Fans all over the Twitter-verse rejoiced this past week when fan-favorite (and in-house least-favorite for much of the game), Taylor, won her first HOH of the season. It was Big Brother‘s iconic “wall challenge,” and Taylor was the last person standing when all the paint – and conspiracies – had ran their course. It was a long-due win for Taylor, who had spent much of the season being ostracized – or worse – from the rest of the house, only recently falling into favor and joining the dominant “Leftovers” alliance. But Taylor’s lack of strategy showed through this week, as she considered many targets that would not have been beneficial to her game, nor that of her core alliance.
But Taylor‘s HOH reign was overshadowed by what was looming at Thursday’s two-hour Special Episode. First of all, it was fabulous to see Julie Chen-Moonves back in front of a live audience, the first time that BB has had one in over two years. But it was the major – first-time ever – twist that she revealed that really looks to shake up the game.
Before we got to that game-changing twist, the real drama this past week concerned the ongoing show-mance between Kyle and Alyssa, and the so-far-bending-but-not-breaking Leftovers alliance. Kyle, a member of the alliance, thought that his show-mance would be spared when Taylor was ultimately persuaded by Monte, Joseph and Turner, to nominate Indy and Terrance. Nominating Indy was a big deal for Taylor, since she had promised her that she would not see the block should Taylor win HOH. But it was the best choice for Taylor after Jasmine, who Taylor marked as completely off-limits and untouchable this week…Taylor may have lots of reasons to target Jasmine, but she did not want to be responsible for sending another black woman home.
But after Kyle won the POV, the events that happened at the POV Competition swayed the house. It was the famous BB POV Challenge where every participant ends up with something, either the POV itself, a punishment or a reward. Alyssa made a baffling choice to take away a trip to London from the sitting HOH, Taylor, and Taylor did not take it well. Ultimately the London trip ended up going to Jasmine anyways, with Alyssa scoring a $5000 prize and Taylor landing a punishment (?) where she had to be chained to Joseph for 48 hours (Terrance had to put 182 temporary tattoos on his body, while Indy came out the worst, having to wear the Punk-itard all the way to her own eviction from the house).
Yes, Kyle won the POV, but chose to keep the nominations the same, even after receiving lots of pressure from his Leftovers alliance to use it so that they could backdoor Alyssa. But like, really? Why in the world would they expect one half of a show-mance to backdoor the other half? And if you’re Kyle, what kind of an alliance would pressure you to do something that would clearly weaken his game? The whole thing was a nothing-burger, in that it was never going to happen, but the stress-fractures caused to the Leftovers might be lasting.
The internet was up-in-arms this past week too about Kyle concerning something that had nothing to do with his show-mance. I’ll preface this by saying that I do NOT watch the live-feeds so I’m only going off of what is shown on the broadcast, but the controversy seemed to be around Kyle suspecting that there could be some sort of Cookout 2.0 alliance in the house…in other words, that the people of color were all in a secret alliance. I understand why this might be offensive if taken out of context, but the game of BB morphs, adapts and changes as it goes along. It is not uncommon to look at prior seasons and try to strategize a way for you to win, learning how others were able to in the past. Again I didn’t see the feeds, but I don’t fault Kyle – a white contestant – for trying to look at all angles, and taking the history of the game into account.
All of this brought us to the eventual eviction of Indy, in a 7-1 vote with Michael being the only one casting her a sympathy vote. We also see Michael use his “goodbye message” to inform Indy – the first person on the jury – as to his reasonings…it’s a sound strategy that has been used in the past.
But the eviction was maybe the least dramatic thing to happen Thursday. The new twist is a shocker and it goes like this: With ten contestants remaining, two entirely separate BB games will be taking place this coming week. Five players will live in the house (Big Bro-chella) and five will live in the backyard (“Dyre Fest”). These groups will have zero communication with each other for the full week. They will each have an HOH, they will each nominated two for the block, there will be separate POV comps and winners, and next Thursday, each group will send a person out of the game and to the jury. Talk about the house being divided!
All we were given on the episode was the HOH comps, that ended with Michael winning his second HOH of the season and getting to live in the house, while Terrance performed tremendously, earning his first HOH of the season. Julie did reveal that the members of each group would be chosen by a traditional schoolyard pick, but this pick was not shown as the end credits rolled. For those of us that don’t watch the Live Feeds, it looks like we have to wait until Sunday to see where the Lay’s fall.
What will this mean for the Leftovers? The biggest drama I think is whether or not the show-mance will be split up, of if Alyssa and Kyle will end up on the same team. Michael will have much more control over his fate, but if he ends up with a tribe full of Leftovers, then he may have to axe one of his own. Watching Terrance run an HOH will be interesting as well and will be the harder of the two scenarios for the Leftovers to navigate. Will the seven-strong Leftovers make it through next week’s double-elimination like no other, and stay intact? We shall see next week!
BB SCOREBOARD:
Current HOH: Michael (reigning inside the house), Terrance (reigning in the backyard)
Nominations: TBD
UPCOMING EPISODES:
Sunday, 8/21 – Schoolyard Pick Results and Nominations from both groups
Wednesday, 8/24 – POV Comps and Ceremonies
Thursday, 8/25 – Double-Eviction like no other
TELL US – WHO DO YOU HOPE EACH NEW HOH WILL TARGET? HOW WILL THE NEW TWIST IMPACT THE GAME? AND WHO DO YOU THINK IS IN THE BEST POSITION THUS FAR?
[Photo Credit: Sonja Flemming/CBS ©2022 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved]