"Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own.
Which is most faint...
... Now I want,
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair."
- Prospero, The Tempest.
"He raised his hand, and spoke slowly in a clear cold voice, 'Saruman, your staff is broken.' There was a crack, and the staff split asunder in Saruman's hand, and the head of it fell down at Gandalf's feet. 'Go!' said Gandalf. With a cry, Saruman fell back and crawled away."
-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter X, "The Voice of Saruman."
Dorothy Gale: "You're a very bad man."
The Wizard: "Oh no, my dear! I'm a very good man; I'm just a very bad wizard."
Oz, The Great & Terrible, & Dorothy, The Small & Meek, The Wizard of Oz.
Before we get underway, in case we have any newbies joining us at this late date, to help you follow along, the remaining Big Brother houseguests have all acquired new names here. To help you follow, I present this preliminary glossary of names:
Kevin = Gollum. An insult to Tolkien's Gollum I know, but the resemblance is unmistakable, he's every bit as treacherous and cowardly, and the way he keeps kissing that ring he bears makes it obviously his "precious."
Natalie = Skankalie. Self-explanatory.
Michele = The Doctor or Dr. Michele. She has a PhD, and she survives among creatures that make life fighting the Daleks seem like an evening of cocktails with Noel Coward.
Jordan = Jordumb. I am indebted to commentor "Educated Foolz" for this one, which is superior to my calling her Yokel Ohno, as she was Russell & Sarumoron's Yoko. Turns out that some of my readers are lucky to know who the Beatles were, beyond a music group in ancient history.
Jeff = Sarumoron. After acquiring the Wizard Power from America, he was briefly Gandoofus, but he turned to The Dim Side last week, and became Sarumoron, Lord of Dimness.
This is the saga of his fall. If you have giggles, prepare to shed them.
Sunday: Slipping Up.
Watching Russell's lovely picture turn black & white (my heart cried a little), Gollum said: "This schemey, plotty, paranoid type character, who gets on everybody's nerves is finally gone!" No Gollum, you are still there.
Sarumoron told us: "Russell getting evicted was exactly like I planned." No, it was exactly as Skankalie and Gollum planned, with you just being their puppet. In the words of Bela Lugosi, in the cinema classic Glen or Glenda (or as Martin Landau re-said in Ed Wood. Lugosi got razzberries. Landau got an Oscar. Go figure.): "Pull the Strings!"
Sarumoron continued: "One, because he's a good competitor obviously. Two, I just didn't trust him. For those reasons, he had to go." Except he was genuinely committed to Sarumoron, The Doctor, Jordumb, and he being The Final Four, while the people His Exalted Dimness chose to trust over his ally, were Skankalie, and Gollum, two viscous liars, giggling in the diary room over their plans to stab him in the back first chance they got. And he was egged on by the doubts of Jordumb, who is more stupid than a pile of dust. The Dim Lord can't compete for HOH, and if he was counting on Jordumb to win it, his chronic Blue Bollocks must have clouded his vision. He is a classic fall-guy fool. All we can do now is sit back and get some laughs as he learns the hard way what an idiot he is.
Sunday's show began with the incredibly long HOH competition of carrying leaky cups of cocoa back and forth across a "Graham Cracker" that was more slippery than ice, to fill huge plastic globes. (not Jordumb's!) It took forever, and would have been tedious beyond belief, except that the slick surface made for dozens of pratfalls, and by this time in the summer, I hated most of them enough that the sight of them slamming onto their butts time and time again never grew old.
Gollum hmself confessed that he won this competition (and by a wide margin), because his mincing, effeminate walk kept his balance better than the others. He has a point, but it helped that Jordumb is top-heavy and overbalanced owing to the rocks she's had implanted in her disproportionate boobs, and that Skankalie is just plain unbalanced.
Jordumb in the Diary Room: "They pour chocolate rain on top of us. [Mmmmmm. Chocolate Raaaaiiiin.] It would-a just made it ten times slippiest - slippier - slipperyer - that's not even a word, is it?" Much as I enjoyed this whole tortured attempt to speak a simple sentence, as Jordumb conjugated adjectives for "more slippery," it's the last two words, "Is it?" that really amuse me; that faint glimmer of hope that perhaps, just maybe, "slipperyer" is indeed an actual word.
Skankalie will never be a champion ice skater. Her falls were the clumsiest. Very little Tae Kwon, lots of Doh!
Jordumb's falls were more graceful, and if the CBS editors can be trusted (No, they can not!), more numerous. Her best was certainly the forward splat to the boobs (Degree of Difficulty: 5.7), when she landed full on her silicone-stuffed dirty pillows. The weapons she had plowed into Russell only last week had now turned on their owner. Jordumb's breasts cut both ways.
Sarumoron: "Did you pop a boob?" Fair Romeo never spake ever thus so sweet to his beauteous Juliet.
Jordumb: "I don't know." She doesn't know? Don't you think she'd notice? Or is "I don't know" her default answer to any question of fact, and with true justification.
Skankalie thinks she's sly. In the Diary Room, after her pathetic loss of HOH, she tells us the real reason why she sucked: "I see [Gollum], and he's doing great. If he wins, that means I'm safe, and that means I get to play next week, so why show any other houseguests that I am a strong competitor?" Yeah, Skankalie, you were just pretending to suck, to slip and fall, splayed out, your cup flying (one time requiring a multi-contestant search to find out to where the cup had flown), like Olive Oyl taking frantic, flying spills in Max Fliescher's early Popeye cartoons. "I meant to do that!"
Except that you are not a strong competitor. You have lost eight consecutive HOHs, and eight consecutive POVs, and you lost at Poker, which you bragged to all you played professionally. Frankly, if she thinks anyone still believes she's a Tae Kwon Doh! "Champion" after watching the sixteen (not counting luxury losses too) defeats she has suffered, announcing "I'm really going to play to win this one!" before each and every one, she's insane.
When the Skankster dropped her cup into the barrel of chocolate [Mmmmm. Barrel of chocolate.], which she just about had to dive headfirst into to retrieve, even Gollum began noticing that she was just pathetically lame. To outlame Jordumb takes more than work; it takes a Tae Kwon Doh! "Champion"!
(A brief reverie: imagine, just for a moment, Chima competing in this challenge. Heh, heh, heh.)
Gollum's assessment of Sarumoron's prowess at mental challenges: "I think he can answer a couple questions." I agree. Here are the questions he could probably get right:
What is your name?
Do you like girls?
What is your favorite book?
Well then, if you had read one, what would it most likely be?
Okay, those last two were too difficult. Let me get back on track with questions you can answer.
What is Jordumb's name?
Wrong!
As Skankalie and Gollum plotted against Sarumoron (Too good at physical stuff) and The Doctor (Too smart. Of course, the kitchen sponge is too smart for these two, but not The Dim Lord), Dr. Michelle put on a pretty yellow dress, and went into an empty room for a good cry. Frankly, if I were locked in a house with those other four, I'd be crying too, or making damn sure they were crying.
The pictures of Gollum's husband in the HOH room were truly disturbing. He's far too gorgeous to be shackled to that hideous troll. It was like seeing Hugh Jackman married to Perez Hilton, or Antonio Bandaras married to Melanie Griffith, or like the late Luciano Pavorati married to anyone. Deagol darling, you can do better!
Gollum went completely to pieces, weeping his brains out as he read his letter from Deagol, and it hadn't even said, "Dear Smeagol, while you've been in the Big Brother house, I've met someone else. I'll be moved out by the 14th. I'm keeping the Madonna CDs. Goodbye," though why it didn't say that utterly escapes me.
Watching Sarumoron's face as Jordumb went on and on about her plans never to be separated from her mother, including having her live with her even after marriage ("I'll sleep in the 'bonus' room!"), even unto death, one could almost see his relief that he was escaping from her this week, returning to Chicago, while she goes home to Mommy in Dixie.
At one point, Sarumoron strolled into a room in which Skankalie and Jordumb were having a confab, and Jordumb told him, "I heard you coming." Tell us something we don't know, Jordumb. But has he heard you?
Sarumoron lay with his head in Jordumb's lap, and as they babbled meaninglessly, she braided his inch-and-a-half long front hairs, the way she would a Barbie doll. Jordumb, part plastic herself, really just thinks of Sarumoron as her living Ken doll, not grasping (literally) the importance of the fact that Sarumoron is anatomically correct. (I may not approve of being PC, but I am adamantly in favor of being AC!)
Skankalie's terror attack over a dragonfly certainly nailed how butch this Tae Kwon Doh! "Champion" is. Gollum had no fear of the big bug, and happily kept batting it back onto her with a tennis racket. "Seriously." said brilliant ecologist Skankalie, "I would like every bug to Mankind to be destroyed." I hope she didn't quite mean exactly what she said.
Einstein's Secret Shame (Jordumb) replied, "I don't see what the need of having them are." You see, Jordumb, the bugs are part of the food chain, and of the reproductive cycles of plants, upon which we depend for food and oxygen. So if all insects were destroyed, we would all die out too. From "every bug to Mankind," as Skankalie desires.
Skankalie loudly targeted The Doctor as she frantically dealt out and played Solitaire, another game she can't win. (and with cards instead of a computer. How last century!)
I got so sick of listening to Gollum torturing himself over which person to betray, in endless, unfunny Diary Room speeches, nasally whined out while wearing a T-shirt in the same color scheme as the backdrop, so he looked like a grotesque floating, severed head, not unlike Oz, The Great & Terrible, only less attractive. Deagol, how do you stand listening to that whine? Aren't you tempted to slap him across the face daily?
Jordumb to Gollum, campaigning for Dr. Michele's eviction, "She wants you out, and she won't care about me and [Skankalie], cause she thinks we're dumb." You are dumb, as Dr. Michele knows.
Sarumoron, shirtless, pecs percolating in close up (I'm savoring these last, fond views), sat alone with Gollum in the HOH room, as the first shadow of the axe at his throat appeared. Gollum: "You're not going to like what I'm going to say." That was really all he needed to say, but he babbled on, trying to make it look like this betrayal was forced on him by Fate, by Life, by Julie Chenbot, by anyone but he who was saying it.
It was, to use another Tolkien term, a chance for Gollum to show his quality. He showed it all right. He nominated The Doctor and Sarumoron, with both of them believing that Sarumoron is just The Pawn. Dimsy darling, in Hogwart's Wizard Chess, when you've been reduced from a King to a Pawn, you're about to get pulverized by a queen.
Jordumb on Sarumoron's nomination: "I neeeed him here, because we're a package. [She won't go near his "package!"], and he's my BFF." Well he's certainly not her "Boy Friend Forever," and he's not her "Best Friend Forever" either. In fact, we can eliminate any "forever" from the phrase, since their relationship ends with the show, as he returns to a sophisticated northern city full of girls who will, many of them having been watching all summer thinking "I will! I will!", while she returns to the south and Mom, and guys like Billy Joe Bob and Cooter, to whom she will again be saying "Not till we're married, and maybe not then either." No, as far as I can tell, "BFF" in this case, must mean "Big Friendly Fool."
Tuesday: Pennies from Heaven.
Sarumoron on Gollum: "In my eyes, [Gollum's] really just a snake..." So he's not effeminate? That's Parseltongue he's speaking?
Gollum and Skankalie reassured Sarumoron that Dr. Michele was their true target. Skankalie to Sarumoron: "You're not going nowhere. It's all show."
Skankalie, with great pride, one instant later in the Diary Room: "If [Sarumoron] thought we were serious, then he was dumb. We were lying straight to his face, and I had no problem with that." Clearly it never occurs to her that this is being broadcast to millions nationally, that it will exist on video tape forever, that every person she ever applies to for a job will have access to it, that it is now on her Permanent Record! Who would ever trust or hire any potential employee who so proudly announced her lack of a problem with lying for personal gain? The mob? The Republican Party? Fox News? She's not smart enough to be a lobbyist.
Sarumoron tried to make Jordumb feel better (Stop doing that!), by telling her that the POV competition pressure was on him, not her, despite the fact that, if she won it, they'd both be safe, whereas, if he won it, she'd go up in his place. That last bit of logic eluded his potato-sharp mind. "I gotta win. I'm a winner, and winners win." Oh Sarumoron, you are a loser, and losers lose.
Gollum walked into the HOH room, and saw a door that hadn't been there before with a big question mark on it. Squealing only slightly less girlishly that Emperor Palpatwit would have, Gollum cried out, "Oh my God, what's that?" It's a door, dimwit. "Oh my God, I'm scared!" Now I genuinely wanted to slap him. Butch the hell up. It's a door, an envelope, and an offer you are not smart enough to resist. The smoke monster from Lost is not going to come pouring out of it, grab you by the feet, and slam you into the walls until you are pulped, sadly.
The temptation laid before Gollum in "Pandora's Box" was: "To release $10,000, put your hand in the hole." Pandora has been saying this about her box to sailors for centuries. It is undoubtedly not the first time such a proposition has been offered to Gollum, albeit with vastly smaller bait, and not from people with girl's names, nor the second time, nor the thirtieth, though, given his nine year relationship with Deagol The Visually-Impaired, this is probably the first time in quite a while that he's actually been tempted. While watching Gollum tiresomely agonize over his decision, I found myself hoping he wins a hunting trip with Dick Cheney while wearing novelty antlers.
These are his exact words as he opened the door: "Oh my God, it's a total room!" What does he usually find behind doors? Yes, it's a "total room." It has a ceiling. The floor is wall-to-wall. It has three spatial dimensions. It also has a large flat-screen TV that I would stick my hand into many a hole to have in my living room (Line 'em up, boys!), and a big trunk with a fist-sized hole on top. Why do I think that this trap was designed specifically for Gollum? That if anyone else had won HOH, they would have been offered a different trap?
To slip his hand through the hole, Gollum pushed his fingertips and thumb all together, like a little funnel, in a hand position many would recognize as - ah - fist in war, fist in peace, and fist in the heart of your countrymen. Then Gollum shrieked as though a beast had bitten it off, or as though it was his own hole. Cut to black! Commercial break.
Had his hand been bitten off? Are bamboo shoots being thrust under his fingernails? Has he been hooked up to 10,000 volts? No such luck. A shackle has just painlessly locked his hand in place. As my dad was wont to say, "I'll give you something to cry about!"
In my very first BB column, I said I'd be on the lookout for houseguests who scream "I knew it!" about stuff they did not know. This was Gollum's second offense, as he screamed "I knew it! I knew it!" about getting locked into the box when, if had known it, he wouldn't have done it. That the possibility of getting locked in flitted across your mind along with twenty other possible outcomes, doesn't constitute "knowing it." Knowing it constitutes "knowing it."
Meanwhile outside, it began raining money. Who says it never rains in southern California? Gollum got to see it on the TV in the room, which is coincidentally tuned to Big Brother. The other houseguests ran outside and began stuffing money into their pockets, their clothes, a large salad bowl, plastic trash bags, Jordumb's roomy, empty skull, anything that will hold bills, and some things that won't. "Wow," said Skankalie, "I've wanted this my whole life, I've wanted money to rain." This makes her unique!
"Well surely we can't keep it," said Jordumb, who apparently thought the producers were literally throwing money at them just to remind them what it looks like.
The Wisdom of Jordumb: "My dad always used to always say, 'money doesn't fall from trees, [Jordumb].' [This would be the dad who gambled away the house she and her family used to live in. Just the man from whom to learn fiscal responsibility.] And then now that money falling from the sky, I'm like grabbing it as fast as I can. Dad, you're very wrong." So Jordumb thinks this is a weather anomaly perhaps common in Studio City?
Sarumoron, spying Dr. Michele filling up a laundry basket with bills: "Hey, baskets don't count!" Says who? Sarumoron is inventing non-existent rules. He instantly changes his mind, "I need a basket." Oh my goddess, he is a Ken doll! "Dude, jamming it in my undies," adds Sarumoron, explaining how he creates the illusion of a bulge in his pants when he has no basket. In the Diary Room, describing to us how he stuffed money deep into his pants, and his every intimate nook, cranny, and crevice, Sarumoron said: "I know where the phrase comes, 'Dirty Money' now, because it was definitely in some tight places in there." Sarumoron darling, I'd definitely give you two $20s for one of those $10s. Just don't "launder" the money.
Upstairs, Gollum is locked away, watching everyone else win money. I laughed. But there was a second level of fiendishness to his plight. He was informed that a key that would unlock him was hidden somewhere in the house. He can't very well go look for it himself. He must get another houseguest to stop gathering money, spend that time looking for his key, and then unlock him. Oh yeah, that'll happen.
Gollum begins shrieking for help. Skankalie hears his cries that she must find a key hidden in the house to rescue him. She trots off back outdoors to gather more cash. That's how much she's devoted to you, Gollum. I roared with glee. "I bet you, [Skankalie]," said Gollum in the Diary Room later, "if this was Jessie bent over in a box, you'd be quick to help him out. Thanks, [Skankalie], for having my back." Please. If that were Jessie shackled bent over a box, Gollum would be quick have his back.
Next Sarumoron wanders upstairs, fearing that there is some catch to the raining money. Gollum realizes that the Dim Lord no longer believes a word out of Gollum's lying pie-hole, so he lives down to Sarumoron's opinion, and starts telling him a whopper to the effect that he must find a key that is hidden in the house to keep the money.
Sarumoron, who isn't burdened by the ability to learn from his own mistakes, once again believes Gollum. He goes and finds the key, but then sticks it in his pocket for later, and goes outside to gather more money. Gollum watches helplessly on the TV, and I laugh more. "This house is filled with some greedy folks." says Gollum, who is one of them. (Remember your 10,000 reasons for sticking your hand blindly into a strange hole, Gollum dear?)
Skankalie comes back upstairs, and Gollum tries the lie on her. She's hoping that only the key-bearer gets the money, and is disappointed that the others won't have to give their money back. It is not enough to win; others must lose. She's a fine human being. She goes back outside, and resumes gathering money.
"Do these people not know that I am HOH, and I can at any moment nominate they asses and evict them?" asks Gollum. Ah, no you can't. You've already nominated your evictees. To give you another shot, someone must use the POV, and even then, who goes is voted on, with you getting a say only if there is a tie. Gollum, shackled in Pandora's Box, is both powerless and power-mad.
Sarumoron goes back upstairs, with Skankalie creeping an inch behind his butt, creeping him out, trying to steal the key. (Apparently self-convinced that only the key-bearer gets to keep the money)
Sarumoron: "Why you creeping by me?"
Skankalie: "Do you want to know what it is, or not?"
Sarumoron (entering the HOH Room): "Yeah."
Skanklie: "Cause you're not going to figure it out without me."
Sarumoron (walking into the room with Gollum): "[Gollum], I got the key!"
Skankalie (as Gollum reaches for the key): "You need to give the key to [Gollum]."
Yes, he'd never have figured that out without her. She was essential. She helpfully explains: "I was trying to tell you without telling everybody else." Why? It doesn't matter if everyone else knew or not. Skankalie just wanted to get her hands on the key, convinced that she had to hand it to Gollum to keep her money, and screw everyone else. Someday that girl will give someone a nice litter of puppies.
Finally free to run out and collect dough, Gollum put it quite elegantly, "I feel like a stripper, and it's raining ones on me." Well, were he a stripper (Excuse me a moment. Bilious attack. Urp. There. I think I'm better now), he'd be unlikely to see anything larger than a one. Most of his tips would jingle. And the money would be to get him to put it back on!
Final Money Rain totals:
Jordumb: $1,726
Skankalie: $1,904
Dr. Michele: $2,563
Sarumoron: $3,282 (Lots of room in his pants. And he has deep crevices!)
and
Gollum: $626.
Oh, how I laughed. (By the way, that adds up to $10,101, so there was a small bonus of $101 in the storm.) "You guys owe me big." whined Gollum. Oh, they'll get you big, eventually.
The Power of Veto competition was aliens-from-outer-space themed. The houseguests dressed as aliens. "I've always wanted to go to the moon!" Gollum loudly squealed. I can not conceive of a better use for our space program than to maroon Gollum on the moon, where the vacuum would keep his whining and squealing silent - and brief.
The game was a riff on Conan O'Brian's old "If They Mated" bit, where two houseguests features would be melded and distorted with a large alien forehead and antennae, and the contestants would have to work out who was whom in the shortest time to win. Easy. (The winner also got a home theater system, the central feature of which was a 55-inch, LCD Hi-Def TV. I'd kill any of them happily for that prize.)
Not easy for Gollum. "I felt like I got transported to the moon." Really? Were you boiling on your sunny side, subzero on your shady side, and did you explode from internal pressure while gasping for a breath in the no-atmosphere? That's what it feels like on the moon, idiot. And there is no vegetation. You look like you got transported into an old Ed Wood movie, and you're the alien!
The first picture was Gollum mixed with Casey. (Sorry Banana Man. Not my doing.) Gollum instantly recognized Casey but was stumped by his own face. "Whose head is that? Whose eyes are that? Like the eyes are like so ugly. Is that Russell?" I was on the floor, pounding the carpet, bellowing laughter, scaring my kitties. You'd think that even he would realize that "the eyes are like so ugly," was a dead giveaway that it was him. "I'm way cuter than this," he modestly protested once he'd worked out that it was him. No, Gollum, actually, the alien mishmash is way cuter than you. So is the Gollum in the movie, who has big, soft, appealing, eyes.
On the Skankalie and Michele mashup, Gollum was also stumped by his partner's face, sitting there, obvious and unmistakable in front of him. His first thought was that the Skankalie parts were Chima. Hard to say which of them should be more insulted. "Then I saw the eyes, the dead-looking eyes, and I thought Michele!" No, those were Skankalie's dead eyes, although Michele is in the picture. "I'm sure I got first. If not first, second." No, Gollum, you got fourth, out of five, with one of them being Jordumb. That's not "second;" that's second-to-last. Time: 3:05.
We learned that the life support system for Laura's giant breasts, evicted the second week, had enormous horse teeth that no one had ever noticed, far in the background.
It took Skankalie four tries to recognize her co-conspirator's face. After seeing hers and the Doctor's mashup, Skankalie stated, "I promise, America, that I will never have a child with Michele." Too little, too late, though a great relief to The Doctor. Still, it was her best effort so far, and she came in second, with 2:55.
"I really want to win really bad," said Jordumb, specifying the only way she could win, "Because [Sarumoron] has carried me through this game." She has yet to make the connection between wanting to win, and putting forth the effort to actually achieve winning. Her Herculean exploit brought her in dead last. Her time was 5:09. Now, to her credit, that's five minutes, nine seconds, not five hours, nine minutes - I think. And she only came in in fifth place, out of five.
Jordumb: "It was kinda harder, because it was an alien head, with antennas. Normally I notice everything about someone." But not if they have antennae, it would seem, if she was slowed down because she couldn't remember which houseguests had antennae, and which did not. When she got to her mashup with Sarumoron, she instantly recognized herself (I would think she employs mirrors more than Gollum does. If I looked like him, I'd avoid beholding my own image also.), but was baffled by the face of the man she "loves."
Sarumoron identified first Laura's Breasts, and then Dr.Michele, for his own features. Someone's male image of himself isn't as secure as once I thought.
Dr. Michele used her brain, and was at the answer board before each face came up, shaving precious seconds from her score. She's also smart enough to recognize the faces, although she did think Jordumb was herself. Someone's mirror flatters her shamelessly. If only she'd noticed the dead eyes.
But in an outer space alien themed game, The Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, naturally kicked serious butt, and not only won, but won by over a minute. Her time was 1:52. I think the scene of her competing was edited to longer than that.
You could see in Sarumoron's eyes, when he saw his score of 3:01 revealed, only four seconds ahead of Gollum, that he was utterly beaten, and was heading to Sequester House, no hope left. It would be sad if he hadn't pulled his house down on his own head.
When Michele watches Big Brother on that home theater system she won, it'll be like she's there! Expect screams!
In the Diary Room, Sarumoron said, "Michele beat me fair and square. I ultimately failed. It would have been nice for [Jordumb] to pull one out [Flashing him one as a reward? The bruised one or the other one?], but I'm not going to point the fingers at [Jordumb]." That all sounds very sportsmanlike, but at the moment of victory, when Dr. Michele tried to give him a condolence hug, while saying "sorry," Sarumoron tersely rejected her with a sour "Get away from me." Sarumoron has studied charming "save me" votes out of people from Russell.
Gollum and Skankalie still hunger to evict The Doctor, who dares be more intelligent (vastly more intelligent) than they.
Gollum: "We need to send Michele home."
Skankalie: "The bitch is strong."
Gollum: "The one minute, fifty-two seconds? That's tough."
Yeah, imagine the nerve of that bitch! How dare she beat them fair and square? How dare she be smarter than me - we - us- I? Whatever! Oh, there's still a couple bitches in that house all right, but her name isn't Dr. Michele, nor is his, either.
No one had any illusions that Jordumb wasn't going up to replace Dr. Michele. So the Doctor conceived a wild plan, to convince Gollum, in a tie, to vote to keep Sarumoron, since Gollum can not compete for HOH, and Skankalie never wins anything. There was only one flaw in this brilliant plan. Dr. Michele told the Dim Lord, "I'll talk to [Gollum]. He's not an idiot, so he should listen to me." Did you spot the flaw? That's right. It was "He's not an idiot." He is an idiot. The editors tried to make as much time out of this machination as possible, to fill out the hour, but there was just no suspense about what was now going to happen.
Sarumoron, after agreeing to let Dr. Michele try to throw Jordumb under a bus (poor bus. What about the passengers?), was ordered by Jordumb to throw her under a bus. I'm starting to like the idea too. I'll even drive the bus. Sarumoron told Jordumb he wouldn't toss her under a bus, but only because he's seen the MTA schedule, and knows that there won't be a bus by in time.
Thursday: Dead Wizard Wanding.
"I, your wizard, per ardua et alta, am about to embark upon a hazardous, and technically unexplainable journey into the outer stratosphere! To confer, converse, and otherwise hobnob with my brother wizards... This is a highly irregular procedure. This is absolutely unprecedented. Ruined my exit! I can't come back. I don't know how it works. Goodbye folks."
Oz, The Great & Terrible, flying off to an unknown fate, The Wizard of Oz.
Julie wore black for the live show. Wise. So slimming. She also was wearing big hair, which is also slimming.
For the Thursday live show, the editors again tried to milk non-existent suspense that The doctor's plan to get Jordumb evicted instead of Sarumoron might have a chance in hell. It was not happening.
Skankalie's glee over Sarumoron and Jordumb's being opposite each other on the block was revolting. She called sending Sarumoron to the Sequester House her present to Jessie. He's not really Jessie's type. Only Jessie is Jessie's type. "Karma is a bitch," gloated Skankalie, a genuine bitch who needs to fear that Karmic bitch herself.
Sarumoron: "I want to keep [Jordumb] sharp." Keep? I've seen servings of Jell-o that were sharper than Jordumb has ever been. He told her she has a strong chance of making it to The Final Two, and she does now. The producers would love it if she won. They could hand her a bucket of quarters and say it was $500,000, and with her math skills, she'd have no way of ever knowing the difference.
Sarumoron: "I need [Skankalie's] vote or [Gollum's] vote. I need two votes either way. [Gollum] just stabbed me in the back a couple days ago, and lied right to my face. Why not work on [Skankalie]?" Because, you incredible doofus, Skankalie also lied right to your face and was part of stabbing you in the back. Didn't you notice? He simply doesn't learn. But it doesn't matter. It will avail him nothing. Dead Wizard Wanding.
We got a lengthy night vision peep at the last night of this year's showmance sleeping together, for a last look at Jordumb p-teasing Sarumoron, not even giving him a consolation shag. She'd even send him off to the Sequester House with Cyon Cajones. They chatted nauseously about what their goodbye kiss should be like. Sarumoron, in true male form, suggested extensive rehearsal, and suggested "getting nasty for the live show." Best idea he's had all summer, but when the time came, it fizzled out. From deep under the blankets, her head somewhere in the general vicinity of Sarumoron's staff, we heard Jordumb giggle, say "No. We can't do that." Giggle again, followed by "We can't do that either!" You could at least try! I didn't like artichokes until I tasted one. Now, yum!
Sarumoron and The Doctor made an unprecedented offer to Skankalie: if she'll vote to keep Sarumoron, they'll both throw the HOH competition, and let her take it. (They'd be fools to make good on this deal.) She is seriously tempted, but assuming everyone to be the liar that she is, she didn't dare take the bet.
We met the Doctor's husband, stand-up comic Tim Noonan of Pasadena. Tim's geeky, and skinny, and you could cut your face nuzzling his cheekbones or nose, and he's not anywhere near as attractive as The Doctor, whom he clearly loves, and his story of her bringing along a book to read on their first date is a genuinely funny anecdote. No point in both of them being bored. Sarumoron did just the opposite. The first time he was forced to read a book, he brought a girl along.
Dr. Michelle is, it turns out, burdened with a poor short-term memory. "She might be a neuroscientist, but she's a dumbass at the same time," was perceptive "journalist" Chima's caring diagnosis of The Doctor. Well Chima, she's lasting at least four weeks longer in the house than you did, Mrs. Einstein.
Seeing Russell bully his wife made Tim steam. When Russell is free once again, Tim may just give him a good, fierce talking-about in his act. Karma's a bitch. Tim is about the size of one of Russell's arms.
Under Julie's relentless soft-ball grilling about why she left Gollum in bondage while she gathered money for herself, Skankalie offered this tale with a straight face: "Yes, I did go outside to collect more money, but that was only because I didn't want the houseguests to get suspicious of the clue that I got, which was to go find a key to unlock [Gollum]." And have you heard? She's 18. And Obama really does want to establish Death Panels to euthanize Grandma. What a lame lie. Besides, if the other houseguests knew to find the key to unlock Gollum, and went and did that, Skankalie could have been gathering herself more cash while the others took their own time away to rescue the poor troll. It would have benefitted the stupid girl.
Julie kindly reran the montage of the houseguests falling about on their behinds at the HOH competition, so Sarumoron and the live audience could roar at their pain while they could hear the mocking laughter. Skankalie was also reshown her pathetic shrieking at the bully dragonfly for more live humiliation where it's deserved. Good times.
At the Sequester House, the word that Skankalie is 24 is out of the bag, and Russell's beautiful, chiseled jaw dropped down to his rock-hard abs in astonishment. Are they all blind? One thing was becoming clear to the jury, Skankalie has been lying to one and all since Day One. Some of those jury votes she's counting on are slipping away.
Alone with Jessie for a week, Lydia's pendulum has swung back over to Jessie's pendulum. Who saw that coming? Oh. Every last one of you, my loyal readers.
They were hoping for Sarumoron to arrive, but they're a week early on that one, and in strolled Russell, looking sharp, and hollering "Technotronics" for no reason. Lydia went into her version of "I knew it," which was "Dude, who called it? Who called it? I called it!" No Lydia, you called Sarumoron. Jessie celebrated being re-un-united with Russell by ripping his shirt to shreds. This is also how he celebrates birthdays, Thanksgiving, breaking in a new mirror, and lunchtime. He goes through shirts like I go through vodka. It's not his worst trait.
The nominees' last chance to plead their cases is usually a dull affair. Jordumb's was very much the usual: a little I'm so lucky to be here, some everyone vote what's best for you, a pinch of I've enjoyed my time in the house. But Sarumoron actually used his time to lay out a specific deal proposition to Skankalie, in front of everyone. (Sarumoron did refer to Skankalie as "an 18 year old." He really still believes that? Well by the time you read this, he knows better.)
The vote was a tie, The Doctor honoring her promise to Sarumoron. Gollum could no longer pretend he was being forced. He had to publically evict Sarumoron. He did, with his usual class, "Nice desperate try [snap!], you're out of here." Sarumoron's and Jordumb's last kiss turned out to be a peck on the cheek. Chima must be smiling her blood-chilling grin. She got her stated wish, an all female Final Four, even if Gollum is just an honorary woman.
Being interviewed by Julie Chenbot on The Early Show, Sarumoron finally admitted that listening to Gollum, and evicting Russell was his major mistake. At least he took the final responsibility for his own failure on the show. And the studio audience was clearly madly in love with him. They were stopping only just shy of hurling their phone numbers at him, and I'm including the men, though Sarumoron probably didn't.
The HOH competition was a series of True/False questions where the contestants had to speculate their answers. We learned that Casey is now selling banana-related memorabilia online. (Casey took that banana suit and embraced his new identity as Banana Man.) One statement was "Lydia and Jessie are no longer speaking to each other in the jury house." No one, not even Jordumb, was stupid enough to think that was true.
My favorite statement was: "Technotronics is the use of technology [Jordumb is already grimacing at the use of words with more syllables than she can count.] to move tectonic plates under the earth's surface." Here's what Jordumb heard, as her facial gyrations made abundantly clear: "Technotronics is abba dabba dabba dobie wobie gibble gabble under the earth's gobbledygook." Jordumb and Skankalie both got this one wrong! They were all told less than two months ago that there was no such word as "technotronics!" Apparently, both Skankalie and Jordumb thought a new branch of science had sprung up while they were in the Big Brother House. Holy Jeewillikers (pardon my language, or lack thereof), they is stupidesteryer!
I wept with laughter.
When told Chima had issued an apology for her offensive, racist remarks screamed at Russell, only Dr. Michele believed it is true. Skankalie was clearly shocked that Chima had done so. The sellout! (I know it is true. I don't believe it's sincere, but that was not the question.)
It was a three-way tie, and guessing a number no one could know decided the competition. Jordumb was off by about 250%, which is close for her. The Doctor and Skankalie were only ten numbers apart, but Skankalie's was the closest, and the scheming Skankmisstress is the new Head of Household! Disaster!
If Dr. Michele doesn't win next week's POV, the final two will end up being either Jordumb and Skankalie (gag!), Jordumb and Gollum (retch!), or Skankalie and Gollum (Hell on earth!). The horror. The horror.
"Yes! Yes!" screamed Skankalie as I heaved, "and I did it with sticking to my word," except for all those bold-faced lies you are so proud of telling everyone, and betraying your promises to Sarumoron.
"Chima," Skankalie continued screaming, her medication not being handy, "Vengeance is coming for you!" I don't know which is more disturbed and disturbing: if she's planning on getting some sort of "justice" for Chima, whose two major enemies are both already evicted, or if she meant what her words actually say, in which case, Chima, hide!
[ADDENDUM: Sorry darlings, but computer problems have forced me to kill the column for 9/9. I will return in a week with a BIG BROTHER wrap up covering all of the last last four shows, followed two days later, by SURIVIOR's premiere and then, three days later, my review of the Emmy Awards show. Try not to be too depressed. Get drunk. That always helps.]
Then back to once a week on Friday Nights with Survivor.
Cheers darlings.
To read more of Tallulah Morehead, go to The Morehead the Merrier.
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