Julie then wants to know how George could have persuaded the others to leave the show, even if it was only temporary. Dr. Drew admits that it does seem bizarre to those of us who don't have the "perspective of confinement," issues of powerlessness, maintaining boundaries, sharing feelings blah, blah, blah.

Finally, and we mean finally, Julie asks Shrink Pinsky about the plane banners that have been being flown over the house with some regularity.

They both get weird.

"It's interesting," he says, "it's almost like the banners have become another character in the house. They call the banner 'the sky,' they talk about how they feel about 'the sky,' do they trust him, do they mistrust him, do they believe him --?"

"'Who is he --?'" Julie adds helpfully.

"It heightens the anxiety," Pinksy goes on. "They never know when the sky is going to visit; they never know what it's going to say."

Are we being encouraged to believe that two jocks, a beauty pageant contestant, a lawyer and a Gump have been somehow transformed into a primitive Studio City cargo cult, waiting for the next tennis ball to drop?

Sure, why not? We'll buy it. Mainly because we want to move on to the next scene involving Jamie's "friends" back home in Seattle.

But wait: Can we point out again how dishonest Chen is being? The planes began with a group of disgruntled viewers. (From Salon's Table Talk, but never mind.) Chen and CBS both know that, but they don't tell the audience.

Anyway, the Jamie bash is at Planet Hollywood! (This really cool bankrupt theme-restaurant chain where stars hang out all the time!)

"The reason everyone is here tonight," Jamie's aunt tells Big Brother, "is because Jamie is Hollywood [her nickname on the show]; this is Planet Hollywood. We wanted everybody to know that we support her, we care about her ..."

Enough with the aunt. Jamie's friend Yishey says, "People see the makeup, they see the blond highlights, and they think, 'Oh, there's another beauty queen. She must be pretty dumb.' She's not. She's smart."

A ringing endorsement. And most compelling. We think, "Oh, there's another beauty queen" every time we see makeup and highlights. Then we're embarrassed because it turns out it's Hillary Clinton or someone like that.

Another friend of Jamie's says that she "needs to stop worrying about whether or not her lips are shiny."

We feel thankful we don't have friends like Jamie's.

"It's nice to see that Jamie's friends in Seattle are behind her all the way," Julie says. She doesn't even watch her own montages.

A house-cleaning montage follows. If we wanted to see house-cleaning, we'd clean our own. We presume you feel the same way.

Then the shocker: Cassandra is banished. By 46 percent of the vote. Interestingly, Eddie got 41 percent. Curtis must have got the remainder, 13 percent.

It's sad. She expected it, but she's surprised and a little embarrassed. So are we. The drama is considerably diminished compared to the Brittany and Karen departures, and her leaving seems a little deflated and anti-climactic.

As soon as the gate opens, however, Cassandra is instantly happier and more animated than she ever was in the house.

Hmm. Maybe they should have had, like, someone else her age on the show. Just a thought.

The housemates pace the yard morosely again, but Josh spares us his tears.

At the end of the show, we see the plane banner the housemates came up with.

"Live long and prosper GAB," it says.

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