived together in a one bedroom apartment until he was 21. She says she thought she would marry Jee; he was her first boyfriend and Korean. He says she was a very Americanized Korean and he didn’t share her values and beliefs. She says Korean men in general want you to stay at home to make dinner, clean, do the laundry, etc. Jee realized toward the end he wasn’t in love with her. She says she takes it for what it is, a learning experience, but it’s the reason why she no longer dates Asian men and only dates Caucasian men.

David says he wants to stay single until he’s thirty. He and Michelle are listed as “high school sweethearts” with no time period given. Michelle says he was her serious boyfriend her freshman year of high school. He wanted to have sex with her but she wasn’t ready. She says he may have insinuated it once, but she told him she was only 15 and shot him down. He says he was getting frustrated and they started arguing all the time. She says he wasn’t even sexually active yet himself if she remembers correctly. He says the reason for that breakup was sexual frustration. You know, between this and all the times he’s mentioned sex so far on the show, David’s a little horndog. Michelle says she was very young and immature then and she’s grown and changed a lot.

Erika and Robert dated for two years. She says although she dates, he’s technically her last boyfriend. Robert says he doesn’t like being tied down to just one girl. She says she found out he was cheating on her with someone she worked with - she recognized her voice on his answering machine. He cheated on her just like he’s cheated on any girl he’s ever been with, he smiles! OK - I’m having a hard enough time picturing this clown being able to land one girl, let alone a whole stable of them. Erika beams that she doesn’t know if she technically got him fired, but she thinks she helped! She cackles and rubs her hands with glee. You know, Erika should want Robert to stay if for nothing else than he actually manages to send her likeability quotient zooming.

Julie DRAMATICALLY PIVOTS back to the HouseGuests. “We thought you’d gone home, Julie,” David cracks hopefully. “No, return to script,” she smiles. The HouseGuests smile wanly as Julie yammers on about how this may change the game or affect their strategy although you can tell they just want to scream, “Can we just get it the f**k over with already?!?” But not yet! Julie will complete no X FACTOR TWIST before its time! First the five exes gather outside the front of the house with their own OFFICIAL BIG BROTHER 4 DUFFEL BAGS, Julie blathers on about nothing of any consequence, commercial break, yak yak they’ll enter in just a moment DRAMATIC PIVOT, blah blah take good look at those around you blee blee new family best friend worst enemy bleh bleh other eight in already with food blar blar EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED! THE X FACTOR! Yak yak GO! There - I literally just saved you six minutes of your life. PayPal donations of gratitude accepted at JuliePutAFreakingSockInIt@ForTheLoveOfGod.com.

Jun is the first to see her ex as Jee enters the living room and asks everyone what’s up. It’s actually quite funny: as each one of the five already in the house see their exes enter, they bury their face in their hands. It’s like an ad for SeeNoEx.com. The exes mingle and greet the others. Jun says seeing Jee walk through the door first made her sick, then pissed her off. But other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? Scott says he’s pissed because Amanda can manipulate and tell people anything she wants to about him. Well, yeah, but so can anyone in the house, really - you don’t need an ex for that. Alison gets up and roars out of the room. Justin smiles to Jee, “Yeah, that was my ex sitting right there.” Heh. Jun announces to one and sundry that she has to go “throw up or something” and flounces out. David introduces himself to Robert as Erika stalks off to join Jun.

Robert tells us that we haven’t yet seen the bitch Erika can be. Oh, I think I’ve caught a couple glimpses here and there. Michelle is very “wow” right now. Well, that’s good to know. David says Michelle is the only ex with whom he’s remained friends, but she’s got to go! Justin says the first thing he thought was, “Where’s the door?” Oh, good God almighty, Alison’s back to the Princess of Wails routine. “My poor boyfriend!” she sobs. Yeah. I’ll say.

“It’s bound to be an unpredictable summer,” smiles the utterly predictable Julie Chen. She invites us to tune in Wednesday to see how the exes fare their first night together, then Stock Booming Melodramatic Announcer #38 rejoins us for the coming attractions. David says the exes are just more people who have to go! Jun gets mud dumped on her! Nathan announces ANOTHER TWIST! Alison stomps around with her OFFICIAL BIG BROTHER 4 DUFFEL BAG and joins Justin in the boxing ring! Alison and Justin plot! Scott tells Amanda to shut up! And the Head of Household is selected! Then, Friday, we find out who will be the first two guests put up for eviction! Then next Tuesday, the two marked ones battle to survive! Later in the summer, we’ll find out how the Big Brother 3 contestants are faring! Lisa did take it all off but you can’t see anything! Then next Wednesday, the first eviction! Then various people yammering various strategies!

Julie smiles warmly and tells us she’ll see us tomorrow, then wishes us goodnight “from outside the Big Brother House,” as if it’s Bosnia or something. And with that, goodnight nurse!

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

Brian James is an actor/writer/singer in New York City and the Assistant Editor of RealityNewsOnline. An avid reality show, Passions, early Ryan’s Hope, retro music, and Internet discussion board junkie, he can be found holding up "Will Snark For Food" signs in subway stations as he continues to search for that elusive "day job." Brian would like to stress that his writings are based solely on what he sees in each episode of each show, and realizes that there may sometimes be more to the story and that people may behave quite differently under normal circumstances. Comments and cybertomatoes accepted at BrianJamesRNO@earthlink.net.

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