Spoilers from the Big Brother live feeds! Read no further if you don't want to know who won Part 1 of the Final Head of Household competition!
It's a good day for friendship, America! The three remaining houseguests -- Nicole, Paul and James -- faced off in the endurance portion of the final Head of Household competition on Wednesday night. When the feeds returned, we learned that Paul came out victorious.
So, what does that mean?
This ensures that Paul will get to compete in Part 3 of the last Head of Household competition, which takes place live during the finale. So, he is not guaranteed a spot in the Final 2, but he will have a chance to win his way there. And if he loses in Part 3, there's always a chance either James or Nicole will take him to the Final 2.
It certainly takes some of the pressure off the week for Paul, as he gets to sit out of Part 2 of the Head of Household competition, which is usually a mental comp. The houseguests are speculating on what that competition might be. We haven't seen the face-morph competition this season, so maybe that will factor in. But in the past, the Part 2 comp has been something related to events in the house. So who knows what's in store for James and Nicole?
What does seem fair is to say that Nicole is the favorite to win Part 2. James has not been performing well in competitions at all in recent weeks. He bombed the last Head of Household competition, which had them filling in blanks from houseguests' pre-eviction speeches. James also bombed the comic book Veto competition, timing out at 35 minutes on that one. So, while it's possible he'll come out ahead of Nicole on this next competition, the odds seem low that he'll pull off a win.
From what I've seen on the feeds since the competition took place, things appear amicable enough between Paul, James and Nicole. Though I get the sense Paul is trying to put Nicole off James as much as possible, in the hopes that if she wins the final HoH, she'll take him to the end. I'm not sure Paul making comments about things James has said or done will make a huge difference. If she thinks she can get more votes against James, Nicole will take him regardless of what Paul tells her. Nicole has also previously voiced concerns about Paul being able to talk himself to a win. And after Paul's hilariously roasty speech during the Victor eviction episode, she's smart not to underestimate that aspect of his game. I imagine James' jury answers and final speech to be a bit casual and maybe even a little bit awkward. The prospect of that has to be far less intimidating to Nicole than going up against Paul's charisma. So I wouldn't be surprised if she brought James to Final 2. But she needs to be in the position to do that, so we'll have to wait and see who wins Part 2.
The next episode of Big Brother will air Friday at 8:00 p.m. EST on CBS.
