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…

Julie turns to Jee and comments on his haircut (remember last night, his hair was butchered by several people in succession and he ended up with a crew cut). She asks him and Alison about what it’s like to be living with their exes and have relationships outside the house. What would they like to say to their significant others?

Jee says he truly cares for her and this makes him realize that he really loves her even more. Awww. How about Alison? The other HouseGuests laugh. “I hope I’m not single.” Yeah, well, it wouldn’t surprise me (more on that in a bit). She then adds that she misses him and loves him. Sorry, no “awww” factor for this one.

So Julie harps on The X-Factor some more and says when the news broke about the twist in BB4, the significant others on the outside realized that the show would affect them more than could have imagined. Gasp!

Meet Carmen, Jee’s live-in girlfriend. She says she’s prettier than Jun. I tend to agree. At first when she heard, she was a little upset. But Jee’s sister points out that he kept his composure while Jun went through all the dram. In fact, Jun made her sick. Carmen notes that Jun doesn’t even want to talk to Jee, which is very immature. If she were smart, she would try get on his good side. Exactly! OK, send in Carmen, she understands this game better than Jun does. This is especially true given what Jun says later during her pre-vote speech. Anyway, Carmen says she’s very secure in their relationship and has no fear that something would come about. Jee says there is no other woman out there for him. But he might flirt a little to better position in house.

Now meet Donny, Alison’s boyfriend (at least for the moment). He says he was as blown away as she was. He never liked Justin and he wants to shove the little guy in a peanut jar for a while. Um, okay. Points for creativity, anyway. He knows that Alison is a very flirtatious girl, but she knows how far to go and how far not to go. Er, does she? He says she should just stay away from “the little smurf.” I must have missed Justin’s blue skin and white hat. From Alison’s standpoint, she now says if Donny leaves, Big Brother has done her a favor because he needs to be secure when she’s making out with other people under the blankets. Oh, wait, she didn’t say that last part... But wait a minute. She says cuddling with Nathan is strategy and it won’t go any farther other than maybe a kiss on the cheek. In a great bit of editing, we then see a makeout session between Alison and Nathan in HOH room. Hmmm… “Oooh, that’s good,” is what we hear. And what Donny hears. Uh, Donny, I have some advice for you: Move on. Now.

Time for Julie to talk to Nathan in the privacy of the HOH room. She asks if, as one of the few people there without an ex present, has The X-Factor been an advantage or disadvantage? He doesn’t seem to understand the question and says that if his ex came in, it would definitely have been a drama. Hey, Einstein, that’s not what she asked. But Julie doesn’t want to tax his neurons and asks who he hopes wins HOH later in the hour. He says he wants one of the original eight to win, particularly Jack, Erika, or David. Note that those are the three that he seemed to be conspiring against with Alison, Dana, and Jun last week. Now those three aren’t even mentioned. My how quickly things change. And even after that makeout session. I tell ya, so much for Alison’s vaunted strategy. Still, the plan continues to be to get rid of the exes.

Before we get to the vote, we need to check in on four of the contestants from last year. What are Marcellas, Tonya, Josh, and winner Lisa up to?

Marcellas is on Rodeo Drive in L.A. and says he’s in his element. Where else would he be, he wonders. I can think of a bunch of places, starting with the Reality TV Hall of Shame. Anyway, he says he’s been hanging out, playing model, playing actor. He claims he’s been modeling in top shows and he’s “a starlet.” Gag. He says he’s still amazingly close to many of the people from BB3. He talks to “my Amy” almost every day, and also Lisa. Oh, and he does feel bad about some of the things he said, about Tonya in particular (what, nothing about Gerry?).

Which provides a nice segue into the bit on Tonya. She says when she got home and saw what he had said about her, she was upset. But they’ve talked a couple times on the phone since and they’re okay. How nice. I was worried.

Since she left the house, she met Albert and they’re engaged. He’s wonderful. She says her kids saw her in the peanut butter bikinis and they were fine with it. OK, I know she was trying to reassure us, but that just makes me wonder exactly how well-adjusted these kids really are. I mean, they saw their mother mostly naked except for some peanut butter on national TV, and they were okay with that?! Yeesh.

Speaking of being naked, we move next to Josh, who was in Playgirl. Josh thinks he looked good but Marcellas calls it a “courageous choice.” Josh lives in L.A. now and unless I missed it, there was no mention of the girlfriend/fiancé/whatever that he was always mentioning last year. What happened to her?

As for Lisa, she says her bank account grew, she gave a lot to family and friends and charities (and Uncle Sam) and put away a lot so she won’t have to bartend again for a while. The show also opened the door to acting and we see some modeling pics. She also posed for a magazine – it was a little risqué and she was naked for the shoot, but we can’t see anything really in the photos. Answering the question that many have been asking, after the show, Eric spent some time with her in California and it was great, but they wanted different things in a relationship. So now Marcellas is more or less the man in her life. Ick.

We get some reactions from the four of them on the whole “X-Factor” thing (because we can’t beat that dead horse too many times). They make some noises about how wrong it is, and Marcellas says he gets along great with his exes so we’d have gotten to see him have sex. Excuse me while I poke out my eyes, just in case. As far as who they like on the show, Lisa and Marcellas both like Nathan. Marcellas also says that Justin’s body and face are hot.

Thankfully, that should be the last we see of Marcellas unless we go to one of his top modeling shows.

Getting back to this season, Julie asks Jee and Amanda if they are surprised to have been nominated. Jee says he isn’t – he had a gut feeling. Amanda knew, it was no surprise. How did she know? She reasoned it out, that’s how. Take that, Julie!

Each gets their final words to the group. Amanda thanks them for putting her up against Jee because there was no chance of her winning. She adds that she couldn’t have been with a better group of people and she’ll see them on the outside. Jee says it’s only been a week but he’s grown fond of each of them and really enjoyed his time. If he doesn’t continue, best wishes to all of them. He adds that Amanda is really a good-hearted person and he’s also sorry she had to be next to him.

Before we get to the vote results, let’s see what the HouseGuests had to say.

Michelle says the guys already have an advantage because they started with seven and the girls with six, so getting rid of Jee would make it even. Um. Apparently Michelle missed the part where Scott was booted and they are now at six each. Or she’s just really bad at math. Anyway, she says she really likes Amanda but this is not the time to make a new best friend. Like, omigod.

Erika says she doesn’t know what’s really going on in Jee’s head. Since we have yet to come up with a valid method to read minds, that’s not terribly surprising.

Jack wants to keep Jee in; even though he’s an ex, he could perform as double-agent. Always the intelligence master, Jack is.

Robert thinks Amanda is a sweet girl and the most beautiful in the house, but she didn’t come in playing the game. As for Jee, he’s a great person and really honest.

Dana says she thinks Jee is on her team (which team?!). She admits they didn’t really give Amanda a fair chance.

Justin would like to keep Amanda because she brings life to the house but doesn’t talk strategy. The fact that Jee is so likeable is a threat to everybody.

I’d just like to interject here that the very fact that none of the HouseGuest votes has been shown makes it incredibly obvious who is going.

Alison likes Amanda and thinks she’s cool, fun, smart, and sexy. She says she’d vote to evict Justin, but obviously that’s not happening.

Jun would like to keep Jee because if her other alliances crumble, she can use him as a decoy/alliance. OK, remember above where Jee’s current girlfriend pointed out how stupid Jun has been by acting the way she has toward Jee? Here is where I’d like to make a point. If Jun honestly thinks that she can use Jee, shouldn’t she make some attempt to even acknowledge his existence? I mean, she can’t just wait six weeks and then, suddenly, when she finds she’s on the outside of the major alliance, hop on over to Jee and say, “So, honey, what’s cookin’?” It would be a good plan, if she actually carried it out.

David says Amanda is very perceptive and knows what’s going on in the house. He adds that she “likes to lay low.” Yeah, that’s not what he’s talking about, but it’s funny anyway.

Finally, it’s time for eviction. As I figured, the vote is not even close. In fact, it’s unanimous. Amanda is evicted, having received all nine votes. Even Dave voted against her. He must have told her that ahead of time, for strategy purposes. She had been asking some of the others to make sure Dave wouldn’t go next, after all.

As she leaves, there are hugs all around and a nice goodbye kiss from Dave. Awww.

As she goes out to meet Julie, in the house Dave congratulates Jee, but Jee says he doesn’t feel like he should take it like that. Dave says it’s a game, so be happy.

Once Amanda is situated on the couch with Julie, the first question is again about why she wasn’t surprised. Jeez, Julie, she knew it was coming. Get over it! Amanda says she could just tell. It started with her fights with Scott early on. People were… you know. And she also knows that the way the exes came in as the last five, plus the agreement between Nathan and Justin & Robert, that left only her, Jee, and Michelle – and she knew Michelle wasn’t not going.

Next Julie wants to know if Scott’s presence inhibited her behavior when it came to flirting with guys. Yes, Amanda says she didn’t want to hurt him. Julie points out that she seemed to become more comfortable when he left – something evolved with David. (Something? Do we need to explain to you what it was, Julie?) So, when he’s out, where does Amanda see this going? She says she’d love to see David again and “we’ll see.” Well, there’s encouragement for ya.

Amanda gets to view her taped goodbye messages from some of the others. Rob says he’ll miss her, he thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world and has great personality. Dana says she’s sorry things worked out the way did and notes again that Amanda was not really given a chance – the whole connection to Scott didn’t really play in her favor. Jun says she always had a smile on face. David is sorry to see her go. He says he had a great time with her in the week they had. She made him feel comfortable and forget about the cameras (then why did you make sure to wrap yourself in blankets?). He says he’d like to see her one day when he’s out.

Does she have any final thoughts? No, not really. We’ll see her again in September. This year’s winner, Julie points out, will be determined by the final seven only, who will be sequestered after they are voted out (so nobody will be changing their opinions of people based on what they see when they get home, as happened last year). So Amanda won’t be in the jury, but they will have her back on finale night. In the meantime, they flew in her brother and father from Illinois. What, no Scott to greet her?

Now it’s time for the most confusing HOH contest ever. They are out in the yard, in a row of little private booths. They will be given a series of questions about their opinions of the different HouseGuests. But Julie says they should not give their opinion, but rather what they think the majority of the group’s opinion will be. Those who guess in the majority will move on, and the last player standing wins.

At first I thought this was like last season’s Survivor contest where each had filled out a form ahead of time. But no, it’s not. In fact, the way Julie described the rules was not true. They are not guessing what the majority opinion is. They are guessing what the majority will be guessing. Got that? So it’s not about your own opinion or even about the opinions of the majority, it’s about the opinions of what the majority thinks the majority opinion will be. Or something like that. The whole damned thing was just a horrible contest. But here it is:

Who does the majority think is funnier? David or Dana? Oh come on, it’s got to be David. Indeed, all agree that it’s David. Or all agree that the majority will say that the majority opinion will be David. Oh hell.
1. Who does the majority think has a better smile, Erika or Alison? The answer is Alison and, amusingly, both Erika and Alison, as well as Dana, are out.
2. Who does the majority … plane flying over so let’s pause… think would look better in drag? Nathan or Justin? All agree that it’s Nathan.
3. Who does the majority think is more likely to use somebody else’s toothbrush to clean the toilet, Jun or Dana? Heh, gotta love the questions referring back to past seasons. Most vote with Jun, by one vote. Jun, David, and Jack are out. This leaves only the exes in the competition. Ah, the best laid plans…
4. Who does the majority think is more likely to return a lost wallet, Jack or David? All vote for Jack.

Now, due to poor planning on the part of the director/producer/whoever, they are running short on time and need to go to a sudden-death tiebreaker question. Julie will ask a question and the four HouseGuests are to write the answer on their little blackboards. As Bob Barker always says, the one who comes closest to the number without going over wins. Oh, and if all of ‘em go over, the one who is closest wins.

The question: What was the combined total weight of all the standers in the spuds food competition? Rob says 1300. Michelle guesses 673. And both Jee and Justin say 700. Since the correct answer is 757, we have another tie!

Luckily, the producers were prepared and have a double-secret tiebreaker. It’s simple: In days, how old is Amanda? Jee and Justin aren’t doing the math quickly enough so Julie yells at them to write something down NOW or be disqualified. Jee says 4000. Justin says 80,000. Julie says the answer is 9000+ (what, they didn’t have the actual answer handy?). Jee goes from being on the chopping block to HOH in just a few minutes. And you can bet he’s going to shake some things up with his nominations! We’ll see you again Friday to find out.

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.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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