BB28 Roundtable Week 9

[00:00:00] Propel Fitness Water with Gatorade Electrolytes, Zero Sugar and Vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolytes. Now you can watch ESPN College Game Day and select live college football games on Disney+. All day every Saturday at no extra cost for Disney Plus subscribers. Saddle up! Now there's something for every kind of thing.

[00:00:30] Select live college football games are now on Disney Plus. It's going to be wild! A limited sampling of content from ESPN is now available to all Disney Plus subscribers. Upgrade to a plan that includes ESPN to access the full ESPN on Disney Plus experience. Terms apply. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects.

[00:00:57] And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans.

[00:01:43] Great things aren't built alone. Uh, no. I don't have time. Uh, what about Dr. Charles? His patients say he can help find a quick fix, and he's in network. Great, now we're talking. Ah, book it. Booked. One mile down. 19 to go. Bring it on. You've got options. Download the Zocdoc app today.

[00:02:15] Hello everyone, and welcome to the Big Brother Roundtable Podcast. Big Brother 28. I'm your host, Taran Armstrong. This is, of course, the podcast where we talk about everything from the feeds, and we rate players from 1 to 10 based on how well we think they are doing in the game. Plus lots of other discussions. We rank them. We do all kinds of ratings all over the place. And with me, as always, Melissa. How you doing, Melissa? I'm doing great.

[00:02:45] Uh, this has been a wild week, so I am very excited to talk about it. And yeah. Also with us to talk about it, it's Corey. How you doing, Corey? I'm doing great. About three years ago, almost to the day, both of you sat here on this exact podcast, final eight, and gave me twos on the stock watch. So, so I'm here to pay it forward. No mercy. You know what I mean?

[00:03:15] Like, I did some stock watches in the house. I'm excited to do one outside. Yes. I don't remember doing that. I feel like I'm like. I remember exactly your whole spiel about it too. It was. Oh no. You want to hear it? Word for word? Yeah. Corey said, I'm going to make sure that Melissa regrets that too for the rest of her life. Uh, wow. You know what I do? I already do. So, you know, that's, I'm sorry about that. Yes.

[00:03:45] All right. Well, uh, like, like we've been saying plenty to talk about this week. Of course, this time last week, uh, drew was a show age and Devins had volunteered for the block. He was the target. He did of course, managed to win that blockbuster saving himself. And even though the votes had basically flipped to save Lala and evict Taylor, they just kind of fell through the cracks right at the last minute.

[00:04:13] And Taylor ended up saying over Lala. Then as we saw in the episode last night, Barrett won the HOH and he took a shot at all three icons who also revealed the details of Yasha's bribe, which Yash then tried to lie about and say that the deal was only for D as they were saying it was also for Devins and Angela. Pretty much nobody believes Yash except for Barrett, but none of them are sure about it. And by none of them, I say there's three people.

[00:04:41] There's only three people that don't know the truth because Yash admitted it to Taylor. The three icons know. And of course, Yash knows. So of the three, Drew and Melody continue to not really believe Yash's side, but Barrett does. Not that it really matters because the shot is really still being taken on the icons. Yash goes on to win big brother comics, BB comics, and does not use the veto today in the veto meeting, which means that one of Devins, D or Angela will be leaving on Thursday night.

[00:05:10] As of right now, Devins is the primary target. But most people are kind of assuming that Angela won't win the blockbuster and that whoever wins D or Devins will decide the outcome of which or of D or Devins ends up getting evicted on Thursday. And that's about where we stand, Corey. Yeah, I mean, it's been a wild week for a lot of reasons.

[00:05:35] So much talk about like production and the powers that like you almost forget this is probably the biggest move of the season. Like this whole story has been about the icons running the house and having all these powers in the first HOH. Now they're all on the block. I don't want to say it feels anticlimactic, but like we're here. They're on the block. And like as much as this, I think part of it is why this vote is not that interesting because everyone assumes someone's going to sit next to Angela.

[00:06:01] So it's kind of like we're just sitting here waiting for like what the blockbuster is and then we could figure out how the game is going to proceed. But last time I counted Angela out of a blockbuster, she won the blockbuster and it became a much different vote. So I think we still have a couple more interesting days. I'm just excited because this deep into the game, it's rare to have this much intrigue. Like the game usually like starts trickling out and the game's like close to over. Doesn't feel like it's the case this season. So I was pretty happy with it. Yeah.

[00:06:29] And we are, we are, I think the intrigue as it's really, it really hasn't been this way and with the blockbuster era, because there's such an unknown facing the contestants on Thursday that they often don't think too far into the future. But we are getting some future projections this week, primarily that there's been a ceasefire called amongst the new players. The five new players, Barrett, Drew, Melody, Yash, and Taylor. A ceasefire was called, but Drew still wants to go after Yash.

[00:06:58] Barrett also wants to go after Yash, but only after going after the other survivor player first. Yash wants to go after Drew immediately. Um, and as of today, as of just like an hour ago or so, uh, this stuff is leaking all over the place. Taylor and, uh, Yash knowing that Drew is coming directly at them. Drew doesn't necessarily know that Yash is coming directly at him, but no believes that Yash can't do anything but come directly after him. So it doesn't really matter.

[00:07:28] Uh, so the real war is, is happening as kind of like Barrett and Drew versus Taylor and Yash with whichever remain of the icons lingering in the background, given especially that Barrett, who is probably the one person that would still go after the icons can't win HOH next week. So, uh, it does seem like the upcoming war is, is really Yash versus Drew in the HOH competition, assuming Yash tries to win it.

[00:07:55] Um, or the icons who also are siding with Yash and would target Drew and Barrett. Uh, now primarily Barrett on their end, but, uh, but really, you know, it's hard to control your shot at the final seven with a blockbuster in play. So, uh, Melissa, I think that, uh, that's really where a lot of the gameplay is happening right now. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:20] I've been thinking a lot about whether or not Barrett made the right move this week. Now, like, obviously we all love the fact that he decided to go after the icons and like, actually give them a hard time for once. Um, but at the same time, there were parts during the week where I was like, okay,

[00:08:42] does it make more sense for him to go after Yash or something because Yash cannot target the icons. And so that's basically just a week. If Yash wins HOH, like you're in trouble. And so does it really make, and let's assume the veto, let's not pretend like the veto isn't in play because like, this is just like my thought process before the veto happens.

[00:09:07] I don't know whether, what the right move is here, because there is a world where he could pretend to still be working with the icons and be like, look, like I want to get Yash out, but it doesn't make sense to put, you know, Melody or Taylor on the block. And I don't want to put Drew on the block. You know what I mean? Like there's some sort of logic that he could like use while still pretending to be on their side. And then they could, I mean, obviously they might

[00:09:35] be like, okay, we don't really believe him, but he could keep up this facade of like, we're all still working together. So that way it's not an automatic, we're targeting Barrett. Um, when that happens, because now Yash, if Yash wins HOH, Barrett is in trouble. If Angela D or Devin's wins HOH, he's in trouble. And as much as I love the move from like a viewer perspective, I'm very, very worried

[00:10:00] about Barrett going into next week. I just feel like he doesn't have any protection and people are looking at him. And so I just don't know, like if maybe there was another way to do this, that wasn't just putting all three icons up, um, and kind of just like cutting that cord instead of maybe making it more like, Hey, we're all doing this together. You have to kind of sacrifice yourself so that we can get Yash out or something like that. I don't know. It was just something I was thinking.

[00:10:30] I think the problem for Barrett is because I, that's what I've been talking about all week. Like obviously there's a world where targeting Yash does make sense this week, but there was no way to just like pinpoint target Yash in order to not put up any of the icons. He would need to put up Yash, Taylor, Melody, at which point the icons, I guarantee you would have blindsided him at the vote, keeping Yash, even if Yash manages to survive or manages to stay on the

[00:10:58] block until Thursday, uh, they would have evicted Melody or Taylor. What if you made a deal with the icons? Like, what if you made like a deal quote unquote, or whatever that was like, okay, I just can't put up Melody because she's had such a tough time or whatever. Like, I just, I have a connection with whatever he wants to say. I don't want to put up drew because like, you know, he's been on the block. He's had a hard time. He was HOH and he didn't put

[00:11:22] me up. I don't want to put up Taylor because I don't know, whatever he wants to say. So I want to get Yash out, but I just feel like we have to make it look like we're not working together. So why don't I put up, you know, D and Angela and like Devins, I would never want to put you, I would never want to jeopardize you, but like D had put drew up in Angela, you know, whatever, and just make some sort of thing up. That's like, we're, we're all targeting Yash. Then you talk to

[00:11:50] Yash and you're like, look, I have to make it look like, you know, whatever you want to say, and just make a deal with both people so that they're thinking that you're on their side. I don't know. Maybe it gets too complicated, but I just feel like it's like, maybe there was a way. He did. He did consider it right. Well, that was one of his options. Uh, D and Angela with Yash. Uh, and he told Devins that now I actually think that there was a chance that could work,

[00:12:14] uh, just because, and he didn't realize this, but if he had known because D and, and Angela would have been more mad at Devins, I think than at him, they would have thought Devins was behind the move. Um, and, uh, and he might've been able to get away with it, but he also burns Yash, uh, who now has no incentive to throw HOH next week and just go ahead and target Barrett. So it's, it is a tough path here. What if he tells Yash that like the intention is not to get Yash out, that he thinks that Yash can

[00:12:43] like win a blockbuster and that he feels like he has to appease the icons by doing this, but really, like you're just lying to each person. I don't think Yash is that dumb. I did the, everyone's like, well, make a deal with the icons. They just betrayed you. You're not actually making a deal with them. You're just pretending like they're, you're giving them a reason quote unquote for you to put them up on the block as part of being a good Alliance member as a pawn when really you're trying to get them out. Like it's all lies, but like maybe there was a way to like finesse it so that nobody's pissed off.

[00:13:14] What do you think, Corey? Corey, you tell us. Here's the question, Melissa. If I was like, Melissa, I'm going to nominate you, but you're going to crush that blockbuster though. Like I have so much, like I'd be pissed. Like absolutely not. I'd be mad, but like, I don't know if I would be like, Barrett has to be the next to go. I might be like, okay, look, I didn't love that, but the icons are too dangerous, you know, or something. No, I get it. I think the, there's a way of you doing like Devin's Taylor,

[00:13:44] Yash as noms and like Angela and D are their own pocket. Barrett and D have their bond throughout the entire game. And like Yash wins the veto and then you bail and put up an icon. But what I loved about his plan was this. He has these two problems. He has three icons and he has the comp beast who's going to comp their way to the end. If he doesn't put up the three icons, there's no way of guaranteeing one of those four people go home. And Yash was his replacement nom. I think the thing to criticize is like, okay, houseguest choice felt like a lot.

[00:14:11] Certainly. Like, I think that was a, that was a bridge too far, but I, with how it played out, I don't hate it. Cause I think there now is a plausible world where Yash going into next week isn't targeting Barrett or will do what he can to protect Barrett, even if that's very limited. So like, or might throw, which is a great scenario for Barrett. I just know no matter how this week played out, Barrett's either going to be the idiot who let three icons into the final seven or the idiot who didn't target the comp beast at the final

[00:14:37] eight. He, he put up three of them and the other one was the replacement nom. So the rest of the small, the rest of the stuff is like small nitty gritty social stuff with drew and picking Yash and all that big picture. I think he did a good job. I agree. I think, I think strategically he did what he had to do to guarantee the outcome that was necessary this week. Uh, there's plenty to nitpick about the way he's handled drew, uh,

[00:15:03] and him believing in Yash's lie and not considering the full context of bribe and all kinds of stuff with that. And those things are valid criticisms, but I think that when it comes to the noms and the ultimate plan, I do think, I do still think it was right. I think Yash, the replacement worst case scenario, Yash on the block against Angela, you send Yash home, uh, or Yash on the block theoretically against any of them. You theoretically send Yash home. Yeah. The, the icons are still

[00:15:31] pissed at you and you're in danger, but at least you've given yourself a great chance to win veto or blockbuster next time around. Uh, especially if drew is the reason that Yash goes home because he sided with the, uh, with the vets, like who are they target? Are they going to put up you next to melody and Taylor? Like I feel decently about that. If I'm competing in veto and blockbuster, uh, now granted, like they probably would still, they, they, the Drew's vote would save them and

[00:15:59] they'd still be like, yeah, but he did it on purpose just to betray us. That's he was setting us up. He's trying to trick us into believing he was with us by voting to keep us. But you know, uh, at the end of the day, like the criticisms that at least I've had of Barrett's game to this point, um, are that he has gotten himself into this position where he is kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. He did lose Mallory because he threw that HOH. Uh, and he,

[00:16:27] by his own admission was just kind of playing the vets game for so long that, uh, by the time he has done something about it, he has no perfect move, but you don't need perfect moves if you can keep winning. So, you know, if he manages to take out D Devin's or Josh, which seems very likely the case that D or Devin's will leave this week, that's one less competitor that's been neck and neck with

[00:16:52] him in these competitions and just dramatically improves his odds of winning more as the end game, uh, props up. And I think he's, he's sort of well-suited to do so. Josh, obviously his biggest competition, but he just needs, just needs to get through one of those defenses and maybe he's got a shot. Now jury management, that's a whole other thing. There's a lot of talk amongst the vets about

[00:17:17] who they are and are not willing to vote for in the jury. They certainly don't want Barrett to win. D is a lot more willing to vote for Barrett in the end, I think than Devin's or Angela, but they're also trying to simultaneously tell everyone else that they want to vote for Barrett in the end, that they will vote for Barrett in the end, uh, as a way to try to get them to evict Barrett. So, uh, end game aside, you know, I do think this was the movie had to make. And at the end of the day,

[00:17:45] I think the icons were probably going to react this way, regardless of who put all three of them on the block. So, you know, somebody has to make the move and he was in the position to do so. So. Do you think that there would be any benefit to him, like getting closer with Yash? Like, I just feel like couldn't he use like a better connection with Yash to his, like, I just feel like it's like, okay,

[00:18:12] now we have, now we also have to get out Yash, but it's like, couldn't you be more like, okay, I'm working with you. Like we can find a way around this whole, like, like you can't put the icons on the block thing. Like we've just got to like work together. You and I, like our big targets in this house, like let's combine forces. Cause if Yash is going to keep winning these things, like, I just feel like he'd be a good person to work with. Not like, oh, get rid of all your other allies and just work with Yash. But I just feel like it's like, it'd be better to keep him in

[00:18:40] close than to have another person that you're worried about. Well, I think that's what Barrett is trying to do. Uh, like I, Barrett is, is only telling the cameras and Barrett too, is like, Barrett is the one most trying to work with Yash amongst him, Melody and Drew. Melody and Drew, I think are more ready to take the shot almost immediately. Uh, whereas Barrett is like, let's

[00:19:04] wait another round just cause, cause Barrett has said straight up, like find a blues and a Yash. I'd be okay with that. I like the guy. He's a good guy. Uh, so I think he's like, he's willing to take that risk because he's, he's happy to sort of, if he gets comped out by Yash, like, oh, well, I tried essentially. Um, so I, but I, I think that in that sense, Barrett is doing the right thing. He's keeping Yash as close as possible, given that he cannot evict him now and can't,

[00:19:32] he can't make the move himself next week. Uh, but knows that he will need to take that shot probably as soon as he has an opportunity to, uh, hopefully Yash just doesn't see it coming, at least from Barrett, I think would be the idea. It's such a funny dynamic at this stage in the game, like final eight where everybody in the house. And I promise even, even Taylor, who's not talking about it much knows Yash has to go at some point. Like he's a problem. He's going to win the game,

[00:19:58] but you also know he's the most likely person to win any HOH or veto moving forward. So you're having all these conversations amongst each other being like, so Yash is the best, right? Like we love Yash and just hoping it gets back to Yash that you like him. I think the issue of course is the bribe exists. So all of Barrett's efforts are in vain. Like the best he can hope for is Yash throws the HOH or wins veto and tries to protect him with it. I think the issue is we have

[00:20:26] the final seven coming up, which gives Yash three opportunities for safety. Final six, the veto is often extremely physical. There's really no time left. So I think like the idea of working with Yash is more of like a, hopefully Yash believes I'm working with him. So he spares me another week and not actually, okay, I can keep him one more week until the blockbuster goes away. And then I cut him like you can't miss shots at this point. Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. It's so tough

[00:20:54] because with that, Yash is in such a good spot though, because it's like the icons wouldn't want to get rid of somebody who can't put them up and like he's winning everything. I just feels like, yeah, it's, um, it's like his biggest threat is the icons and they don't want him to go because he can't put them up. Yeah. I mean, I do still think it was a mistake for D to not try to take Yash out

[00:21:19] on her HOH week, even though the bribe was in place. Um, but now that it's happened and he's eating up all the comp wins and now they're in trouble, they do kind of like, there's different risk tolerances, right? Like for Taylor, her win condition in the end largely means like she can't quite lose Yash yet. Probably, uh, you know, maybe there's a world where she like, like Taylor from big brother 24

[00:21:48] takes out the Michael and is able to sort of like find a new path to the end. Um, but she's not quite, I think in that position. Uh, so I think that like instead she needs to sort of more heavily rely on Yash's comp wins to ideally keep her safe. The problem being he can't keep her safe with those comp wins, which then, and this is the whole thing I went through this morning, which means like

[00:22:14] she needs to either take Yash out immediately or convince him to win an HOH immediately. Because like one of those things needs to happen for Taylor's game. Uh, and then of course, a bunch of other stuff has to happen, but for the icons who are now like on the back foot, they need to choose like, where are they going to put their efforts? Where are they going to work?

[00:22:37] Uh, now they could probably just grab drew, but they don't see that they have him. Uh, and even if they did know that they had him, it's still so risky. He's still so attached to melody for as much as people rightfully. So doggone drew for being such a vet pet. Uh, he, you know, he's not the most reliable vet ally when he's probably going to bring melody to a final two over any of them.

[00:23:07] Uh, and so that's not the most reliable path either. Not to mention his connection to bear it in the first place. Uh, so for them, it, it kind of does make sense to sort of go with the risk of, Hey, Yash, yeah, he's going to win a bunch of competitions. They can't nominate us. And in the meantime, we can take out this trio of drew melody Barrett. Um, and then hopefully at one point Yash will have to burn an HOH targeting one of them or maybe even Taylor. Uh, and then we are

[00:23:35] able to, we have a shot at him the next time. Um, and, and we were able to snipe him out or worst worst comes to worst. He never wins an HOH and he just has to take one of us to final two. So like the risk tolerance there is a lot wider, I think for the vets when it comes to Yash. Yeah. Well, I think it's, there's two pieces of it. One Yash is a solo comp beast, which means someone's going to have a shot in part three against them. So anyone can get in those final two final

[00:24:03] three chairs, win the HOH, cut him, take their chances against the other person, maybe win the game. We saw it as early as last season. So like that's a possible outcome. The other thing that I think is just so funny with how this whole season played out, the bribe was just awesome for Yash. Like the bribe has saved him so many times. It saved him during these initial HOH it's saving him to this day. And he gets to lie about it to the other. He gets to play the middle while shit talking the

[00:24:29] icons the entire time. Like the, all he's doing is hanging out with the newbies talking about getting the icons out. So they love him. They know he's solid. And the icons are like, we know he's solid, like concretely. So he has like the Barrett and Drew position without having to do any of the Barrett Drew sketchy stuff. So, you know, I don't think it's him fighting against the current of all these advantages. It's like the diamond power of veto sucked. The bribe, I think has been a total boon for

[00:24:54] Yash. I think it has been super helpful. I agree. I think it's helped him more than hurt him to this point. I think that there may come a point where that, where he has to pay that, uh, that ledger, right? Like in the future, toward the end of the game, it might end up, uh, handcuffing him too much. But for right now, I agree. I think it actually has benefited him. Actually, this reminds me, I was, uh, I got a message from on my Patreon today, uh, from somebody who was

[00:25:20] like, Hey, you know, usually when you have a contract like this, uh, yeah, like the person to sign, like maybe they can't get out of it, whatever. But usually the person who issued the contract, they can release somebody from that contract. Should D be able to release Yash from his obligations if she chooses to allow that to be the case? And therefore could Yash has have used

[00:25:46] his position of power holding the veto this week to be like, Hey D, if you release me from the bribe, I will use the veto on you or something along those lines. Uh, number one, should that be allowed? I think yes. Uh, number two, should he have done it? Honestly, probably not because it's actually maybe a little bit useful for him to, to have the bribe in place, but I thought it was an

[00:26:10] interesting thought. Yeah. I'm against it for the sole purpose of we need less rules with the bribe, not more. Uh, like I've just, another thing about the bribe, cause you've been talking about a lot in the updates. I just took contract law and in contract law, it's like, okay, you have this exchange. And for me, the exchange for Yash not nominating the icons on his next HOH was $5,000. He's got the 5k in the bank. So I think he's beholden to that no matter what, whether D is evicted or not. Like

[00:26:40] I've just, I never really saw the, the rationale for like why that would clear him of it. Like even if he like dies, it passes to the next person in the estate. Like Devin's now is the briber. Yeah. It was always ever just vampire logic. Oh, well by vampire logic, it cures vampirism. This is some original stuff. Right. That is a law. Yeah. Okay. We learned about that in school. Yeah. Um, yeah, no, I agree. I think like the idea of like, Oh, if D is gone, there's no contract is not

[00:27:10] accurate. Um, but I, I, and I also think like, even if it were like, Oh, he could be released. Like, I don't think that he should do that because then it's like, okay, so then maybe a vet doesn't go home this week somehow. And then just so that you can eventually take a vet out. Like, it just feels like, I don't know why he would want to do that. Um, cause then also like, then they're just mad at him and there's, because he has done this or whatever. And there's no reason,

[00:27:38] there's no reason like not to target him. I don't know. It just feels, it feels complicated. And, uh, I don't know. I think it's better for him to just like still have that bribe in place. Mm-hmm. Uh, Corey, anything else from the week that you wanted to talk about? Yeah. Just, just one thing about the, the bribe and the rules and why is production letting D say, I'm not allowed to lie. I think there's this like misunderstanding by a lot of fans that you walk into the DR and you're talking to Julie Chen

[00:28:05] or Alison Grotner every time it's like, nah, you're talking to like a myriad of producers and they rotate. And like, I remember when I won HOH and then it was zombie week. I didn't know if I could play the next week. I'm going in every time they call me, can I play an HOH? Can I play an HOH? And they weren't withholding information. They didn't know. Right. Because the people I'm talking to are not the people making those decisions. So I would not be surprised if people are going into the DR asking these complicated, Terran-esque questions about the bribe.

[00:28:32] And they're like, let me get back to you. Uh, let me, you know, um, and then you just don't get that information. So I think it's pretty obvious production's kind of been just going with the flow. I don't hate the decisions they've made along the way. The one thing is like when D was lying by omission saying, I'm just protecting myself with the bribe. I think at that point you have to then let Yash lie about the details of the bribe too. I was just never a big proponent of

[00:28:58] like the lie by omission is not a lie. I found that annoying. So good. Yeah. Well, I just, I think the, the counterbalance to that is that if they had, cause I, cause I think, I mean, my assumption at least given the way that she talked about it at the time, she was intentionally wording it in a way to make sure that she wasn't lying because she still thought she couldn't lie. Uh, and therefore if, if anybody had asked, is it only you that's protected? She would have had to

[00:29:26] either not answer or tell the truth. And she probably would have done so falsely believing that she couldn't lie. Uh, which is again, just kind of like gets to the whole messiness of the situation. Um, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, I, I kind of agree. I think that like what they've come to does make some sense, like, okay, you're not allowed to lie about the bribe itself, like the

[00:29:51] power, but you can lie about the deal you made. Uh, it's just that that should have been explicitly clear to both parties, uh, so that we don't have to cut around D going, I can't lie about it. I can't lie. Production says I can't lie when they show it in the episode. Yeah, I agree. I just think it's a lot to ask of the players to know what questions to ask. Cause if D says I can't lie, I'm like, but can you lie by omission? Production is deal. Like

[00:30:20] I think it's, I think it's a lot to ask, but I do think a sharp player would be able to ask those questions. Right. And that's, and that's kind of like the point, right? Because if everyone understood that D is not allowed to lie and therefore we need to be careful about listening to what D is saying about the power, uh, then, then I do think it would sort of be fair game, right? Like, yeah, you have to be careful with your wording and anybody it's, it's again, it's the same thing as what we talked about with survivor where survivor has notes. And so,

[00:30:47] yeah, you can bluff people on survivor and say, Hey, my thing lasts until final two. Uh, and yeah, you know, you could say, well, it's, it shouldn't, you know, how is a player supposed to know that they need to ask for the note, but it's like, if that's a known established thing, then they know to ask for the note. Uh, and then it becomes much more palatable, I think for everyone involved. So, uh, so that would be, I think the ideal scenario here, but I don't think we're going to get anything like that in the future.

[00:31:17] Which is a shame because I, I do like this in concept. I personally love the complicated nature of this. Uh, it's just, it, the rules need to be clear, I think. Yeah. I do think that there should be like, okay, like, but who can lie about like, there needs to be some ultimate like arbiter of like what this is and what the rules are surrounding it. And I feel like there isn't anything like that. And everyone's just kind of using their own rules and their own

[00:31:46] logic and production has not said like, Hey, here are the rules for powers. Here's this, that, and the other thing, and someone's got to step in and say something. I think like, I don't like this idea that like, it feels to me like using production as a strategy with the whole, like, Oh, well, I can't, I can't lie about it. So I have to be telling the truth. And Yash being like, I didn't actually agree to this. Like I was like a, you know, not a full deal. Like I did, it feels

[00:32:15] less like, Oh, I'm just lying about the game versus like, I'm lying about something that is involved in production. And so it feels, it feels a little icky to me. And I wish that there was some, I wish production had stepped in and been like, guys, like this is what it is. And whether it is like everyone can lie about it or not, I wish there was something that said what the ultimate like rules of this power are. Yeah. And, and, you know, I think it goes without saying, but

[00:32:43] the fact that the rules feel so nebulous just kind of adds to the ickiness of it in the sense that like, okay, this is D holding the power. What if it were Taylor holding the power? What if it were Haley holding the power? Would the, would these things that are popping up and they're seemingly making decisions on the fly about, would their answer change based on who has it and what they want to do with it? Like that also feels like, you know, obviously something that they're

[00:33:10] capable of doing, but not something that you feel very good about. I think a lot of the time. Um, so, uh, you know, it's, I just think we're going to introduce something like this. Make sure you have well-defined rules that we know that the players know. I think that's all, that's all we ask. Disney+ Hulu will make your day every day. Bluey for the kids, the all new Hulu original

[00:33:36] series furious for the second they're down. Good morning America for your morning ESPN college game day for your Saturday and toy story five for a cozy family movie night on Sunday. Make your day every day with Disney plus Hulu 18 and older with the Disney plus Hulu bundle subscription. Access these titles via Disney plus terms apply. Propel fitness water with Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar and vitamins propel hydrates better than

[00:34:04] water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you propel with Gatorade electrolytes. This episode is brought to you by chat GPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons podcast. Have you guys heard about chat GPT work? It's the new way to use chat GPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give chat GPT work access to your apps and files,

[00:34:31] and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at chat GPT.com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plans. All right. Anything else to talk about before we get to some survey results? Okay. Well, of course, every week I send out this survey, we rank the players from your favorite to

[00:34:58] your least favorite, the audience. And this week is no different. We did the same. Last week, Melody was on top, followed by Taylor, then Barrett, Yash, Devins, Drew, Angela, and Dee. Who do we think? And of course, Lala was actually in sixth place after Devins there. But she is now gone. Who do we think has taken the top spot? Is it still Melody?

[00:35:25] Or has somebody else taken this position? I feel like Barrett could have taken it with this week. Like, that was such a big move, and people have been asking for it. And I feel like he deserves number one this week. Yeah, I think if you take a big swing, you should get rewarded for that big swing. My thought is if you've been a Melody fan for the whole season, no reason to stop being a Melody fan now.

[00:35:50] Like, she had a classic Melody week of, like, needling Drew and being in the HOH room. And I think it's going to be Melody, but I would not be surprised if Barrett's the one who takes it. Barrett did, in fact, take it. Wow, look at that jump up. Oh my God. Wow. Wild. A wild chart for Barrett. That is insane. He went from three down to ten, then just...

[00:36:15] Just two weeks ago, he was second to last. I think above only Haley? Oh my God. Wow. And now, just two weeks later, he is number one. Good for him. He deserves it. I wish they did the time capsule vote right now so we could just look at all the icons and say, look at me now. It would have been so easy to just, like, chicken out and be like, I don't think I can do this.

[00:36:42] Like, they trust me. They think that I'm like... Like, they trust me, quote unquote. But, like, they think that I'm not going to do this move. And then I just am going to, like, shatter everyone's expectations. It was, yeah, it was great. All right. I know. I was going to say, I think that Yash probably has moved up. No, it's Maladie. I screwed it up. But then Yash. But then Yash, maybe.

[00:37:12] Maybe. No, it's Taylor. What? I'm feeling good about Yash 4, though. Yeah, it's got to be Yash. It's got to be Yash now. Yash is 4. Yes. Yes. No significant movement there from Yash. Really just Barrett sort of leapfrogging over Melody and Taylor. Yash staying in fourth place. Next was Devin's. Do you think it's still Devin's?

[00:37:43] I think he holds. I think he holds because I'm looking at the people who are left. I don't think they've had great weeks. I think it's Devin's. Yeah, I think so, too. I'm almost tempted to say that everything stays exactly the same. But yeah, probably Devin's next. It is, in fact, Devin's. We've got three left. Drew, Angela, and Dee. What order?

[00:38:12] I think Drew might be in trouble. Do you think so? Yeah, I don't know. I feel like how high Melody is does not bode well for Drew, for me, based on how that week has gone. Yeah. It's hard to say, but I feel like people are not pleased with Angela or Dee either. So I could see a situation where it just stays exactly the same. I mean, look, let's go with it. Is that Drew next? Drew's next. Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:38:42] All right. Is it Angela and Dee? Is that correct? Is that correct? Is it for all the marbles? You think Angela above Dee? I think so. I think it just stays the same. Okay. Let's do it. Shouldn't have trusted her. Oh, no. I'm sorry. I blew it. But I did get the Drew one. Yeah. You know, close. Yes. Yes. Dee goes above Angela there. And there we are. Barrett with a big rise.

[00:39:10] Melody been holding strong here up at the top for quite a while now. She's been in the top three since week four. Taylor with a big shot up in week seven and has mostly been holding up in the top three here. Josh with a steady rise, but kind of stalling out here at four for now. Devin's with just a slow continual fall over the course of the season.

[00:39:37] Drew with a much more dramatic fall over the course of the season. Dee also with quite a dramatic fall. And Angela also falling quite dramatically here. So there you go. That's the favorite player rankings. Barrett now on top. We've had quite a few different number one positions over the course of the season. Quite interesting. Week one was Dee. Week two was Drew. Then Drew again. Then Mallory. Then Melody. Then Mallory.

[00:40:07] Then Taylor. Then Melody. Now Eric. Wow. So it's basically all a fab every single time, basically. Except for like Taylor once. Except for Dee and Taylor. Yeah. Big Brother fans should know better. The way this works is right now the icon's been running the game. Now they're going to be the underdogs. All of a sudden people are going to be like, these personalities amazing. I love Angela crying. Number one and two. Like I've seen this story before. Well, that's been.

[00:40:35] I think it's actually been very interesting to me. I was doing an interview today and I was asked about like, and you know, it was somebody who's like not like super deep in the Big Brother streets and they were still like, it was like this season has been really like toxic in the fan base. Like they've been so all over the place. And, and I was thinking about it and I actually think that like a huge part of it stems from the fact that there's no one player or group of people that everyone's rooting for.

[00:41:05] Like the fan base is really, really segmented right now. There's a bunch of icon fans that love the icons. Even among the icons, Devin's fans, Dee fans. Um, and there's a bunch of, especially right now, Barrett fans. There's a bunch still of Drew fans. The, the Melodrew, Drew, I don't remember which. Yeah. There's a bunch of Yash and Taylor fans.

[00:41:32] Like all of these people have significant, like really deep fan bases. And there's no one clear kind of like, this is the, this is what we want, or this is the narrative. And so because of that, uh, it's just like, everyone's at war. Like everyone's got shooters all over the place. Uh, like screw you for this one. Screw you for that one. Um, and it's one of those classic things where it's like, uh, like we do this round table and

[00:42:01] it's like, well, they're clearly biased for this and against this. Uh, and then you do it the next week and it's like, well, they're clearly biased in the opposite direction because we've been all over the place with what is the right move? What is the rating? What is whatever else? And so I think that we, me, uh, you've pissed off like every single fan base because I've been up and down on every single player all season long.

[00:42:30] Um, and so, uh, really it's just like, Hey guys, can you just, can you just all kind of gather together and decide who we are biased for and against collectively before you complain to us? Yeah. That'd be helpful for us. Cause it's really, it's mixed messaging when it's like, screw you, screw you for being such a drew fan boy while also being like, screw you for being so hard on drew. I love it.

[00:43:00] It doesn't make any sense. That's why big brother's like a fundamentally different show. It's like the live feeds, the attachment you get to the players. And like, that's the one thing I think this season has that like people love season 26. I'm not the biggest fan because that season was like, we got all these nice people. May the best man win. You know, like, let's see how it goes this season. It's like, okay, everyone is a flawed gray character. Yeah. They have the biggest fan base you've ever seen and their fan bases hate each other.

[00:43:28] It's like, okay, this is what I grew up on. Like this is big brother. And then it crosses a line and you're like, let me go watch survivor for a few hours. I'm so, that's exactly where I was. Like, uh, like last sometime last week, I was just like, I was so pumped because it feels like it's been a long time since we've had such a, like a level playing field throughout the house, uh, not just in terms of popularity, but also in terms of strategy and position. Uh, you know, it's really been all over the place and there are so many interesting strategic decisions to try to parse out.

[00:43:58] And for me, that is a lot of fun. Um, and I'm not sure how fun it is for at least like the, the Stan portion of the fan base, but I'm hoping that the strategic portion of the fan base is having a lot of fun with us because, uh, there is, I think a lot of fun to be having. It's pretty rare to be in this kind of position. So, uh, let's enjoy it while it lasts, you know? Yeah. Thank God I'm not on Twitter anymore. I'll say that because I'm like, what? There's animosity.

[00:44:27] There's drama that I don't even know what's going on. I'm just like watching feeds and listening to updates and watching episodes and like totally removed from all that. So, uh, wow. I didn't even know. I saw the Parvati stands get involved and I'm like, oh, it's getting real. Like, oh, it's happening. All right. Well, let's see where they placed numerically here. Uh, wow. Barrett with a pretty decent lead above the rest in this chart, uh, with, with melody and

[00:44:55] Taylor, not too far behind, pretty close to each other. Then Yash a bit further out in fourth, then a big gap and then a block of Devins drew and D all relatively close to one another. And then another big drop and Angela far behind, uh, which is quite interesting because she did manage to beat D last week, uh, here. Um, it was a close vote last week, but this week she really just fell behind.

[00:45:23] I'm so curious as to how that happened actually. Why? Yeah. It's been more of the same, I think with, uh, and like, I think maybe it's D and Devins have been fighting for their life more. They've had much more active campaigns where Angela has kind of like commiserated being safe this week. Like that's the only thing I can think of, but I don't know. It's just Angela. It's just Angela. All right. Let's answer some questions here on the stock watch.

[00:45:51] Um, this is, uh, we have some survey questions. We rate things like for instance, here, we're going to rate the episodes this week, last week, pretty bad, pretty bad episodes. Of course it included the cliffhanger medieval contest. Uh, so you'd hope that this week would be a little bit better. This week also has worse comparable weeks. Week nine is historically not a good week for episodes.

[00:46:18] Weirdly, big brother 21 seemed to have a good week of episodes. It's the highest rated week of episodes, uh, that we have on this chart. Uh, but this week 5.8, which is going to be the second highest rating for episodes in a week nine, uh, just below big brother 21 and up from last week's 4.3. Yeah. I'd be like, for me, the big brother episodes exist from like Thursday. Thursday at eight 30 to nine.

[00:46:48] Like I watched Thursday muted, um, and unlocked every now and then. So I can't say I'm the expert on the subject, but I do think they're killing it in the DR this season. A hundred percent. They got good confessionalists. They got people in the DR who are letting them be good confessionalists. So, uh, hats off to them. I think they're doing a good job. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, uh, interesting stuff. Uh, feeds. How about feeds last week?

[00:47:14] Again, 4.3 this week, again, not typically a great week for feeds even last season, which had a great ending portion of the season, uh, at a 1.6. This was of course the post hamster wheel segment. Um, but historically it's just been a bad, bad week. Apparently except for one random green in a sea of red big brother 23s week. Nine was very good.

[00:47:41] I'm assuming this was like either the Claire week or when they just got down to the cookout, uh, something along those lines, but, uh, I could be wrong either way. Last week was a 4.3 this week. 6.8. The highest. Oh my God. Wow. Week nine ever. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Well, I do feel like it turned around the game.

[00:48:10] Like, I feel like the game we all felt might be heading to a place where the icons just are constantly safe and never having any problems. And then we just like marched down to the end and then the icons are, you know, in the final three. And that's definitely not what we got here. So I feel like it turned the whole game on its head. And I feel like everyone was really excited to see, you know, something different. Like we weren't seeing a situation where the icons were in power anymore.

[00:48:37] Like they, they were in danger and to see, you know, how they were reacting to that. I think that's very exciting. So, uh, a great, yeah. A great week. Honestly, I I'd be curious to know from Barrett if he is happier about the number one spot on the favorite ranking or happier about having, about having created the best week nine of feeds since big brother 21. I don't know. Being told you're the best.

[00:49:06] That's a pretty good one. I don't know. It's pretty good. Um, all right. Well, uh, listen, this, this makes me encouraged. I feel like at least this audience is clearly pleased with the strategy of the week and sort of like how interesting things are. Uh, season as a whole, the season has been dropping pretty dramatically over the last two weeks. It did actually recover very slightly from week seven to week eight.

[00:49:30] Um, but I'm very curious to know if this recovers the season more dramatically, uh, given the feeds rating, the episodes rating. Um, last week it was, uh, one of the lowest rated seasons at week eight. Uh, again, we've been doing this since big brother 21. So that says a lot. Let's see what we can get as a recovery here.

[00:49:54] 5.7 last week, this week, 6.2, not a huge recovery, but a fair one. It's still above the average for a week nine, which is certainly better than where it was last week. It's funny how people are not it. They're not like so hyped on this season. Whereas like my parents who are like, you know, casual fans, they're like, this is the best season of big brother we've had in a long time. They're like so psyched on this season. They love it so much.

[00:50:24] So I wonder if that's, if there's a difference between people who just watched the episodes and then people who like are in it and the feeds and like, whether or not, like if you ask people who are purely casual fans, like viewer episode fans, uh, what, what they would say, what they would rate the season. Cause I feel like that would be a different number. I do. I do wonder given cause what, what we've been talking about, right?

[00:50:50] Like, I wonder if, cause I do think there's a separation of like the kinds of fans. There's, there's different ways to bucket fans. There's a lot of different ways to place to bucket fans. But I think one of the ways you can put people into buckets is that some people watch the show for their fave, you know, they've got their client, they've got their stand card, uh, and they go to war and they love watching for their favorite. Uh, and then some people like watching for the chaos.

[00:51:19] They don't really care about favorites all that much. They just want to see like the gameplay, the chaos, like an even fight as much as possible. Uh, and I don't think you entirely fall into one or the other. I'm sure there's plenty of mixture in between, but if we separate those two things out, I think this season is probably not great for the, like, I'm here for my fave, uh, because it's so all over the place and there's just so chaotic and warlike out there.

[00:51:48] And it's like, no, this, you, how dare you say this about my fave? No, now you, how dare you? Uh, and, and it's been so like, it's been rises and falls. It's been hard to like be fans of one person the whole time because they've all been good and bad. And so, uh, that's probably not been very fun for them as much, at least versus I think if you're here for the chaos this week is in particular is like, this is just, this has just been really good.

[00:52:15] You know, like there, if you don't really have a favorite and you're happy to like, look at, you know, Barrett played maybe poorly for a while, but now he's doing something interesting. Drew is up and he's down and he's up and he's down. D is a master at some things and chaotically bad at others. Uh, Devin's is so good when he's dad Devin's and so bad when he's volunteering for the block. Like if you can appreciate all of it, I think this is a really good season for you.

[00:52:45] Uh, but I don't think that, uh, everyone watches the show that way, uh, which is not to say it's the right way to watch the show, but, uh, but I'm wondering if that's another aspect of maybe, uh, some of this lower rating here in general. Yeah. I think it's sometimes people overcomplicate these things where it's like this week was so awesome. What a cast, what a moment. If the icons won the HOH this week after Devin's bails himself out with the blockbuster,

[00:53:12] it's so over this week's like a 3.5. This season sucks. The icons got all these comp outcomes are the most important thing for any season. Like BB 22 has goat season potential if we reshuffle all the comp outcomes. So I think we've gotten a good run of them in a row. I think this is a fun week. It wouldn't have been fun to see Yash get backdoored on the week. The three icons are on the block. If it keeps it up, I think the season's got a ton of potential. And like, usually I used to think when I was like younger, like, okay, early jury. Now it's time for everyone to make the big moves.

[00:53:42] As I've gotten older, I've realized the first five weeks are always the most exciting of a Big Brother season because there's so many moving parts and so much going on. And everyone's got their own plans. And then it's kind of like wait for comp outcomes at this stage of the game. I think this season weirdly has been picking up steam as we've gotten a bit further into it. So I'm optimistic. I think it's moving in the right direction. Yeah. I mean, it's no Vince and Morgan, right?

[00:54:05] But like comparatively to other seasons at this point, I think it is a lot more exciting than most in terms of like how just even the playing field seems to be. So I think that's really fun. All right. HOA train. This could be interesting. We'll see how the audience thinks Barrett did as an HOH. Week nine, historically not an amazing week for HOHs. The top two, Leah and Michael, both at a 5.2.

[00:54:35] Drew last week had a 3.5. Barrett's a 7.0, taking the number four of all time HOH rating spot. Wow. What's the tiebreaker here? Ty and Corey. Yeah, wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh, wow. Yeah, Ty and Corey. What's the tiebreaker? Hold on. I need to see the spreadsheet. I think unfortunately the tiebreaker is probably like the hundreds of points. So he probably has a slightly higher score.

[00:55:04] I demand a recap. We will start it now. That is pretty crazy that you guys got the exact same score. I will do some digging. I will try to find the exact numbers for you. Good. I think it's like this is the perfect combination. And it was the same with my HOH. You put up Jared. You put up the icons. It's like a combination of good move and also just catharsis. Like this just feels good. But we're happy that Barrett did this. So I think it always combines.

[00:55:33] And I'm happy for Barrett. I know this will mean a lot to him. You don't get HOHs very often. So it's good that he had a good one. All right. Well, we also can look back at last week. Drew had a 3.5 in the moment. But in retrospect, did it play out better? 4.3. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he got bailed out by the blockbuster outcome and by the vote flip not going through.

[00:56:01] So he ended up actually taking out his target. And then one of his closest allies won the following HOH. So things did work out. I don't know if it was like due to anything that he specifically did. But I think that like a small recovery because things worked out is perfectly fine here for the retrospective. Mm-hmm. Disney+ Hulu will make your day every day. Bluey for the kids.

[00:56:28] The all-new Hulu original series Furious for the second they're down. Good Morning America for your morning. ESPN College Game Day for your Saturday. And Toy Story 5 for a cozy family movie night on Sunday. Make your day every day with Disney Plus Hulu. 18 and older with the Disney Plus Hulu bundle subscription. Access these titles via Disney Plus. Terms apply. Propel Fitness Water with Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar, and vitamins.

[00:56:56] Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade electrolytes. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files.

[00:57:25] And it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans. Every act of change begins with a neighbor, with someone saying, We take care of each other here. In food banks and food pantries, neighbors pack fresh food and dignity into every box, moving food from farms to families through Feeding America's nationwide network.

[00:57:52] So when that box reaches a home, it carries more than food. It carries a promise that together, we can end hunger. Feeding America, led by neighbors. Give now to end hunger at feedingamerica.org. Okay. Finally, let's rate production. Last week, of course, people were not very pleased with production at 2.8, the lowest of the season. This week, there's some bribe stuff. 3.8.

[00:58:21] So back to where they were at week seven. Still not great. Not amazing. Yeah. All right. Then, is Yash doing the right thing with the veto? He did not choose to use the veto. Was that the right call? Pretty easy one, I think. 91% said yes. I do think there's a world where he could have used it, but not the world where Taylor is still an option to be nominated.

[00:58:47] And so, there's really just not really a question about it. Finally, who do you want to be evicted this week? Between Angela, Dee, and Devin's. Do you guys have an opinion on this? Oh, I don't know. I think it would be more interesting, probably, to have Dee and Devin's stick around.

[00:59:11] Just because I think, I think, like, I'm worried about Angela staying and then people being like, she's not going to, let's just take her along. And then she doesn't have to do anything or prove herself. And then she could, like, just be, end up being brought to the end by someone. And then, like, accidentally end up in a win where I feel like she wouldn't have had to prove herself in that scenario.

[00:59:37] Like, I would love a scenario where Angela, you know, takes the game in her own hands and, like, has to, like, you know, go, whatever. Do something very significant in order to get to the end and then she wins and et cetera. But, like, at this point in time, I feel like Dee and Devin's have been doing more and accomplishing more and would be harder to beat, I think, and would be more exciting for me to stay.

[01:00:02] So, I think I would go with an Angela eviction just for excitement. But, I don't know. I agree. I think, like, at this point, Angela doesn't have a ton more to give this season. Like, the best we can hope for is she gets HOH. And we get to see an Angela HOH train and that could definitely be a good time. But between Dee and Devin's, Devin's made a game losing mistake last week and is still here. I kind of emotionally already said goodbye to him as a house guest. So, I think I'm okay with him going.

[01:00:31] And I feel like who's better player between Dee and Devin's? It's, there's so many pros and cons. But, like, I think Dee kind of has that eye of the tiger right now. She feels kind of locked in. And I'm curious if she could figure something out. So, I'd go Devin's, I guess. Yeah, I just feel like I didn't expect that from you, Melissa. Wow. Unbelievable. I'm sorry.

[01:01:00] I'm sorry to disappoint. The audience wants Dee out. 46% say Dee. 37% say Devin's. Only 17% say it. I think this is probably, like, they don't expect Angela to go. They sort of took this to be Dee or Devin's. Yeah. And it seems like they at least slightly prefer Dee. Who would you pick, Darren? I think I'm kind of with Corey on this.

[01:01:27] I think that, like, Devin's is sort of, like, operating under the final destination rules. Where, like, he put himself. Like, he will be next. Yeah. He put himself on that plane. And so, like, he should probably go before Dee here. Although, you could argue that Dee also got final destination with the Diamond Power of Vito. So, maybe that argument doesn't hold.

[01:01:51] So, but I do think that Dee and Angela have been sort of setting themselves up in an interesting way as a duo moving forward. Maybe that means Devin's is more interesting moving forward. But I also think it'll be more interesting to see Drew without Devin's there, which is, I think, how Melody sees it as well. So, I go back and forth here a little bit. But listen, I've got Dee on my draft team. So, yeah, my draft team is gone.

[01:02:21] So, I'm a free agent. All right. I do whatever I want. Let's get to the stock watch then. Let's do it. This is the portion of the podcast where we rate the players from 1 to 10 based on how well we think they are doing in the game. And the criteria, as we mentioned, can be really anything. But we try to make it something game related.

[01:02:50] That is the priority. I try to look at long-term prospects, short-term safety. And also, do I agree with what they're doing? That tends to be like a plus or minus one just based on decisions they're making. How much do I agree with them? And so, we then also poll the audience. The audience gives a rating as well. And we'll get through these. Where are all our numbers? Oh.

[01:03:20] I forgot. Okay. So, this is actually a problem. Hold on. This is an issue. So, there was a glitch. There was a glitch in the system. Hold on. Let me try to fix this here real quick. Oh, our numbers are missing. Yes. I was trying to think back. I was like, did we not rate some people? I was like, what happened last week? Yeah. Yeah.

[01:03:46] So, if you are playing along with the stock watch, you likely noticed this. That there was quite an error on the site with the wrong people gaining money and incorrect prices everywhere. It is right. And so, a lot of mistakes were made. But it was fixed.

[01:04:17] It was fixed. There was... Ultimately, we got to a position where even though the numbers looked wrong, you were still able to purchase the right amount of shares in things. So, you should have been able to work things through. I apologize.

[01:04:38] The site is a little bit, you know, wonky as I manually fill some of these in to just make sure that we are going to have... Wow, is that accurate? The season player average is 4.52. That feels very low. I feel like it's not a good number. I think it's actually relatively high. Yeah. I think it's a strong cast. Gameplay-wise.

[01:05:04] You sit there every week and watch them play bad, but you have to remember how bad everyone else was all the other seasons. And I'm like, Aang is a strong one overall. I don't know. Well, I think we've been rating them... I felt like sort of high, but now I'm like, oh, I think we did rate them pretty low. This time last season, it was a 4.0. Oh, okay. Well, that is very red. Season 26 was a 4.44.

[01:05:32] Season 25, 4.35. Oh, sorry, Corey. Okay. There we go. Oh, hold on. You said we gave you twos. We gave you twos last week. The joke doesn't land as well. If I'm like, Taryn gave me a three and Melissa gave me a two, but I'm fine. No way. We both gave you twos last week. So it's fine. Oh, wait, wait, wait. I did that. Did that. Sorry, sorry. You guys gave me these crappy rankings week nine. I'm talking final eight. Oh, I see. I see. Ah, ah, ah. There's the two. I could have won the game at this point, Taryn. At this point, yeah.

[01:06:01] I was chilling. That's crazy. Wait, did that just show that we gave him a week? Oh, okay. Wait. I think week 11 would be the final eight. Look at season 24, 4.72. Wow. All right, we'll stop doing this. There's a lot of contenders there too, I think. We need to hit a 5.0 for one of these seasons, please.

[01:06:24] Well, ultimately, like, it actually does make sense that the ratings are slightly below a five on average because every week someone is guaranteed to be the target. To be bad, yeah. Likely going home. And especially in the blockbuster era, there are three people on the block and in danger. True. So it should skew slightly negative. But, you know. Well, and also, like, we're way more likely to rate someone a 1 than a 10.

[01:06:55] Oh, for sure. Right. So, like, it already is, like, it shifts a bit. Because every single week, there's a very concrete way to lose the game. But there's no way to, like, be like, oh, this person's really in line to win the game. Right. So, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's then talk about this. Am I on the right week here? I see week eight. Okay, hold on. We got a week. Week.

[01:07:25] Here we go. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I was looking at the wrong thing. All right. So, week eight. Let's start this week with Melody. And that is not going to screw things up this time because I'm going to pay attention. Melody. I like what Melody's been doing this week. I do. I talked about it this morning.

[01:07:45] I feel like the way that she is managing her relationships with both Drew and Barrett and also then maintaining what she's doing with Taylor and Yash. I think she's actually the perfectly positioned middle player of that group of five. And I like that for her. The only problem is she basically has no win equity at the moment. And that's a pretty bad problem to have.

[01:08:13] But it's also a problem that is still fixable. Like, she has what? Like, how many days exactly do we have? 7, 14, 21, 2, 3. We have 24 days left of the game. That's a decent amount of time to start winning comps, right? Like, to start doing things that will get her respect enough to win. The problem is, is she actually likely to win those comps?

[01:08:41] That's where it's maybe like, oof, especially with Yash still in the game. Barrett's now winning things. Drew would beat her in a thing. It's like, it's still kind of a rough position. But I do, I think this week has been really, really good for her. And I think I'm willing to also say that I, because I like what she's doing, that I'm willing to bump her up to about a five, I think. I think that feels right to me for Melody.

[01:09:11] Melissa, what are your thoughts on Melody? Yeah, I agree with the five as well. I feel like there are other targets that are becoming bigger as her target is shrinking. Now, especially that Mallory's not there. If she sort of keeps distancing herself a little bit from Drew, like it's like there are things that are going on that are making it seem like she's not what we need to worry about right now. And I think like, obviously, there are concerns about, you know, if she just keeps doing this

[01:09:40] same thing and gets to the end, well, then what? But I absolutely could see her turning it on and winning a comp or doing something and like really developing some sort of win equity as it comes down the line, especially as there becomes less people there. I mean, imagine a scenario where like Yash is gone and like there's not necessarily that many people left who are winning a bunch of comps all the time. So she really could take it home.

[01:10:08] So I want to give her a five just because I feel like right now she's pretty insulated and I'd like to, you know, this could go either way next week. Sometimes all you need is a couple people. And, you know, this time last season, I think a lot of people would have been pretty down on Ashley's chances to win in a final two. But Ashley similarly had two people on the jury that were kind of like rooting for her in Will and Rachel, just like Melody would likely have Drew and Barrett.

[01:10:34] You know, it's certainly I don't think she's in as strong a position as Ashley was to win. But but I do think that it's not the impossibility that we would assume. I think, again, we always just forget how much time is left in the game for things to change. What do you think, Corey? Yeah, I'm going to be a little bit lower on Melody. I think it's a four. And there's a couple of reasons. Like when you talked about Taryn of like she's in this great middle position, but she has no win equity. I think the things are very connected.

[01:11:04] Like that's why she's allowed to be in that middle position. And obviously Yash's bribe is a disaster for Melody. Even if like Drew ends up going, that's like one of her best winning outcomes. That's kind of her path to the end. In general, I like what she's doing this week. I think she's moving in a good direction. But comp wins are what determine the direction at this stage of the game. And like she definitely has the worst resume thus far, even if she's gotten close a few times. So I'm just a bit lower.

[01:11:30] And like my biggest thing with Melody all season is like her and D have the same issue of they just don't have friends outside of their group. Like Melody does not have good conversations with Devins or D or Angela. And it's a seven person jury. Like you can't just toss away these votes. And every time she comes up as a final two person, they're like, I'd rather walk off the stage than vote for Melody or Taylor. It's early. You're right. At this point, I was saying Matt's going to get my vote over Jag guaranteed. I promise. So like you have to take it for what it is.

[01:11:59] But I think the signs are bad. And like the best way to get through those bad issues is comp wins. And I feel like that looks bad. So I'm just a bit lower on her position. I think that may, I mean, I think I agree with the four positionally. I, I boosted her to a five just because I liked the way she's handled the week. The audience though says a four as well. They agree with Corey on that one. All right, Melissa, how do you feel about Barrett?

[01:12:26] Oh man, I'm so pleased with Barrett this week. I feel like this is what we always hope for is like, you know, somebody's talking about like, I'm going to make the big move. I'm going to do it. Like the first chance I get, I'm going to turn on them. I'm going to put them up. And everyone's like, okay, sure. We'll, you know, we'll see when we see it, you know? And he wins HOH. And I feel like we're all like, okay, is this actually going to happen? And he actually did it.

[01:12:55] I feel like I, I want to reward this sort of behavior, this sort of, I love a big move. I feel like it was like a, you know, when Jessica Milagros or whatever was like, I'm going to put these people up and we're like, yay. Okay. Someone had like, someone took a shot. Someone made a move. They did something.

[01:13:16] And I just feel like I'm so, I, I don't know this whole time we've been like, Barrett's a big brother podcaster. Let's see what he's got. Let's see if he'll do it. And then the whole time he's been making moves that were like, you're just like, you're literally like clinging onto the icons and doing nothing for yourself. Like, are you even playing? Do you even care? And now we see he cares.

[01:13:45] He, he's one of us. He's like, he's, it's so cool to see somebody that like loves the game and goes in there and just, he does the thing. He did it. And we get to reap those benefits. It's so exciting. I want to reward him. I'm going to give him a nine. A nine. Nine. Now to be fair, I'm very, very worried about him next week.

[01:14:10] And I don't know what's going to happen, but I just feel like I, I want to give him something. I want to give him a nine. Okay. Well, Melissa. And I don't do that very often. You can say that. Like, I really don't. I listen. I like this. This is fun. I like bold Melissa. I'm just suspicious. Cause Melissa did say she wants to bring that average ranking up to a 5.0. So are we just getting a generous Melissa? Like I'm literally like, Oh gosh.

[01:14:38] Um, I guess a 10 Angela 8.5. All right, Corey. What do you think? So Melissa's high on Barrett. I'm even high. No, I like us. I I'm high on Barrett in this sense. I think he is the second most likely person to win the season at this point. But the gap between second and fifth is very small for me. So like, I'm going to give him a six. That's where I stand. And here's why.

[01:15:06] I think he made the perfect, like objective choices this week. Three icons, Yash replacement. That's all good. And all like the little things that he did that were bad, like pissing off Drew and obviously the icons are gunning for him. It was all bad. I actually don't think it matters very much because Drew does need Yash out. Drew still is going to like be tethered to Melody and fap in that way. And even like the icon stuff, they weren't targeting Yash anyways. They ran out of house guests to nominate.

[01:15:35] He was going to go up. And if he's on the block, the icons don't even get to choose who goes home. So I think a lot of his mistakes he's just going to get away with this week. And ultimately, it's going to come down to can they get Yash out in one of these coming weeks? I think the answer is no. But if the answer is yes, I think Barrett's a very likely winner. I just don't think any player outside of Yash is in a winning enough position for me to go higher than a six. I think that's fair. I agree with with most of what you said there.

[01:16:01] There are lots of knits to pick about the way Barrett has handled the week. But ultimately, for me, he made the move he had to make. And I think that's very good for his game. I do think that his performance in competitions prior to this point is better than his record prior to this point. And he does have a decent chance of competing well moving forward. I don't know why he was so bad at BB Comics that he wasn't even top three. That's alarming.

[01:16:30] But BB Comics is technically a different skill than a lot of the other stuff that's being done. Sometimes you have anomalies there, but not always. So we'll see. I'm going to give him a seven. I think I'm like on a slightly different scale here ultimately. But again, it's mostly just kind of rewarding him. I think for this move in the first place. I am concerned about two things moving forward. One is that he's not concerned enough about Yash.

[01:16:59] And two, that he obviously needs to sort of handle this jury situation properly. And how is that going to play out? But I like what was done here. Seven from me. The audience, a six. With Corey again. Corey in lockstep with the audience so far.

[01:17:27] I voted on the spreadsheet too. Or in the forum. Wow. Okay. Some insider trading. Wow. All right, Mr. Kalshi. Easy. All right. Corey, how do we feel about Yash? For me, it's between an eight and a nine. And if he looked at the camera right now and said, I'm not throwing HOHs, it's a nine. No problem.

[01:17:55] The throwing HOHs thing is like, dude, I don't care about the whole nominating two or three people. I don't care about taking someone off the block. Everything's individual immunity. You have three chances next week and then two chances every week after. You don't give up any of those chances. The thing is, I think if he throws HOH, he still probably is going to win a veto or blockbuster next week. So like, I'm not that concerned about it. It just feels like it's not good. And the other thing is people talk about Yash, like what are the odds he wins out? Guys, he doesn't need to win out.

[01:18:22] Next week, like half of the HOH outcomes are great for him. The week after that, like we've not heard Taylor talk about cutting him in any meaningful capacity. Like I think he's doing about as well as anyone could. But the issue for Yash is he's like at best a 50% chance of winning the game at all times because he's going to get to part three of the final HOH. Everyone's going to know he has to get cut. Good luck with the questions. That being said, I'm going to give him a nine. I think it is clearly the best position in the house.

[01:18:50] It's not just the comp factor, but that is like, OK, you got the best player positionally and the best competitor. Like how much lower can I go? And here I thought I was going to be bold here. I agree. I think Yash is a nine. I think that his position is really good. And I will say I was ready to be much lower on Yash when I watched him deny the details of D's bribe, fully believing what D believed, which is that D can't lie.

[01:19:20] I was like, this is so stupid. You can't win this because D has the trump card of I cannot lie. But clearly he knew that he could lie and that D also could lie. I would have to imagine. And therefore that he could lie and potentially get away with it. And it seems like he has. And here's the thing about Yash. Not only do I think his competition ability to potentially win out is very, very high,

[01:19:48] but I also like the way that he's been playing, the way that he has pulled in Barrett so much that Barrett is saying things like, I'm willing to lose to Yash. He's such a great guy. He's got the icon saying, we'd vote for Yash. We don't want to go after Yash. Corey, you're completely right. Like he doesn't even need to win out because even if he's even if Drew won next week and put Yash on the block, he might not have the votes to send Yash out.

[01:20:18] That's ridiculous. So Yash is playing very, very well right now. I do think he's far and away the front runner. And and I have no significant nits to pick with him either. So, yeah, nine for me, Melissa. OK, what happens when the audience wins the draft? Because they have Yash. It has. Like who picks the next year? That's a good question.

[01:20:46] I believe they did win reindeer games for what it's worth. Did they? Well, I guess we didn't then do. Yeah, we didn't then draw for reindeer games. But that that would be crazy. Like we'd have to be like, I guess we'll put a poll out to see who goes first and then drop next year. Or we get the audience. I guess we'll just start the default to whoever won the last time one of us won. No, we're not doing that, Taryn. I think that just makes you love that to me. I don't know.

[01:21:14] I think from an unbiased perspective. Right. Completely unbiased. Y'all are missing the obvious solution, which is the audience gets first pick and one of the podcasters gets bumped to that 17th house guest spot. Oh, can you imagine? That's actually kind of interesting. I actually don't. I don't actually don't hate that. But we do need an order. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Yeah, I have to give Yasha nine as well.

[01:21:41] I mean, if I gave Barrett a nine, I think Yash honestly is like playing a better game or I guess in a better position than Barrett right now. I'm less worried about him. So I have to give him a nine. If I gave Barrett a nine, I think Yash. Yash is doing such a great job. I just love when we have a person who is not is just like seemingly is like a recruit or like we don't know what the deal is with them. They don't seem to know the game at all. And then they just come in and they just get it. Like some people just come in and they get the game.

[01:22:10] And those are the kind of recruits that I can appreciate because, you know, you don't need someone who is a super fan to come in all the time. Like you can't have every single house guest be a super fan, but the recruits that come in and they just they just somehow get it. I love that. So, yeah, Yash is doing excellent. And yeah, I'm very excited about him. All right. Well, I doubt the audience went as high as a nine here. I would guess a seven from the audience.

[01:22:40] And that is what the audience gave him. Seven for Yash. But he still got a nine. Yeah, still a nine average. So there you go. Disney Plus Hulu will make your day every day. Bluey for the kids. The all new Hulu original series Furious for the second they're down. Good Morning America for your morning. ESPN College Game Day for your Saturday. And Toy Story 5 for a cozy family movie night on Sunday.

[01:23:08] Make your day every day with Disney Plus Hulu. 18 and older with the Disney Plus Hulu bundle subscription. Access these titles via Disney Plus. Terms apply. Low energy, unfocused, foggy. You might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero Powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors. Great tasting hydration no matter where you're going.

[01:23:36] Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade hydrates better than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan.

[01:24:05] Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files,

[01:24:33] and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro Plans. Every act of change begins with a neighbor, with someone saying, We take care of each other here. In food banks and food pantries, neighbors pack fresh food and dignity into every box, moving food from farms to families through Feeding America's nationwide network.

[01:25:01] So when that box reaches a home, it carries more than food. It carries a promise. That together, we can end hunger. Feeding America, led by neighbors. Give now to end hunger at feedingamerica.org. All right. Let's talk about Dee. Let's talk about Dee. Dee is in danger, of course, this week. She's on the block.

[01:25:28] She very likely goes home if Devins wins the blockbuster. If Angela or herself win the blockbuster, she right now is safe. So theoretically, that means that she's like the second safest person, but most people are assuming that it's going to be her or Devins. I don't think they should be assuming that. I think that Angela is certainly capable of winning certain blockbusters.

[01:25:51] I think that Angela won't win the ropes, but I also think Dee has a good advantage at the ropes. So like if it's ropes, sure, Angela is probably out of it, but also Dee has an edge. If it's, you know, if it's just like a puzzle or a quiz or something like that, I think that Angela certainly could win it. And then all of a sudden, Dee has the edge because if Angela wins, she's also still fine. So I do think that she's more likely to stay than Devins at this point.

[01:26:22] I also, again, I like the way that she's been moving. She has more quickly like dropped the idea that both her and Devins are going to stick around. She's very happy to campaign against Devins. Devins is not really on that page quite yet. Devins is still working to try to save both of them to try to get the veto used. And he's kind of getting himself in trouble while he attempts these things. And I don't fault him for attempting these things, but Dee is taking advantage of that.

[01:26:49] She's kind of laying some groundwork with Taylor and Taylor's relationship with Angela. She's talking with Melody and she's also suspecting Melody of things. But, you know, but I like the way that Dee's kind of setting herself up. I do think that in the event that Devins leaves, I'm not sure that anybody's targeting Dee. I think Drew is targeting Yash. I think Melody would probably target Dee or Yash.

[01:27:16] That's the most that Dee has been being targeted. I think Taylor at this point is targeting Drew and Barrett. I think Yash has to target Drew and Barrett. So, like, she's actually okay moving forward. Now, her win equity, I think, is also kind of rough. Because people do not want her to win. She's a survivor winner. She only has two Icon votes. But those two votes are still, like, you know, it's not nothing. And if you get Drew too, now all of a sudden you're in it.

[01:27:47] So, where does this ultimately place her? It's tough. I think that she's just too likely to go home. I think she has to cap out at a three to me. Yeah. Same for me.

[01:28:12] So, I feel like I've been seeing a lot of discourse in, like, the brief periods that I see stuff about people being annoyed that Dee is a selfish player. But I feel like I love the fact that Dee is such a selfish player. I love the fact that she is, like, okay, bye, Devins. Like, I'm going to figure out my own thing now. You're worthless to me, sort of. Like, I think that that's great.

[01:28:36] I love the fact that she can, like, pivot so quickly, like, and try and find a new in with someone else. And I just think that, you know, trying to work with Angela about, like, let's get the girls together. Da-da-da-da-da. I don't know. I appreciate that kind of player because to me it reads as if they really care about the game. They really want to win. And I like that Dee really wants to win. Now, I'm worried for her that she might get out this week.

[01:29:03] But I do think that if she does stay, I think that she might be able to figure out a better position for her in the long run. Yeah. I mean, I'm a three as well. I think Dee could win the game. I think if she gets to the end, it might be a Chelsea situation where, like, she's not our favorite person, but you got to give it to her. Chelsea got to the end. I think Dee might have that same thing of, like, we let Dee get to the final two. What are we going to do? You got to give it to her.

[01:29:30] I just think if I'm Dee right now, I'm like, damn, I miss Haley and Chuck. Like, maybe that would have been a better direction to go in. Like, the second she pivoted away from the red corner, it's just been such a, like, every week. Last week, she got bailed out of blindsiding Devons. Like, I really haven't liked the way she's been playing, but I do think she has a good chance of winning this blockbuster. And I agree with you guys that, like, she's not public enemy number one next week. The issue is, with the blockbuster at final seven, she's probably on the block. Unless one of her and Angela win.

[01:30:00] Yash wins a blockbuster. She could still totally go home despite not being the target. So, I'm lower on Dee generally. But I still think she's one of, like, five or six players that can win the game at this stage. So, I don't think you can go lower than a three. I agree. I agree. I do think she's still in it with a chance if she survives. I think Devons is, too. We'll get to Devons. But I think that she's actually more likely to get there and to potentially win than Devons is.

[01:30:29] And I personally do love watching people. I love how selfish she is. And I like... She's such an interesting mix of, like, totally game-oriented while also being incredibly vindictive. And I personally... I know some people aren't, but I'm personally loving that combination. But, you know, it's giving me shades of, like, Vanessa a little bit. Like, so...

[01:30:59] Just in terms of, like, that specific combination. The audience, though... Do they agree with the three? They don't. They say a four. Wow, that's actually surprising. A little bit higher on Dee. They must feel very confident that she's staying. Yeah, I mean, I think, like, the ropes Vita, the ropes blockbuster, is actually closer than people think. Not because Dee's less athletic than her reputation. Like, Devons kind of moves. Like, he might not have the build.

[01:31:28] But, like, he's zooming around all these comps. Like, I think that one would be close. In any carnival game, I'm betting on Devons, frankly. He just has that weird skill element. But, yeah, if it's raw physical, you gotta bet on Dee. Yeah. All right, then. Let's move on to Taylor. Melissa, how do you feel about Taylor?

[01:31:47] So, obviously, Taylor lost Lala last week, which is not great for her game, generally, because, you know, it's always good to have, like, a locked-in ally. However, I do think that it might also be sort of good for Taylor because then it just is like she's not seen as a duo then. It's like, okay, well, now that we took out Lala, we don't have that pair to worry about.

[01:32:15] Now we've just kind of got Taylor on her own, although she's working with Yash. And I feel like she's – people aren't really looking at her now. They might have to eventually if, like, Yash wouldn't say Joe H and then he can't put, you know, the people up on the block. But I don't know.

[01:32:33] I feel like – I feel like, yeah, like, I think that there could be a situation where people are like, let's just leave Taylor for now and then Taylor could, like, comp out. I don't know if she can. But, like, if you get out – it's like similar with Melody where it's like if you can get out some of the big comp threads, then I feel like it evens out the playing field a bit more.

[01:32:57] I feel like I'm kind of inclined to give her the same rating as Melody because I just feel like they're kind of – they can kind of fade into the background a little bit while all these other people are taken care of. And maybe with that fade, they can build something. So I'm going to give her a five. Okay. It's weird. I wish we had, like, a 20-point scale because I want to give, like, a higher four than I gave Melody, which I guess by definition, I'll go a five for Taylor as well.

[01:33:26] Because I do think she has the capacity to explain her game and, like, build respect from their fellow houseguests in a way that I think it's a bit harder for Melody. The thing that I love that she does is, like, she has relationships with people she's not working with. I saw Taylor have a great conversation with Angela on the hammock. And it's like those little things, when Angela's in the jury, will allow Angela to be open to information. Like, maybe Taylor was a little better than I thought.

[01:33:52] I think her ties to Yash are also really valuable because, again, she's the one person who can just, like, let Yash stay in the house. And if she gets to the final three with Yash, she could just evict him. Someone else can evict him for her. She could win that final two. I think there is a path there. The jury stuff looks really rocky. I think it looked rockier for Ashley last season. I think she's still, like, in it, kind of.

[01:34:18] The other thing is, like, I think there's some resentment that sometimes builds in a jury where you feel like, oh my god, this person only got there because we let them get there. Because we weren't worried about them. And it's really hard to get over that hump of, like, getting to the point of respecting them. I just think the way that Taylor carries herself and the way that she speaks, I think she'll be able to overcome it. You know, it's talking about jury at the final eight. But I think it's enough to give her a bump over Melody. Yeah, I agree.

[01:34:47] I, like, very similarly, I have her at a five. But it is a higher five to me than Melody. Like, she's almost a six, but I can't quite justify the six. So, uh. Wow, another five! Is, in fact, a five. Um, but for largely the same reasons. I think that she's, similarly to Melody, played this week well. Um, in fact, I think she's played it slightly better than Melody.

[01:35:12] Uh, but she has fewer sort of allies right now. Uh, I think that Melody's a little more likely to make it further. But Taylor's a little more likely to win at the moment. Um, I think Melody also has more capability to win against the people, like, she's sitting next to, like, Barrett or Drew, than Taylor has sitting next to Yash. Um, but that's also kind of a bit nebulous at this point. Still a bit too far out.

[01:35:41] Uh, but I really like what she's doing. I really resent the idea that Taylor, all she does is sit in her pod and doesn't talk to people. Uh, I resented it in the early game. I resented it in the mid-game. I certainly still resent it now. She does, she does go to her pod a lot. But she also does come out and have impactful conversations with people. Um, she, in the early game, was making alliances with people. Uh, was trying to make deals, even from the bottom.

[01:36:11] I applauded it at the time. I still like it. She's barely won any competitions. She's had no power in the game. But she has managed to, uh, make relationships, make deals. Doesn't mean that she's, like, a secret mastermind that's been running the game. But I do appreciate what she's been able to do from a position of basically no power. Um, and, uh, with probably her biggest fault being when she did have Lala in the HOH room, not taking that shot at the icons at the time she thought she had the primaries.

[01:36:41] She didn't, of course. Uh, but, uh, but yeah. Uh, I like what she's doing this week. I like that she's encouraging Yash to win the HOH. She's encouraging Yash to target Drew and Barrett. I think that's completely the correct move for her. Um, and I think that there's absolutely a world where maybe she does win sitting next to Angela. Um, and so, you know, I, I think there's, there's room here for Taylor. What does the audience think, though? A five! Wow! Another five! There you go. There we go.

[01:37:12] All right, so let's. I had to, I was gonna say, Hysam had to record that it's a five thing, like ten, that was the best take. Like, we, that was a really long competition with Hysam in that wig getting those lines, so. I'm glad it, uh, has some staying power. It's an amazing thing. We love that one. It really is so good. Wow, another five with, like, the country music in the background or whatever music that is. Oh, it's so good. It's good stuff. Wow, a five! Holy cow, a 53!

[01:37:40] I don't remember how long that one was. I don't even remember that one. Holy cow, a 53! Uh, all right, let's talk about Angela. Corey, what are your thoughts on Angela? It's not good. I'm worried.

[01:38:03] Like, I've been super skeptical on Angela all season because I happened to watch BB26, and I was just like, okay, everyone was talking about her win equity that season, and then it came out, there was no win equity ever. And I was like, okay, this season feels different because we have a seven-person jury, she might have Lala's vote, the other two icons, it's not even certain because Devins is not, like, you know, beholden to voting for Angela. But you only need four votes, and she might have three already.

[01:38:30] The issue is, I've heard a lot of talk about just being over Angela's shtick this week. Of, like, the crying and victimizing yourself, and, like, all of her tactics are very see-through. Obviously, comping out is an unlikely outcome for a player like Angela. Plus, she was pretty solid in comps in BB26. It hasn't really translated this time. Obviously, shockingly, comps get a bit more physical towards the end. So, like, I'm not going to give her a two because she's going to survive this week, and I think she can win a jury vote against some people.

[01:38:59] Some people might wrongly bring her to the end thinking they can crush her in a jury, and I just don't know. But I'm not giving her higher than a three. I don't think she's played well, and I think the respect for her is just on a steady decline every week. Yeah. Yeah. Um, honestly, I've been contemplating the two.

[01:39:17] I think, I think that without Haley, without Lala, you know, now she, because the issue with Angela is that it's, it's just so unlikely that she is, is able to win the final three HOH. Um, parts one and two just are going to be really difficult for her to beat anybody in this house.

[01:39:40] Um, which means she's relying on being taken to the end by somebody else, which also removes, like, that one bit of agency, that one thing that Ashley was able to do at the end of BB27. That one bit of like, well, at least I did that. Um, and so her best case scenario right now is like getting taken by Melody or Taylor, getting a couple, getting like a Drew, Devin's D.

[01:40:12] Can you get that fourth? Maybe, maybe Barrett. Like Barrett respects Angela's game to some degree, but like, it's, it's tough. It's a tough road. Uh, I think that her win equity has gone down so much. Um, I, there's still, I'm going to go by my own, my own saying here. There's still so much game left.

[01:40:35] I don't want to tank her for win equity too far right now, but, uh, I will go with a three, but it's, oh, it's close to a two. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, same a three for me. I feel similarly that like, she's going to struggle to win right now, but I do think that there's a chance that she can change that based on, you know, once the, once one of the icons leaves, it kind of opens up the game a bit more potentially for her.

[01:41:04] Like she could maybe find a foothold somewhere. And if she can, then maybe there's a chance for her. So, you know, I, yeah, I don't think she's drawing dead just yet. I really think that she can turn something around, but we'd kind of have to see it. Yeah. And honestly, the chat made a good point, which is like, I don't even think Devin's is a locked in vote for her by any means. Uh, so maybe Lala, they have a good relationship. If it's against Taylor, obviously not, but yeah, Lala could be a vote for Angela. That is true. Um, all right.

[01:41:34] The audience gave her a four. Look at that. All right. Let's talk about Drew, uh, drew this week. Um, it's sort of like being dragged kicking and screaming. This is not a terrible outcome for him. Uh, if he had been playing it better, I'd like it more. He's giving so much to the vets who are not appreciating any of it while losing credibility with the sides he needs to be working right now.

[01:42:03] Um, so I, I don't love that from Drew at all. Uh, Devin staying is, I think, significantly better than D staying for him. And that's the slightly less likely outcome at this point. Um, and very recently he just got caught talking to D about how he wants to go after Yash, uh, who ratted him out.

[01:42:26] And now Yash and Taylor know, and they are after him even more than they were before, which might be the kick that Yash needed to win this HOH, which is a terrible outcome for Drew. He's just being so messy this week. Uh, and he really shouldn't be. And, and this is coming from a position and this is why I think people are like, well, you love Drew, you hate Drew. Uh, I agree with Drew that he should be wanting to keep Devin's. He should be trying to do, to do that.

[01:42:52] Like he should be, he should not jump all in with, with Yash and Taylor. Uh, like his thing with Yash is just like, it's just not going to work that way. Um, that Yash has no reason to work with Drew. He's going to go after, he's contractually obligated to go after Drew. Um, but I do not like the way that Drew is playing that position. Uh, he's way too obvious. He's way too messy. And, uh, and he's in a lot of danger next week.

[01:43:20] Like if Angela, if D or Devin's right now, primarily D, but even Devin's would might, might do this. Uh, if Yash or if Taylor all win next week, they're targeting Drew. If true stays on that block on Thursday, it's very likely he goes home. Uh, I guess, depending on like who the HOH is because the votes could be close. Him against Barrett, the vets would want him out, but they might not have the votes for it. Uh, because Yash and Taylor and Melody and Barrett might all vote him out over one of the others.

[01:43:50] So it's just, it's a rough position for Drew. All that said, if he wins or if Melody wins, um, things are looking great. Things are actually looking up. Uh, he's kind of got the best, like Drew Barrett and Melody are the biggest group of players in the house right now. Uh, and two of them are proven comp winners at this point. So like there's a world where this trio kind of moves forward in a good way.

[01:44:20] Uh, and maybe he does manage to get to the end with Melody and he wins that. And right now he wins against Barrett too. And they don't think that he beats them in the end. So that's kind of a decent position. It's so all over the place with Drew. But what it ultimately comes down to for me is I don't like some of the decisions he's actively making and the way he's going about it. So I am going to punish him a bit for that. Oh man. Um, yeah, I'm going to give him a four. Yeah.

[01:44:50] Uh, what's interesting about Drew is that it feels like nobody trusts him. Like everybody is like, this guy is untrustworthy. This guy is not working with us. I can't trust him. Like Barrett didn't trust him to play in the veto and not use it on one of the icons. And the icons don't trust Drew at all, even though he's giving them his game. Like he just has nobody trusting him.

[01:45:13] And yet he is working with the icons who are then actively working against him at points. And it just feels like, I don't know why. I don't know why he's not seeing that. I feel like at this point in the game, you would think like, oh, I can't trust these icons because they obviously don't trust me. I need to do, I need to just separate or I need to do something else or at the very least stop feeding them information or stop giving them my game. Like I need to move in another direction.

[01:45:43] And he's not really noticing that yet in a meaningful way. And he is also, you know, upset Melody and upset Barrett. And it's like, those are people that he should really, especially now, now that we know that one of the vets is leaving, he should really be cultivating this FAP connection. Because like you said, they're a threesome. They could easily take this further and take this to the end.

[01:46:07] And yet it feels like he's not doing that because he wants to maintain this vet connection. I don't know. And so he does so many confusing things that he then makes himself look sketchy. And then people don't trust him. And then it just spirals for him. And I'm very worried about him moving forward. So, yeah, I'm going to give him a four as well. Hmm. I guess I'm the druther of the podcast. I'm going to five.

[01:46:38] At the end of the day, he could win. And I think he's more likely to win than Taylor and Melody. So, like, Jag was getting zeros. Now he has $750,000. Like, I'm looking forward. And at this point, he's probably the second or third best competitor remaining. He's in that mix. He's one of the guys who can win these things. His jury prospects, so early to say, but it looks better than I thought they did. The icons are willing to vote for him over Yash. I don't believe them, but that's what they're saying. So, like, I like that.

[01:47:07] In general, I still think, like, if he's up against Barrett, he's losing that jury vote. They like Barrett more. That's usually what it comes down to. But I just compare a player like Drew to Barrett, and it's like, yeah, it would have been good if Drew didn't have a terribly adversarial relationship with Lala, Taylor, and Yash. Like, that's the difference between the two. And that's why I, like, I can't move Drew up to Barrett's level. But I'm looking at it. It's like, I kind of liked this week how it felt like he had more of a backbone.

[01:47:32] Not in terms of his gameplay, not in terms of his decisions, but he was getting kind of frustrated. Like, he was pissed at Barrett, and he's pissed at Melody, and he's, like, telling them about his, like, being pissed-offness. And I like that because I think oftentimes, like, especially this season, that's what him and Barrett lacked. Barrett got the backbone, made the move. He's perceived very differently. Drew's gonna have to do the same thing. So I like that it's kind of trending in that direction. In his HOH, he targeted Yash. He should keep targeting Yash every week until Yash goes home.

[01:48:01] Whoever goes home first out of the two, the other one has a great shot of winning. So, like, I don't think Drew would be a very good winner. I'm not very high on Drew as a player. But all of a sudden, we're in the final seven. I think he has a good shot. I don't disagree. I think that's why I hesitated on the four or a five. I just, you know, and once again, for me, it's, I think, more punishing, the unnecessary messiness.

[01:48:27] Um, what I will also say, though, is that, like, I am still a bit skeptical on his comp ability. Uh, he's won two blockbusters and an HOH now. But, like, that HOH was pretty close. Yash threw it in a position where he probably could have won it. Uh, and, you know, like, it was a quiz, but it wasn't like a day's comp or anything. Um, he then, you know, didn't win the balance-y thing. He didn't win BB Comics. He didn't play in BB Comics.

[01:48:57] Uh, but, like, the blockbuster he won, he just, like, took a 50-50 shot at. And the other one he won, it was, like, a puzzle that, like, his size benefited him. Like, I actually don't know that he's going to be able to beat either Barrett or Yash or even, like, Devins or Dee at some of these competitions, given his sort of position, uh, here. If he can, I do think he's in a decent spot to win. Um, but, uh, but yeah, I'm not sure. Not sure.

[01:49:27] How does the audience feel? I'm gonna guess that if the audience says Barrett's a six and Melody's a four and Taylor's a five, that Drew will be a five. No! They think he's a four. Look at that. Yeah. All right. Well, final person, Melissa, how do you feel about Devins? Um, unfortunately, I don't feel great about Devins.

[01:49:54] Similar to the other icons, I feel like he's in danger. And I honestly feel like he's most in danger, really. Um, although there's a chance that he wins the blockbuster. Um, so there's that. But it's just, it's so unfortunate. I mean, especially like coming off the heels of last week where he volunteered himself. It's like just so disappointing.

[01:50:22] I really don't like that sort of thing. And I was so excited about him earlier in the season. And I feel like he is a good player. Like, I don't think he's a bad player, but that was just such a bad move. And then now, similarly, like he, he finds himself in danger. And I just, I feel like he could have done more. I don't know. I feel like he could have done more.

[01:50:47] So, uh, for me, I guess I'm just going to stick with my trend of giving the icons threes and I'm going to give him a three. Yeah. It's just been kind of disappointing watching Devins this season because I feel like the path was there so many different times. Like, it's like, oh my God, he has this super cool thing with Rome. Next week he wins HOH targets Rome. Devins and Kamu. Like he took Kamu away from D. Diamond power of Vito's Kamu. And I think that was the right move at the time. But like, he just kind of had all these paths.

[01:51:17] Taylor was like a Devins number for so long. There's like nothing there anymore. So I wish he just played a little bit more self-interestedly, not for the team, the team being the icons. Cause we know the other icons are not playing for the team. They're playing for themselves. So the difference between him and D right now, D has a tougher time winning a jury vote. Devins has a tougher time getting to the end. I think it's kind of a wash at the end of the day. I do think he's a meaningfully better competitor than D and honestly better than a lot of people think right now.

[01:51:47] He might be number two behind Yash because as the comps get more physical, there is a mental element. Like this really is run around and do a simple task. That's usually what these comps amount to. He's been very good at that. So like, I think Devins comping out is the second most likely outcome in terms of the comping out tier list. And for all those reasons, I do think he's a three. Just does. All right. You make a compelling case. I've had Devins here at a two.

[01:52:15] Um, but I, I do, I hadn't even thought like it is, it is actually possible that Devins just comps out here. Um, but I'm going to, I'm going to keep my two. I just, I just, I'm feeling in my gut that Devins is the one leaving this week. Uh, and even if he doesn't, I do think that Devins staying like creates that world where maybe they do still have to focus on like that's, I think Melody focuses on Devins.

[01:52:42] If he stays where she doesn't focus on D I think, um, like, you know, obviously Yash can't do anything, but like, I just don't know that I ever see the world where Devins is able to reintegrate in any meaningful way. Uh, and he would probably need to comp out and I just don't see that happening as long as Yash is still there. Um, but like I said, you make a compelling case. Um, what does the audience think? The audience says a three. Here you go. Tough.

[01:53:11] All right. Uh, I mean, we can look at the chart and look at this, uh, chart for Devins, um, who really was just doing so well all season long. Uh, and, uh, really, I mean, I really don't know. I really think Devins played a very good game for them. I actually, I even liked the, the Rome target. I liked the Kamu move. Uh, I think largely the downfall came from the unnecessary blowing up of the core line,

[01:53:39] the tool shed, uh, and that leading to the diamond power of veto needing to be used. And that wasn't his idea, but he did go along with it. Uh, I still, I still think about like the original sin of this entire game for the icons is the blind side to keep lyric or start to a big lyric over melody. I don't hate the move to keep melody over lyric as a, as a rule, but I hate how they did it. Uh, and I think that they have continued to pay for it ever since.

[01:54:09] Um, and can you show Yash's, can you show Yash's? I'd be interested to see. Yeah. Look at that too. He started as a two. And then he was just like, okay, wait, now I get the game. Just like now I understand it. Very exciting. Cool. Yeah. Interesting stuff for Yash. Um, I think probably Barrett's been, uh, there's probably less drama with most of the other players. D of course, starting quite high.

[01:54:36] Uh, and like I said, I think nine week one. That's crazy. I think she was playing week one so well. They set themselves up so well. D is genuinely, I think, masterful at certain aspects of the game. Uh, you really get to see how she won survivor. Um, but I think she approached big brother a little too, like a little too like survivor.

[01:55:01] Um, and, and she was sort of the idea behind that blind side, uh, that is the, uh, the downfall of the, uh, the vets. And I think that she continues to occasionally make moves like that, which like sometimes you can be really good and all it takes is a couple of big mistakes to just shatter it all. Uh, and then she recovers and then it's like, ah, but you're still shattered. Um, so interesting, interesting stuff. Anything else to talk about before we wrap up this week's round table?

[01:55:31] Um, mind if I just toss a question at you guys, cause America and I were just driving from Florida to Boston. So long drive and she just wants to sleep. Uh, but I'm, I'm asking all these questions. So like just judging the game so far, you're a juror. All you care about is voting for the best game. Yeah. How would you rank D Devin's and Barrett? Cause like the three of them, I legitimately cannot figure out any of their placement in reference to each other. Barrett did nothing the first half hyperbolic, but he basically did nothing.

[01:56:03] D was saved by the diamond power of veto along with flipping all these votes and failing to flip all their votes. Devin's was being blindsided unanimously at the final nine. Like, I think they're all pretty good, but I also feel like they're all really bad. I don't know. I think if, if they were like a final three right now, right now, um, I would probably go D Devin's. You'd vote for D?

[01:56:32] I think I'd vote for D. That's how you would vote? Yeah. That's probably how I would vote too, honestly. Okay. Yeah. Cause I think that D and Devin's have played both very good and flawed games. Um, but the, the main differentiator for me being number one, she didn't volunteer for the block. Right. Number two, as sort of like part of that reasoning, she's just been a more self-interested player than he has. And I respect that more as a, as a juror. So I would go D over Devin's.

[01:56:59] And I think Barrett is on his way to winning my jury vote, but I think if I had to do it now, it's, he hasn't done enough yet for me to award him a win over those vets because those vets are still there. Like his best move is taking out one of those vets, but we're talking about hypothetical final three where those vets are still there. So it's like, it didn't work. Yeah. Like, yeah. Like if his move was to take out Angela and then like D and Devin still made it to the end. Like, yeah, I think I would have to go D because I think her game is more than

[01:57:29] more, like Taryn said, selfish and more exciting. Like, I think that would be a more exciting winner because she just has been playing so wildly. And so just like, she'll turn on you on a dime and it doesn't matter. And it's just all in the name of the game. And I feel like I appreciate that. If Devin's had not done the volunteer for the block thing, this would have been a much tougher conversation because I do think Devin's is a really great player.

[01:57:58] Um, when it comes to the way he's able to interact with people and socialize with them and make them think that they're like super comfortable and kind of just play it off as like, Hey, you know, I'm like the dad type. It reminds me of a lot of like Derek from big brother 16, where it's like, people felt like they could trust him. They felt like they were, he was like a father figure to them or whatever. And I think like he uses that and, and as a way to like manipulate people. And I think that's excellent.

[01:58:25] I loved when he did the thing where he didn't actually hear their conversation, but he got them to admit to stuff like that's fun. Gameplay. That's great. Gameplay. Um, but then he goes and volunteers for the block and it's like, so frustrating. So yeah, I think I would have to go with D. I think you guys have convinced me because like, look, I voted for someone who was evicted. Like I think people are allowed to make mistakes. Big brother has so much variance in it that like, I'm trying to just look at the big picture. Who do I think played the best?

[01:58:53] And with Devin's and D it's just like, I think Devin's better at everything, but I think D has that dog in her in a way that Devin's doesn't. So like if I had to put my life on someone winning a season, like at least I know D is going to go in and give it her best. And like, for me, that matters. Like, could we even see a scenario where like D volunteers for the block like that? I feel like I would never see D like ever agree to like for the team, like take one for the team to make it easier so that they don't have to nominate someone else. Like no way.

[01:59:22] And I feel like that's so like that, that to me means something. Yeah, I agree. I agree. It's a good question though. Very fun. That would be a fun final three, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's like a way of looking at the game that we don't always do. Cause it's like, it's such a, it's such a pure hypothetical, but it does. It makes you look at the players a little bit. It's just fun. All right. Well, that is the stock watch for the week.

[01:59:51] I will of course be back tomorrow morning to update you on everything that happened today on the big brother 28 live feeds, including this, you know, drew getting caught with some stuff. Taylor encouraging Yash to win HOH, some pretty important stuff there. Um, and, and the oven mitt controversy. Uh, um, we'll also, I'll also be doing the mailbag with Rob this week. We'll have an episode on Wednesday. Make sure you check out my Patreon. If you want to check out the streams I've done this season.

[02:00:19] Plus I'm watching jet lag, which has been phenomenal, uh, on top of plenty of other stuff. Uh, and, and that's about it. Uh, Corey, what do you got going on? Uh, patreon.com slash America Corey America's got Stan mail on there. We're about to watch survivor Philippines. It's America's first time. She's going to meet Abby Maria. That'll be good. We're watching the genius season two. I do game bots with Morgan every Wednesday and Sunday on both of our respective Twitch channels. And other than that, I'm a going to start working a real person job.

[02:00:49] So maybe less big brother content for me, but probably not. Yes. All right. And Melissa, have you done more Twitch streams? So my intention was to do one this weekend, but Callan decided he didn't want to nap this weekend. So that was like kind of going to be my time to do it. So I think I'm going to have to wait until it is, but it is his fault. This whole thing is his fault. So no, I, I would like money online. Mommy needs to Twitch stream Callan.

[02:01:19] Come on. And so, yeah, I, I plan on doing it like next weekend or maybe sometime this week if I can. But yeah, really, it's truly like when Callan is napping, that would be like the one time I can do it. So I'm going to have to do it. There you go. All right. With three A's. Duh. Melissa. Duh. All right. Well, thank you all so much for joining us. Thank you, Corey, for joining us. Always a pleasure. Uh, and we will see all of you next time.

[02:01:49] This episode is brought to you by chat GPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons podcast. Have you guys heard about chat GPT work? It's the new way to use chat GPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give chat GPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at chat GPT.com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plans.

[02:02:19] Great things are not built alone. It requires the right pieces coming together with purpose. Right now, as families face rising food costs, the most important thing we need to put together is us. Farmers, advocates, donors, volunteers. When we connect our actions, we aren't just separate parts. We are a movement building a system that feeds millions. This Hunger Action Month, assembly is required. Give now at feedingamerica.org slash hungeractionmonth.

[02:02:50] Ouch. This knee is killing me. But I can't stop training. The marathon is in two weeks. Let's get on ZocDoc and find a doctor to take a look at that for you. Okay. Here's a review. Dr. Crowderck really takes his time. No, I don't have time. What about Dr. Charles? His patients say he can help find a quick fix and he's in network. Great. Now we're talking. Book it. Booked. One mile down, 19 to go. Bring it on. You've got options. Download the ZocDoc app today.

[02:03:20] Have you heard that McDonald's spicy chicken McNuggets made with spicy tempura and a blend of aged cayenne are back? Remember to grab a few extra napkins. For a limited time at participating McDonald's. With summer coming to an end, you're going to be spending more time indoors. Get your home ready and save up to 50% off custom window treatments during the Labor Day mega sale at blinds.com. From room darkening to light filtering shades, finding the perfect fit is easy.

[02:03:49] Get free samples, expert design help, and professional measure and install services. Or DIY with confidence and support every step of the way. Shop up to 50% off site-wide plus huge savings on doorbusters right now during the Labor Day mega sale at blinds.com.