Jackie: "What will you do with the money, if you win?"
Ben: "Probably change my identity, to escape the show..."

"And Alice," said Jackie, on last night's eviction spectacle, after a gushy few lines with Rory about how homesick he is; " What's the past week been like, for you?" Let's get down to the business of getting rid of that crazy chick who goes "psycho" over a treadmill, shall we?

"Good!" beamed Alice, maintaining her composure - her illusion - in the gaze of others, even though we'd just watched her be slowly brought undone by the show who wanted to keep both its stars in for the final Big Brother crowning, ever.

"And Travis," Jackie smiled. Ah, Travis. "You're the possimistic person in the house!" Jackie reminded us (as if we needed reminding - it seems many BB fans didn't). "Is anyone starting to get on your nerves?"

They knew the answer he would give, of course, and he gave it. "No," he beamed, maintaining his own illusions. "But I think I'm getting on other people's nerves. But I'm remaining possimistic!"

"God, I hate that word," said Kyle, before turning to Terri, with, "Terri! My lovely, darling Terri!"

Lovely, darling Terri - who the show would very much like to be our final memory of Big Brother Australia - wasn't going anywhere. No, it would be the psycho Alice and the gratingly possimistic Travis. That pretty much marks the end of any emotional investment I have in the finale (the trickle of emotion I did have - not that I thought it would sustain itself past this eviction, anyway). Ben won't win; but, even so, it means little. I'd prefer him, over the misogynistic, manipulative, dim-witted Rory, or the Hanson-loving Terri; but, even so, it all amounts to nothing much. It nearly always does, after all. "We have heaps of surprises in store for you, tomorrow night!" they promised us. But whatever surprises this finale will hold, it certainly won't be in regards to the winner.

Before the evictions kicked in, we were also given (just in case we needed any help making up our minds) a montage of how much Travis has annoyed Terri, followed by another montage of how Rory thinks Travis shouldn't win the money because "it won't make any impact on Trav's life". This included a ridiculous reconstruction of the fake eviction, where (in reality) we actually glimpsed Rory's darker side - that glare, that blatant dissatisfaction when his competition walked back in - as something that now was supposed to convince us what a lovely chap Rory is.

"Aaawww, I love Rory, now!" gushed Jackie. "That whole Travis/Rorty relationship has changed my opinion of Rory."

"Did you not like him, in the beginning?" asked Kyle.

"Now, I love him!" she smiled, flipping her hands around.

"You've seen the kind side," concurred Kyle. "You've seen the softness."

By this stage, I was laughing. I highly recommend a mindset of black comedy, as the way to watch these final moments. It makes it much easier to stomach.

When this montage led to Rory's final live cross (working as a suggestion of how we were to perceive the contents of this cross), the crowd did as they have been effectively told, and met his image with collective hysteria.

"Can you hear them screaming?" laughed Jackie.

"I can," he nodded with his sly grin. "I love it." 

And them, it was time for the inevitable cross to Alice. Go on. Finish her off.

"This week, Big Brother asked for the treadmill, and Alice lost it," Jackie reminded us.

"Quite rudely, I think," said Kyle, to the boos that were already beginning in the audience.

Are we going to get a montage of Alice flipping out? It will go so nicely, in retrospect, with the montages of how annoying Travis is.

Ah, yes. Of course. Alice flips out over a treadmill. Just hurry up and evict the poor girl. 

"Selfish, I think," quipped Kyle. "Selfish."

"Don't be mean to Alice," said Jackie, doing what she ultimately gets paid for - buffering the contrived with redundant disclaimers.  

After she arrived to more booing, the scriptwriters (Jackie doesn't talk her own shit, after all - one difference between her and Gretel) had the audacity to have her ask Alice, "Nobody was voting to evict you, until this week. What do you think changed that made people suddenly vote for you?"

The thing is, Alice knew. She's a savvy BB player, and she knew very well what was happening - that was, ironically, part of her crisis (the battle between her true emotions and knowing what those emotions would be used for). Alice had actually gone to Big Brother and voiced these concerns (not included by the shiow as part of the narrative). At one point, this even made it onto the official website's diary, but was promptly taken down by someone with some power, within hours. She instantly put it forward on the stage; "I hope it wasn't because I looked selfish... I knew how that would be portrayed." 

"I think it's because, in the final weeks, when everyone's being safe and not much happening, it only takes a housemate to do one thing controversial, and that's who gets the evict votes." offers Jackie. Well, exactly. Which is why they took that treadmill away from her, of course.   "So, it's not like you did anything too wrong," she then put forward in an amazingly hypocritical turnaround - the kind that happens as a housemate looks like heaping shit on the BB machine. It'd done its job, after all, now let's not worry about it. "So, I wouldn't worry about it," Jackie assured her. Okay, Alice? Shut up about the treadmill - we've used it, you're out, now let's just get a snapshot of you being the naive, stunned bunny, yeah? It looks better for us, that way.

At this point, the crowd are told to cheer - they do - and Alice lights up from the affirmation. "Thankyou, so much!" she beams, having no idea how played she is being, in the moment. That's always been the formula - whenever things get too iffy, whenever the stunned bunnies aren't quite not stunned enough to figure it all out, just hit them with the affirmation we all know they're there for - that'll stun them on the spot, and then they'll behave.  

"It's all good!" smiled Jackie. Yep. But better for some, than others. 

It was at this point, however, that, not having watched the daily show before this (I will, but I've just come back to this, after a weekend away), it seems I've something to see - in particular a final nail that involved Rory "attacking" Alice over the issue of her "infertility"? I can almost put one and one together, without needing to see it. But, regardless, let it show the nature of the BB audience - something we were recently discussing - in terms of their empathy and understanding. Yes, yes, she can't have kidds and she's upset. Whatever - she's a psycho bitch - get her out of there! 

This was followed by another example of their tactic to stun the potentially troublesome evictee with more gushy feelings of love and affection - even if this is done using blatant deception. Cherry did not, after all, (as Jackie put it to Alice), leave his "mission" for Brigette because "he found himself attracted" to her! Hello! But Alice fell into a coy mess - as intended.  

But, at least, it ended on a note where (to those smart enough to "get" it) there was just a dash of egg on the duo's faces, when they then brought up Alice's "love/hate" relationship with the guide puppy, Ollie. This was supposed to remind everyone that Alice was a nasty girl who didn't even love "everyone's favourite puppy". But, as it turns out, there were some... details... the show had never let us in on.

"He had a bowel problem," remembered Alice, "And you'd wake up to find him having rolled in his own diarrhea. Didn't you see that?"

"I think we saw bits and pieces," laughed Jackie.

No. We didn't. 

So, moving right along! One final matter to be cleared up: who will Alice give her $50,000 to? 

"Travis," she said, without hesitation, "He gives 110% to everything."

And c'mon, guys, give it the spin that tonight's "direction" requires...

"Really?" asked Jackie. "That's funny, because he seems to be annoying lots of people in the house." 

But Alice wasn't budging - nor seemed to remotely understand how Travis' relationship with the others could be construed that way. Must be time for another meaningless disclaimer, Jackie...

"He's lovely, isn't he?"

Oh, yes. He's lovely, alright. And he was about to be evicted.

It took no time for the devilish duo to get down to business, here. In case we'd forgotten, two of the remaining housemates (and, more importantly, the one they suspect might win) were involved in the many instances of bullying against Travis that found many viewers turning off the show in disgust. Yes, that's right - here comes the biggest disclaimer of all. And was Travis going to hand it to them? Of course, he was. The montage, refreshing our memory (a rather selective string of excerpts, mind you) was aired - what a surprise - right before throwing to an ad break, meaning that they had a good five minutes of "casual" conversation (off camera) to... well... "make sure" they were handed what they wanted. It was never going to be too difficult, let's face it. They seemed annoyed when his "possimism" led him to dodge the question, "Are you disappointed?" and "Did you think you could win?" but they were more than happy for the possimistic answer to his thoughts on basically being bullied as the weakest member of the collective by the other men. 

"You did great!" we heard Jackie assure him, as we returned from the ad break. "Did you ever feel bullied?" 

Amazingly enough - as a testament to how Travis does secretly harbour more... realistic emotional responses, beneath the possimism... he did make reference to the spa incident: "The only time I really felt that was with the spa incident". This was unfortunate, considering this was - with both Ben and Rory's involvement in this incident - the main moment the show would have wanted Travis to lay to rest. Unfortunately, as you'd expect, his very next line was, "But all those guys are great... I'm so close to all of them."

"Yeah, you got over it, pretty quickly, I noticed," nodded Jackie.  

Thankfully - all too late, of course - this was followed by Travis commending Alice for helping him get through these "trying times". This was of no interest to Jackie and Kyle, needless to say, who pushed on with the narrative of Travis being that of a boy who eventually learned to "stand up for himself" (which isn't really the case, mind you).

"Let's have a look at those times where you stood up for yourself," said Kyle, announcing the next montage. And, what a surprise, every single one of those moments - all of them - were with Nobbi. Not once did Ben or Rory (who were very much involved in many of those incidents) feature in any of them. Reality reconstructed. Ciao, Travis. You can fuck off, now.

Well, nearly. First, let's just remember that everyone thinks he's gay. Travis says he's straight. The hardcore Christian mother he lives with, and who rules his life (and is probably ultimately responsible for effectively stunting her child's emotional development) also thinks he's straight. Yep. We got all that, in the previous twelve weeks where you've used that for entertainment value. Can he go, now, or what?

Yes. But only after he's given his $100,000 to Rory ("Think about who has been closest to you in the house," Jackie prompted him, "Who deserves it...") and had a special surprise message from his favourite obscure actress who just happened to be in a movie the show had a cross-promotion deal with. "Travis, you're a sexy thing," said Anne Hathaway, as instructed, about a boy she's neither seen or met.

And that's that. One more show. And it's going to end, painfully, let's just be realistic about this. Even Gretel is heavily rumoured to show up - along with anyone else they know will be happy to drown us in the self-congratulatory extravaganza we will no doubt be witnessing (Merlin Luck and Michael Mc Coy have both been reportedly "relieved" from appearance duties). Oh, I can't wait! Judging by the leaked rehearsal photos (where this year's housemates perform a dance routine as a final cross-promotion for the network's only bankable relaity series left, So You Think You Can Dance?), it's gonna be a howler.

And then, it will be over. As will I. Do drop in.

Also, if you can listen to 2SERFM 107.3 (non-Sydney people can stream it from here ), there's an interview on tonight's show, The Wire, at 6pm, featuring Tim Brunero and Aaron Darc: two men with two very different perspectives on the ending of Big Brother! See you soon.