Wow, I need to give it up to the Big Brother producers. While I was disappointed that tonight’s episode didn’t’ deviate from the usual format for a Sunday night show, the filler provided in the wake of Jessie’s departure was truly laugh-worthy and now we have Tuesday to look forward to for those of us who want to see the major house drama that took place post-nominations this weekend.
For those of you who don’t know what happened after the nominations, I won’t mention it until the end of the article and it’ll be preceded by a spoiler-warning.
At the beginning of the episode, we got to see the conversation that took place just after Jeff used his magic power to put Natalie and Jessie on the block. The whole thing, which took place in the living room as the houseguests were all still seated and waiting to vote, was mostly a bicker-fest. Chima made comments about how it was stupid of Jeff to use it. Jeff’s response to Natalie and Jessie was, “You guys were walking to the finals unless somebody did something.” Good for him for holding his ground on the issue. While Jessie took his eviction without shedding any tears (though it looked like he came close when he was talking to Julie) that was not to be the case for some of his worshipers.
Remember back in Big Brother 6 when Cappie was evicted and the “nerd herd” (particularly Ivette) talked about him as though he were some great martyr. Well, some of the girls in the BB house are like that times ten. The producers had fun putting together a nice little Jessie-memorial, using the abundant supply of footage provided for them by Lydia, Natalie and Chima. While the three girls toasted Jessie’s departure and talked about his amazing spirit and what a wonderful person he was, Jordan, Jeff, Russell and Michele hung out outside and rolled their eyes at the weepy production the girls were putting on in the dining room. Meanwhile, Kevin unloaded his disgust at his friends’ behavior in the diary room, mentioning all of the wrong-doings Jessie did to each of them, all of which they’ve all either forgotten or are choosing to forgive in the wake of his tragic eviction.
Chima actually equated Jessie’s eviction as being similar to a family member dying. Seriously. Chima, Jessie’s not your family member and he’s not dead. He’s sitting in a beach-house somewhere floating around in the pool or flexing his muscles in front of a mirror. A little perspective, please. The sniffling montage that followed the tearful toast had me laughing out loud. I’m not one to relish in other people’s misery (ok, sometimes I am) but I have to give it up to the BB producers for putting that little nugget of filler in there for us. It makes up for the lame-factor in pretaping last week’s eviction episode.
The houseguests speculated over who Michele was going to nominate and attempted to work together on the weekly have-have-not competition, which united the house as they worked to earn food for each day of the week. It involved them tasting some very gross-sounding casseroles (thought the chocolate and banana one sounded kind of good) and trying to find two-matches. While there was some bickering between Russell and Chima during the competition, they made it through the thing as a group and only ended up on slop for one day out of the week. They also scored a barbeque grill for the house.
Back to Michele. She had conversations with various people in the house about nominations. This included a talk with Russell to resolve their issues (again) and a conversation with Natalie wherein Natalie reminded Michele that nominating Russell and ensuring his eviction would leave her with no enemies in the house. She had a point there. While Jeff, Jordan and Russell all want Chima out, would Jeff and Jordan really come after Michele for setting Russell up for eviction? They wouldn’t be able to afford to do that if Russell went home as they’d be on their own against the three Jessie-worshippers and Kevin. Chima presented her own argument about why Russell should stay but after seeing the glee on Jordan, Jeff and Russell’s face when she mentioned wanting to put Chima up, it seemed clear that her mind was made up on the matter.
Michele nominated Chima and Natalie and we got some diary room footage of a pissed off Chima to cap off the show. That leads me to the spoilers so if you don’t already know what happened in the house since the nominations and want to be surprised on Tuesday, read no further!.
As we reported here, Chima is gone. Either the Big Brother producers kicked her out after she chucked her microphone in the hot tub or else, she decided to take her ball and go home after having the crappiest week ever (Russell not leaving, Jessie going in her place and then getting nominated). Either way, unless whatever explanation CBS gives us in Tuesday’s episode paints her in a sympathetic light (doubtful), I can’t say I’m disappointed. She seemed to have a bad attitude about the game in general. It got way too personal for her and when the tides turned, she couldn’t take it. Based on the feed updates, instead of a new nomination ceremony, the houseguests played a new HoH competition. Jordan won. The tides really have turned in the BB house. This is like a do-over of season 6 except the people we’re rooting for actually managed to secure the majority this time around. Now we’ll just have to wait and see if they manage to hold on to it.
