It’s been a rough, tearful week for Big Brother‘s Nicole Anthony and David Alexander… and things got a lot rougher for one of them on Thursday’s episode.
Having quickly (and strangely, considering they might be the smallest threats in the whole game) been targeted by Head of Household Memphis, both Nicole and David fell short of winning the Power of Veto earlier this week — and when POV winner Memphis opted to leave his own nominations in place, he ensured that one of the BB21 alumni would be walking out the door on Thursday.
But which one became the summer’s second evictee? Read on for the highlights of the hour:
THE STRATEGY | Nicole and David are now left to campaign for themselves before eviction night… and yet, every time they find an ally, they seem all too eager to push those people away. Case in point: When Da’Vonne tells David she wants to protect him from going home, he tells her to take it down a notch, theorizing that future Heads of Household will come after David and Da’Vonne at the same time if they suspect those two are working together. (“I don’t think that was a good idea,” Bayleigh correctly informs David, after he confirms that he told Da’Vonne to “calm down” in her campaigning for him.)
But perhaps the most convoluted miscommunication is that between Nicole, Kaysar and Janelle. As you might remember from Sunday’s episode, Kaysar and Janelle tried to stop Memphis from nominating Nicole — and later tried to get him to backdoor the season’s other Nicole — but Memphis, naturally, sided with his own alliance and made his own nomination decision.
Then, in the days leading up to the eviction, Nicole starts to worry that Janelle is actually a liability for her own game, and she starts to believe the members of Memphis’ alliance when they tell her Janelle is merely stringing her along. (Meanwhile, Janelle privately sobs to Kaysar that she feels responsible for Nicole being up on the block, while Kaysar tries to assure her they did all they could to help Nicole this week.)
THE EVICTION | When it comes time for the pre-eviction speeches, it’s not Janelle that Nicole targets with her words, but Memphis. “My big, strong, hulking, amazing friend,” Nicole says, sarcasm in her voice, “kudos for targeting… me. Well done!”
But the last-ditch effort isn’t enough to get Nicole the votes she needs: She’s evicted by a vote of 10-2, with Kevin and Enzo (?!) — and not Janelle and Kaysar — as the only votes to keep her. And though she immediately admits to Julie Chen Moonves that she was wrong not to trust Janelle, it isn’t until she sees her goodbye messages from Janelle and Kaysar that the reality of her misguided gameplay seems to hit her. “I feel so horrible. So horrible,” Nicole shares, voice breaking. “It’s my error, and I owe [Janelle] apologies up and down.”
THE HOH COMPETITION | After Nicole is ousted, it’s time for the next Head of Household competition, with Memphis ineligible to compete after his reign. In this competition, houseguests are faced with three long countertops with numbers on them. They must slide glasses of beer down each counter, hoping to land them on the highest possible number on each counter; the houseguest with the highest cumulative point total will win.
Though Enzo holds the lead for a while with eight points, he’s eventually taken over by Ian with 10 points, and he’s ultimately beaten by Tyler, who wins the competition with 12 points. Janelle came deliciously close to the win with 11 points of her own… but with Tyler now in power, it looks like another long week could be ahead for Janelle and Kaysar. (But hey, Tyler did call Memphis a “lame” ally in this week’s Diary Rooms, so maybe he’ll set his sights elsewhere?)
With that, I hand it over to you. How do you feel about Nicole’s eviction? And what are you hoping to see from Tyler’s Head of Household reign? Tell us in the comments below!