Jillibean

Johnny is truly just a walking demonstration of narcissism, from his utter betrayal that Tori would go against him to his contradictory arguments that lots of women have his back so you shouldn't cross him but also that 98% of the people want him to lose. Add to the mix what I think is his genuine belief that Devin's only purpose in showmancing Michele was to turn her against Johnny. Not because Devin liked her, not even because she was good for Devin's game; in Johnny's mind, Devin and Michele's relationship is about him. Regardless, his arguments to women that they are incapable of independent thought and that any move that isn't approved by him means they are being controlled by a man are never going to win him any points, and he is casually misogynistic enough to not realize that. All that said, it was silly of Tori to throw him in against Ryan. The odds were never going to be in Ryan's favor.

To add to that, BB US had zero Black winners prior to the diversity initiative, and very few Black contestants who even made it close to the end. Since the diversity initiative began, we've had three POC winners in three seasons. Access matters. Opportunity matters. And one of the ways you achieve those things is to have representation, visibility, voices with power that can speak up and contribute to providing that access. I understand the frustration with T'Kor's game, but I'm very uncomfortable with painting her motivation as problematic. Chelsie is probably the best bet for veto, if she tries to win it. I'm not sure she should. At this point it might be easier to let the cards fall than to have to make a decision about who sits on the block and who votes.

I do think that compared to her fellow houseguests, Chelsie is pretty unquestionably the best player this season. T'Kor had a good social game but didn't seem to care to try with enough of the house to make the connections she needed to be better insulated. Leah has been an active player the past few weeks, but she's polarizing to her competitors. It's hard to make a case for anyone else. Chelsie has made active good moves as well as persuaded multiple people to make moves that were good for Chelsie and not great for them. My issue with Chelsie is that while she has played well overall, the Cam stuff has been a huge blindspot in her game and an issue around which she has played very badly. I feel like you shouldn't get to act that way to the extent that she has and still win, but she's going to. She's somehow not going to be penalized for her jealous high school crush insanity, and that makes a Chelsie win much less satisfying to me. I can't help but think that if Leah hadn't gotten the ick for Cam, Chelsie would not be our presumptive winner now.

If there is any chance of Leah and Quinn happening, it'll be because they ended up in jury together. We shall see. What infuriates me every season is these people play terribly, then leave the house and intentionally avoid anything that attempts to set them straight about where they went wrong in the game. As a result, I am deprived of the satisfaction of them realizing their own idiocy. They just blissfully go on to sell their McDonalds filet o'fish and hair gummies without ever having to confront how badly they erred.

I feel like taking Angela out would be a terrible move for everyone other than Chelsie, because Chelsie could beat multiple people in a F2. Everyone else...I think it depends on who is in the other chair, and Angela would be a great person to sit next to. In fact, one could argue that the person who (apart from Angela) has the least win equity and therefore most needs to sit next to Angela is Makensy. Chelsie seemed to be working hard this past week to set up Leah as the target, so I have to imagine she will start her attempt soon to get Makensy to take her out this week.

Totally get it. Chelsie isn't taking this personally, guys. It's just that it's really bad for Cam's game when he touches, speaks to, or looks at another woman. She just wants to protect him from himself, by publicly causing a huge scene and telling everyone what a jerk he is. You know, to help him in the game.

I think Cam will want to be on the right side of the vote, so if Chelsie tells him it's a done deal, he'll vote T'Kor out. I'm very curious to see how Angela or Leah might enlighten Kimo as to his trip looking up at a bus when T'Kor was trying to save herself and how that might affect his vote.

If Chelsie manages to lose this game because she has a crush on Cam and he’s not into her, it’s going to be really entertaining.

I heartily understand your frustration. I think our strategy talk has to include an informed guess of the ways players will act against their own self interests due to other people's social games. For instance, just last week MJ used the veto to facilitate the backdooring of Quinn, a move that was great for Chelsie and meh for her. But she thinks it was great for her because Chelsie convinced her it was. I don't think wanting to keep Chelsie and wanting to win the game are mutually exclusive concepts to MJ and Cam, because that's how strong Chelsie's social game has been with them. That's also why I feel it was the wrong move to leave Chelsie off the block this week--since she's safe, rather than use this week to try to save herself or even one of her alliance members, she's using it to secure her relationships with the other side and set herself up for next week, working on making sure Leah will be the target if the remaining trio players win.

I guess I don't think she has those 6 relationships to begin with, so there's nothing to destroy. She made it through last week by the skin of her teeth. Her two biggest allies were evicted back to back and she was left out of the vote both times, seemingly not even for strategic reasons. They could not have made it more clear to her, through their actions if not their words, that they aren't interested in working with her T'Kor and company don't particularly care for her either. I think there's a decent chance she's up next week regardless of whom she nominates this week, because while it might not be the best strategic move from either side, it sure is the easiest/least damaging. If she doesn't get nominated, it's because they have a higher purpose than getting her out. It's not because they think they owe her for this week. Exactly--T'Kor is protecting Chelsie which means so are Kimo and Rubina. MJ and Cam are protecting Chelsie. The only HOH who would put Chelsie up is Angela. I'm not even seeing it as a "this is the last chance to get out Chelsie, the biggest threat" thing. I just think taking out Chelsie is the only move Leah can make that might change the house dynamic to give Leah more room to maneuver. With Chelsie still in, her only path forward is at the mercy of people who have shown no inclination to align with her.

I think the best thing Leah could have done for herself this week would have been taking Chelsie out. Chelsie doesn't like her and doesn't want to work with her--she'll use her as a piece if she needs her to accomplish a goal, but she has no interest in Leah as a long-term ally, nor does she need her as one with her current insulation. On top of that, Chelsie blindsided her by talking out Joseph, then blindsided her (for no real reason) just a few days ago by taking out Quinn when Leah thought they were keeping him. She flat out told Leah she had considered back dooring her. Also, with Chelsie out, MJ and Cam become more free agent players as opposed to being Chelsie's minions. Both have shown interest in working with Leah and in her ideas, but have then brought them back to Chelsie where they are immediately shut down. Because Chelsie is protected by T'Kor, the only way to get her out is to nominate her alongside one of the trio so that the trio is forced to vote against Chelsie. Chelsie versus Cam or MJ stays. So from that perspective, yes, I think Leah should have nominated one person from each side. I don't think Chelsie feels she owes Leah anything for not being nominated this week. She sees Leah as someone to manipulate, so she sees her safety as her own good gameplay, not as something nice Leah did for her. I think it will have no bearing on her nominations next week if any of her side win. If she thinks the trio are better targets, great. But if she thinks Leah is a better target, then Leah will go up. As for why she would target Leah, she's an "easy" vote and she's won a few comps lately, raising her threat level. But beyond that, I just think Chelsie personally prefers everyone in the trio to Leah as people, and sometimes nominations come down to who you like most.

If Tucker were here, the endgame is that Tucker wins. He beats everyone in the F2 and wins enough comps to make himself immune, just like Jag did last year. That's why I was never as down on T'Kor's HOH as everyone else. If you don't get Tucker out, no one else has a chance of winning. And it's overly confident, maybe even arrogant, to assume you'll get more than one shot to do it, as we learned last season. By getting rid of Tucker, T'Kor cleared a path to get to the end for herself, dependent on her own merit rather than Tucker's whims. Two weeks out from his eviction, and she's in a very strong spot unless Chelsie turns on her. I don't think she realizes that she's sealing her fate, though. I think she believes she's okay with Chelsie's side of the house and that they'll be targeting the remainder of the trio next week.

Leah unfortunately seems to have only momentary insights into the reality of the game dynamics, moments of clarity where she tells Angela that T'Kor and Chelsie have to go up that are sadly quickly erased by her convincing herself she's in a better position than she is. Over the past two weeks she has thought that Joseph was staying, that Quinn was staying, and that Angela would be a reliable ally. I don't think she understands how bad her position would have been this week if she hadn't won, because she seems very quick to accept others' apologies and excuses if they're in line with what she wants to hear. The difference between the Quinn backdoor and this is that Chelsie had the votes to get Quinn out. If Leah backdoors T'Kor at this point, she's likely just sending whomever is sitting next to her home. Her better bet would be to nom Chelsie next to Rubina/Kimo and presumably have a two-two vote with Angela as the tiebreaker--though I could see T'Kor saving Chelsie in that scenario. But at least you've then forced T'Kor to flip on an ally to do so, thereby hurting her win equity slightly.

I think this is so spot on. I agree completely. It's like on some level, he's living his fantasy of what his game would be like rather than the actual game unfolding around him. So all Leah had to do to ensure his loyalty was grant some basic overtures that fed into what he already was determined to believe. I think Quinn truly believes that there's a decent chance that Leah has feelings for him and hasn't given in because they're playing this game. Her sadness and frustration since his backdoor has probably only furthered this in his mind, and I'm sure he's equating it with America's three day cryfest when Cory was being evicted. He doesn't see that it's her game she's mourning and not him. It does, but if you try to watch it live it will "search for local coverage" and then basically stream your local CBS station back to you. So if your local station isn't showing BB, you won't get it there either, I don't think. If you have a VPN you could try a different, non-hurricane covering station, if the app will accept use with a VPN.

Credit to Leah for keeping Quinn in this spot for so long, but man, this is so embarrassing for him. I feel like this, plus the context of what Leah was saying about him to others, is going to be really hard for him to watch back. Quinn has seemed to really struggle to understand his game and his house personality outside the context of previous houseguests and famous fan favorite moves and characters. I've thought from the beginning that he thought he was positioning himself for Americory redux. But like...America was into Cory, Quinn.