I missed the first half hour of this episode because I have IACGMOOH programmed on my DVR and usually watch on a 30-minute delay so I don’t have to deal with all the commercial pods. (I just learned that term yesterday while doing research for a fall preview piece I'm writing for that rare thing writers get anymore—money.) But I have Comcast, so any series recording setting means jack. So I missed the big development: Stephen Baldwin walked off the show. According to The Live Feed, which also tells us that the show's numbers were down 10 percent from last Monday, he left because of bug bites and back pain. The big wuss. (They have a video of Balwin explaining, if you really care.) This makes him the fourth contestant to quit the show, which I think sets a reality TV record. TJ Lavin would never stand for this.
I tune in right when the bomb is dropped that to fill the Stevie B. void, two evictees are coming in to beg to stay and the remaining campmates have to pick one. I fully expect it to be Heidi and Spencer but, silly me, it's the two players who are still in the neighborhood: Holly Montag and Janice Dickinson. J-Dick tries to squeeze tears through her botox-deadened tear ducts to convince the group she really wasn't a bitch who belched and peed beside the bed and talked about her bowels and her menopause all day. Holly cried sweet little sugar drops and just said "I really love you guys!" Holly wins. Big teddy-bear hugs all round.
We have a long segment on how Holly and Sanjaya are picking up their showmance right where it left off and a big tease about how they might be, oooh, hooking up all jungle-style. Meanwhile I've got a bridge to sell you.
So that's the first hour down. Hey, that was easy! Onto the second. Welcome back, says Damien as Myleene stands fetchingly by his side her her latest shrunken frock from the Sears Junior Miss Department. We run through the campmates' various charities. Good for you, celebs, I hope you get some $5 texts, I really do!
Food trial. It's called Head of Horror and it has something to do with bugs and snakes and spiders. They mislead us into thinking Holly’s going to kill it. They’re playing for more junk food: a double whopper! In rounds of two, celebs have to pop their heads inside a plastic box full of little crawly critters and remove some stars with their mouths. So, yeah, a nice little oral challenge for a change.
Patti Blah-go doesn’t even try. Holly makes a game attempt—oh fellas, some major tongue action!—so she wins that one. John Long Tall Salley starts whining immediately, tries to put his head in the box and yells over at Damien, "You must be outta your rabbit-ass mind!" Hey now! Could this be the new "hell to the no"? He finally gets his rabbit-ass head up in the rabbit ass-tank. Naturally, Sanji takes their round. Then Long Tall rabbit-asses on in the confessional about not letting his daughters not see him do something. As opposed to see him do something. Like hollering about rabbit asses.
Ad break. I catch the tail end of that Brooke Shields commercial where she tries to persuade the ladies of America to slop some kind of toxic prescription-only chemical onto their eyeballs to make their lashes grow. What a crock. Shame on you, Brooke Shields. As if those ads about mascara showing models wearing five layers of falsh eyelashes aren't heinous enough.
We're back to the Head of Horror. Lou Diamond Phillips is up against Torrie. Guess who wins. Torrie sweetfaces about her frustration. I don't blame her. LouDi is almost scarily competitive, he'll do anything to win. Including let tarantulas crawl into his nostrils, which he does in the final round between him, Holly and Sanji. He announces that he was thinking about his daughters too—unlike Long Tall, he lets them see him do something.
Before LouDi gets his whopper, the camp is given some scales. Which is funny, because I was just thinking about how skinny everyone suddenly looks, like they all lost 10 pounds over the weekend. And, indeed, some have: Patti's lost 10 pounds, Long Tall's rabbit ass lost 21—whoa!, scrawny Sanji lost 8, Holly lost 9 and LouDi lost 15. Torrie gained weight—7 whole pounds. It's solid muscle, of course. Just like me!
LouDi wraps his face around the burger and stuffs it in. Torrie sweetfaces that she hopes he doesn't get sick from eating the whole thing. Tell you what, I wouldn't want to be on latrine duty that day. Then: a father's day montage. Long Tall and LouDi get to skype home. Because they’re dads. LouDi is a bawling mess. Boo-hoos all round.
Myleene and Damien are back. Oh no! Someone is leaving the jungle forever. Reeaa-eeeaaarrr-eaarrraagghh shrieks the violin. But... a twist. It's the two celebs with the lowest votes. Or "the vowest lote getters," as Patti explicates. Holly is at the bottom, duh. But who's next? Patti, for sure, right? No. It's Long Tall.
Oh, his face. It's that awful sore loser face we've all come to know and love by now. Long Tall is seriously gutted. He doesn't have the support system of America behind him that he thought he had. He's in the loser's circle of two, way down there with Holly. And as we know, Long Tall does not like to lose, no sir. He and Holly have to drink evil creature-ridden cocktails in the Last Chance Saloon. Long Tall has a big tight toothy smile plastered on his face that makes him look like death's grinning skull. He is second to last. He is hating this. Hating.
The first is a bright green cocktail of grasshoppers. Holly chugs it fastest. Long Tall blames his height. His death-grin is so forced, his upper lip is starting to twitch. Next, a Tarantula Teaser. Yep, blended tarantulas. Long Tall literally swallows his fear and takes that one. Dung Beetle Daquiri. This is too gross for words. What a great challenge! Long Tall takes that one too. Holly has dung beetle on her teeth. This can't be nice for them at all.
Next: Scorpio Sunrise. With a whole dead scorpion floating inside. Holly deep-throats it. Long Tall lets out a very impressive big-man belch. Finally, Chili Colada. Oh, it's close! Damien pretends to go to the tape to call it. This series has been full of some lame moments, but this one takes the cake. It's Long Tall's win. He gloats so hard, he drinks the leftovers and flounces back to camp, all Nyah nyah America, I won. There is something very.... not nice about this guy. Holly, in major contrast, is a gracious good sport.
So tomorrow night, three are going home, leaving two two are going home, leaving three to battle it out on Wednesday night's finale. [Thank you, my dear friend Rich Sands of TV Guide!] Each campmate gets a camera-moment to appeal directly to us, America, why we should vote for them tonight.
Sanji is uncomfortably charisma-free as he rattles through his greatest jungle hits and then trills, "I'm the baby here, I should win!" Long Tall bombasts, "My strength is my will, I have been very resourceful, I have not taken from the jungle, I have given back." Say what? Patti says something super forced and awkward, and I'm so distracted by the way she's displaying both rows of her teeth that I have no idea. Torrie sweet-faces about how she’s not going down without a fight. LouDi thinks he's Barack Obama on the stump and speechifies about what a great and fair leader he's been, and then signs off with a terrible Elvis impression. Sanji does some very wood-nymphy jumping jacks as we sign off. Curiously, I don't have the slightest inclination to pick up my phone and vote.
Photos courtesy of nbc.com
