SPOILERS ahead from the 2019 Big Brother 21 live feeds.
Big Brother 21 is down to the final four, and so the schedule gets a bit wonky from here. Usually, the Veto Ceremony is held early Monday afternoon, West Coast time. It sounds like the 2019 houseguests were expecting that to be the case, since Veto winner Jackson Michie talked Sunday night about making a dramatic speech at the Veto meeting the next day. However, Big Brother kept the houseguests waiting until the Thursday, September 19 live eviction, when we get down to the Final 3. The speech should still be dramatic, though.
At Final 4, only one person can vote, so CBS tries to add a little drama by making the Veto meeting happen on live eviction night. If the Veto meeting had been held on Monday, it might not have been so brutal for Cliff Hogg III, but since he spent Wednesday night threatening Jackson with a loss of jury votes if Jackson evicted Cliff, Jackson decided he would indeed give a fiery speech at the Veto Ceremony.
At least Cliff is no longer living in delusion, thinking Jackson will still take him to Final 3. I have a hard time believing that Cliff ever believed that. Does Cliff still have a shot at America's Favorite Houseguest? He may be banking on that ... but I doubt it.
When the Veto Ceremony happens on Thursday, we know how it will play out:
Who Won The Veto? JacksonWill He Use The Veto? Of course. He's now on the block next to Holly Allen, as nominated by HOH Nicole Anthony, in a comp that was thrown to her, as Holly keeps noting in her recurring complaints. The only other person who can go on the block is Cliff. So this Veto Ceremony will be like a reverse of the one last week, when Jackson was HOH and Holly ended up on the block. Now Nicole is HOH and Cliff is the target.Who Will Jackson Evict? Cliff. Jackson is the only one who can vote. That's what makes the Final 4 Veto the most important Veto of the season. It guarantees you a place in the Final 3 and the ability to choose someone to come with you. Jackson made a Final 3 deal with Cliff, but Jackson has no intention of keeping it. Jackson will evict Cliff. Nicole, Jackson, and Holly will be the Final 3. Nicole and Cliff were still hoping to guilt Jackson into keeping his word to Cliff, but not only is that not likely, it just pissed off Jackson to think he could lose jury votes for staying loyal to Holly.
Cliff was still hoping Jackson would keep his word after the Veto competition was held on Saturday. Apparently Jackson was planning to make a big speech at the Veto Ceremony, revealing that he did not plan to take Cliff to Final 3 after all. Jackson and Holly are still salty about Nicole and Cliff almost breaking their Final 4 word. But since they DIDN'T break their word, it seems to me that Jackson is the only one actually breaking his word to evict Cliff. But Jackson keeps going on about how his word means something and Cliff and Nicole didn't reciprocate. Nicole has had it with these "martyrs."
Jackson figured he would reveal the truth about evicting Cliff at the Veto meeting, and that's what he told Nicole. She decided to tell Cliff beforehand. She didn't want Cliff to be blindsided. Nicole told Cliff Sunday night -- while CBS was showing Nicole's HOH "win" and nominations -- that Jackson did not plan to take him to Final 3 after all.
Cliff was not happy, but he's a grown man. He didn't start crying. He's not happy with Jackson for going against his word. He's also not happy that Nicole gets to go to Final 3 instead of him, since he feels he's basically taking a bullet for her. Everyone knows Nicole was the one really pushing to evict Holly over Tommy Bracco. But Holly threw the HOH to Nicole, so Nicole got safety. Cliff tried to cover his own butt with separate Final 3/Final 2 deals with Jackson, but Jackson was just saying whatever he had to say. Once Jackson won the Power of Veto, all bets were off.
Nicole feels guilty. Cliff doesn't blame Nicole -- although he is being kind of passive-aggressive and self-pitying -- he's rooting for her to win it all. But Holly did say that if she had won the endurance HOH instead of throwing it to Nicole, it would probably be Holly, Jackson, and Cliff going to Final 3 together and not Nicole. I'm glad Nicole is in the Final 3 instead of Cliff.
I do see Jackson still having the best odds to win the 2019 season, even after lying about Tommy and burning Cliff. Tommy respected the game move. Cliff might vote for someone else, especially if that someone is Nicole, but Jackson did what he had to do to stay loyal to his #1 Holly. I wish Nicole and Cliff had broken up the showmance at the double eviction -- I don't agree with the fans who think Cliff pushing Nicole on the Tommy/Holly vote is how we got here; the problem goes back to not breaking up Jolly before that point -- but I'm not going to blame Jackson for people letting Jackson steamroll this far. He's been shady all season, from the banishments to blowing off Have-Not rules. He should've been called out on it, but that's not his job. I'm irritated, but I blame others even more than him.
And no I don't think production helped Jackson in the Final 4 Veto comp. I think that was part of the comp, since Holly and Nicole both said "same" when he talked about getting directions. BB would've cut the feeds if Jackson was using production as strategy but they let the conversation play because it was part of the game. Also, Cliff and Nicole would've mentioned Jackson getting help in the Veto, even in passing or through code in the house, but there's been no hint of that this week or abrupt feeds cuts on that front. I hear Nicole had to stop for water during the Veto, but I don't think that lost her enough time.
The edit made it look like Jackson would lose, but the edit made it look like Nicole would lose BB Comics too. It's the TV edit. To be honest, they could rig every Veto and we wouldn't know, since they hide them on the feeds. But fans only care when a player they hate does well -- then "Grodner rigged it" -- but when their favorite player does well, it was just a good job. It's more likely any "rigging" is being done to make a dramatic finish that Nicole wins. People thought Grodner rigged it for Frankie, Paul, Tyler. None of them won.
Big Brother 2019 airs Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays on CBS. Keep up with all the action on the live feeds.
