Big Brother Recap: Where's my eeeevil?

The problem with following the live feeds while watching Big Brother is that sometimes you get hyped for one kind of story and when you tune in, you get another. Over on the live threads, the consensus is that Dick has become a tyrant of an HoH, bullying people and devising ways to test their loyalty to him. So. I tuned in expecting Evil Dick to be acting all evil tonight and instead I get the story of Nick's gay vague I was hoping to see last week.

I was all excited over the idea of posting a picture of Sir Simon Milligan & his manservant Hecubus over Dick's evilness, but instead Big Brother writers portray him a sensitive father. Thanks for ruining my Kids in the Hall nostalgia kick, CBS. Ah, well, here's the picture anyway.

Of course, this episode begins with the usual flashback to the last major event -- Joe's eviction and the obligatory reaction from Dustin who says that Joe, "Made his bed and now he lies in it."

Meanwhile, Kail is upset since she didn't expect to be the sole vote to evict Dick. However, Jen, who also wanted to keep Joe in the house insists everything all went as planned even though neither of her initial nominations were voted out. Is Jen saying she was making use of "The Six Finger Plan?"

Jen gets even better when the flashbacks move on to the Head of Household competition, where Dick wins. "Yay!" she yells, sounding like she's trying too hard to sound happy, much like when she "won" that unitard. "Dick's not in our room!"

Kail confronts Mike about his vote, asking why he didn't let her know that the tide had changed. Mike hems and haws but doesn't really give her an answer. Finally she asks, "Are we still in an alliance?" Mike shrugs in a way that suggests that he hasn't been thinking about how to make their alliance work. Way to pick a partner, Kail.

But next... it's time for the unveiling of Dick's HoH room. I guess they're not completely redecorating the room for each HoH this year (yay!) so it's just a matter of looking at the pictures on the wall. Everyone is drawn to a picture of a young Dick and Danielle. It makes Danielle reflect, "We have had good times in the past." Amber, meanwhile is (surprise!) moved to the verge of tears, "I was so happy for him, he deserves it so much." No, wait, she is only on the verge of tears, this is a surprise.

Jen, meanwhile, is completely unmoved. "I mean, whatever," she monotones, "They are him. So, I don't know." In other words, Jen doesn't know how to react to a picture, except to judge if she looks good in it -- if she's not in the picture, the scores would all say "Not Applicable."

In case you hadn't realized it, this is going to be "Shadenfreude for Kail" week. Part one -- watching her explain herself to Dick and her last-minute campaigning against him. It is fun watching her squirm, especially as she can't keep her story consistent. I know Dick's being a jerk around the house, but with Kail it is fun watching him point out the holes in her stories.

More importantly, we finally saw Nick's Top Five List make it onto the show. It starts with Amber trying to remember the title of Van Wilder, Nick reminds her and adds that Ryan Reynolds is in his Top 5 Guys list. Zach is pretty surprised to hear Nick say something like that, "You'd do him?" he asks. "Yeah," Nick replies without the slightest bit of panic, "He's a good looking dude." Zach continues to be baffled by this in the diary room, "I find other guys very visually appealing just as Nick would but I don't have a top five." Ohboy, Zach, "Visually appealing?" Really? Coming up with such a cold and distant term for recognizing a good looking man, now that sets off the gaydar.

Nick continues to talk about his top five list. His other picks are Matthew McConaughey, Hugh Jackman and Brad Pitt. "Have you seen Fight Club or Snatch?" he explains. Hm, I'll definitely agree about Fight Club but Snatch? I so don't remember Brad Pitt displaying hotness above and beyond his usual hotness in Snatch. Maybe I was just distracted with trying to keep up with the dialect to notice. Nick continues about Brad Pitt, "He's a great looking guy, killer bod, seems super smart," then comes this part where Nick starts to head into self-parody, "In a way, it's almost like I'm thinking of myself." Yikes! Forget about another women, anyone who gets involved with Nick should be worried about losing him to a mirror.

Nick turns the topic into another attempt to court Danielle, "I used to have a top five girls list, but I dropped it when I met you." Uhm, er. ::Squirms:: Start out way too strong very often, Nick?

The footage moves forward to a more recent event where Danielle panics and has a late night talk with her father. She's torn between her newfound feelings for Nick and her boyfriend back home. "I don't want to hurt anyone." she cries. At this point, Dick comes off as pretty fatherly, giving her some good advice. "What is real here might not be real outside... Nick has a life outside of here and so do you... sometimes, the decisions you make hurt other people but in the end you have to choose what's right for you."

Later, Dick turns to Dustin over Danielle's crisis, frustrated that he didn't have the perfect advice for her. Dustin has some good advice, too, telling Dick to appreciate that they can be there for each other, "Coming to you was her way of saying 'I love you.'" Dustin remarks. I know the gay man as a confidante is stereotype, but I'm happy to see Dick turn to Dustin like this. Maybe that's because the usual pattern for gay men on Big Brother is to befriend mostly women and it's nice to see a gay man break from that pattern.

As a prelude to the food competition, we see Jameka stare miserably into a bowl of slop. The perils of watching someone else eat slop almost brings Amber to tears, as well, "When Jameka was eating the slop, you could just tell it was literally hurting her to eat it." Literally, Amber? What's in that nutrient-fortified porridge? I'd hate to think that the Big Brother producers are so cruel as to add ingredients that cause pain to make sure the slop remain a punishment.

Jen continues to be self-centered, "Since I haven't been on slop, I don't really feel bad for people who are on it. I suck at that, feeling bad things, but I definitely feel something -- don't know if it's bad." As we hear this quote from her, we see footage of Jen starting at her reaction in the back of a spoon. The juxtaposition, here, it perfect. And hilarious.

Later, we see Jameka struggling through a bowl of slop while other housemates sit around the dining table eating dinner. Dick comments that it's cruel to eat real food around housemates restricted to a slop diet, "It's like going to Africa and eating a hamburger." Jameka quickly points out that Africa isn't the only place on the planet where people have a hard time affording food, including the United States, and storms away. Dick follows her and tries to discuss the comment, telling her he hopes she didn't see any unintended racism in what he said. Jameka responds that she wasn't angry with him, "I'm the only black person here, so I am cognizant of how that's portrayed... I was saying that people think the only thing in Africa is starving kids... if I'm trying to engage in conversation with you guys I have to be mindful of how I'm portraying myself." Did a Big Brother houseguest just say 'cognizant'? Looove. There's also a part of me loving Jameka for being aware of the disproportionate amount of representation she carries, perhaps it risks making her come off as too serious but you don't see many reality TV stars who consider the greater consequences of their pursuit of celebrity. At this point, I start to wonder if Dustin feels the burden of representing gay men well... particular in light of what Joe gave us.

Thankfully, this week's food competition is a house competition, meaning no one goes on slop. This challenge, titled, "Mission Inpastabowl" requires the houseguests to slide into one of two a giant bowl of pasta with basketball "meatballs" with food items written on them. Pairs of houseguests have to dive into the bowls and find a matching pair of meatballs. When a pair is found, that ingredient will be part of the week's groceries. For some appalling reason, when Eric explains this he uses liver as an example. I hope that if they find a pair of meatballs marked "liver" they'd look for a better pair. Then again, things could be worse -- their first time out Jen and Kail find sweetbreads. I'm laughing at this point because I've been warned about ordering sweetbreads at restaurants, but Jessica explains that sweetbreads are "Doughnuts, corn bread -- any kind of bread that tastes good and is not like normal bread." Oh, Jessica is in for a surprise when she doesn't find any packages from King's Bakery. (Worse, did you catch the recommended technique for cooking sweetbreads? I don't think it's going to make a very pleasing meal.)

Jess also gives us our Beavis and Butthead quote of the night as she describes her first time getting on the slide, "The first time I went down, I burned my butt." Ouch for both Jessica's tush and her dignity.

Cut to Dustin, Kail and Amber sunbathing. The subject of Dustin's past Halloween costumes gets Kail to ask about the rumored sexual orientation of fictional characters. She asks about Batman's sidekick, Robin (but not Batman) as well as Barney. Dustin shakes off both questions, especially the Barney one, "He was a fictional dinosaur character, I don't think he had a sexual preference." She then asks if he can tell a straight man from a gay one, adding that she would have never guessed he was gay. I'm stunned, people, CBS casting has found someone with gaydar weaker than mine. "I don't think I'll every be good at spotting a gay guy," Kail interviews, "...Unless they're wearing their full makeup. Then it's a giveaway." Full make-up? Does she realize there's a difference between being gay and cross-dressing?

The segment ends with a true "What the...?" statement from Kail. "I still think God created man and woman for a reason, but Dustin is the type that you just love his heart and his personality -- and it's easy to forget he's gay." So his niceness makes her forget that he's gay? Why do I get the feeling Kail is one of those people who think gays just hate nice things like family and tradition, seeking only to destroy stability? Dustin, meanwhile, seems as aware of his opportunity to change impressions hoping that he can "open some doors for Kail so that she can have a better understanding of who we are."

This time, Eric's America's Player assignment is to try to get Jen nominated for eviction. "This will be the easiest check mark yet." he boasts. We see Eric do his duty -- as Dick talks about nominating Kail and Zach, Eric puts up the case for Jen -- an effort that we soon learn was successful when Kail and Jen turn out to be nominated.

I was cheering for a Kail/Zach nomination -- not only is it a good way to break up the Conference Room alliance, those are the two nominations that would pay off the most drama. It looks like we were close to getting the nominations I hoped for, but the interference of America's Player put a stop to that. Thanks, America. If my suspicion that this America's Player twist is a test to see if American viewers can be trusted to evict houseguests, then I think we've failed again. Seriously, America, Jen's annoying but very compelling. Zach, on the other hand, is irksome and boring. It's looking like, if given the chance, we'd re-do season one all over again (then again, the first season of Big Brother was boring even before the interesting housemates were evicted).