Slippery wieners, nasty hair extensions, fake terminal illnesses and one Zingbot 3000. Sadly, these are only the things we'll take away from this summer's installment of Big Brother. And here's how it ended: the good, the bad, and the nausea-inducing.

When last we left the Big Brother game, three overgrown louses were battling it out to make their number two. With Hayden and Lane advancing to round three of the final Head of Household competition of the summer, Enzo was left to twiddle his thumbs, say a few thousand Hail Mary's and figure out exactly what he would have to say and/or promise to convince the eventual winner to take him to the final two with them.

Would the Meow Meow succeed? Would Hayden make BB history by earning three HOH wins in a row? Will someone please get Julie Chen a better stylist? These are just some of the many questions—with the exception of that last one—that I had no interest in finding out the answers to when all was said and done during this final two-hour episode. For a season that had so much promise—An egomaniacal power couple! A secret alliance of men! A Pandora's box full of surprises! Not one but two saboteurs!—season 12 of Big Brother will ultimately go down as the season that choked on the success of its players.

Had the Brigade never existed we probably would have had three more worthy players in tonight's finale. Britney, Brendon, Rachel. Ragan, Matt, Britney. Brendon, Matt, and... Kathy? Hell, any combination of jury voters would have probably made for a more exciting final three. Admittedly, the secret alliance of men known as the Brigade is arguably the best in the history of the game. By not only aligning themselves with one another but by also creating a series of side alliances, these boys managed to control and manipulate every single HOH and decide for themselves the order in which they eliminated their competitors. Not convinced that had that much power? Well, CBS did. Take it away, Big Brother announcer man!

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There. See? They did have all the power. That condensed version of the show you've been watching three nights a week all summer long proves it. I apologize if seeing it all boiled down like that makes you feel like you wasted the last two and a half months. That was only slightly intentional on my part.

But enough griping. We can go on and on about the hows and whys concerning the makeup of the final three and whether or not they deserve to be there. It happened. Ok? Deal with it!

In the end, Hayden won HOH. Again. And then he sent Enzo packing because he knew all to well that had Enzo sat next to him in the final two he most definitely would have run away with the half-million dollar prize. I mean, c'mon. How could you not vote for the Meow Meow? Especially when, as the final member of the Jury, he proves how well he can charm a room by throwing out this one last great comedy-grenade at the final two:

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When he told Julie Chen that he had a great speech prepared for when he got to the final two, how could you not believe him?

Once we were done with the evicting, and the voting, and the most boring Jury/Finalist Q&A session ever, it came time to do some catching up with the house guests who got kicked out so early in the game that they weren't worth the money for CBS to not send them back home. What did we learn from their return?

  • Kristen and the boyfriend she cheated on with Hayden are no longer together. Shocker.
  • Monet still thinks that Rachel is a skank.
  • Andrew knows how to pronounce complicated medical terms because he is a foot doctor.
  • And Annie thinks that all the girls plus Ragan, the gay, should have formed some sort of Girl-ade alliance, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that hindsight truly is 20/20.

We also learned what Rachel planned to do vis-a-vis her relationship with Brendon and, once again, our favorite player Britney proved once and for all why she deserved that $25,000 prize money she won tonight for being America's favorite player.

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Someone get this girl a sitcom deal.

Then it came time to reveal the votes and determine the winner! Here's how it went down, technical difficulties and all.

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Yes, congratulations Hayden. I guess when it comes down to it, the Jury was smart in awarding the prize money to the guy who won the most competitions and had the most Bieber-y hair of the two guys they had to choose from. As the runner-up, Lane will just have to settle for going back to his cushy oil industry job only $50,000 richer. For some reason I can't feel sorry for him.

And there you have it. The end. It's over. Now you can all go back to watching Survivor or whatever. It's been nice knowing you. Here's hoping that next summer's Big Brother doesn't leave us as jaded as this summer's did. And if it does, good thing we're probably the only one in our group of friends who even knows this show exists.

[photo via cbs.com]
[Big Brother]