Big Brother 26 Thoughts

[One]

Pre-season player expectations (Just based on the interviews)

Quinn and Tucker sound like they know what they're doing. I could see those two being the main players this season, Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon style. Leah also sounds like she knows what she's doing. I think the game might be too big for Cam and Matt. I don't think either of them know what they're getting into. Similarly with Angela. Cam didn't really reveal much. I don't know what to make of Joseph, Lisa, Kimo, or T'kor. I could see the game overwhelming T'kor. I could also see her and Kimo getting along. Cedric looks like he's playing a character. Makensy is clearly a fan of BB20 Angela. I think her and Brooklyn are underestimating the game, though I'm more confident in Brooklyn's potential. Kenney sounds like he's going to be an agitator. I don't see a Derrick style game coming from him at all. Chelsie and Rubina seem like the personalities/energy of the season. I'd throw Cedric in there too.

Matt and Cam gave similar answers on who they want to work with. On that, I'd expect that they'd either find themselves working together (directly or indirectly), or at odds trying to pull in the same allies (the older, parental women in the house like Angela and Brooklyn). Imagine them fighting over who gets to align with Angela who admits that she can't keep secrets.

Energy-wise, I think it'll be interesting to see the dynamic between Chelsie, Brooklyn, and Rubina.

Similarly it'll be interesting to see the dynamic between Lisa and Tucker. Both coming in with the intention to use their cooking skills to benefit their game.

 

[One]

Thoughts in week 1

Not a clear picture of what's going on in the house yet.

This week was Angela's speculations and Matt's overconfidence in his game position

Matt had Lisa just as fooled as he was, thinking he was safe


What I'm getting from these players so far is that if this were a returnee season, it would've been an easy $750k for the returnee.

 

[One]

Thoughts around week 1/week 2

Yeah, I don't know how to evaluate these players. They all seem to have glaring holes in their games.

Going back to the pre-season interview based expectations. Quinn and Tucker aren't exactly what I thought they'd be. Clearly Quinn is a superfan and knows the game, but a lot of it seems to be just by the book. It's not an intuition for the game. There's no finesse. And It's the expected, by-the-book, talking points. So he's good relative to some of the other players this season, but I don't know how I'd stack him up next to some of the good players that we've seen. It's still early though. And with Tucker, I don't think his knowledge of the game is where I thought it would be.

Leah, I think I've lost all faith in. At first I thought she was going to be a gamer, also with knowledge of the game. And then seeing her play, I started to think maybe she was going to play an Alison season 4 style game, but in her own style. But no, I don't think that's the case. It's almost annoyingly bad right now, but I think that comes from expecting too much of her early. She still has time to figure it out.

Pleasantly surprised by Chelsie. I didn't see her coming at all going by the interviews. The concern with her is that she's playing so many sides, that it could catch up, and be used against her.



Another thing about this season that I'm noticing is that there are a lot of people who are prone to spiraling. Angela, Makensy's talked about being a highly anxious person, Rubina is a nervous one, Kimo's a nervous one, Joseph gets anxious, Tucker has some hot-head tendencies, Leah is open about being up and down in general, and Chelsie's said she can get crazy if she needs to but it's early.

 

[One]

Not at all sure about this move by Cedric and Cam. Not only the fact that they've opted not to go with the plan to put Quinn on the block, but also that they haven't covered their tracks on anything as of yet.

They'd have the votes. Either Tucker or Kenney would be off the block. Angela would be off the block. They'd be keeping Makensy off the block, and she gets to keep her power, so they'd have her vote. Leah exposed Quinn's game to Cam last night, and she would be open to voting Quinn out right now. Cam would vote that way. And Tucker could bring in Rubina. That's 6 votes, which is enough. And that's assuming Joseph and Kimo couldn't be pulled in. Joseph wouldn't like Quinn lying to him about having the power, and Kimo is close enough to Tucker that he told him that Quinn has the upgrade.

With the move they've chosen though, in an ideal scenario, Quinn believes everything, nothing else gets out, and they're able to basically drown out Tucker. I just can't see it. Tucker's an emotional player, who will get sympathy. Next, they also have this vote, and the house is heavily leaning toward voting out Kenney. But no matter who you vote out this week, either Kenney or Angela, Tucker is likely going to have at least one ally next week regardless. Kenney as a competitor. Angela as a social agent of chaos who feels that she owes Tucker something, especially if he takes her off the block at the veto meeting.

But that's not the worst of it. Worse has to do with Quinn. Above is the ideal scenario where Quinn believes everything. If Quinn has or develops even a hint of doubt, as a player who knows this game, he's going to have to know that he needs to reorganize things around him. Cam and Cedric are expecting that Quinn is going to just fold up and run into their arms, and do nothing. Maybe it happens, but that's wishful thinking in my opinion. The worst case scenario at this time, especially for Cam (which is who I think should've been most adamant about making this happen), is that Quinn has an upgrade. Not just a pull yourself off the block upgrade like Makensy has. This guy has a whole Deepfake HOH upgrade, i.e. a coup d'etat, which is one of, if not the most powerful advantage Big Brother gives out. And Cam and Cedric have given Quinn four whole days for things to blow up in their faces, and for him to decide to potentially use it against them.

That all being said, it's not to say that the move was completely senseless. There's some sense in thinking that by coming clean to Quinn, he would be more inclined to step away from some of the other stuff he has going on, and hunker down with them.

Part of me wonders if my questioning of this move has to do with it actually being a bad move, or if I'm just mad about missing out on some of the potential entertainment. I don't know 100%, but I definitely think that the execution of this was poorly done.

Another side to think of, is that if they did put Quinn up and get him out, Tucker would gain an incredible amount of power. If Tucker were to successfully blow up Quinn's game, then he would have Rubina as he already did. He was already on good terms with Kimo and Chelsie. It would've meant Makensy got to keep her power, so she might have felt some sense of reciprocity toward him. He'd still have Angela and Kenney. He's also on good terms with T'kor, although part of me thinks that she would start to worry. Joseph would use his prior relationship with Tucker to find his way in there. So Cedric and Cam would have basically traded in Quinn and all of his covert connections in the house, for Tucker, who would be a very overtly popular player, who's also shown that he can perform in comps thus far. That's not an angle that they discussed, but it shows another potential tricky situation. And it might be tougher at that point to get Tucker out than it would be to get Quinn out.

For now, if they're able to delicately raise enough suspicion around Quinn, they can still use him to help them target Tucker, and then use the seeds planted against Quinn to target him later. But will they do that? I think Chelsie would've seen that, but I don't think they talked to Chelsie prior to having the HOH room meeting, which was another blunder.

Also, in attempting to sow seeds against Quinn, you have to remember that Quinn isn't just a wooden plank that sees nothing, hears nothing, knows nothing. So he'll be reacting also. And by warning him, they've now given him ample time to do so, and a golden opportunity to come out of all this looking clean. Especially if their intention is to first go after Tucker's credibility, as a group.

So there are merits to both sides of putting Quinn up or not. But I think it's about execution. And I don't see Cam or Cedric having the skill to see this through.

 

[One]

Post veto meeting: Chaos

Summary

Tucker used the veto on Angela

Cedric put up Makensy as the replacement

Makensy used her America's Veto upgrade

Tucker exposed Quinn's upgrade, had a blow up with Cedric, and blew up several alliances

Cedric called a house meeting

 

[One]

With the fallout from the veto meeting, the main outcome from my view is that Chelsie is now firmly planted as the top active player in the game.

Of the less active players, Brooklyn and T'kor are fairly well-positioned

We'll see what happens with America's vote


That being said, I still haven't been blown away by anyone's gameplay so far. It's pretty much been boilerplate big alliance strategy, aside from the chaos and confusion from the players who are out of the loop. Last season's influence has shown itself in the 100 different alliances that people have tried to create, but few if any of these players seem to have the finesse to pull it off in a way that looks good long-term. There's a lot of sloppiness and open, unnecessary blindspots. And then you have the theme this season of volunteering to go on the block. Four different people volunteered to go up for Chelsie's HOH, and three again this week for Cedric's. I'm hoping that the strategic element of the game gets better after the AI arena phase is over but I don't know if it will.

 

[One]

I'm still confused on Chelsie, Cedric, and Cam's insistence on taking Quinn far in this game.

Clearly they're a powerful trio. Two of the three are literally back to back HOHs.

How can they possibly believe that someone, a superfan at that, would want to be in a numerically disadvantaged position at final 5 with them?

Even being Collective-strong and refusing to even consider a re-structure is kind of confusing because The Collective is run by majority vote. If Quinn is able to gather Kimo, Joseph, T'kor, and Brooklyn, then that group would have control of the decisions, and also have the opportunity to take an early shot at the other three if they wanted. It would hinge on T'kor and Joseph. Joseph is shifty so I don't doubt he'd flip. With T'kor, I could see her not wanting any shots taken at Chelsie, same with Brooklyn, but I don't see her going out of her way to prevent a shot at someone like Cam or Cedric. Especially Cam.

Chelsie/Cedric/Cam are like this walking target, that's almost oblivious to their threat level to the people who know they're working together (i.e., those in The Collective, those in The Pentagon). Maybe Chelsie's saving grace has been her willingness to tell people repeatedly that she's not sure about working with Cam, and maybe that's intentional. But I don't think it's great for her game to lose Cam any time soon either. As strong as they've been the last two weeks competitively, with Chelsie and Cedric winning back to back HOHs, they're still in a vulnerable spot. It helps that people outside of the alliance are tripping over themselves left and right, but it also hurts because some of those people could be of help before it's too late and they lose all control of The Collective, and have to comp out as a trio. Unless of course they can just keep winning, and are able to force the plan to go through just because the others will have had no choice.

 

[One]

After losing convincingly to Tucker in the BB AI Competition in-person, and assuming Tucker doesn't win HOH, is Quinn still confident about putting him on the block with his power this week, and if so, who does he put next to him? Do we get another volunteer? Does Quinn consider the alternative of working with Tucker and pre-emptively striking against Cedric, Cam, and Chelsie who he thinks are tight?

Surely he can't put up Angela if he wants Tucker out. What are the odds that Cedric and/or Cam ends up on the block this week (voluntarily or involuntarily)? Does he go with Makensy and hope she can win? Or does he just say f it and put Tucker and whoever up, without regard for Tucker's likelihood of winning, making Tucker the Collective's perpetual nominee until they can get him out?


The other thing is, does Chelsie now get caught up after having that conversation with Rubina before the AI competition, about possibly voting out Tucker if he didn't win the AI competition?

 

[One]

Spoiler: Angela ended up winning HOH

And Cedric did in fact volunteer to go up. Cam almost volunteered himself, and Quinn said no. The other nominees are Tucker and Makensy

 

[One]

Now that Spoiler Alert: [Tucker won the power of veto], Brooklyn thinks it'd be a good time to follow through on her idea of telling Tucker not to use the veto on himself because Rubina would be the replacement nominee (which at this point, Quinn is saying she would be). Chelsie doesn't want Brooklyn to do it herself because she recognizes that it could get Brooklyn in trouble. So Brooklyn's idea is to get Kimo to do it.

What could go wrong right?

Even for this season this sounds like a terrible idea. Even worse is that Brooklyn knows Tucker is suspicious of everyone right now.

Chelsie talked her out of it
Quinn brought it up to Joseph, and Joseph talked him out of it
Joseph talked to Brooklyn and let her know he didn't think it would work
T'kor also had an idea like this but Kimo told her there's no way

The interesting point now is what Rubina's reaction will be if Quinn follows through on putting her up as the replacement nominee. Will she be upset at Quinn for putting her up, and whoever she thinks knew and didn't tell her? Or will she be upset at Tucker and herself for getting close to him?

There's a small chance that the others try to convince Quinn to put up Leah instead. And there's still a miniscule chance that they talk Quinn and Tucker into teaming up.

 

[One]

[Draft; To be expanded]

Angela - Strengths: Knows the game Weaknesses: Runaway gameplay that can't seem to get control over

Brooklyn - Weaknesses: prone to error. Get the sense that there are only a few moves that could improve position, but there are many moves that could lead to blunders

Cam - Strengths: Potential physical comp ability Weaknesses: Play a passive game

Cedric - HOH week was representative of his game. All can be fine, but something comes along, and he fumbles

Chelsie - Strengths: Making others feel close; Keeping up multiple stories, for now Weaknesses: Tendency to underestimate other players. Also potentially prone to romantic distraction

Joseph - Strengths: Knows the game; Weaknesses: Struggles with making deep social connections

Kimo - Strengths: Well liked. Weaknesses: Has been on the block, and prone to being used as a pawn

Leah - Strengths: Attraction Weaknesses: Disconnected from information. Doesn't seem to be good with tactical or strategic ways to use strengths for the game

Makensy - Strengths: Potential physical comp ability. Weaknesses: Disconnected. Unable to put together a meaningful social game

Quinn - Strengths: Knows the game, and is respected for game knowledge and potential all-around comp ability Weaknesses: Lack of natural intuition for the game.

Rubina - Strengths: Has made strong social connections Weaknesses: Prone to romantic distraction and passivity

T'kor - Strengths: Well positioned. Probably has the most credibility in the house at this moment. Weaknesses: similar with Brooklyn in sense of being well positioned, and having a few moves that could improve position, and many moves that could potentially worsen position.

Tucker - Strengths: Comp performance; Weaknesses: High risk player

 

[One]

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[One]

Everything's just sloppy right now.

 

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[One]

One thing that doesn't get shown all that much on the live feeds is that Chelsie regularly does bible study with Makensy. So when you see Makensy throughout the day giving what appears to be blind, inexplicable loyalty to Chelsie and Brooklyn, and blowing off information that tells her not to, that's some of the missing context.

This morning was interesting. T'kor really wants to push the idea of keeping Chelsie over Cam, against Tucker's wishes, and even potentially the idea of keeping Brooklyn over Cam. After the conversation between her, Kimo, Rubina, and Tucker, T'kor was feeling frustrated with "folding" to what Tucker wanted (even though she didn't speak up much in the conversation). Then Makensy came in and basically pushed the same idea. What was interesting about that conversation is that as of now, it seems that although they both wanted the same thing, and T'kor was very happy to hear Makensy make the case, their reasons for wanting the same thing is probably for diametrically opposed reasons. T'kor thinks that she can keep some favor with Chelsie, having already let her know that her intention is to protect her in this game, and she has almost zero interest in playing the game with Makensy. T'kor's cake involves Rubina, Kimo, and Chelsie, and also Quinn and Joseph to a lesser degree, and Tucker to the extent that he's friends with her friends and can keep her safe. Makensy on the other hand thinks that she's in close with Chelsie and Brooklyn, and has been pushing the idea hard that the floaters need to go, which she includes T'kor and Kimo in that, as they're going to ride the coattails of the competitors. She also thinks she has a game relationship with Tucker that might keep her protected, although she's not 100% confident in that.

Who comes out favorably in this? Chelsie. Tripping and falling upward, thanks to the work she did in the earlier weeks with her social game.

Over the course of this week, I didn't think Chelsie played her cards very well, as she's still been telling different people, different conflicting stories, that are easy to figure out (some of which have already been exposed by Leah throughout the week). And yet, for whatever reason, even when players like Makensy and T'kor start to lean in the direction that maybe Chelsie can't be trusted in the way they thought, at some point something changes where they snap right back into alignment. I think this week, for T'kor at least, it comes down to her seeing Chelsie as her best option out of the three that are on the block, but you can see the wheels start turning every now and then, where she starts to include Chelsie in her long term plans again. With Makensy, multiple times this week, it's been like she gets new information, loses some trust in Chelsie/Brooklyn, and then gets her memory wiped, and goes right back. I don't want to think it's that simple. I think she's trying to cover her bases, but you can kind of feel that she's leaning toward wanting to work with them, even with the odds against.

Not saying whether those moves are right or wrong for those two strategically, it was just interesting to watch.

Strategically, I do think it's risky for T'kor to take this approach. My concern for her, as before is that while she's in a good position, there are some moves she could make to improve it, and a lot of moves she could make to break it. It's always risky trying to flip the votes on your own ally on their HOH, especially if they have a clear vision of which eviction would be best for their game. Just as you can gain favor with someone having saved them, you can easily push someone away if they feel that you've betrayed them or even just taken control of their game from them. She's well positioned and has the allies and options with which she should be able to maneuver, but there's no 100% guaranteed safety there. The house can always flip on you if you push the wrong button. I do like that she's playing a very assertive game, with agency. It keeps things entertaining whether or not you agree with her choices moment to moment. And she does think through multiple options. It's just that too much trust is being placed into words and good feelings right now, and not enough I don't think, into the position, incentives, abilities, or tendencies of the other player(s), and doing that with the wrong player will put her game in deep trouble. If she does get played, I hope it's not enough to tank her game, but just enough to open her eyes to what she's up against.


With Makensy, I have no idea what she's doing, other than that it appears to be about getting in where you fit in.

 

[One]

Chelsie ended up winning AI arena, so T'kor didn't have to show her cards there by voting to keep her. Brooklyn was voted out, which the entire alliance wanted. So it worked out.

T'kor is the HOH. Hindsight being clearer, it may have worked out if she did go ahead and get the votes to keep Brooklyn. But then Brooklyn would've been a new variable in the HOH comp. Based on the conversations, it sounds like T'kor would've won regardless though, so yeah, it could've worked out. As of right now, no clear idea who she'd nominate. The easiest would be Makensy, and then maybe Cam, but there's a connection there too.

Alliance or not, Tucker shouldn't be too comfortable this week. His buffers will be Kimo and Rubina (neither of whom are 100% solid either), and maybe the fact that he can help protect her next week when she can't play. But there's going to be a torrent from others in the house for T'kor to do the "obvious" move

 

[One]

The nominees ended up being Makensy, Cam, and Tucker. Tucker volunteered because he'd already done so for Chelsie and Cedric, so he figured why not for T'kor. Shouldn't have, but here we are.

Joseph is self-admittedly sprung on Leah, and he's started planting seeds for taking shots at Sixth Avenue. At the same time, Rubina is expressing doubt about working with Joseph to T'kor and Kimo.

As of right now T'kor, Kimo, and Rubina are considering the formation of a new group, where they essentially swap out Joseph and Angela from Sixth Avenue, with Chelsie and Quinn, who they believe they're more personally aligned with. Tucker could be somewhere in that mix, but T'kor is still hesitant about going all in with him.

Veto is tomorrow, or later today, along with more talks

 

[One]

Tucker was evicted.

Chelsie has recovered and retooled, and is back in a power position in the house. In this moment, she's probably the most powerful player in the game, despite not being the HOH. It was the culmination of her machinations this past week that led to Tucker's eviction. And now she's in the process of tying up her previous loose ends by blaming them all on Tucker. What to watch out for though, is that as she's getting comfortable again, she's also starting to get a little looser in her interactions, and as she closes up past holes in her game, she could be opening up new ones as she speaks. She's recovered, but this isn't the same cautious Chelsie from the early weeks.

Another player who gained a lot of power this past week was Leah. Quinn and Joseph, both having their crushes on her, have both fully committed themselves to protecting her game to whatever extent that they can. Quinn going so far as to disregard any warnings that Leah could work against him. She also has other alignments and relationships that she can develop other than those two. There are players that would put her up, so she's not fully insulated, but she's in a strong position I'd say at the moment. I can't go all the way and say that she's going to be a power player herself, but she has enough working in her favor and on her behalf right now