(Spoiler alert: Please do not read on if you have not yet seen Wednesday night’s live eviction episode of “Big Brother.”)
At this point, I might be rooting for Victoria to make it to the finals just because I want to hear her speech to the jury. She has no shot at all of winning this game, but it would be great to hear her try and plead a case. Or maybe she would just bow down to the men who carried her this far and acknowledge that they played a much better game than she did.
Or should I say they played a game this summer, which she did not.
But first, she had to escape eviction yet again. There’s something to be said about being so useless in a game that it’s strategically advantageous to bring you closer and closer to the end. Victoria has never won anything of note on the show, to the point it’s become a running gag with the editors, spotlighting how she’s just kind off floating through
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For the Final Four eviction, it was all about loyalty over loyalty. For the second week in a row, a member of the Detonators learned that their loyalty wasn’t enough. Cody and Derrick had established the Hitmen very early in the game and maintained it as a stealth alliance within the Detonators, which made them more loyal to one another than anyone else in the larger alliance.
After Cody won the Power of Veto, he revealed the Hitmen to Caleb while eliminating him from the game. It didn’t appear to be quite the heads up that Frankie got before his elimination, but maybe they talked to Caleb in private about this before the live episode began.
Impressively, Derrick once again managed to get someone else to do his dirt work, but Cody was smart enough to ensure the blood wasn’t on his hands alone. By outing the alliance to Caleb, he made sure “Beast Mode Cowboy” knew that Derrick had as much a hand in his ouster as Cody did.
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It was’t made clear if Derrick knew this was coming, but he rolled with it. Frankly, it really shouldn’t matter at this point. Unless that is the bitterest jury in the history of “Big Brother,” Derrick should run away with this. His name has already been brought up in the jury house, with Donny and Nicole there specifically because they deduced the kind of sneaky game he was playing.
It has been somewhat to Derrick’s advantage that no one was playing the game as aggressively as he was. Frankie was closest, but he was too overt in putting a huge target on his back, and look what that got him: fifth place. Caleb played with his mouth open — blabbing every secret and strategic move he heard about — and his heart on his sleeve, and look what that got him.
At this stage of the game, Derrick has it pretty much sewn up. Derrick claimed a Final 2 deal with all three of the remaining Houseguests, and managed to finesse his Head of Household reign so that no one would be angry about his nominations. His plan to throw the Power of Veto competition to keep the blood completely off of his hands almost worked, had Cody not spilled the Hitmen secret to Caleb.
Now it’s down to the wire and it’s decision time. Will honor and loyalty take Derrick and Cody all the way to the Final 2, or will greed step up to the plate? Between the guys, there’s a chance a bitter jury could award the prize to either one of them. Against Victoria, it’s a sure victory for either of them.
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I’ll admit that this scenario is assuming that Victoria continues her winless streak and continues to have no stake in her own future in the game. She may surprise us all yet, but if she did all she would be doing was handing an easy victory to whoever sits next to her at the finale.
As for the guys, while it would be easier to beat Victoria, it would also perhaps create even more animosity on the jury to bring her as it would show that they had absolutely no loyalties in the game at all. Playing without honor is a way to win, but showing at least loyalty to one another could earn additional points with a potentially bitter jury.
I think Derrick could still beat Cody in a Final 2 vote with the jury, unless he absolutely blows it with his final speech. Cody may have told Caleb that he and Derrick made every move in the game together, but that’s not how it looked on the outside. Maybe Derrick got the better edit, but Cody seemed largely MIA through a large bulk of this season.
Meanwhile, Derrick was up there explaining his strategies to America every step of the way. He weaved and shifted as needed and has himself poised to win the half-million dollar grand prize on Wednesday. He explained it all pretty well to us, so I imagine he’ll have little difficulty convincing a jury of people he didn’t anger while orchestrating their elimination into handing him a huge wad of cash.
There are only two episodes of “Big Brother” left, Friday at 8 p.m. ET and then the season finale at 9:30 p.m. ET on CBS Wednesday.