Big points to all the Big Brother houseguests who did some kind of shimmy or chest-bump with one another as they headed in and out of the diary room to cast their votes. We've seen this kind of goofiness in that corridor before, but some of those moves seemed particularly well choreographed tonight. But enough about the corridor shenanigans, let's talk about the drama!
Last night's episode of Big Brother left off with an extra suspenseful cliffhanger. Even those of us who have the feeds weren't privy to the post-Veto Ceremony "speeches" and immediate aftermath. The feeds didn't come back on until the houseguests scattered from the living room. So we didn't see Brittany revealing that she knew PaoPao threw the Battle of the Block competition, and PaoPao calling Devin out for being a liar. And we didn't see Zach's rant, which involved putting Frankie "on blast" a couple of times. But feed watchers saw plenty of the aftermath, which involved a lot of side conversations. Zach eventually apologized to Frankie. And he told Hayden about the Bomb Squad. I'm pretty sure that happened before Devin offered Hayden an invitation.
Neither Zach nor Devin came out of this week looking good. Zach could have made a big spectacle about gunning for Devin without exposing the Bomb Squad or messing up his relationship with his alliance. In the end, I think his alliance kept him in the house because it's too soon to cut him loose. Devin didn't see that. But he's a whole other paragraph. Before we get to Devin's potential train wreck of a game, let's talk about the votes. I love that Jocasta and Donny voted for Zach to go, as I'm hoping it'll help them -- particularly Jocasta -- shed the developing reputation of being a floater. Floaters vote with the house. These two voted for their friend. It didn't make a difference to PaoPao's game, but it'll hopefully show the rest of the house that they're loyal. It's also possible that this will hurt them, if people think they're un-usable because they won't vote how they're told to vote. It's impossible to predict, really, but I like that they gave PaoPao two votes to stay.
PaoPao left the house smiling, but she was in tears after the goodbye videos, largely due to Donny's heartfelt goodbye. Both Devin and Zach left rude messages to PaoPao, but those didn't seem to affect her nearly as much as the nice things Donny said. Adorable.
Now lets talk about Devin. Could he have made an even bigger mess of his Head of Household week? Devin has a lot of game problems. For one thing, he seems to rub people the wrong way, which has been causing problems with his social game early one. For another, he's impulsive with his game moves. He makes choices and follows through with a lot of big conversations wherein he makes promises to people, and then he changes his mind. He invited two people into an already-huge alliance without asking anyone about it. He told PaoPao she was safe, all she had to do was throw the BoB. Then after a conversation with Brittany, the woman he was targeting originally, he decided to save her with the Veto and put Zach up, hitting the self-destruct button on his alliance in the process. Seriously, of anyone he could have put on the block it had to be one of his own people. And then tonight we saw him basically saying he's out of the Bomb Squad and he's going to win the game solo. He may need to do that, as he doesn't have much support from anyone.
When was the last time anyone won Big Brother on their own? I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's really hard and it requires there always being bigger targets in the house. Devin's going to have a hard time there. With the size of the target on Devin's back right now, added to his impulsiveness, I have a hard time seeing him stick around for long.
The Head of Household was a ball-rolling competition that's borderline random. I suppose there's some skill in trying to get the ball to roll into a slot with a high number, but it seems like there's a lot of luck involved. It was looking like it would be Nicole and Frankie as the Heads of Household, and then Derrick beat Frankie's high score, bumping him out of contention and taking the second seat.
For the first time, a non-Bomb Squad member has won Head of Household! Although I think Nicole might actually be aware of that alliance. Not sure if she's an initiated member. Or maybe the Bomb Squad is done. It's honestly gotten hard to keep track of all of these conversations, so hopefully we'll know soon enough where people's loyalties lie. But it's going to be very interesting to see what kind of HoH Nicole is and whether or not Devin can salvage what's left of his game. I'm also really happy to see two of the most likable houseguests win HoH this week, though this is really a season of mostly-likable houseguests, so the odds were in our favor there. But Derrick has proven to be a solid player so far. This week should be really revealing as to just how good a player he really is.
Who will Nicole and Derrick nominate for eviction? Will they plot together to backdoor Devin? Or are there other plans at work?
In other news, as if obsessing over the live feeds weren't enough, we can now track the Big Brother houseguest's every move to see who's the most physically active in the house. As of tonight, it looks like Zach's in the lead for most steps, though Derrick's burning more calories.
