Bwitney so cute! She wanna cuddle wid Karen and Josh. Wittle Pebbles! Bwitney so cute!

Cassandra tries to persuade William to stop manipulating the others. "You want everyone to be the way you are ... But they're not gonna be that way because they're not from -- they're just not like that."

She's trying to get him to stop being so much of an asshole without damaging his ego. It's delicate work. William: "I think we're here to challenge our fears."

Cassandra: "I know, but that's you."

Jordan, in the red confession room, springs another leak. She wants so much for her parents to be proud of her, she sobs. So she told them about being a stripper, "and they totally accepted me for who I was, and it was one of the most beautiful things in the world. Their primary concern was that I go on the show and have integrity about who I am."

Jordan then calls a group meeting to tell everyone about the stripper thing. She was just another 24-year-old "curious about the industry" who was, as she pricelessly puts it, "in a really bad position as far as life management goes." And just like that Jordan is one of Edith Wharton's heroines. They had lots of life management problems.

No one asks Jordan what exactly her management issues were, though.

In a post-confessional tête-à-tête, William tells Jordan that she did a bad job: You talked over people; you didn't listen to what they were saying; you just wanted to talk about yourself. He seems to be almost deliberately trying to make her feel bad. Jordan's having none of it: "You do all those things," she says.

Brittany, astutely sensing that cute pigtails and cuddling have got nothing on nakedness and dire straits, reveals that one of her best friends is a colleague of Jordan's at her swank gentlemen's club. "They make bank. She makes buttloads."

Then she goes on to reveal the shocking, seamy underside of gyrating for tips. "It's addicting," she tells a mesmerized George. "It's weird, 'cause your self-esteem gets whittled away, 'cause you're a stripper! But when you're there, stripping, it's a big power trip. So you just want to strip more and more and more ... And a lot of 'em have issues."

(We interrupt something mildly amusing to introduce challenge No. 2: Ride exercise bike a long time. Wager food. Sense contestants will not die of starvation on CBS soundstage. Back to interpersonal dysfunction.)

Karen no longer likes Curtis.

Curtis thinks Josh is gay. (This from his visit to the red room.)

William, also in the confessional, won't say why he's antagonizing the other houseguests, but will say this:

"A wise general would never reveal his plan to any potential enemies."

Nor would an idiotic general, most likely, but that's a story for another episode.

(C.C./B.W.)