VivaVibe

Sometimes when I watch Big Brother, I like to imagine that I’m coasting through a very successful game of The Sims, except without the pain and stress that actually comes with playing The Sims. It’s more like I’m watching over a friend’s shoulder and seeing him deal with the drama of “quick breakfasts” that take an hour and people who take 25 minutes to undress for a shower. It’s Day 42, and whether we’re in The Sims or the Big Brother house, things are getting testy and needs are being depleted. Some are in need of Love (Caleb) or Fun (Zach) or Hunger (also Zach) or Hygiene (probably Victoria). That’s why everyone’s in a bad mood and paradise is fading fast and there are little speech bubbles above the angry players with bold punctuation and angry emoji.

Fresh off the veto meeting, Jocasta is weeping (because she’s Jocasta) and Amber is peeved, having just been put on the block in place of Victoria. She thinks the alliance planned for her to go up, contrary to Frankie’s feigned declaration that he didn’t think a veto would happen. Amber demands to know Frankie’s reasoning for putting her up instead of basically anyone else, and Frankie tries to maintain that he doesn’t know what’s going on. It’s the brilliance of Frankie, as my colleague Darren Franich so adroitly puts it, to simultaneously be doing the most dirty work and appearing as if he’s doing the least. He’s reverse-janitoring us! Frankie throws the blame to Caleb and says it’s the cowboy’s fiery, impassioned plea to put Amber up that convinced him to do it. Sure, Amber may be mad, but at least she’s now a member of what Christine likes to call The Club of Zach Yelling at You, where the headquarters are located in the alley between a liquor store and a Bennigan’s and the membership fees are paid in individual goatee hairs.

So we arrive at The Ballad of Caleb and Amber: Part 1—You Got Something to Say!? in which Amber confronts Caleb while he’s just minding his own business and reading the Bible in the weird brown honeycomb room that looks like a Mario Party minigame that’s been paused too long. “You had me go on the block,” Amber groans. “So you want to give me your reasoning?” Caleb turns to the Holy Book for a passage on trust that is conveniently perfect for the situation, but Amber has no interest, so Caleb instead decides to use actual human conversation and tells her he’s upset that she’s been hanging out with all the girls instead of them (read: him).

It’s so blatantly personal for Caleb, and based on how much he purports to trust Amber, he surely doesn’t actually believe it when he accuses her of aligning with the girls. It’s just Caleb’s obnoxiously large ego that’s made him believe he made a right move scaring Amber. But, like… why did you need to scare her, dude? Herein is the ick factor in Caleb’s already icky obsession with Amber: He’s one of those alpha males who insists his woman be a damsel in distress, the Ann Darrow to his King Kong. And thus it seems that Caleb genuinely believes that if Amber is safe, she’ll come off the block clinging to Caleb’s meaty bicep as he forages for her and pets her hair and buys her pretty things because she’s so frightened of the big bad world without his protection. Ugh. Amber’s a smart girl, so she storms out, saying it’s a big slap in the face. Her beautiful, porcelain, will-probably-host-a-daytime-panel-talk-show-when-this-is-all-over face.

Then, almost immediately, Caleb realizes that he’s messed up. There he is, standing creepily next to the sliding doors like a stranded albeit creepy puppy, waiting for Amber to come back. [The Ballad of Caleb and Amber: Part 2—I’ve Made a Horrible Mistake.] He pulls her aside and apologizes, and then he drops a truth bomb, revealing that he brought up the idea of putting her on the block to the alliance, and that they were all in on it. Amber does not care about Caleb’s part in it, because obviously, but she DOES care about the fact that the entire alliance knew. That was her biggest fear, and Caleb just validated it. She feels betrayed, and rightly so. “Everyone just backstabs me,” she says, kind of waxing Gretchen Wieners (although not really). Honestly, my favorite part of this is the fact that Caleb still seems to think there’s some chance that every move or confession of his will heat Amber’s loins and stir up that romance that will never happen. Without getting into hyperbole, Amber legitimately could NOT. CARE. LESS about Caleb. You’d be crazy to root for that hook-up to happen, most blatantly because of the grim outlook of the options for their relationship nickname. Were we supposed to call them Camber? Ambleb? That is bleak.

Up in the HoH room, where there’s been more intense philosophizing than Dumbledore’s office, Caleb tells an exercising Frankie that he feels like a sleazeball. Wise Frankie allows him to take the blame, flexing those great Broadway-honed acting chops, and then poor Caleb CRIES! “I haven’t seen a cowboy cry this much since Brokeback Mountain,” says Frankie, who does try to comfort Caleb in that delightfully shady Grande way. I mean, Frankie is basically just a better-dressed version of the Batman villain Two-Face, except you kind of love both sides. And the pink hair works.

NEXT: Caleb murders two creatures

Later—and again in the HoH room—Zach teases Amber about Caleb, and he strikes such a chord that she runs out in tears and goes to the Mario Party room to seek solace from Christine. “I want Caleb gone,” she basically says. “I’m done,” she actually says. And then Christine does what Christine does best—tells her alliance everything. (The idea that Christine was almost Zach’s target this week gave me too much of a fright because I think she’s playing one of the best games in the house… although she still has Derrick, Cody, and Frankie to contend with.) Christine tells Derrick and Frankie, who then tell Caleb that Amber is coming after her, thereby putting the nail in Amber’s designer-lined D&G coffin. [The Ballad of Caleb and Amber: Part 3—Les Liaisons Dangereuses] Upon hearing the news of her betrayal,Caleb goes predictably ballistic—or “beast mode,” as I refuse to call him because Caleb is much less a Transformers toy and more like a California Raisin toy from a late ’90s Happy Meal—and fumes. I think for a hot second we’re going to get our first major explosion of the year, but no, we just get a very sad Caleb in a very sad onesie with very sad fabric color choices, murdering bunny slippers and making a statement about the fragile nature of man’s relationship with animal.

It’s the Great Eviction, Julie Brown!

Before the votes roll in, Julie clears up some of the week’s events, particularly Zach’s angry outburst (“I just want to reiterate… I hate all of you”) and Nicole’s weird cry-laugh (“I like Froot Loops and dingus means ‘adorably quirky'”). Plus, what’s a season of Big Brother without a maybe sort of vaguely homophobic reference to gays and fashion!? Thanks, Caleb. Stay classy.

Julie also reveals this week’s secret mission for Team America. And guess what we did, guys: We decided it was in our three supposedly favorite players’ best interests to “vote against the majority of the house in this week’s eviction and then publicly accuse two other houseguests of being the ones responsible for the eviction fallout.” AMERICA, ARE WE KIDDING US??? Why would we want this awful mission? Why are we even doing these awful missions to begin with? Derrick informs Frankie and Donny, and Donny basically refuses because Donny is pure bearded awesomeness, so Team America fails another week. And you know what? Good for them. This is getting stupid, and there’s no punishment for failing a Team America mission anyway, so why even do it? Long live laziness! (Just ask Nicole.)

As voting time rolls around, Amber makes a last-ditch plea to drive home that she’s played a game that’s honest and loyal, honest and loyal, fire burn and cauldron bubble. Jocasta says hello to about 50 people and says something about praying. But of course, she’ll be safe because everyone is voting for Amber. [On a separate note, what happened to the great transitional greetings that this cast used to have on their journey in and out of the diary room? The only one we got tonight was Zach and Caleb exchanging Zach’s signature arm clap thing (not the Florida Gator Chop that he does after casting a vote, but the other arm clap thing that’s a mash-up of Jambi granting one of Pee-Wee’s wishes and the “We act like we’re on speed” line from the opening cheer of Bring It On).]

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Amber’s exit is bitter-ish. She wants out of the house without any hugs, although Hayden gets one good half-hearted squeeze in. The surprise here is that she didn’t blow up the alliance, as she promised last week she would. When Julie quizzes her in the exit interview, Amber says she felt most betrayed by Caleb, and then amends her statement to include Cody, who became her best friend in the house and still voted her out. She does get some great applause for saying great empowering things like “I’m not here for a showmance” and “I wasn’t interested and I’m not going to pretend to be to win some money” and “The cold never bothered me anyway.” And of course, what would an elimination be without a goodbye message from Donny, who makes Amber cry simply because he is Donny. (P.S. Also, it’s worth mentioning that during my exit interview with Amber on EW Radio, I accidentally spilled the beans about who Frankie’s sister is.)

Quickly, we move into the HoH competition, which is a quiz format based on the players’ memory of Big Brother “loops” (in the real world we call them GIFs) of the season’s competitions. We cut off before a winner is announced, but it’s down to Zach, Hayden, Donny, Nicole, and Caleb. Julie also tells us that next week will be a double eviction. Uh oh. Will we finally have a major shake-up that will change the alliance that’s been dominating for weeks? Dare we move an episode out of the HoH room for, oh, the 10th time this season? Everyone left in the house is so likeable, plus Victoria and Jocasta, so maybe we’ll finally get the Sim-on-Sim action I’ve been dreaming of.

Follow me on Twitter: @MarcSnetiker

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