Spoilers from Big Brother's Wednesday night episode ahead!
Big Brother Season 18 is in its home stretch. It's bottom of the ninth and the bases are loaded. And whatever other baseball references apply. The point is, the Big Brother house went from five, to four, to three in a matter of days. And the three who remain will be the ones waiting on finale night. Two will have a shot at half a million dollars.
Nicole, Paul and James are the last three standing. Paul won the most recent Head of Household, nominated Corey and Nicole, won the Veto, and kept the nominations the same. James was the sole vote to evict Corey.
Each remaining houseguest is one half of a figurative ride-or-die for Season 18, and each lost their person in the last three evictions. It's really anyone's game now. And given the mess that is the state of the jury, it's virtually impossible to predict the final outcome of any of possible Final 2 pairings. Tonight's Jury segment showed what was probably one of -- if not the -- most heated segments in the jury that we've ever seen. It got so intense between Paulie and Da'Vonne that the handlers had to intervene to break them apart. Insane. Who knows if that tension will bleed into some of the jurors' positions when it comes time to pick a side.
Moving on, let's for a minute and mourn the loss of the Final Four alliance. It proved to be an alliance of convenience, but we can't really fault Corey and Nicole for turning on Victor and Paul, any more than we can fault Paul for targeting Nicorey when the power shifted. He had to take one of them out. Though I do wonder if he'd have done it, had they not turned on him first.
Meaning, if James had won last week's Head of Household, instead of Corey, he might've been the one to target Paul and Victor, Nicorey would've had no choice but to separate the two friends. In which case, the week might have closed out with Paul feeling indebted to Nicorey for keeping him. Had that been the case, maybe Paul would've done the loyal thing and put James up tonight when it came time to use the Veto, after which the not-nominated half of Nicorey would've sent James out. So maybe we can fault Corey and Nicole, a little bit, for their betrayal. Maybe their best bet would've been to let James win the bowl Head of Household.
Then again, the way James has been playing competitions, that might not have been an option. And it's all moot anyway. It was a minor miracle that three showmances (or one showmance, one flirtmance, and one bromance) made it to Final 6. That one of each of them found a path to the Final 3 is partially impressive, partially inevitable. And in two of the three cases, I think the right half made it to the end. I think I would've preferred Natalie to James in Final 3. And as much as I've come to adore Victor, Paul's game has impressed me much more. As for Corey, while he showed some game potential in the last few weeks, the swiftness and certainty of his departure puts him on a similar game-level to Victor, except without the charm and comp-wins. If you need to win competitions to get to the end, there's a good chance you'll be sent packing before you make it there.
Feed-watchers win from this Final 3 scenario, as Corey's departure means we won't have a week's worth of Corey and Nicole sitting up in bed all day like Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine until the finale. And instead, we have Paul, James and (hopefully) Nicole, making conversation and speculating about the jury. Things have the potential to be far more harmonious in the Big Brother house than they are over at the jury house. #Friendship.
There's also the final Head of Household competitions to anticipate. One is usually an endurance competition. The other is often a timed puzzle or something involving faces matched to events. If I were a betting person, I'd put money on Paul or James for the endurance, and Nicole for the timed puzzle one. But we'll have to wait and see.
