08/21 - A Night in Amber-land

Once again tonight's episode most prominently featured the least popular houseguest of the season Amber—also known as Whaa-mber given how frequently she’s seen crying like a madwoman. This lady is so chock-full of sound bites it’s hard to know where to begin.

For any newcomers, here’s a brief recap. You see, Amber is God’s chosen one. As such, Amber had a vision of winning the power of veto. While you might be tempted to dismiss this as a vivid daydream, to the big-haired single mom this was nothing less than “God’s way of prepping” her for the challenge ahead.

Caught up? Great.

So Amber, without the slightest irony or awareness, started off the episode by explaining how she is a really good person, someone who is always putting others before herself. She also told viewers how this unfortunately makes her a major threat to the others.

Ahhh, Amber-land must be a glorious place: modesty and accountability are thrown out the window and everyone has over-tweezed eyebrows.

We’ll return to Amber later, but first let’s address the other delusional houseguest, Zach. Although we’ve seen nothing to verify this, Zach also believes he’s playing the game masterfully. Call me crazy, but he’s a far cry from Dr. Will. He's not even a Mike Boogie. In fact, he’s about as relevant as the giraffe topiary in the back yard.

Tonight Zach accused Eric of having “no game when it comes to chicks.” Alas, we all can’t be manly studs like Zach, yet I’m pretty confident “chicks” went out of fashion around the same time as “gettin’ jiggy wit it.” Furthermore Zach’s “game” consisted of sitting on top of Jessica, which did nothing to woo her but sure made Eric irate—his voice went up eight octaves! Perhaps Eric should have whipped out some ultimate fighting skills.

To assist Eric’s pursuit of Jessica, America selected the comely pipsqueak to receive his woobie. (I swear it isn’t as dirty as it sounds.) The woobie in question is a stuffed dog Eric had to pretend was a childhood memento. Jessica was touched by the gesture, but I was bored beyond compare. Come on America, it would have been priceless to see Eric straining to keep a straight face while having a heart-to-heart with Dick about his woobie!

Okay, now back to crazy Amber. Despite her premonition, she did not win the veto competition. I don’t know what kind of God would allow a sinful heathen like Daniele to be victorious, but they say He works in mysterious ways.

After conferring with Jameka, Amber went to Daniele to see if she could leverage a deal. Discarding all intentions to play it cool the moment she entered the HoH bedroom, Amber immediately began making all sorts of promises. Big Brother helped us keep track of these wild pledges by inserting a handy ding sound.

Ding! Amber promised to keep Daniele safe for the remainder of the game.

Ding! She vowed to vote however Daniele wants, even at the expense of loyal ally Jameka.

Ding! She swore on her daughter’s life…again!

Oh boy, that was the cherry on the sundae (or final nail in the coffin, depending on your preferred metaphor). Doesn’t she recall what happened the last time she swore on her poor daughter’s life? It wasn’t pretty.

The best part of all is that Daniele only requested one week of safety. Amber volunteered the rest!

After all that how could Daniele not take Amber off the block? As a result, Jen went up instead and may likely go home on Thursday. I’m a bit bummed, both Jameka and Jen are among my favorites, but Daniele is emerging as a great competitor.

We’ll see if her smarts pay off when she and Amber are participants on—shameless plug alert—CBS’s new game-show Power of 10! I hope host Drew Carey remembers to carry a handkerchief when Amber starts sobbing.