Big Brother Recap: We're talking to The Man in the Middle

Yes, I went with the most obvious pop culture reference up there in the title. I tried to be slightly more hip by making a reference to "Monie in the Middle" instead, but "Nate in the middle/Where's he at?/In the middle" didn't have enough wordplay to it.

Once more, lets start with the juicy part. Last night we finally met Nate, the man who got between Joe and Dustin. In case you forgot who Nate is, the show replays the following exchange:

Dustin: Did you mention to them that you slept with my best friend to get back at me?

Joe: No, I didn't do it to get back at you. I really loved Nate. I loved Nate more than I ever loved you.

Yes, tonight on Big Brother we saw a gay love triangle turned into tawdry reality TV fodder. I'm quite bummed that this story didn't last longer (then again, it's not surprising -- Big Brother twists are notorious for having little long-term effect) but I was quite impressed to see CBS treating our dirty laundry as no different as the parade of past Big Brother houseguests. They could have made Joe and Dustin's broken relationship seem more scandalous for being an all-male love triangle, but aside from Joe's gonorrhea declaration, this could have been any other broken reality TV couple.

Poor Nate. At least Dustin and Joe get to be the star of their messy story; Nate is only a bit player, one who gets only a sliver of Joe and Dustin's 15 seconds of fame while still seeing himself put up on national television as "the other man." He sheepishly admits, "Who sleeps with your best friend's ex-boyfriend? That's awful. I feel awful about it but I did it."

For the most part, we've only seen a he said/he said view of Dustin and Joe's relationship, but, Nate seems to judge Joe harshly. "Dustin had a grab bag of things done to him," he explains. In regards to Joe's accusation, Nate says, "Joe could have gotten gonorrhea anywhere." Nate could probably phrase it in a meaner fashion, but the way the comment is shown, it's a pretty striking accusation of who wronged who.

Now that I've gotten to get out my reactions to the show's gayest moments, let's get back to the beginning. Picking up from the veto ceremony, where Danielle saved herself from eviction and Jen put Joe up instead. Naturally, we get Dustin and Joe's reactions to this turn of events. Dustin calmly tells us that, "When it officially hit me that Joe has a possibility of going home, a wave of ecstasy flushes me from head to toe." Interestingly, he says this pretty calmly. I wonder if that's a sign of how he's held back his emotions for the past few weeks. Joe, meanwhile tells us that he's not one of those, "Weepy sad little rainclouds." Is that a dig on Amber? I think that's a dig on Amber.

Joe tries to do some last minute campaigning, but it's not going well. It's never easy to have to campaign this late in the game, you're going against someone who's already spent a few days getting their votes, so Joe's trying to change minds at this point -- a difficult task without an alliance behind him. He campaigns to Kail, who tells him that he's never bothered her. That's interesting to hear considering how she's been shown repeatedly suggesting him as a nomination.

Next he talks to Mike, who doesn't seem to be really listening, and then Jessica who doesn't find him to be trustworthy. At this point, we cut to a visual of Joe cuddling Jessica in bed. It's rather cute.

Next we see Kail taking up the campaign to keep Joe in the house. In a moment that seems rather clueless as well as callous, she takes the campaign to Danielle, suggesting that it'd be easier to repair her relationship with Dick outside of the house (and, therefore, should vote to evict her father). It's a pretty lame move on Kail's part, since Dick and Danielle's relationship hasn't seemed strained enough to make a suggestion like this and it's pretty manipulative to position her campaigning as if she were only looking out for the Danielle's welfare.

Unsurprisingly, Danielle alerts her father to Kail's campaigning, leading to a big confrontation over the breakfast table. They're not alone, however, leaving Dustin, Jessica, Eric, Mike and Jameka to glance around nervously as Dick yells at Kail. This is becoming a common visual this season. Sunday, while Dick was fighting with Jen we saw Dustin enter the room and calmly grab whatever he came into the room to grab, trying his darnedest to ignore the two out of fear of getting dragged into their drama. Tuesday, we saw Dick yelling at Jen again (this time it was over making Amber cry) with Danielle entering the room, only to exit a second later. Overall, it's looking like everyone will get their turn treating Dick like the the stranger who shouts obscenities at empty air as he walks down the street.

Time for the voting and eviction ceremony. Julie Chen asks Danielle how she feels about the week's events. Danielle replies, "You've got to do what you've got tyo do and you've got to make the best out of every situation -- and it worked for me." This is the first time I've noticed it, but Danielle comes of as rather princess-y in how she answered this question.

Julie Chen then turns to Amber. She starts her question with, "Usually people cry when they're up for eviction..." and everyone knows where the conversation is going. Amber responds that she's just tends to cry easily. I'm reminded of how I used to believe that "I cry at McDonalds commercials" was a cliche until I met someone who actually did cry at a McDonald's commercial. I still rib him about that and I teared up during the season finale of Heroes -- during a scene I predicted months earlier and dismissed as too trite to actually put on the air. It might be more apt to say Amber cries at the sight of Gary Coleman pitching check cashing and payday loans.

Next, Julie Chen turns to Jen. Her question starts with, "You have definitely taken the 'uni' out of 'unitard.'" Did Julie Chen just call Jen... nah. What people who don't follow the live feed wouldn't know is that Jen has been having fun creating new outfits out of that unitard, including a swimsuit with a thong-style back. Unfortunately, they don't show us any of those outfits, so viewers who weren't following things closely might have reason to feel a tad offended.

As we move on to the live voting, was I the only one feeling the outcome looks pretty inevitable? As much as they show the campaigning, the votes at this stage of the game are rarely close -- they're usually unanimous or there's just one or two dissenting votes. I was a bit surprised to see that Eric didn't get a vote -- I thought he had the choice to dismiss his directions? And, indeed, Joe was voted out with only one vote (from Kail). Joe gets up to give his good-bye hugs and, notably, skips over Dustin.

Julie Chen begins Joe's exit interview with almost a taunt, "Your ex-boyfriend, Dustin, used to make fun of how obsessed you were of watching the show. Now he's in there, you're in here. How does it feel to be outplayed by your ex-boyfriend?"

Joe admits it hurts, but says Dustin's arrival hurt him badly, "The moment he walked down those stairs, my entire game got thrown off. It's hard to the with the whole situation of being in this house and the game but the additional fact that you're trying to deal with emotional situations, it really makes it difficult."

Julie Chen then reveals the America's Player twist to Joe, letting him know that it was Eric, after all, nuzzling up to his leg. Joe laughs when he's told that Big Brother viewers voted that Eric should try to sneak in to Joe's bed, saying he felt honored. I was kind of hoping Joe would turn that situation around, maybe asking Julie Chen, 'So, what do you think America was voting for in this case? Do you think they wanted to mess with the gay guy or were they thinking that Eric and I would make a cute couple?'

Then come the goodbye videos. Dick's message is first and it's very blunt, "It was really your own fault. You made yourself untrustworthy... you deserve to be where you are -- see ya." I'm reminded of the time Jace got evicted last season and Nakomis' goodbye looked like a clip from a "500 things I hate about you" rant. Zach, interestingly, tells Joe that "(Joe) rubbed (Zach) the wrong way from the beginning. Warm messages from Jessica and Jen follow before ending with a goodbye from Dustin. "I don't believe you're the person I met in the summer of 2005," Dustin says, "And I'm sorry that person is lost somewhere. What matter is you take care of you." I'm still willing to believe that we haven't seen the whole picture of Joe and Dustin's relationship, but Dustin is doing a job looking compassionate, forgiving and a little more mature.

To be honest, the Head of Household competition was a little dull this week. I could make some comments, but, there are more interesting aspects of last night's show to discuss. Dick won HoH, which will certainly make the upcoming week interesting... it also makes this week's voting in the America's Player challenge interesting, since last night was when we got to make Eric campaign for a nomination. I split my votes between Mike and Zach. It seems likely that Dick will be nominating Kail, I'd like to see her go up against another member of the Conference Room Alliance.

A couple more thoughts about how Joe and Dustin. This fall, CBS is trying to make themselves seem hipper and more buzz-worthy. Since its other summer shows have failed to find an audience, it needs Big Brother to draw a young audience to make sure their new target audience sees ads for shows like Moonlight. Considering how younger people tend to be less likely to be turned off by gay themes and stories, I wonder if casting a broken-up male couple in this season's Big Brother was an attempt to make this season "not your father's Big Brother." Since producers said that they saw this season as "a new starting point" I wonder if we can hope to see that gay housemates won't end up in token roles in the future, which would be a break from the show's past.

On the other hand, it's also worth noting what wasn't a part of the broadcast edition of Big Brother. Nick certainly did plenty to ping live feed viewers' gaydar -- between his hot tub confession, his five hottest guys list and letting Joe spoon him -- subscribers debated if he was simply very confident in his sexuality or if he were openly bisexual. That aspect of Nick, something that had captured the attention of Big Brother's most devoted audience wasn't a part of the broadcast edition.

Neither were discussions about the houseguests' attitudes towards their gay men, whether that be the reactions to Nick's top five list or Zach's talk about Dustin changing his perception of gay men (a clip not flattering to Zach.) While the show kept hinting at Kail's homophobia with her dairy room quote about how heartbroken she'd be if one of her children "chose a gay lifestyle" and showing her repeatedly suggest either Dustin or Joe be nominated. That never got past hinting (possibly due to a lack of footage) with Kail and they avoided highlighting Zach's issues with gays.

It should be considered, however, that early footage not used in the primetime Big Brother isn't always tossed out. The show has sat on footage for weeks in the past, so when juicy scenes don't make the next show, it doesn't mean it won't ever make it into primetime and it doesn't mean that producers haven't deemed the story one worth highlighting. I suppose it's like my experience with these recaps -- I've omitted plenty, not because they weren't noteworthy but because there were events more worth spending my time discussing. Unfortunately, with Joe out of the house, chances are smaller that we won't be seeing it on the broadcast edition, save, possibly, for the reunion.

I'm going to end this with a clip of Joe pulling a prank on Zach with a piece of chocolate. It's a cute moment for Joe and I wonder if this gives us a glimpse into how Joe might have played if not for this year's twist.