Big Brother 15: A Weekly Big Brother Season Retrospective

[00:00:15] Hello everyone and welcome back to the Big Brother Retrospective Podcast. We are of course here this week to talk about Big Brother 15 and we should have the appropriate background for that so... Welcome! ...Bit Podcast. I'm here with Sarah and Armstrong and with me this week to talk about Big Brother 15. I've heard what your favorite season is that what I'm hearing? Chappelle loves Big Brother 15.

[00:00:44] Chappelle is with me. How you doing Chappelle? Yeah I'm good. Taryn, no it's not my favorite season but it's one of my favorite seasons to talk about because there's so much to discuss in Big Brother 15 and you know when we were when we were told about this uh you know assignment that you're doing Taryn this task like oh Taryn's gonna retrospect you know all these seasons and stuff like that starting at season one which of course I was like I ain't never seen that but I knew I knew that I had to come on and I'm gonna be able to talk about this.

[00:01:14] I wanted to talk about one particular season and that was Big Brother 15. It was my number one choice. Uh people will say like Chappelle we thought you loved Big Brother 3. I do. I love that season for so many different reasons than I like talking about Big Brother 15. And I thought you know probably a long line of people who really want to talk about Big Brother 15. Turns out that no just me. I'm the line. I'm the line. Me and you Taryn. Number one and two. You know?

[00:01:40] Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty sure the visualization of what happened was uh that uh it was like Big Brother 15 and Chappelle was like I'll do it and everyone's like We did it. He did it. They're like no no Chappelle. No no no no. We insist. Oh Chappelle you wanted it? Oh that's such a shame because I totally wanted it. Yeah boss. You should totally take that's you know what I just have so much respect for you as a podcaster. I just feel like you should definitely have that one. I just I would be worse on it anyway. So like you know I just you know you should take it.

[00:02:10] Yeah yeah I was like is Taryn even gonna be there? You know so I'm happy that you came to join me on this journey because from what I understand Taryn a lot of people haven't even finished Big Brother 15 because it got a little hairy. And so I hopefully this will shed some light on what people might have missed if they tapped out early. Yeah uh plenty to talk about with Big Brother 15 but before we get into it Chappelle I have the results from the audience voting for who they thought should be on the Big Brother 14 poster. You have a guess. What is your prediction?

[00:02:41] Top three. She did it. She did it. Um you gotta have Dan on the poster obviously you have to have Ian on the poster as well. It's so hard to not put Brittany on every poster right like I mean and she did basically just kind of like bow out of her season's poster and be like no no put Kathy. So uh I'm thinking this time around we pick Kathy. Put Kathy on the poster as well. Uh and that's the big three here for me.

[00:03:09] But you have to tell me what the audience decided. The audience decided. Decided Dan, Ian and Brittany on the poster. Um. I'm not getting me. I'm not getting me. Okay. Yeah. Um you know no one is shocked by this right but what was it was did anybody just miss the cut? Um not really uh Brittany was pretty solidly in third.

[00:03:35] Um but uh I believe uh Janelle was in hold on let me uh let me pull it up. So I have the results here. Oh no sorry okay so here here's here's it here it is. Dan easily number one. Ian easily number two. Brittany easily number three. Who do you think was fourth? Gotta be Jody. Gotta be Jody. It was 100% yes. Yes yes yes yes yes. It makes total sense. The lady is an icon okay. She will go on to be on Big Brother numerous seasons.

[00:04:04] Uh she will play no more additional days but she will be uh you know referenced in Big Brother history multiple times and uh it's one of the more iconic players from this season incredibly so. So now I'm not shocked by this poster uh and I would say that you know maybe Jody was robbed a little bit on this poster. It was just a bit. Yeah. Um all right well that was Big Brother 14 but we are now a year later talking about Big Brother 15 uh now in 2013.

[00:04:34] Um and we I mentioned this before but like weirdly Big Brother 15 seems to be an entry point for a lot of people. Um and like it seems unrelated to the controversy. Like uh like it just happened to be their entry point. I have to imagine that it was the entry point not because of season 15 but because of season

[00:04:59] 14 because the Dan's funeral and the Shane stuff made headlines. People were talking about it so much. By the time Big Brother 15 came back around a lot of people I think were like interested in trying the show out. Um and it was just more like in the consciousness uh of reality television. Yeah I also have some other thoughts too. I I for one believe that watching Big Brother is a team sport.

[00:05:25] You know like it Big Brother is better if consumed by a large audience or you have people to talk about and argue with people and I think Big Brother 15 is the real start. Like I know you talked about how in Big Brother 11 the online community starts paying attention and started like maybe we start doxing people Jacob Jones starts making his burner accounts but by Big Brother 15 they're putting tweets up on the screen on episodes. You know they're like it's interactive in that way.

[00:05:50] We get conspiracy theories you know uh some people being pushed and that really being uh you know um hyped up and talked about in the community. And so I think for a lot of people because you were able to engage with other people online on Twitter and in different forums and stuff with the different hashtags it was very easy to be a part of the conversation. And so it brought us all to be a part of the conversation. And then even if you weren't watching the show a lot of the stuff that happens at Big Brother 15 also makes headlines.

[00:06:20] And so I think people like who didn't watch it are like wait what is this? Why is this happening on Big Brother? Is that show still on? Let's go check it out. And then they go and they see you know and get involved as well in the mob right? Like the Big Brother army that's watching the show that's arguing from week to week that's so invested in uh people winning but even more invested in people losing. So I think that this was just the perfect time for people to really get involved. And Big Brother fans are nothing else but passionate.

[00:06:48] You know if we are nothing else we will argue to the death of us for like the most obscure Big Brother player the tiniest moves the smallest sound bites and Big Brother 15 brings all of that to the table and just says here have a feast. And so I think that's why a lot of people were dragged into Big Brother 15 kicking and screaming. Absolutely. I mean the the social media presence was really ramping up. Um and that's another thing that I hear is that even if season 15 wasn't your first or

[00:07:17] first season that you watched I also heard that it was uh for many people the first season that they like got into the live feeds for. Um and and definitely a huge part of that because you know when they're talking about getting into the live feeds are they talking about watching the live feeds are they talking about consuming the live feeds via things like Twitter because Big Brother Twitter was really starting to blossom um in in these places. And and you know you know prior to really around this time because Big Brother 16 is also going

[00:07:46] to be credited for bringing in a lot of social media attention uh with Frankie Grande and all of that stuff. But it definitely was here in Big Brother 15. In many ways Big Brother 16 gets a lot of credit for the some of the things that were happening in Big Brother 15. One of them is the social media stuff. The other is the uh the implementation of new big twists that are manipulated by players in the game.

[00:08:06] Um but uh but certainly here in Big Brother 15 um we see a lot of uh activity um specifically online where like before there were a lot of like little individualized pockets of Big Brother communities. Jokers uh Hamster Watch um a lot of different places uh and um this around this time social

[00:08:34] media is starting to become more ubiquitous and centralized. And so everyone's now in the same space uh and things are getting louder. And on top of that it's not just that everyone's all the community's in the same space. The people making the show are in that space as well. And they're hearing things. And the network is hearing things. And actors are there. And people journalists are there. And they're hearing things.

[00:08:59] Um and so a thing that I like to talk about a lot is that um season 15 was not I mean it was certainly bad. And it was one of I think the worst we've seen in terms of the controversy that is on season 15. But it was not new by any means. The new the new and different thing about season 15 was not what was happening on the season as much as it was that there was a reaction to it outside of the season.

[00:09:24] Um outside of the house uh and that is what made the headlines more so than the actual behavior. It was that it was actually being called out and people are actually paying attention. Yeah we got to start canceling people in big brother 15. That's that's the type of thing that really gets the internet going is that like not only are we able to consume a show but what they do on the show we can have an opinion about. We can have some type of influence on especially in big brother 15.

[00:09:52] And if we don't like the way they act inside the show wait until they get outside the show and see what what kind of uh chaos we've cooked up for those people. I think the big brother fandom is built on that. I think that every season we come in and we know we know we're all going to be very excited to see who the cast are everybody's grabbing their key but then within a week we're fighting we are fighting and there are people who are scourging the you know the footage just to find a reason for to piss people off right like hey they said a thing that I think

[00:10:20] might be problematic let's all go get them. And there's a big subset of the fandom that is like yeah that's why I came here because big brother 15 molded me it made me this person to where I feel like I have to be the one to punish you. And I think that although I don't necessarily agree with that uh attitude toward watching the show I think that it would be crazy not to acknowledge it as one of the biggest like of like I guess igniters of the community right. It's just being able to get your pound of flesh when you see people behaving badly on television.

[00:10:49] I think that this is where the shift really does start. I think in the past we've had people like you know you talked about uh big jeff getting away almost with you know like oh yeah he did this thing on a lot of feeds but the show was protecting him so we never got to see who he really was. But big brother 15 was like nah we're gonna show you who they are. We're gonna record it. We're gonna post it. We're gonna talk about it. Yeah and then big brother 15 had no choice you know but to address some of these things and that really changes the culture of how people watch big brother.

[00:11:17] Yeah absolutely um so uh here I am you know uh now uh having watched big brother 14 I probably came into big brother 15 with some of the highest expectations uh that I've had uh since since I'm a kid watching the show um and I'm I'm ready to go. I've got I've got the live feeds prepped and ready to go. I'm I'm I'm ready to watch this season um and we kick it off and here's big brother 15. Here's the cast. Woo!

[00:11:47] Steamy. Uh you have a decent amount of fans on this cast. Uh people who are like knowledgeable and ready to play. Um Andy of course one of them. Spencer one of them. Howard comes on and he is knowledgeable and knows what he's doing and he's ready to play. Uh uh Nick is seemingly very smart and really has a lot of ideas for how he wants to play this game. Uh Judd is a big fan talking about Dan Giesling and how he wants to be the next Dan.

[00:12:17] Uh McCray of course a huge fan of the show. Uh and then of course on top of that you have Alyssa. Rachel's sister. Um who is here to play this game. Uh you have Amanda who is a huge personality and a very strong uh game player. You have Helen who's like a political advisor. Who's gonna he's like I'm gonna I'm gonna work this house. Um and so. So many different people who are here to really play this game.

[00:12:46] Um in a way that uh that you don't usually see. And I think that was uh in some ways I would assume some kind of reaction again to Big Brother 14 being so strategy heavy. That they really wanted to like capitalize on that uh success and that you know sort of uh the pop they got with that. Um and so I think they were trying to cast more strategists and more you know fans. Mm-hmm. Yeah I think there's a big difference in the the gameplay that you will get here.

[00:13:16] That's why it's very disappointing to me that Big Brother 15 is uh as problematic as it is because I think there's some very interesting things going on here gameplay wise. You know uh not as much you know shenanigans from product from production as we've seen in the past. Uh but like people were like willing to roll with the punches and play the game. And to your point about Big Brother uh 15 kind of being the answer to okay we we saw what strategy was and Big Brother 14 with Dan and all the cool stuff he was doing. Let's bring in more of that.

[00:13:45] This is the first time if I remember correctly. This is they bring in Dr. Will uh to host the round table right. And they're like uh talk to the people about the strategy you know like uh make sure that they know that there are multiple ways to win a show like this. And I think it's very interesting that Big Brother 15 is one of the first times I remember ever seeing Dr. Will brought on in that capacity if it ever happened before. Um yeah I'm trying to yeah you know what because it was it was a response to to what

[00:14:11] happened and with the yeah you got to make sure there's not another Dan getting robbed so you bring in Dr. Will to say no it's okay to be evil and win the game. Yeah in response to Danielle Ray as they introduced jury sequestering in response to Dan Giesling they brought in uh Dr. Will. My cons. Game changer. So um so yes uh I I think the thing the thing that I mean we've talked about this before

[00:14:36] you know on this on this podcast uh but something I think that we should mention up front is that uh there is I think like a distinction to make between the events of season 15 which we will talk about and the sort of strategic uh uh story of season 15 because the the thing

[00:14:59] that was always annoying was that like when you discuss this season strategically it it is really interesting like the way that the strategic landscape unfolds is really interesting and and that's unfortunate for not only because like the season sucks uh just from the people but it also is unfortunate in the way that like how interesting this is leads into big brother 16 which leads into

[00:15:25] the new era of big alliances dominating but because this was the fledgling hack this was the hatchling like little uh child of that strategy um with with the person who like enacted it not winning because of what Andy was doing but like it was the birth of that which then Derek comes in a season later and just completely uh uh solidifies and dominates using essentially the formula that was developed

[00:15:50] in season 15 um but in season 15 itself really interesting stuff is happening strategically the good shit yeah we like big brother i'm telling you i as a person who really really hates a lot of the things and that were said and done and some of the people i hate some of the people on this cast as well yeah i said it um but like as much as i feel strongly about those things i'm always like damn you ain't never seen big brother 15 that's crazy because uh man there was a maneuvering going

[00:16:19] on there's a lot of alliances there are people who are putting their personal differences aside to work with people that you know we just wouldn't see in big brother normally right we see people who like i'd rather go down on my ship than didn't go you know align with somebody that i actively hate we see all of that in this season we see flips we see our first ever uh jury buyback as well we get dr will and then we get a winner who probably i mean get gameplay wise one one time

[00:16:47] out by by himself with no like no final no real final two that you know i'm saying like just a mercenary how dare you say that about gina marie yeah yeah exactly yeah uh but yeah like a mercenary in the game come in and play a game that's so divisive but so creative and uh so effective at the same time that you really miss out on that because this season is full of a lot of dirty despicable racism yeah and i'm a phobia and a lot of other isms as well you know yeah i don't think anybody would

[00:17:17] blame you for not uh wanting to watch this season or for not finishing this season um but uh we are here to talk about it so um obviously the big thing i've already mentioned it big twist of the season uh julie says for the first time ever um it's not gonna be two nominees is there gonna be one no right gonna be three nominees three nominees every week uh i said that on stage and i remember

[00:17:45] thinking like it was or something yeah like you mean one nominee go go shut up what are you talking about not big brother um so three nominees and who's gonna decide the third nominee the the mvp the best player of the week and what a load of nonsense that was they didn't know in they knew they knew we didn't know tara we didn't know you probably knew but i didn't know i thought we were voting for

[00:18:15] the best player of the week and this is where i got my crash course into the big brother fandom like no no no no we will vote for whoever the hell we want damn it it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what your criteria is if we want to affect the game that's how we're going to do it we decide who's the best player of the week i learned so much about big brother voting outside of the house um considering the way the mvp goes pretty much every single week uh like in the moment i was like what oh my god this is crazy but now looking back i'm like no this makes total sense it's so big

[00:18:45] brother yes um this this is you know we talked about big brother 13 and how the decisions made by production were very sketchy we then come to big brother big brother 15 and they to be fair are not uh criticized as much for what they did here as they did before because they what they do is that they

[00:19:09] they like by giving it into the hands of the audience they're like look you you chose not us but what they did was they gave rachel's sister elissa uh carte blanche to just be the be the second hoh every single week basically um because of course uh as we talked about rachel riley's sister elissa slater is cast on the season rachel riley a huge fan favorite after her time on big brother 13

[00:19:38] and elissa is given the nvp power by the audience every single week that it is available to give um and not only is that uh very predictable from the audience perspective from productions perspective uh almost instantly everyone in the house also realizes this is about this is what was about to

[00:20:02] happen everyone says as soon as they find out who elissa is they go oh so this is the elissa slater twist not the mvp twist yeah but they got it they understood that it's not about the best player it's about this woman has a massive fan base from just existing and looking almost exactly like elissa and so it's like you know i mean you're like rachel um you know rachel very polarizing

[00:20:31] character the first time she plays i think she had a lot of haters i think by the second time she plays she gets a very favorable you know run in her returning season and then uh i think people yeah i think you yourself even said it like you warmed up to elissa i mean rachel the second time she plays right i think this is the perfect arc i had elissa slater come on directly after rachel the first time i don't think she is the automatic mvp every week that you can give it but this time

[00:20:57] around this is at like the height of rachel mania you know and so uh elissa coming in it was just like man she's gonna win it all the time but these people thought we should weaponize that and i was like look at that that's what i'm talking about the gameplay now i i want to be clear about this to elissa's credit uh i think that very much on her own merit she then became the fan favorite of the

[00:21:21] season um and and i do not think that uh she owes any of that to her sister i think that she very much uh was was uh just won the hearts of uh like i i would say most of the audience um and probably has one of maybe one of the most famous gifts uh from big brother of all time

[00:21:46] yeah yeah no you're right she was on the right side of history i think that when we look back at big brother 15 there are a lot of people who got hate because of the things that they did and the way they acted and elissa was anti those people and so one of the only people to come away clean from this season she was the only person the only person who was just like no screw screw erin no matter what i don't care how advantageous she is in the game yeah and and and so many people went back on

[00:22:12] that so many people were willing to put their games aside like their personal feelings aside for a game elissa was not now don't get me wrong i was side eyeing her when she gets the jury rounds uh the jury house and she's like so i think we're all voting for gina marie right no no elissa we're not but it's okay because uh you're you're disdain for erin is part of the reason why we all love you and and we were able to overlook the gina marie miss step at the end we're gonna be able to overlook the we're gonna be able to overlook the gina marie miss step at the end we're gonna be able to overlook the

[00:22:40] nemo and that's why we're going to shopify for the platform before shopify used to have had regular updates that have led to the point that the shop didn't work for the shop finally makes our nemo board shop so that's why we're going to be able to make a good figure and the illustrations on the boards come now much clearer what is important to us and what

[00:23:02] starte dein test nur heute für ein euro pro monat auf shopify.de slash radio all right so let's let's get into the game then because there's a lot to talk about um so first week we learn about the twist and uh mccrae wins the hoh and and boy a lot of the people i'm talking about are close to the end uh game uh here so um you know i apologize for jumping around the slideshow if you're watching

[00:23:32] the video but uh mccrae wins the first hoh and uh he is very quickly going to be invited into the uh the early bro alliance classic move um that that nick is really spearheading um and again nick uh i remember nick uh a lot from um back in the day listening to the dom and colin podcast and they called him something like there's something shark uh of the season basically like the guy that's just

[00:24:00] so obviously sharky um that can't help but like try to sound smart all the time and just like will so obviously stand out and be obvious in what he's doing and that is exactly nick um he came into this game he was talking about like here's here's how i'm going to dominate this game and he had all these ideas um and uh and basically his idea was i'm gonna i'm gonna do the brigade uh of course

[00:24:26] classic classic uh you know new idea and um he he creates this alliance with himself jeremy uh spencer uh howard and they invite in the hoh mccrae a five person bro alliance in the style of the brigade where they're each going to have some people on the side they're going to play all sides of the house they call themselves the moving company yeah um prior to this this is like again we're having

[00:24:55] more internet conversations about the show and strategy and stuff and i think prior to this people thought winning hoh early on was a was a death sentence it was a curse you know because you get bloody narrative for a long time yeah right and i think this rachel just yeah yeah exactly yeah but i think this goes like was one of the things this is like one of the proofs of you know concept that no winning the first hoh is actually very important if you're able to utilize it to get into a big

[00:25:22] alliance with competition winners uh you know getting in a big alliance and then not you're winning anything is not good but if you're able to bring in people who can win competition to keep you safe this is perfect and mccrae winning this he wasn't initially even in going to be in the bro alliance but because he won it they saw value in him short term at least for the week first week and they were able to bring him in on a larger structure and so from here we start talking about those like season after season like who uses that first hoh or one of the first hoh to build a structure that they can really

[00:25:51] ride it out and we will see that strategy done over and over again yes um and honestly i i really like the moving company in the history in in the context of the history of the show because it's the perfect example of a concept that i think is worth exploring which is that we talk we've talked about like um the brigade style alliance the parachute style alliance like four guys get together they

[00:26:18] each choose a parachute uh you know like a side alliance um this is eventually going to be adapted into the cookout strategy uh in the future but then you also have the derrick uh style the bomb squad style uh the onion alliance structure style alliance and that is just like a big group with a smaller group in that and the smaller group in that and the smaller group in that and then there's final two um and that's like a different kind but of alliance but it operates a little differently

[00:26:47] um the purpose of the onion is that it keeps everyone in the alliance loyal because they think they're in the core but they're not really in the core because there's actually a secret other core that's happening it keeps everyone incentivized to stay with the alliance it's good for maintaining the alliance um the uh the brigade style alliance is great for having like a small group of people that have a much larger influence without needing to include all those other people and risk them

[00:27:13] knowing about things but the issue with that one is maintaining loyalty with those people um and the only uh alliances that have succeeded in this style of alliance were the brigade themselves who betrayed one of their own um and uh but still made it to the end because they were just like bros and they were they they maintained that loyalty you had the pretty boys but anthony and big brother canada was really just like keeping the group together you had the cookout who were who were a bigger alliance and therefore harder to keep together but they were bonded by something greater than

[00:27:43] just their own personal gain uh games then you have something like the moving company and they had nothing keeping them together they were a mess uh they they they were not loyal to each other to any real degree and because of that they crumble very quickly they are the perfect example of why

[00:28:06] the brigade style alliance is not just a given success it's it actually does require uh an element that keeps people together keeps people loyal in order for it to function properly and uh the moving company did not function properly no there were a lot of leaks here in the moving company you know a lot of people started to get closer to their parachutes and i think in the brigade we really didn't see that we saw people keep their

[00:28:31] parachute close but they knew the end game was okay eventually you know eventually we got to cut bridge you know i'm saying like that's gonna happen it's gonna happen we're coming to that eventually reagan's gotta go you know those things were known whereas here it's like yeah but i kind of like caitlin you know i kind of like caitlin anyway well i really like amanda like i think i'm just gonna kick it with amanda for a little bit longer like a lot of that starts to permeate throughout the moving company very early on and we see that uh moving company blown up relatively quickly uh i think

[00:28:58] it's a strong alliance in theory but uh the results do not reflect that yes and we will explain all the ways how it completely failed very shortly so uh mccray is the first hoh um he is i keep going to the wrong person uh he is invited into the moving company and uh and predictably now that he is part of the

[00:29:20] power structure um he's going to choose to nominate two people who who are easy nominees no blood on his hands um and nobody's really going to bat for these people they're going to be candace um and jesse uh who are for basically jesse in particular for most of their games they're going to be seen in this way as like they have maybe a couple of allies but they're just not very powerful in the games they're easy

[00:29:48] nominees for mccray to make then we get into the mvp twist uh which of course elissa is voted as the mvp um elissa at this point is becoming a target of her own uh her secret is getting out that she is rachel riley's sister um and uh people are starting to realize that because she's rachel riley's sister

[00:30:11] she's going to be voted as the mvp and therefore initially they're like well let's target her then like let's get her out she doesn't have any good connections to anybody at this point uh and there's a lot of people looking at mccray to backdoor elissa um and take her out of the game she wins the mvp power and smartly decides well i'm going to try to use this to my advantage as much as possible she goes to mccray and says hey i'm going to admit to you i'm the mvp what do you think i should do

[00:30:40] mccray uh who is going to take this opportunity to say well you can take the shot that i don't want to take uh because i don't want to get blood on my hands you should put up david um david being the uh the big you know surfer bro muscly guy um who is getting into a relationship with erin at this time uh and he is the only person basically the only like bro-y kind of dude not in the moving company

[00:31:06] at this point and so it's like why not take a big shot and we'll use elissa to do it don't get any blood on her hands what a brilliant idea from us um and so she goes ahead and she does it she didn't really want to do it she wanted to nominate nick the sketchy dude um but uh but she was like if i do what what uh mccray wants me to do maybe he won't put me up on the block uh which did not work because

[00:31:29] mccray won the veto uh took down uh candace and nominated elissa anyway yeah he didn't care but this is like the seeds of what is going to be basically elissa's strategy moving forward right it's like if i'm the mvp you tell me how you can utilize me rather than get rid of me right getting rid of me is only going to give the mvp power to somebody that and uh and you might not be out of control who that is you know maybe you give it to somebody and they go rogue uh whereas me you can

[00:31:58] count on me i'm elissa and i'm going to get it every time because rachel is my sister so you can it's almost like you can guarantee that every week you have a say so and who's going home and if you can as long as you can control the votes then the third nominee can always be an option and so uh she very smartly is just uh you know plays into mccray's hands so even though she ends up on the block she's sitting next to david and that's not awful for her yeah uh spencer part of the moving company

[00:32:24] uh i think is often credited as one of the first people to start talking about this that hey if we know that elissa is going to win the mvp power every week instead of voting her out and having the mvp power passed to somebody random that we don't know what if we just weaponize her if we know that she has nominating power every single week then we can predictably use her to nominate anyone

[00:32:53] we want every single week and the hoh becomes irrelevant uh and yeah of course why wouldn't you do that and so kind of with this in mind a big alliance forms um and you know of course in classic spencer fashion it's a good idea that he does not benefit from whatsoever um no in fact the entire

[00:33:18] moving company putting in work to make sure elissa stays completely backfires because they are not the ones in control of elissa it was pure hubris on their part that they thought that they would be able to control elissa's uh uh nominations especially when spencer is openly talking about this as a reason to keep elissa because of course instead of spencer and the moving company controlling elissa's nominations it eventually became uh primarily like helen and amanda and that whole group uh that forms

[00:33:48] uh to to keep elissa here and to then use her nominating power but this is mccray's fault this is mccray's fault because spencer is talking about this with his alliance that includes mccray who should have elissa's loyalty he just you know but he put her he put her up on the block so she has reason to be like well i trust a man a little bit more than him or i trust hell a little bit more than him but then also like if if you were the person she came to mccray it's your job to keep her with the

[00:34:13] moving company and you're right darren there are two way bigger uh presidents in the house early on than mccray despite not being hoh and that's amanda and both and helen and they will fight for like house supremacy throughout the season they'll work alongside each other but in a lot of ways they have their own ideas of how they would like to use uh elissa and power moving forward and so right now they're unified and making sure that they have power over over elissa and not the moving company

[00:34:40] yes and amanda also has this idea that she would love to use elissa as a weapon as well and so she is definitely one of the primary drivers of this entire thing and she's the one that wins the day with this because she gets up there with mccray pretty early on they start developing a relationship and um and alongside uh their best bud andy uh and helen and uh and judd they bring this big alliance

[00:35:09] together and they all vote to keep elissa up and that sends david out the door in week one uh but it's a very split vote here uh it's a seven to twelve vote so it's one vote uh sorry sorry sorry seven out of twelve seven five seven five vote um and uh and it is a blind side to aaron and caitlin

[00:35:36] and gina marie and and uh and of course david um and so that is so just to because again there's a lot going on here so those were kind of i don't remember they like what blonde taraj or something was they were called the blonde taraj yeah that was dumb yeah uh these are like your classic cool kid club members it's it's you know david and his showman's erin um it's it's caitlin and her showman's jeremy

[00:36:05] um and it's like jesse's there too like the pretty people and uh the racists um so uh and gina marie's there so uh and so ostensibly uh nick was one of those people as well um but really he was working to sabotage them because he was trying to play all sides um of the game uh which elissa saw straight

[00:36:29] through uh and many people did um so uh so they get betrayed and the vote is seven to five and they don't know where this came from uh they are perplexed in fact they're so perplexed that when aaron wins the next day aaron and jeremy both uh sort of a co-win the next hoh aaron becomes the next hoh um aaron is

[00:36:51] basically going raise your hand if you voted uh for you know for david or whatever um and and many people are lying here pretty much pretty much everybody mine is like what's the exception of one person it's like i'm never going to i'm never telling this woman anything i'm going to take it to my grave uh she will never know it's me that voted out david yes so like nick is pretending he didn't

[00:37:16] vote out david because he's maintaining his cover um spencer is pretending that he didn't vote out uh david because he's trying to maintain his but this was the thing spencer didn't have that much cover to maintain um and so this was a this was a little too cute and we're going to get to even how much too cute it was um andy was somebody that they thought they had because andy plays this game

[00:37:40] always playing all sides um and so you know he's going to get you know caught uh voting in that direction so there's many people who are pretending to vote and howard voted that way and he's trying to be coy with his vote there's so many people being coy with their votes um and it's primarily moving moving uh moving company people because they're trying to hide that they that they in their minds orchestrated this um andy is the only person really to have like and this was the first moment that i as

[00:38:09] a viewer saw andy was like oh okay this he's got some game here he he has this this um scene where he goes to amanda and he's like i know a lot of people are lying about their votes i also voted for david but uh if if everyone else is being cagey then i think if i'm honest like that will give me some credit and so i'm going to aaron and i'm going to be honest while also lying my ass off about why i

[00:38:35] voted that way right and here it lies this is the problem with andy heron as a big brother character and as a player and as somebody you got to watch on tv is that andy heron and in my mind this is the reason why we get the term rat floater we've had floaters but rat floaters specifically is like that's so andy coded because i don't think people like the idea of this person can move around the house

[00:39:04] and get away with stuff right we like to see people get their comeuppance we like to see people like oh you did a thing and now you're getting punished for it or now you have to you have to figure out your way to get out of this mess that you've got yourself in andy was so good at doing just that of like playing all sides of the house and getting out of the messes before they happen that it just infuriated people because they were like how does he keep getting away with this and so for him to be able to be like no i betrayed you and i'm gonna lie and get away with it

[00:39:30] the fandom is like typing furiously like no get him he's right there and andy going in and be like nope this it just works for me and nobody else it's why people like almost love to hate andy is because he embodies a gameplay that they don't really respect floaters grab a life vest and he said okay cool i'll grab a life vest and then i'll grab a boat you know and then i'm going to win the game and he will do that throughout the entire season yeah and it gets much worse for andy in that regard

[00:39:56] i think at this point people are still mostly okay with him uh people are pretty heavily against the moving company right right now because they the brigade is still pretty fresh in their memories and they were very bored by their brigade by the end of that season and they were like we are not doing a bro alliance thing again um luckily for them uh it doesn't play out that way uh because um aaron basically uh on a way unable to really figure out who cast those votes um andy's strategy

[00:40:25] pays off she's not too mad at andy um and uh instead she just goes straight after alissa knowing that alissa was the mvp so she nominates alissa and her closest ally helen um helen and alissa i think they call themselves the mom squad or something like that um they are a duo for much of the game and they're a very important duo uh and they're nominated straight away um alissa becomes the

[00:40:50] mvp again and puts up jeremy um now there were some you know some options like who should we put up jeremy should we put up like nick uh you know like a couple of different ways to go about it but jeremy was seen as the biggest threat on the other side he won the hoh with aaron it was like a duo thing um and so put up jeremy try to take jeremy out of the game on aaron's hoh how annoying

[00:41:17] would that be for aaron um but wouldn't you know what jeremy wins that veto and because of that uh alissa is going to replace jeremy with nick for a few reasons first of all she tried to get him to throw the veto which is a whole thing um but then most importantly because she never trusted him she tries to like develop some kind of trust if i'm not going to nominate you then let's develop some trust uh she then asks him like hey if you if i don't you know uh nominate you uh basically and i

[00:41:47] put up caitlin instead jeremy's showman's uh will you vote out caitlin and he gives her some kind of like non-answer like ah you know i don't know what to see uh and she's like well all right fine then it's you yeah he goes up it's tough it's tough because alissa has power here but although um nick is not everyone's favorite person in the house jeremy is not either like this this is kind of like a perfect um you know a perfect layout for somebody like andy right who like want who wants

[00:42:16] both of these people out of the game so the moment nick is exposed and he's like oh thank god you know let's get him uh also you know with helen being an option for eliminations like that's not gonna we're not letting helen go you know so it's kind of like whoever's sitting on this block is going to be such a massive target and nick going here is going to ignite one of the bigger moments in the season as well because uh nick you know he was a good kid he was such a good kid he had way more time left in

[00:42:44] this game and honestly i think we should commemorate him by saving his cereal by refusing to you know make people chicken parm let's just build a whole little shrine to him let's six weeks later let's still be talking about the sacrifices nick you have made so there's a few things happening here um the first is that the previous week again i all come back to those votes those those rogue votes where did they

[00:43:07] come from spencer uh had this plan which was in order to maintain my cover with this vote i'm going to tell candace that i'm voting for uh for elissa i'm voting elissa uh that's where the vote's going so even though i'm voting david after the fact candace not one of the people i'm then trying to

[00:43:32] trick candace will have will be my proof my evidence that she will then be able to tell him oh no he told me that he was voting elissa because if candace tells somebody like aaron that spencer told her he was voting elissa there's no reason to doubt candace because candace is again not on that side um why would he lie to somebody who's not the person who should be lied to in that moment it makes

[00:43:55] theoretical sense the problem is you're not considering candace in that equation and what she might think when she realizes that there are all kinds of weird votes going on and one of the people who was being weird to her about like who she was supposed to vote who he was going to vote is all of a sudden saying oh he was he voted but that doesn't line up if he voted elissa where did

[00:44:20] all those votes come from was he lying to me why would he be lying to me and candace cracks the whole code she clocks based on this lie that he must be working with some of the other potential votes that that didn't own up to it that they had planned it ahead of time who are all those people it's him

[00:44:40] it's nick it's jeremy all oh my god what if there's a guy's alliance going on yeah this is the moment this is where you know like we talk about this uh alliance is just like it wasn't strong enough it just it didn't uh it didn't happen because there's not enough snowing going on right you know like you really need people and you have these big structure alliance with the parachutes to be working all

[00:45:05] angles like it's not enough for spencer to just tell candace that candace needs to be his person right she needs to be thinking like no matter what spencer's not lying to me where in reality she looked at the uh the cards on the table and said no no this doesn't make any sense he definitely lied to me and that's just not something you see with you know um the um you know the derrick alliance right like you just see him just like you work relentlessly on these people until you can lie to them and they

[00:45:31] don't ever question it or they at least don't have anybody to turn to to fact check and it just worked out don't have to lie on an uh like unnecessarily here um like yeah the the biggest thing for me was that spencer did not need to pretend to be in with the aaron crew at all uh like he didn't need for any of that to be the case but at this point i think he was trying to play a certain kind of game he eventually is going to pivot into a very different kind of game that is much more successful

[00:45:57] for him but it's at this point that he's i think just biting off way too like again in the same way that he thought it was a great idea to keep alissa so that he could control alissa's nomination but he didn't control alissa's nomination you're just biting off more than he can chew at this point i think yeah i mean he didn't have candace you know like he told her a thing and she figured it out uh and you're right uh it's a it's a it's i mean it's it's gameplay from a fan you know i think uh spencer being a fan this just goes to show you kind of the things that fans cook up because

[00:46:25] they're playing hard this season taryn there's one thing you can't say about every season of big brother there's a lot of people in the last season you talked about that were just there um and i don't think you can really say that a lot a lot of people on big brother 15. yeah well so candace cracks this code she's talking to helen about it helen of course is in alissa's ear and that's one of the reasons why they're they're gung-ho on making sure that one of these guys is on the block and one of these guys gets sent home um and so when elissa approaches nick about

[00:46:54] like are you willing to do this and he's like given this non-answer it's because he doesn't want to get caught playing both sides by telling elissa somebody he can't trust information that would condemn him uh with the aaron crew um and at the same time things if she nominates me whatever i've got my numbers um turns out he didn't have his numbers because he was the second person evicted from this game um and it just all comes crashing down there are rumors are starting to be spread

[00:47:21] that there might be a guys alliance and amanda's starting to press mccray on it and you know candace is starting to press howard on it um and spencer is seeing the writing on the wall himself and he's seeing that like this this thing is coming crumbling down i don't think we even have the votes to keep nick anymore because all these people are convinced they need to send nick home for fear of a potential guys alliance um and even if there wasn't a potential guys alliance he is still ostensibly on the side of like the aaron's uh crew so they're not going to vote out elissa or

[00:47:51] helen they're going to vote out nick and so uh with that in mind spencer jumps ship and he votes nick out too uh and um and uh and and so and howard is like oh yeah i need to jump ship too now like and big and the biggest thing of course is that mccray jumps ship first that's why they don't have votes because mccray wants to jump in with amanda at this point he is eventually going to admit to amanda that he was in an alliance called the moving company and just like that the whole thing crumbles uh the

[00:48:18] alliance shatters and nick is gone just like that they all fold they all fold here and they will continue to fold the very next week you know with the new like with the uh elimination of nick here it's like okay cool bet but then there are some people who are not in on the nick vote out who will then after they see who wins hoh next week they're like oh no i too have to throw the guys alliance under the bus you know and so it just implodes and it happens so quickly that it's like

[00:48:44] it could have been a very uh successful alliance but now to well nick going out as like kind of like the ceo as he would call himself of uh this alliance it's it's a big blow is that and it definitely with the next hoh win will lead to some more uh you know uh i guess some more obstacles for this already crumbling alliance yeah so mccray admits to the moving company spencer admits to it

[00:49:08] um and uh unfortunately howard does not get that memo he is going to continue to deny it to uh to all of his allies uh and it just completely screws him over here um and uh and and does not allow him to to pivot in the same way that uh that spencer at least tries to luckily for howard he still has a good connection to alissa at this point um but uh which is going to keep him off the block this week

[00:49:36] but um but this is a brutal outcome for howard here yeah not great not great with with nick gone you know we will see uh that people aren't taking this lightly you know people people don't like that dave david has been blindsided now nick has been blindsided the cool kids are kind of crumbling right before our eyes and so uh people like howard who are able to move kind of away from those people and separate himself uh they're going to be targeted for doing just that uh because gina marie is not

[00:50:06] going to be happy about nick yuhas getting voted out at all uh and with the help of her her friends coaching her along literally feeding her lines to yell at the other house guests uh you know war is being started in this house uh and it's going to be gina marie aaron and her crew versus everybody else this chicken palm is for you nick yeah tell them tell them tell them you they broke your trust for the last time you broke my trust for the last time yeah yeah that's it that's it you know like

[00:50:35] the whole time they're just feeding her like it's like she's like a vitrilecus dummy you know it's like say something to gina marie and she's gonna yell it out to everybody else and she does uh so the line is drawn and it's there all the cowards are up there you know the long island is coming out of this woman the italian is coming out of this woman as she will say uh and she's letting them all know that they will pay they will rule the day that they voted out nick yuhas yeah um and of course when

[00:51:00] helen wins this h2h this is when things really get bad because um while all of this has been happening there's been this undercurrent uh that the the there's been some momentum building online talking about some of the things being said uh in the house um you know words here and there uh

[00:51:23] different you know attitudes jokes being made um and uh and they're starting to to go into like these compilation videos and it's starting to spread around and it's not just spreading around online it's now starting to spread around the house as well um that like hey there are some inappropriate things being said um i honestly don't even know how to say half of the words here

[00:51:48] without like demonetizing this video probably like oh okay i'm glad you warned me because i was about to just start just start spouting off some shit you know i was about to start letting them have it i like if you if you haven't seen the video or if you haven't seen if you don't know if you just saw like maybe the episodes um basically anything you could imagine like any offensive thing that you've

[00:52:13] ever thought of in your life it was probably said in the house um any possible group you could target was targeted um racism homophobia misogyny uh you know like every corner of the board was covered um by many people uh and even when it was addressed um as we saw in i think an episode like amanda going to aaron and being like hey i don't think this is a big deal but i just see you

[00:52:41] can like just to give you a heads up other people are saying that you you may be saying some things that might be offensive uh and aaron being like oh my god that's so annoying noxious oh my god even insinuate that all the racist shit that i'm saying is racist oh my god how dare you such a y'all are attention seekers you know what you know what and of course like and this is this is the real like insidious nature of this that you know candace and aaron never had a very good

[00:53:07] relationship but as soon as aaron now hears that like there's a problem with how she talks about black people now candace is like the devil to her uh now she's really now she really sucks because how dare she say something about me in that way uh i'm not racist at all i'm just from texas i'm just from texas and as a texan taryn that's why i had to show up for this podcast i had to make sure there

[00:53:32] was a texas representation on here to say that you know it's not that's not indicative of all people from texas uh not even all white people from texas erin did make one apology after the season uh a very important one she did apologize to the people of texas because she's from texas and she know better you know what i'm saying like in her interview i'm just from texas and texans took offense to that and so she said i'm sorry texas i didn't mean to imply when you said every corner of

[00:54:02] of population was was offended listen i got i just got i got getting left and right you know i'm black and i'm from texas i was like what you come from my skin tone but not my state you know it was it was very much like no get her together because what are you doing uh erin's a very interesting character in this season uh because erin uh what people probably don't realize about her is she's very scorched earth and a lot of the things right if you do a thing that pisses her off she leans into it

[00:54:29] uh in the very first episodes of the show she's like you don't really hear a lot of her interaction with alissa on the feed they were fine but when she finds out that alissa is rachel riley's sister her demeanor in all the diary rooms if you don't believe me please go rewatch the season it completely changes she's talking so much shit about alissa that it's just like it's like it's like she i can't think of anything lower to to do but to bash this person just because she has a

[00:54:55] famous sister and she she will claim oh well it's because she lied to me about it's like yeah why wouldn't she lie to you about it but also look at her face what are you doing you just look at like if you got lied to and got tricked that's on you um but she felt like it was a personal attack on her that she lied like to think how you would think we were that stupid to not know that you're i'm like seri played big brother with her son sitting next to her with the same exact face like you know you never know how stupid people are but all that to say she acts the exact same

[00:55:21] way with candace once she finds out about this oh now she's like i'm gonna be more racist how about that you know like oh you thought you thought i was saying racist stuff about her being so black you couldn't see her in the dark which i go flip over her bed and call her shenanah or shanequa and say what you gonna do girl what you gonna do like erin erin girl we see you and a crazy part about it is that she was offending so many different populations that everybody on the outside was

[00:55:48] equally mad like it was like like okay you might have pissed off the black folks oh no no you pissed off the gay people oh you kissed you pissed off the asian people too it's like well you probably haven't pissed off the whites and the texans said not on my watch erin shut it down yeah um and uh and just to be clear it was not just erin um it was it was a lot of people a lot of people in that house uh i don't think the video actually still exists i think it was taken down by cbs

[00:56:17] i'm sure there's i'm sure there's a version of it that exists somewhere but but taryn to your again to your point it's amanda zuckerman of all people who goes to erin like hey girl um you know this racist stitch you be doing it's like you know you might want to chill you know it's probably bad for tv and erin's like girl whatever and in this moment again this is a polarizing fandom this moment people were like i like amanda because she told her she told her what it was imagine not like

[00:56:43] erin no no she's a she she might be the queen that we need to be supporting here amanda's got a good eye for things and god how how how quickly we have to shift here in this fandom taryn yeah uh very few people on this season can claim innocence from the things that were being said um so of course when helen wins this h2h everybody's pissed off erin cut and everybody erin's side is pissed off

[00:57:12] they're like trying to claim the beds and stuff and beat the the mattress flipping incident um which chappelle has already reenacted most of at this point um and uh and of course howard comes in and he has to carry candace out uh it's it's it's it's it's heroin to watch um and uh especially when you then see howard talking to candace about like please like can we can we like try to to not you know rise

[00:57:42] to that and she's like why should why is this on me and he's like it shouldn't be on you uh and he's in the diary i'm like i'm just trying to play this game and now it's like there's so much other stuff i have to to deal with that i would much rather not deal with that i have to deal with in real life and now i'm dealing with it in here too um and there's just so there's so much going on here right and this will lead to a lot of changes that we will see in cbs as far as casting and the way

[00:58:07] they handle these moments in the future um because to me yes there's a lot of racist and awful things being said in this house and being done to people in this house but i also don't think it should be the player's job to have to navigate whether i'm willing to put my game at risk to stand up for myself on a personal level like this right like if it's game related or whatever then fine but if it is just these remarks are being made and they're insensitive in front of me and i know that if i say something i might be the ire of some retaliation then i think production has a responsibility to step in

[00:58:37] we will see people uh later on in like you know like a cory wardenberger who will say you know out loud like i don't think that's cool and have you know maybe production have their back on saying stuff like that and say like okay you know like okay we're gonna react to that um you know not to say that production always handles it correctly but it's a far cry from what it used to be which is deal with it on your own and hope you don't lose the game i mean it was to my memory was basically the company line to this point was like well the reason we're not showing it is because they're not talking about

[00:59:07] it so how can we show it uh you know like if nobody's talking about it then what are we what what can we do um and then before that it was it's just not interesting enough yeah um you know but uh but like yeah the issue is like in order for somebody to talk about it now they have to be the ones advocating for themselves uh whether it's in the house and potentially damaging their game or to the public and face the kind of scrutiny that the public will have for you if you're the

[00:59:34] person speaking out about racism um and so absolutely uh there is a shift not quite as big as it should have been uh in the direction of production taking more of the responsibility for this kind of thing on top of taking more responsibility for showing this kind of thing and all this happens because of the live feeds and the the the fact that people can actually see this stuff when it otherwise i fully believe would have just been hidden like most of the other stuff

[01:00:01] wasn't like most of the stuff is in other shows um and it wasn't until people saw the live feeds and started very loudly complaining about it that they finally started to include it in the episodes and they started to change how they operate but yeah but but initially by production taking responsibility they meant completely acting like they didn't know and had nothing to do with anything like this right like uh they put up that disclaimer like hey by the way this has nothing to do with this that was that was their first act was the disclaimer that went up

[01:00:31] please don't do it it's not an ex-dome you know um crazy times that we lived in but that disclaimer lives on um so uh erin and caitlin are nominated by helen uh and alissa um is the the goal for alissa as the mvp for the third week in a row is to take out jeremy jeremy's the ideal target but he won the veto last week they don't want to give jeremy the opportunity to play in the veto so amanda

[01:00:58] who has really at this point taken the leadership role of this big alliance um is pushing alissa hard to put up howard why because howard uh is the person that did not admit to the the bros alliance howard is not uh you know spencer has kind of kowtowed uh mcrae opened up so as uh howard is the person that should be on the block in order to backdoor jeremy um and this again this is the same

[01:01:26] week as the bed flipping whole thing went down um so uh you know for that reason and and others alissa just feels closer to howard and alissa puts her foot down it's just screw you amanda like i don't want to put howard up i don't care if he's not the initial target you're telling me that he's the backup target if something goes wrong and i don't want him to be the backup target and i don't want to put him up so she refuses and she puts up spencer as the pawn instead um and this is a really key

[01:01:53] moment because it's the first real big schism between amanda and alissa in the game one that is going to haunt really the both of them for for most of the game but particularly amanda yeah yeah and i mean helen had her own reasons for wanting jeremy out as well you know when uh like i said when when the house folds right and everybody starts admitting to the guys alliance jeremy is one of the people who comes to helen like oh yeah there was a guys alliance those people were crazy right like we could still work together so helen knows at that point like she can't

[01:02:21] even trust them so this is alissa and helen's alliance really doing what's best for them instead of what's best for amanda and we don't know this about amanda yet this is where we're learning this about amanda but amanda is a mob boss in big brother she does not play like a game like many other players that we've seen in the past amanda is going to strong arm her way through this season and so if she cannot come to you and just basically force you to do her bidding she's not going to take it well and yeah right here this is going to be like you said the initial

[01:02:49] crack in the amanda alissa feud and amanda will immediately start saying awful things about alissa you know it's just uh she just doesn't do well with any type of adversity to what she wants to happen and uh amanda is a very fun character to talk about but she too has her very problematic things about her game and her personal you know uh personal interactions in the house too but i think that amanda goes on to be one of the players that people if they could overlook some of the stuff that

[01:03:19] she said then they would be like bring amanda back like i saw a big contingency of people that was like prior to vanessa amanda was the girl that they wanted to see both play again the most um and so uh spencer goes up um and caitlin ends up winning the veto actually uh which means that uh helen can replace caitlin with jeremy jeremy up on the block with spencer and amanda and they all vote

[01:03:44] jeremy out except for caitlin votes for spencer um and jeremy is is gone uh jeremy you know had plenty of his own problematic uh you know words and behavior uh going on um but uh he is backdoored unceremoniously here and that is is basically the end of jeremy yeah caitlin tried to put up a good fight to keep jeremy in the game but by winning the veto it was kind of like either you take him off

[01:04:10] or you know i mean you take yourself off and uh and he goes home or you leave yourself on take him off and you go home uh it really got to that point uh this is a a moment as well where it's like okay this is really good for someone like andy you know the show doesn't really talk about andy much they don't show him much in the game but people like jeremy uh nick they really weren't in his long-term plans so even up to this point nothing is really going in the way that andy wouldn't already want

[01:04:37] to go yeah i mean in terms of andy's game right now he is just he is everyone's friend everyone is including him on everything and that becomes important very quickly um and uh we are i think in fact it becomes important like very very quickly so uh we will get to it very soon but uh jeremy is out and judd wins the next h2h judd important person to talk about here um as i said judd a fan of the game

[01:05:05] comes in uh and um and really you know gets in there with this majority alliance um and uh is really like um in a position to capitalize on this uh this rift between like the helen elissa side of things and the amanda mccray side of things um and uh and and really navigates that decently well

[01:05:28] he's included in a few different options he um there's an alliance uh that is made between uh with with like uh eric or sorry um amanda mccray and um and uh and and and and and and uh with judd um even though they don't like yeah that's a goof troop yeah the goof troop yeah the goof troop um and uh it's it's a little bit short-lived because um

[01:05:56] ultimately this what this week shows everyone is that judd is just too likable um and has too much power and so they kind of drift away from judd and go back to helen uh for a time um but uh but basically he nominates uh erin and caitlin and uh and then you know with the with the plan that uh that elissa will have like this third nomination except elissa's not getting called into the diary

[01:06:26] uh and she's like normally normally i'd be given my power by now right yeah by now they told me i was a favorite person in the house and i i think that's a little jarring too terry and you're like about it's about wednesday you know i should be like you know it's like monday night i should have got a call by now you go to the diary room knocking on the door like hey hey hey guys um mvp here you just y'all miss it no she's not she's not the mvp this week for the first time ever

[01:06:52] we got a new mvp yeah new mvp and uh it's not elissa and so they're all kind of like well who is it nobody's copping to it who is the mvp they get to the uh the the nominations or or veto veto picking ceremony i think it is um and they're like oh we need to reveal the next uh the mvp's chosen nominee and up on the screen elissa has been nominated by the mvp in what a turn of events

[01:07:20] what could have possibly happened this is a mystery that the players will be trying to solve for the rest of the game really um but uh unbeknownst to them the way that the mvp twist worked has changed instead of america voting for one player to be the mvp to choose a nomination a nominee america has now become the mvps themselves and they are now voting for their chosen

[01:07:48] nominee but if that's the case why is elissa on the elissa's who's been voted as the mvp the favorite player all season long is now chosen by america to be nominated what happened and that is a mystery that we have never fully solved but the the leading theory is this because judd was the hoh and had already nominated aaron as julie tells us aaron had received the majority the vast majority

[01:08:18] of the votes to be nominated it was directly following that week with the mattress flipping incident she had the most amount of heat on her uh america overwhelmingly chose to nominate aaron but because aaron was already nominated it had to go to who was in second place and because everyone chose aaron and the only the only people left are the people who did not choose aaron aka you know the

[01:08:42] people who didn't mind what aaron was doing um or and or the people who did not get the memo that the voting had changed that instead of voting for the mvp they were voting for the nominee and so they were still voting for elissa the same way that they had been the all three prior weeks only this time they were inadvertently topazing themselves and voting for elissa to be nominated

[01:09:11] and therefore elissa ends up nominated i mean personally i i like the lat that like this one i like this discussion better you know i like the idea that this is just that we should be voting you know and i think in the future we will see that kind of echoed as well like maybe the person at the top of the pecking order or the top of the list we will get voted for a lot more um you know people will vote for the people that they know uh and not really pay attention that they should be choosing

[01:09:37] you know the person going on the block instead of america's favorite player or the mvp or whatever the case may be so i definitely believe that a lot of people voted for aaron because they understood the assignment a lot of people voted for elissa because they did not understand the assignment and then there's probably somewhere in that venn diagram a group of people who understood the assignment and wanted elissa up because they didn't have a real issue with aaron or because they like to see wild swings in the big brother game we've seen that before where people will vote against whoever is

[01:10:03] in charge whoever is running the game we will like okay eff it we just want to make the game as complicated and as uh volatile as possible so we'll go and put somebody up on the block who is normally not in danger so we've seen all those things and i think maybe all three of those things will uh interact at the same exact time leading to the person goes from being the mvp to the nominee yes now ultimately this isn't going to matter at all because elissa wins the veto uh and then the next person needs to

[01:10:31] get nominated by america and that person is gina marie um which makes a lot of sense we fixed it truly the best set of nominations all season long aaron gina marie and caitlin on the block together um now uh this is going to be caitlin's time you might wonder why why would they vote out caitlin

[01:10:53] over uh over aaron aaron who now known to be one of the biggest you know uh comp beasts uh in the in that era um you know why would they take out caitlin well the answer is at the time they didn't see it that way they saw aaron's win uh of the week to hoh as really jeremy's win because again they won it they co-won it and jeremy was the big big comp threat meanwhile caitlin had just won a veto

[01:11:21] and had come close in winning a bunch of hohs and they really saw caitlin as the stronger competitor in fact they referred to i believe aaron as that like twig like uh that yeah like she's not gonna win anything that was judd judd how dare you uh judd was making that case um and so uh so there's there's again a couple of things happening here um one is that howard and spencer are trying to resurrect

[01:11:50] their games by creating this alliance with uh with caitlin and uh in them by trying to keep caitlin around um and in the meantime uh they're on the other side of things amanda and helen um are trying to work aaron um and aaron is willing to jump ship and play ball at this point uh and helen in

[01:12:17] particular makes a deal with aaron that like hey if you first i think it was like i'll throw the hoh then it's like if you win the hoh let me pick your nominations um and uh and and aaron agrees that uh she will nominate uh spencer and howard uh for helen if uh if helen helps keep her this week um and so you know it all it all kind of goes in that direction the votes stay strong howard and crew uh

[01:12:47] ultimately have to capitulate and uh and caitlin is evicted from the game instead of aaron now at this time there's a lot of conversation about like uh is this like an okay thing to do morally to like uh like helen's like i don't like what she's been saying but i need to do as best for my game um and and stuff like that and so um ultimately the decision is made aaron will stay

[01:13:11] and caitlin will go yeah i had a good dislike into helen this season because i wanted her to be more resolute in her you know like in her like uh her disdain for some of the actions going on but like i said earlier that's not the player's responsibility it really is a production's responsibility to not make helen choose between good gameplay and uh you know potentially getting rid of somebody who is problematic like that shouldn't be on her to do but i can acknowledge that in the moment i was like

[01:13:39] damn helen you know like what what you mean you want to keep aaron now for someone like judd who i think he kind of had like a flirt dance with aaron at different times like i remember like thinking okay for judd it makes it makes sense even though i would really want him to you know you identify that she's doing a lot of problematic stuff and get rid of her but people like helen and judd are choosing their own game and saying like a list uh aaron is good for us um she can win stuff uh and on top of that they looked at her actions you know the racist stuff and all the other problematic things she said

[01:14:08] and said this isn't a threat to win the game like uh who's going to vote for her and so thus she can be as awful as you want to be as long as she's here like who cares you know we will see that's kind of the similar conversation that howard is having with candace you know like can you not go there with them you know we gotta kind of put our personal feelings to the side so that we can win the game we will see that as well in this conversations about keeping aaron over caitlin it's like yeah she sucks but i mean she gonna beat us probably not and so helen has now tried to

[01:14:37] weaponize our new copies aaron and ultimately this is gonna be helen's downfall like it is this decision to try to weaponize aaron and take out uh people like howard because ultimately uh and this is the real i mean you know it gets ugly here after what after the events of the earlier part of the season back-to-back hohs from aaron and gina marie that are going to send home howard and candace um

[01:15:03] and and this is really where helen loses the game in my opinion um because ultimately aaron is going to betray her uh and she will have really wished she had kept howard around who was at the time trying to rally the troops against amanda and mccray who were the cause of her downfall um so this this alliance that that howard was trying to put together um was uh was an anti-amanda alliance at this point

[01:15:28] amanda had was known as the mob boss and they were trying to build this resistance to amanda um and uh and you know of course uh who do they decide to bring in um to help bolster their numbers to go against amanda uh well one andy um and andy this is really when things start to to ramp up for andy this is when

[01:15:56] people really start to notice andy because at the time people were very excited about this they were very excited about aaron leaving via this alliance they were excited about howard and candace and like all these people like working together and being on on the same page and like like you know revolting against amanda who is becoming unpopular as the dominant force of the season to take out to take out aaron this was a very popular idea very popular movement and the person that really put a stop to

[01:16:26] it was andy because it didn't benefit his game yeah yeah he he liked caitlin but he really got out like you know he really got kind of out blanked here with the uh with the uh aaron thing right like so it's like he had a really good relationship with caitlin and i think it would have benefited him to forget to get aaron uh out as well but not as much uh as he would have liked and like he i think that's

[01:16:52] where he wants to go but this isn't a negative thing for andy at all because he's good with everybody in the game this is bad for alissa for sure because she gets kind of outed as the person who is trying to make this big she's like a never aaron right like she's like never aaron no matter what she needs to go and he's kind of like damn i guess it got to be you caitlin but make no mistake i'm running back to that side too um you know um he will say later on that he cringed that julie

[01:17:17] calling him a float a floater but the man was floating he was floating his ass off well basically the thing the key part of andy's game that will continue to be brought up over the course of the season is that um for as much as amanda was the person running the show she was in my opinion nothing without andy uh right like the the entire house was trying to revolt against her and it was andy that was that was able to put a stop to those revolts every time he was propping her up as a

[01:17:47] power piece um to be used and then eventually disposed of um and uh and and and you know maybe there are arguments to be made like how how long was he really planning to take out amanda was he really planning to do that until later um certainly at the time people thought and this is part of why they really didn't like him they thought that he was just simping for amanda that he was just enabling amanda and he was part of the he was the piece that was constantly allowing her to

[01:18:16] continue to get away with stuff um and they were and people were so frustrated with that because they felt like he had no winning position in the end game if he let amanda dominate that ended up not being true and so a lot of people ended up changing their minds about this but a lot of people still feel that way about andy and how he played the game but this is really the first instance of it that basically like because andy had so much social capital when i say that he like put a squash to this

[01:18:42] revolution what i mean by that is that like they felt like without andy they didn't have the numbers because andy was like a representation of like where the house stood on things they didn't see how close he was with other people they thought he was close to them and if andy wasn't on board that meant that people probably were just not on board and and not only that but like he would then run it to amanda amanda would confront people not reveal or not reveal that andy was the source other people would get in trouble for ratting and uh and in the meantime andy's just helping

[01:19:10] bolster this you know conflict between two sides while maintaining his position in the middle people continue to come to him to try to go against amanda he will continue to rat them out and he will never get caught doing so which only further frustrates the audience yeah because we want you know we want the good guys quote unquote to win right and we're looking at you know the anti-aaron group as the the good guys and aaron is now aligning with amanda who we also have seen and said some cutting things and done some right you know some thanks some things we don't really love

[01:19:39] as viewers and so it's like yeah you're running back and trying to save them every time it's really starting to piss me off andrew it really is but he was doing it in such a way that it was like he was maintaining his relationships with both sides um but people were were primarily seeing him as the amanda protector and we want our pound of flesh as big brother fans and so it's like you gotta stop stop the flip from like he keeps stopping the flip from happening we love a house flip you know um just you know the way we watch big brother now it's like we literally are just like

[01:20:07] we're hoping and praying for like just some chaos right a house flip and it would be like okay we got some motion and then somebody goes to andy in the middle of the night like hey andy i think it's i think it's time to get amanda and he's like no no it's not time it's not time at all they're like yeah you're right you're right andy that's crazy you know and then andy will go back and be like hey that person was trying to get you and it's just it's so frustrating to watch but it's also really good gameplay on his part what people don't realize is that andy's number one uh ally in a weird way is amanda but also it's also helen uh he's aligned with both of them he knew helen before the game

[01:20:37] started they had met before uh you know once before in like casting or something like that i think i saw it on one of the um other videos i watched before this and uh so he had like that already that built-in relationship to where he could play both of those sides off of each other and they both trust him and so helen would try to make a move but say like you're saying if i don't got andy i don't want to do it and not to say that i don't like you might not necessarily even need andy as a number but just not having him as an ally in that move it made it uncomfortable to make those moves

[01:21:04] and so he was in a really good spot andy was firmly planted in the middle of amanda's side of things um and again it's part of why with andy really pushing judd out so that helen could come back in maintaining his position in the middle instead of allowing judd to have a position in the middle um you know it just it really can and this is again this is this is a failure of the moving company who thought we'll have two sides at war and we'll be on both sides of those two sides andy was was

[01:21:33] that but he also maintained on one side all of his closest allies that he was in the middle of there maintaining that onion structure um uh only without being in control of it uh so um so yes ultimately uh uh caitlin is voted out here uh amanda's side wins the day aaron goes ahead and wins that next hoh um sticking true to the deal with helen uh who feels like she has control over uh over aaron at

[01:22:03] this point she nominates howard and candace um and uh and you know that uh is not great uh no sorry howard and spencer howard and spencer were nominated and she eventually nominates candace um after after spencer wins the veto yeah i mean this was helen's plan right like i can get i can get aaron to do my dirty work here alissa is very concerned because she just kind of got outed as the anti-aaron person

[01:22:32] but aaron sticks to her guns she's like actually goes through with the helen plan of putting up the people who helen wanted out like you like you said you cite this as one of helen's big mistakes and i definitely agree um because these are not the people that you know helen should be targeting now and she was close with candace like they had such a remember candace is the person helen is the person candace talked to about exposing this alliance um but eventually but eventually candace kept

[01:22:57] siding with howard kept being close with howard and helen did not trust howard again partially because he never uh admitted to the alliance um and she was still too locked in with the amanda side of things who were all pushing howard as well um and yeah just and and and candace was like howard needs to stay we need to go against amanda and helen was like not yet not yet it's not time yet but taryn america

[01:23:22] gets a nominee yep and this time america got it right well they can't nominate aaron again because aaron's h-o-h yeah and so not second and she's not second on the voting ballot this time i think we figured out our mistakes from last week i think uh we all got together as a fandom and said that was that was tough let's do something different let's let's spice things up who who can we come after who would

[01:23:46] just take this the hardest who would really just embody the type of vitriol we have for this season right now who can we plant this on it's america loves trying to pick out the person they think will be the most mad wouldn't you know it that's amanda the boss the boss oh and she takes it so well

[01:24:08] she is pissed the way she takes it in my opinion guarantees that she gets picked again the following week absolutely i'm picking amanda every time every if they do mvp next season i'm voting for amanda you know like whatever like uh this is she's basically who who dares do this to me because she thinks it's somebody in the house the audience would never vote for me to be the the least favorite surely um so

[01:24:35] it's got to be somebody who's hiding it she starts to get suspicious of judd um you know and and it's that's causing some issues uh and of course you know um uh andy is going to continue to just sort of sprinkle that because he he's kind of pushing the judd thing right now because judd is it's sort of like a jew the allison to his june uh trying to play a similar kind of game um and uh and she's

[01:24:59] pissed so she's up next to howard and spencer um and uh after spencer wins veto she's up against candace and howard um and again there is a push to try to get amanda and it comes from candace uh who's trying to protect howard um and howard's like yes let's do this um and uh and and spencer's is on board and again they go to andy and again he goes back to amanda and amanda confronts spencer and she

[01:25:27] uh is pissed at candace um and this whole situation continues to devolve but ultimately once again they do not have the numbers and howard is going to be evicted huh amanda coming at people just scorched earth about this is so funny because again she is the mafia boss of the season she doesn't go quietly she's going to make sure like she rampages around until she gets to the bottom of this and though although howard it going here is great for somebody

[01:25:55] like amanda the sting of being nominated is just something that she's never going to live down and considering she's going to get it again right after this uh it just goes to like it really bolsters this run that she's on as just like this person who's in control but as a tyrant in the house and i don't really know if we've seen a lot of tyrants in big brother to this point you know we've seen people lead from the front uh maybe like uh evil dick is probably the closest thing right to amanda

[01:26:24] to this point of just somebody who is in control uh and there's nothing you can do about it everything they say and you you know people are afraid to even utter the words amanda you know they're like they're in confessional telling us in the diary room yeah i want to target amanda but that's scary like people are literally using the word scary like she about to attack them because she she because she could you know that that's just what amanda could get away with and so uh yeah at the point when i was for howard i always thought howard was kind of like it was cool you know like i never thought

[01:26:51] howard was one of my favorite big brother players but you also have to wonder how well of a game he could have played if he wasn't in a house where he felt like so attacked on a personal level all the time yeah uh and then we get to the next week gina marie wins the hoh nominates candace next to jesse we haven't talked a lot about jesse um yet but uh jesse was basically from day one as i said she was nominated as a pawn uh stayed on the block to be one of the potential people voted out that week

[01:27:20] in in week one just never really found her footing um at various points tried to jump on to different alliances but was always an add-on um and because she was often discarded she ended up in in a in a few different uh attempted groups and that only got her in further hot water um and uh because of that she's an easy pawn here as is spencer for much of the game um ultimately though it is

[01:27:45] candace who is the target uh of gina marie i wonder why um and uh wouldn't you know what amanda is in fact voted for uh to voted to be nominated again uh in what might you know is certainly a comment on amanda and how she responded to the first one and her own behavior but also a comment on how quickly uh people kind of move on and forget about things because this was the first time aaron was actually able to be nominated by america and they chose not to yeah yeah they we move on

[01:28:14] uh that's that's indicative of the fandom at large you know like this person pissed me off today but i'm willing to play ball with them next week because i hate the other person for what they did tomorrow you know uh i think that uh we saw that in paul's first uh i'm sorry second season right with uh with cody uh nixon i think his name right uh you know like how in the moment the fandom hated him but what the longer he was anti-paul the more people were like oh you know i think he's actually giving

[01:28:44] america's favorite i think that's what i'm getting from him you know it's like how how do we get there but people like you said how soon they forget this season uh this week is iconic because um candace has to wear the clownitard for a week and so while all the ridiculous racist ass fighting is happening candace is wearing an afro uh a colorful afro and a nose and a clown outfit as she's going out of the door bickering with gina marie the entire time she doesn't even get through her her speech her

[01:29:14] nomination or whatever her eviction pre-eviction speech without gina marie and her going back and forth like i'm talking about yelling at each other julie's like break it up break it up and spencer please yeah like yeah well you know what is spencer supposed to do right and so it's like uh yeah she's where she's she's dressed like a clown but she doesn't care um taryn i believe uh she becomes the first member of our jury and they're this is a huge jury for big brother i think this

[01:29:42] is the biggest one that we have to this point first nine person jury i think yeah uh so i don't know why that is well again i think there i think there were some jury changes after what happened on big brother 14 they thought this might help yeah they're like they're like also maybe aaron doesn't win the season if we have candace on the jury you know like maybe maybe maybe we don't have to explain

[01:30:06] to people at the end of the day how gina marie is the winner if we have candace on the jury because howard did not make it but we need some representation so maybe that helped yeah uh jesse does win the veto or i should say gets the veto um takes herself down spencer goes up as the replacement pawn uh and candace is voted out here despite again some attempts to try to flip this vote on to amanda

[01:30:31] which again is pretty much shut down by uh you know by andy and and others at this point um which then leads us into the first of two just wild double evictions uh big brother 15 has some of the best double evictions in the history of the show um the first one is this double eviction

[01:30:55] where aaron wins the hoh um and she nominates uh jesse and spencer the the two easy pawns um yeah because like what what else are you gonna do you know jesse is the newest you know house pariah because of her being against amanda um and you know like uh spencer is an easy pawn um aaron also wins the veto

[01:31:24] and so she has all the power and that's when uh now this is a lot of this work has been done by andy who has been pushing the judd target a lot of this work has been done by helen who was also on board with this idea um manda never trusted judd very uh very much either um and so helen goes up to aaron in the midst of the double eviction and she's like would you be willing to backdoor judd

[01:31:53] uh and aaron says no and then says well well actually can we talk i call this episode judd's funeral because it not in the same way obviously as dan's funeral but i don't think and i i i maybe i'm wrong but i don't think since this eviction that i've seen anybody voting like so many people voting out

[01:32:21] somebody with so much remorse it's like they vote out judd and it's like taking old yeller out back you know it's like we gotta do it and judd's sitting there just like a deer in the headlights like he sees it moving around him and he can't do anything he's following alissa don't don't aaron i ain't never go it was no it wasn't me you gotta believe me amanda and they're just like oh judd it's not great it's not great it's like he has a spider on his face and they're like

[01:32:53] yeah oh and there's nothing you can do there's just nothing he can do they're crying as they vote him out like afterwards they're sobbing like they didn't do it like they're like oh my god i can't believe we voted judd out it's it's a perfect example of what will often happen in the big brother house which is that for a couple of weeks now they've all been building judd up as this like evil mastermind who's been lying and running around the house and doing a lot of the things that

[01:33:23] andy is doing um and how like how devious that is and how you know he deserves to go out um and and then when they're confronted with the reality of it with very little time to like actually process it and judd is just sitting there teary-eyed like guys like what i thought we were working together any anybody like what is that and you're forced to confront the fact that like

[01:33:48] yeah i kind of just made all that shit up yeah we made it up we kind of just demonized this guy and here's the actual guy in front of us and we are about to shoot him in the head yeah yeah and then it's it's like flirt man's aaron as well that's doing it you know it's like it's there's so many layers but you're right if he's playing almost like a mirror image game of andy just imagine if one day amanda was like andy it's you he would be like what what are you talking about

[01:34:18] and then he goes to helen like helen babes we got this what about he's like nah not you either you know he had nowhere to turn and this is this is how this is how this all works though like they're all in tears voting him out they feel so bad so what do you do at that point how do you how do you resolve that emotionally you go you know what the fact that we felt so bad only proves how good

[01:34:45] of a decision that was yeah we we stand by it we have to i mean he only proves the right decision we shouldn't feel bad he would have won the game and people started saying huh i really didn't like judd getting voted out what if uh what if we just brought him back what did that happen what if

[01:35:08] judd famously judd had the bear shirt uh everyone loved his bear shirt uh and this is also where you get uh one of helen's famous memes about like here's a man or aaron you're just like janelle you did such a good job you know uh really hyping aaron up really again still feeling like she is the doctor will to aaron's janelle um they're thinking that she has full control over this piece that she's using

[01:35:34] to take these shots uh at judd first and now she will be starting to set her sights on to uh on to amanda she's she got this taste of blood with judd the next shot to take is amanda and wouldn't you know it the next hoh is andy and that's perfect for helen because andy is her close one of her closest allies

[01:35:59] along with alissa and if andy if she can get andy to take the shot that she just got aaron to take on amanda this time then the game falls into place for helen so she says to andy who was fresh off of his win let's do it let's take the shot and andy says oh maybe i don't know if it's the time yet and then he goes to amanda and he says you'll never guess what helen's trying to get me to do

[01:36:29] yeah and america is raging okay like what it's like andy andy andy but from any point of view it's like if helen is willing to come after the mob boss herself and try to use me to do it of all people like what are you crazy um then what's to stop helen from you coming after me she seems like a person who's willing to take big swings where a lot of people were afraid to say amanda's name they were treating her like she was lord voldemort or something and now helen's like i andy it's time

[01:36:58] it's time for you to do my dirty work because she's like all right cool bet amanda you wouldn't believe this and so um yeah things started to blow up now there's definitely some uh other things going on jesse has been in talks about the amanda insurrection as well uh alissa and so it's kind of like the three of them are like the faces of this and helen will go and do a thing that i really enjoy from helen as much as i was frustrated with helen and her willingness to play

[01:37:23] with everybody um when she is faced with throwing jesse under the bus she does not hesitate she does not stutter she goes directly to jesse and makes the biggest scene like jesse how dare you try to accuse me of going against amanda jesse you awful jesse like girl you did i swear you did you was there you see i think at one point jesse even says do you think i you think i got the numbers to come after amanda stop it stop playing you know it was very clear that helen's back was against

[01:37:51] the wall because andy was not willing to play ball and this this is again this is important when we talk about andy as a rat floater we've now firmly established that he's a floater and that he's a rat um but but a huge portion of this uh and the reason i think that we will often distinguish between his game and june's is that we we talked about this with june that none of what she was doing was really a secret um there were a couple of things that she kept under wraps that she exaggerated or or you know

[01:38:19] tried to keep uh less exaggerated um but people pretty much saw what she was doing andy on the other hand was always under the radar never caught floating never caught ratting uh until until it was too late for helen who helen did eventually see it but it was it was just too late um and and part of the reason why is that andy was very good at um at passing information off as like for as others having done

[01:38:45] like uh when andy rats something out he's always making sure that somebody else knew and could have done that or gets the other person to take the heat for or do it themselves so like in this case he's the one ratting out helen to amanda and mccray uh but he's doing so in a careful way he's not telling them everything helen's saying he's not giving them word for word instructions or or uh recitations um he's just letting them know that she's trying to get him to take out big targets who's a big target

[01:39:14] must be them right um now that can be a surefire way of determining that somebody's holding withholding information from me if they're being vague like that but like the way that he did it was working um and in the meantime there were other people that could then uh amanda and mccray could go to to question like jesse and then jesse who's like you know trying to save herself that week is going to fully rat out the rest of the helen stuff and so now in helen's eyes jesse is there ratting them out uh she's at various points in the season worried that alissa might be doing it but it's never handy

[01:39:44] because he always is in full control of the the pipeline of information that he's giving to the person he's writing out and to the person he's writing them out to and the other people involved that can take the heat for him doing that um and of course this is a good time to also mention that one of the ways that he knows all this stuff is that he is everywhere in the house he uh very famously had a strategy of planting personal items in various rooms so that he'd have an excuse to go

[01:40:11] into those rooms to grab that item and if he needed to stay in that room to talk to those people he could if he didn't that was just like his way of checking without seeming like he's checking other people have tried to replicate this and gotten caught because they're too obvious or people remember that andy did it but it worked really really well for him in this season and this is the week where we get i think some of the audience started to finally see wait a minute is andy doing something right

[01:40:37] because we get this famous montage when andy wins the hoh of every single person in the house saying i'm so happy andy won he's a close friend of mine this is great for me uh and can't be true of everyone and so he does the easiest thing possible which is nominate the two on stars jesse and spencer um much to helen's chagrin because she's like i come on andy it seems like you're picking a side right

[01:41:05] now and he's like i'm not picking a side and she's like okay um but he is he is he's not he's not doing what helen wants amanda and and helen both think that andy will do what they want what's best for them and that is not the case andy is going to do what's best for him and what's best for him is making sure amanda's still in the game for a little bit longer um now your point about the uh the montage right of everyone basically being like i love andy andy would never put me up i feel so good

[01:41:32] about andy blah blah that is one of if not the biggest smoking gun of andy's good gameplay that the show will give you because the show does not show andy a lot i don't know if they just wouldn't show the goof troop because they didn't want to get sued by uh by disney or something like that but a lot of his alliances weren't on screen heavily as like a man uh like andy and crew right it wasn't like okay you know andy's in he's not in the diary room uh throwing up uh hand signs and stuff like that like to like it just that's not the the stuff you get from andy so when you

[01:42:01] talk about andy as a winner knowing that a lot of people aren't really familiar or fans of his game if they're like andy played a bad game you can point to this week and say how how was he playing a bad game when literally nobody would ever have put him up in this like this far into the game we're two votes into the jury already and everyone's looking at andy as their number one ally that has not been burned by him or and are not looking to target him or talking to him as a goat um so uh yeah this is a good moment for him and also just bad campaigning from uh from helen's

[01:42:28] point like as someone who was trying to get andy to do her bidding she's kind of leaning into like but amanda and mccray suck like they're they're the bad people right like we're the good people you should be coming with me and andy's like girl we we've been backstabbing people together if you think they're bad you know when do you get a little to what i've been doing so it just all her pleas are falling on deaf ears and this is potentially outing andy as someone she doesn't have and somebody he's going to have to figure out how to deal with later on yes and one alliance that is starting

[01:42:56] to take shape here as well uh i think it's this week um that i think makes the episodes is the 3am alliance which is andy amanda aaron and mccray three a's and an m uh they call them call themselves the 3am alliance um and uh and this is of course uh crucial uh at least for the short term um that

[01:43:20] basically they are going to pull uh aaron out of helen's influence and into theirs this is key for andy in particular because helen is starting to get suspicious of andy that he's not going after amanda um and uh and and andy feels more comfortable going into the end game with amanda and mccray who are much bigger and more obvious targets than helen uh at that point plus like again like if helen's pushing to make this move this week whereas amanda and mccray are a little more

[01:43:48] okay with him making a smaller shot then he's going to go in that direction because that's just better for his long-term game um and ultimately plays this week really well pulling in a man uh pulling an aaron away from um from helen and setting themselves up for the following week where aaron is going to win and take uh helen out but uh before that we should talk a little bit about uh our evicti here uh a little bit more about i should say jesse um who really just like

[01:44:18] i think andy says to her like i dragged you along in this game and i couldn't take you any further i could not utilize you anymore for my game and so i dragged you as long as i could and now i cannot and i had to dispose of you but i hope you respect the game move i love you that's basically the timber of uh andy's uh goodbye messages from the jury segment on you know uh people talk about a lot of the masterful moves he makes but andy very very clearly outlines hey i like you as a person but i

[01:44:46] could not use you for your game hope you understand love you goodbye great example of like the opposite of the paul approach or the say matt approach uh matt klotz uh where it's like yeah just just own it just own it and it when he and he has a dominating jury uh vote performance so you know um yes jesse goes out here uh often remembered fondly i think from uh fans of uh of season 15 uh they they really

[01:45:15] like jesse um but uh ultimately did not have much uh sort of uh motion in the game jesse's funny i remember in one of the early episodes she comes in and she's like yeah you know girls just don't like me because i'm so pretty obviously and like since i'm the prettiest person here like that's why the girls don't like me i was like oh jesse you gotta chill man you gotta chill she's one of the other people who kind of make it through the season unscathed for the most part right like uh no

[01:45:40] one's really holding on to any ire about jesse um but she just goes out here as a person that andy can take out without getting a lot of blood on there in his hands he uses spencer as a block star uh jesse has a block star and neither one of them finds it too suspicious that they're on the block because that's just where they be at and uh then he goes and he removes her from the game and she has basically no allies to turn to to be mad at him so it's a great move so aaron wins this next

[01:46:05] hoh and of course her initial uh sites are on uh alissa who has been out for her blood forever um and so it only makes sense for aaron to go after alissa but of course um amanda is going to come in with a pitch that no you need to put up helen next to alissa not you know somebody like spencer or uh or something like that um because you can't give the opportunity for helen to win the veto and take uh alissa down because then you're screwed right uh then who do you nominate uh or we're taking

[01:46:33] us spencer like uh we need to make sure that one of them leaves you need to nominate both um and she's kind of reluctant but andy comes in he also reinforces this idea this is the smart thing to do and then once you get helen on the block now it's like well we kind of got to send helen home right you kind of betrayed her remember helen has been her mentor this whole time helen is the one that initially brought her in who has been sort of in her in helen's mind at least you know uh controlling

[01:46:58] the puppet strings on the aaron puppet and then she comes to find out when she is nominated by aaron uh-oh i've i've been yoinked uh they yoinked away aaron from me and now i am on the other side of this and i am gonna take the hit on this um and that's exactly what happens alissa wins the veto spencer goes up in her place and uh and helen is voted out uh yeah uh helen is one of the people

[01:47:27] she kind of gets big move itis uh throughout the game i think she uh she's a big fan she comes in knowing that she wants to take big swings and she plays a really i think a really strong aggressive game um but she uh is also very sharky in a way that like they all know that helen thinks that she's the big bad wolf here uh the same way that they're looking at amanda they look at amanda like a mob boss that's kind of like overbearing and that will like get her her hands dirty they look at helen like almost like little finger where she's kind of like yeah she's she's the corrupt governor of

[01:47:57] a city uh-huh yeah she's in politics right like so it's like it makes sense that she's able to like no i'm not i'm not taking away your funding it's just you know like it's not gentrification it's just we're moving these new businesses in because this this this area working there is a necessary evil right yeah yeah it's like sometimes it's a means to an end like helen is willing to

[01:48:21] play ball um and helen is going to go down as a legend in big brother history i would say but not prior to this i think right now she's just helen but she will come back as even more in just a little bit yeah uh so helen goes out here um and that brings us to

[01:48:40] a big hoh competition where the past four evictees um candace jesse helen um and uh and uh judd are going to compete alongside the current house guests this is the first jury buyback um and uh this is you know aaron's worst nightmare because not only does judd end up coming back the person she evicted

[01:49:06] in the double eviction but elissa wins the hoh herself uh having just lost helen with aaron having just betrayed helen to evict helen if if elissa needed any more reason to want aaron out uh she's wanted aaron out this whole game now aaron has just most recently betrayed helen taking helen out of the game and elissa is upset she's also upset at andy um she's also upset at amanda she's upset at

[01:49:35] ever she's alone in this game um and uh and she's mad at andy for voting helen out and betraying her uh she's mad at aaron for being aaron and betraying helen um and she's mad at amanda for being the mob boss who pushed this entire thing in the first place and so she has plenty of targets the only person she's not looking at is judd because he's innocent he just came back into the game yeah but how did he come back into the game terren what circumstances you know we gonna talk about it

[01:50:03] that's why that's why i signed up for this f that racism stuff i don't want to talk about that i don't want to talk about none of this stuff terren you saw it you've seen the clip you've seen the footage tell me she tell me it ain't true terren tell me tell me helen wasn't pushed because god i seen it with my own eyes helen was pushed helen was pushed the the theory is now listen they're

[01:50:29] actually there are a few uh a few different uh conspiracy theories from this season um one of which was that amanda was the predestined winner of the season um because she was like a friend of allison grodner or something along those lines um we love when her kids get on the season shout out to queen uh but the other uh major one of course is that helen was pushed from the wall where she was

[01:50:59] trying to come back into the game um let me see if i can show uh it'll be okay youtube will take us down footage here yeah um they knew that they knew that her power they knew so this is this is uh helen on the wall um and here we go she is about to fall um and then she's not about to fall

[01:51:26] she's actually fine and there she falls who is that but you can see you can see in the background behind her there's some movement happening someone pushing uh so like what's going on is she was she pushed from her spot because she was uh on the wall by this mysterious figure behind her um and uh

[01:51:51] quite honestly if you look at the footage it's pretty conclusively no i mean i see a person pushing her so i don't know what you're talking about however i would say i would say that the that then the conspiracy theory evolves because it's like you know is it realistic that she got pushed perhaps not okay instead was this a signal was she oh she tapped on the leg hey this is your time to drop

[01:52:18] like she pushed herself you know you know hold on hold on i think you're on the subject because because helen maintains that she wasn't pushed and for years i've been thinking well helen why are you lying to us because we saw that you was pushed like so what what do you gain from this but if she was in cahoots and she was in if she was in payroll and she was see because because now her being a corrupt governor yeah she wheels and deals she made she made a deal perhaps she made a deal she's on the

[01:52:47] payroll now okay my i changed my stance put it on my tombstone helen wasn't pushed helen pushed herself helen pushed herself hashtag helen pushed herself a paid actor controlled opposition yeah yeah she just happened to know andy before the season she just happened to get pushed helen pushed herself i don't i don't know i've i've always of all the big brother conspiracy theories this is the one i'm loudest

[01:53:13] about i i stayed by it i was watching that let's just watch it one more time with that in mind different angles we did different angles look tap tap yep there it is because because because we'll see them if you listen to this why didn't they look at the wide the wide view because they needed to let you know look at you can see the person right there tara who was that who was that then

[01:53:39] hmm yeah helen pushed herself we may never know the truth i know the truth she pushed herself yeah that's okay helen's a helen's a legend because of this she she was pushed and or pushed herself and it changes the trajectory of this entire season because we knew helen was coming back to shake shit up yes instead judd wins that side of the competition elissa wins the rest uh and elissa goes straight

[01:54:08] at uh at erin she wants erin gone she she basically threatened andy if you don't vote for helen to stay i'm gonna i'm gonna nominate you um and uh and ultimately andy needed to you know do what he had to do there's a water chances that she's really gonna win and also follow through on that threat yeah and who could have guessed it like one of these people that i've backstabbed and betrayed on the way out and out of my entire game too and their goodbye messages will be coming back

[01:54:35] right like this is the first time that this has happened so again coincidence maybe but andy wasn't the most beloved character so i would be shocked if they made the call that really doesn't get talked about enough andy was brutal and honest and really exposed a lot in his goodbye messages and they showed them live on the episodes and then had these people not only have a chance to come back

[01:55:01] into the game but also like were up on the wall and could chat for for a long time like there was so much they could have exposed uh and it's it's very lucky for him that that never really hurt him much they were colluding as well in the jury house you know they were in the jury house saying okay whoever comes in has to go after amanda you know whoever comes in has to go after aaron like judd would

[01:55:27] judd and jesse were all in on if i get back in the house i'm coming after amanda when jesse jumps off the wall or falls off the wall she's like f you amanda amanda goes what did i do because she doesn't know that they've been in the house colluding against her she doesn't know um she does now uh and so yeah the the fact that we magically come up with this amazing concept of a jury buyback right as andy is playing one of the more sneaky underhanded games that is not loved by america and that we

[01:55:53] haven't been showing on the tv show it just feels a little fishy to me that that's when we're like all right bring in bring in helen you know they're getting in like no no no bring in helen bring in judd you know tap tap on the foot she can't come in you know i just i don't know i don't know just a little convenient to me that we now have invented something that we will see play out in plenty of seasons of big brother moving forward so uh elissa wins and she wants to go after aaron

[01:56:19] she nominates aaron next to mccray um and the idea here is that mccray is more likely to win the veto um than somebody like amanda or even andy and therefore uh less likely that aaron will be able to take herself off the block and she'll be able to take aaron out of the game um now amanda of course is not happy with this uh she pushes hard against the you know herself being

[01:56:42] nominated against mccray being nominated um and uh and and it just does not work very well and then over the course of this week amanda is just struggling to play ball with elissa uh she's she's trying to play nice but she's so mad at her um and this relationship quickly starts to

[01:57:04] deteriorate um and um and elissa starts to realize like i'm just so sick of a man like do i even want aaron gone over amanda at this point like what if i what if i make a deal and a man and aaron comes up and proposes like hey i know this is you know essentially like i'm on the line here but i i can read the writing on the wall like what if you backdoored amanda instead like what if you worked

[01:57:33] with me um and and elissa kind of buys into this and she kind of starts to think like maybe i do maybe i want amanda gone she is the bigger target like she's the bigger threat i've been after a aaron for so long but like yeah maybe i think she even says in the diary in one point like uh i can't believe i'm saying this but like i think i might actually want amanda gone even more than i want aaron gone yeah she goes and i'm sorry for being bipolar about this because

[01:58:00] you know the producers are like mouth mouth on the floor like i'm sorry what because and it's not the first time that this will happen where someone will go completely or i guess i will say the last time where someone will go completely against their entire uh you know like their entire mantra uh helen being one of those people who like you know maybe aaron ain't so bad uh but here this is like hey aaron sucks but amanda is personally attacking me to the point where i just cannot deal with her

[01:58:26] i think i need to get her to go right here and she nearly does but um one thing people don't give credit to amanda for throughout the season is that they don't think she can win competitions uh but she does she managed to get a couple vetoes uh throughout the season yeah so basically what happens is that uh the plan comes into place that uh elissa and if she wins the veto she'll take down aaron if aaron wins the veto she'll take down herself put up amanda amanda next to mccray and and who's who's on

[01:58:54] board with this plan one andy heron uh who's like perfect we just took out helen and now elissa will take out amanda for me this is beautiful it's a great plan for andy he gets to like join this new group revolting against amanda and mccray he gets to vote out amanda while maintaining his relationship with mccray uh and everything goes really really well for him right up until amanda herself wins the

[01:59:22] veto and this is worst case scenario for andy because now amanda takes mccray down and elissa has to choose a replacement and the only real option left to guarantee that her backup target aaron goes home uh is andy the person she did promise which she would put on the block if he didn't vote for helen to say he should have been on the block already you know he's she already should have got him already so

[01:59:47] you know he was on borrowed time uh and andy at this point is finally seeing some heat now there's a zero percent chance he will go home next to aaron but you should always be concerned when you put up on the block especially post veto because you don't have a lot of chance to save yourself and some crazy things can happen in this season as we've already seen prior to this uh you know like swing big swing can happen in this season so he should be a little worried but you know he's in a really good spot as far

[02:00:11] as the votes uh and having them but this is also where andy starts to look at like oh i'm kind of like next in line after mccranda and this is okay but they're always going to save each other over me amanda saves mccray knowing that andy is the replacement nominee so it's kind of like oh i probably need to start looking at some other inroads to really solidify my spot here and that's where

[02:00:37] andy kind of officially jumped ship on the amanda mccray alliance i think this is where he starts to look at maybe some of these other people who are looked at almost as floaters or not really having the power who were kind of left when helen in the in the void uh the power vacuum when helen left uh you know spencer gina marie uh those people how can i align with them judd as well and kind of solidify myself a better spot in case this obvious pair of amanda mccray is ever targeted again

[02:01:03] well yeah i mean he has to pivot here because amanda and mccray just like he when when andy stopped finally stopped running defense for them and the and the hammer was about to strike they managed to both be safe via competition and so all of a sudden like the plan to just like let them be taken out by somebody else doesn't work now he really needs to go into overdrive to make something happen without blowing up his own spot and that's when they form the exterminators

[02:01:33] um so uh so again what happens here he gets nominated next to uh next to aaron and um and while you know dealing with the exterminator stuff he has to also make sure that he stays he has to make sure that he maintains uh amanda and mccray's vote here um and he does so by helping expose aaron for pitching that amanda should go home aaron who is just fighting for her own life is now seen as less trustworthy um to amanda and mccray than somebody like andy who's been with them the whole time and

[02:02:02] was working for them whereas aaron was was duplicitous this week and was trying to get amanda out to save herself so that's a good line of argument to keep amanda and mccray on board and they're saying we trust andy more than aaron um and at the same time he's then running to the other people um minus alissa and uh and creating this new anti-amanda and mccray alliance as if it's the first time that this has been brought up it's like andy's like you know what i'm sick of them running the show i think it's time

[02:02:29] to strike and they're like yes andy you're totally right let's do this yeah because it's the first time it's been brought up to this particular group of people in this in this iteration but it's the first time he's given the green light yeah exactly but like deep down in the jury house helen's like what the hell you know like so many people are like what jesse it's like excuse me what are you talking about we've been trying to get this going for a while but now it's okay because andy's like no i have an out i could go with these people uh amanda and mccray are definitely going to get targeted

[02:02:59] and then of these people uh i'm closest with judd of anybody left you know when judd comes back in the house andy immediately goes and makes an alliance with him and kind of like hey you can't trust the rest of them i'm your guy let's stick it out uh gina marie and andy were pretty close or at least closer than uh gina marie was with spencer and spencer and andy had been close throughout the entire game so he kind of was in a spot where he was all those people's number one ally uh and amanda mccray uh had each other and then alissa seemingly is floating on the outside of

[02:03:28] that um but we'll make a very interesting try to make a deal with judge to be like hey you just got you just got voted out by everyone you're back in i'm alone now let's be each other's number ones um and he like entertained that but uh ultimately was swayed back into the fold by andy who he didn't even realize was kind of the author of his demise previously because in in judd's eyes it was amanda

[02:03:53] and helen that were pushing that and aaron um and he didn't see that that that you know andy had put in a lot of groundwork to make that happen in the first place because he had stayed so under the radar um yeah andy was able to scoop judd back up and and again another thing that andy did really well is um despite not being a majority leader player himself as a floater he's like a very individual player he really really was good at leveraging majorities leveraging numbers to help

[02:04:23] convince people to do things so um you know instead of you know judd siding with uh with alissa who's alone he can side with andy and with andy comes uh you know jean marie and spencer and now he's part of a big group again and uh he names the alliance the exterminators um and uh and this is again a key part of it you know we've been talking about like the relationships that andy has but like these

[02:04:50] really come into play as you mentioned he's had this great relationship with spencer for a while um because they've been able to chat strategy and now because of andy and this whole situation spencer's finally able to be part of a big powerful majority again um he's had this good connection to jean marie this whole time let me tell you this is something that really came out in the final two speeches of course but like this is something that like was kept in the back pocket you might have

[02:05:18] noticed we haven't really talked about jean marie at all all season long because she's been mostly irrelevant to the conversation she hasn't won anything she hasn't been a part of any alliances but the one person that has made sure to never stop talking to her to never let the relationship uh fade away is andy and so when he goes to jean marie she's like let's go it's me and andy to the end that's what we've been doing this whole time and so this group comes together they're super

[02:05:44] excited they exclude alissa they exclude amanda and mccray they vote out aaron and wouldn't you know it uh jean marie ends up winning that next hoh but uh of course we should talk some more about aaron who has voted out here um and uh you know it really did make a valiant effort uh a valiant attempt to survive this week and and would have if not for amanda winning that veto um but ultimately

[02:06:11] this is her time um won a bunch of competitions um but uh had quite a memorable accident review chapelle oh yeah oh yeah so this doesn't happen often but because of big brother 15 and the way it was so polarizing outside of the house um and inside the house and all over the internet um it made itself into the to the larger news medium you know uh with julie being the host of the talk

[02:06:40] it even came it came up on her talk show like this was national news that aaron was in the house saying racist things even about julie chin herself and so um you know as a fandom this is where we get our first taste of blood when it comes to like live reaction to somebody doing something that we didn't like um it will it will then go off the deep end for bb 16 with christine but here here this is why

[02:07:07] we know the christine moment is coming in during bb 16 because we get aaron out of the house it's a live studio audience and um there there are booze there are booze there's mutters it's it doesn't sound like a it's a tepid response at best i guess i should say and julie is like aaron you know talking to her about game and aaron obviously has no clue that this stuff has made it outside i guess production has not told her about the things okay okay right like that's what she says right but like she's acting as if

[02:07:36] nobody said this to her in the house or that this wasn't a topic of conversation in the house like because listen i i do believe that she didn't expect this to be a big thing because i fully believe that she thought she would be protected by the edit and that she'd be protected by production i fully believe that in fact i think she said in interviews after the fact that she thought that that she that if she had chosen to do a different show like the real world that she would have been protected in the edit and it wouldn't have been a big deal um and so i fully believe that she thought that would

[02:08:04] happen but for her to act like what are you talking racist yeah i don't even know it i'm just i'm just feeling so ambushed by this is i think such a an overplay of that yeah now looking back i'm looking at julie chan kind of crazy like looking back like damn this is kind this is some wild stuff for you to do but also in the moment and knowing that uh the magnitude of the racist remarks and the way that aaron was acting in the house i'm like let the party let the party uh keep going you know like keep

[02:08:32] the party going uh we gotta we gotta air her out and julie goes off to ask aaron you know like so in the house you uh you know people brought to your attention that you made some racist comments or things that might be construed as as homophobic or sexist blah blah what do you have to say to that and aaron's like oh no if i offended anybody you know i didn't really mean that and i don't really that's not how i am xyz and julie's like well i'm glad you said that because uh i have some notes here

[02:08:58] she pulled out her little index cards and she's like uh yeah you because candace is so black that if she was it was dark in the room you couldn't see it that was you uh helen needs to go eat some rice oh okay also throw some slurs here at andy too so you know how you offended all of these like we got all of that stuff also i'm asian too you know so helen go eat some rice what you trying to say you know it's very much like now what and aaron's like oh um that's not it's not how i mean i didn't

[02:09:27] mean like i mean y'all gotta believe me i mean i'm from texas you know what do you mean i'm from texas right like hey come on come on y'all it's i don't know and it's i mean the audience is laughing at her you know she goes i don't remember saying that and so like you see the alissa jiff in the background you know like ma'am girl go to hell you know so again i think that the show handles this very poorly i think this is this is this is this is bad behavior from the show you don't do

[02:09:56] people like this regardless they awful people awful things will happen to them on their own you don't have to be the one to come wield the sword like this you could have stepped in a long time ago and made her stop saying racist stuff and you didn't instead you wanted to be like us the fandom who is not beholden to any type of rules or regulations and smack her over the head with what she did when in reality this could be held a lot more and i'm not saying for her benefit i'm talking about in general you step in and shut down the bad behavior so that you don't have to then blindside

[02:10:24] somebody and embarrass them on the tv because if you think that's going to stop them from being racist that's probably going to make it worse you know i'm saying like if you thought they didn't have nothing good to say do you think they're going to really take any learning opportunity from this because you shame them now again the shaming leave that to us the fandom but i appreciate it julie for staying something uh but it was it was just far too little too late and i think that erin will go on and suffer a lot at the hands of her own actions everything that happens to her from

[02:10:51] here is a combination of erin doing something on tv and that the fandom standing up and saying we won't allow it she will find out later on on like et uh entertainment tonight that she has lost her job as a model um in in the middle of the interview taryn they're like oh so how do you feel about being fired as a model she goes i wasn't fired as a model and they're like can you talk to your agency and the lower third literally says fired as a model you know like erin fired i was like uh

[02:11:21] this is awful you know what i'm saying like you you can meet you can meet awful behavior uh with awful uh actions or whatever but there's something to say about like if you handle this correctly from the beginning you don't it doesn't have to get here you can shut this shit down you can remove them from the game and don't give them a platform she will now be a legend in uh big brother history infamous for this racist shit that they could have shut down a long time ago yeah uh yeah and that is

[02:11:47] the legacy she leaves uh on big brother for sure um but in the game still going and her once ally gina marie has just won the hoh um and uh now in the minds of amanda and mccray they feel like uh uh okay we're still we're still fine this is not great but we're still fine uh get her to go after

[02:12:11] alissa alissa you know just took out erin um you know they've they've always been adversarial gina marie and alissa like obviously we've got some some ins here um but secretly gina marie is working with the exterminators and their plan is to evict uh amanda and their plan is for gina marie to nominate both amanda and mccray who are blindsided at their nomination and uh this is when

[02:12:38] the gears start turning for amanda um because uh now i i also forgot to mention that like amanda and alissa we talked about how alissa really wanted to go after amanda and backdoor her um once amanda was uh safe even before she was safe to some degree amanda really started going at alissa um uh very hard the fans were very upset there was a particular moment where like she like slammed a door open

[02:13:03] uh and people like that could have really like injured somebody um and uh there's lots of very very hard feelings between the two of them at this point um and so amanda's in and i'm trying to get a list nominated blindsided at her nomination and she's like what is happening for the first time in the game i have been blindsided i don't understand why and the reason we know is because

[02:13:28] for the first time in the game she does not have andy she does not have andy running defense she does not have andy uh giving her information um and all of a sudden all of the power she thought she had is gone and she has no idea why um and it's really really interesting to watch yeah amanda will go on and get in fights with literally everyone throughout this season uh this is her fight with gina marie

[02:13:53] prior to this she's fought with jesse she's fought with alissa she's fought with candace uh and um now that she has lost andy everything doesn't nothing makes sense to her you know uh and so we see a very different side of amanda this week because she's got her back against the wall like fighting her way through this is not helping uh and so she's going to have to do something uh a little unorthodox to get through this week now andy on the other hand is also acting brand new because andy who is known to have all the information is now sitting there like i don't know what's going on

[02:14:23] you know amanda comes in the rooms looking to andy and trying to figure out like are you in on this and andy's shit i don't i don't know what Spencer and i'm talking about this is news to me and so um yeah a very big shift from andy as the backup to macranda and andy the exterminator uh and it's like there's really nothing she could do because who would possibly be willing to play with amanda at this

[02:14:47] point darren who could who could amanda go to as a potential ally yeah uh and so this is what happened to amanda's credit um she slowly starts to like think think it through and she starts to realize wait a minute how in the world does gina marie think that like what is in gina marie's head that she thinks that this is going to happen and she she questions andy but she's like are you working

[02:15:14] with her because like why would she do this unless she felt like she had numbers to do this um and andy is like i don't know don't don't get me inside of gina marie's head um he goes oh my god amanda you really think i'm like amanda seriously like no andy's playing it up like yeah how did you um and and ultimately um partially out of necessity and partially because andy does a good job uh he's able to convince her like no i am on your side uh the other people though you know we can't we can't

[02:15:43] really say so in amanda's mind she has andy's vote and only andy's vote um and it's clear now that if even if andy's not working with gina marie that you know judd and spencer are um and that means that if those three are working against her and they have those votes then uh then like how is she going to survive this uh this eviction um she needs nobody would work with her nobody would work with

[02:16:10] her terran there's nobody left in the house you counted everybody there's no way you she doesn't have spencer she doesn't have judge she doesn't have gina marie mccray is on the block she thinks she has andy and there's no world where alissa slater would possibly work with amanda and so she's gone this is her elimination goodbye amanda yes so mccray wins the veto um and uh and that puts spencer on

[02:16:35] the block and now all of a sudden there's a chance because with spencer no longer able to vote it's like she made a mistake she didn't nominate andy uh like what a what a key what a what a blessing that we have andy on our side that he was not nominated here um that like okay now if we have

[02:16:57] andy's vote i have mccray's vote um we just need one more vote or the vote will tie and gina will we gina will break the tie and evict me but if we have one more vote to evict spencer and we'll have it we just need judd's vote judd is not budget we're not getting judd's vote uh it's not happening the only other person that we can go to is the person that amanda was tormenting less than a week

[02:17:24] before like a month elissa there's no way this is gonna happen and this is the end of amanda's journey goodbye amanda in the tree house you know that's how this is exactly where where andy wants her ah sucks we have two votes but there's no possible way for us to get a third vote ah we did everything that we could and amanda goes to elissa and she makes her deal uh like hey

[02:17:53] i'm on the out here yeah they betray there's a group that's formed i think that i'm actually better for your game to stay in the it's in the skin after i go you're the next biggest target uh she she makes a pitch and elissa says actually kind of makes sense you know andy andy walks into a room and he sees

[02:18:22] amanda and elissa talking he's like hey guys what's going on what's going on in here and they're like hey andy you'll never guess what happened elissa is gonna vote with us i'm staying baby we got this and andy's face the man already pale but you could it look like a ghost flew through his body he's like huh what be right back amazing you're really you're gonna vote for amanda to stay

[02:18:49] and he runs about that rule because i know he just wanted to like like i know his work you think his worst fears were being on the block no this is worse this is armageddon how how did this happen these two women who are never supposed to even be seen together are now exchanging wedding rings like here keep my engagement ring that'll make sure i don't vote you out andy's like i can't break a bomb like that what are we doing this was crazy work from amanda say what you want about her but um

[02:19:18] yeah she's got some game in her that was a crazy move that she was able to pull off yeah uh and now andy is is panicking uh like oh my god i'm going to be exposed this is awful and here's here's like truly i think the pinnacle the biggest example that you can point to of like uh andy's masterwork in this game and this is truly one of the best played double evictions i think in the

[02:19:45] history of the show um that like and this is why i think this is one of the reasons why you can point to andy as an all-time winner because like yes a lot of the game he spent playing a certain way um and you can say that it was playing scared you can say that it was like you know capitulate there's different ways that you can interpret it but when it comes down to it when pushed back into a

[02:20:09] corner this is what he was able to come up with um and that adaptability is so key and this is the corner he was backed into like i think a lot of players in this position would just eat the vote and hope that yeah cray doesn't win the next hoh um they would they would be like oh i have to just betray and hope that this doesn't happen andy is always working and so in response to this

[02:20:37] situation where now all of a sudden amanda has two locked in votes with mccray and and elissa the uh the other side needs his vote spencer needs his vote uh with judd to tie it so that gina-merry can break the tie and evict amanda but if that happens and and mccray wins power then that means andy is like the primary target after that it's it's going to be mccray and elissa together as

[02:21:03] an alliance and elissa might be mad like there's all kinds of potentially negative outcomes here so he comes up with a plan and the plan is i'm going to vote for amanda to leave and we're going to pin this vote on elissa we're going to act like elissa faked it faked wanting to vote for amanda to say and betrayed their trust uh and spencer's like i'm excuse wait what yeah but but they put this plan

[02:21:33] into place and this is a team effort they all work on this they all there's a ton of prep work involved into making this happen um like a lot of little details accounted for again this is where like being active and just working hard in this game can really pay off sometimes because this culminates in a double eviction where the vote unexpectedly ties and it's two votes amanda two votes

[02:21:57] spencer gina marie stands up and evicts amanda and amanda goes out blindsided what happened she lost a vote um and she's out there like i really didn't think elissa would betray me she gave me like a collateral um like what is happening here and and and andy says in his goodbye message it was me

[02:22:20] i had to do it i hope you respect it she's like damn that's crazy well i'm thinking mcrae is obviously gonna avenge me he's gonna get andy that that's next andy that you showed your hand bud you're probably going after this but taryn it's the 500th episode of big brother and for the first time i think ever we have two double evictions it's fun it's a second double eviction double eviction

[02:22:46] starts and wouldn't you know it mcrae having just been blindsided wins the double eviction hoh and now to be clear they they they like had an idea that this might be coming um like this is not like a fortuitous double eviction that they thought they knew that this lie was meant for a short burst uh period of time where they could hopefully trick uh mcrae in this exact scenario for exactly as long as

[02:23:15] they did um mcrae wins this hoh and they have to they have to go full force into this uh and and and andy did such a good job with the prep work that the first thing that happens is that alissa goes to mcrae and says did you flip yeah you vote out amanda like it had to be you because there's no way

[02:23:41] it was me it's not andy right right like and so this is the worst things she could have said to to mcrae who's like oh now she's trying to act like i flipped like what what a bold-faced lie andy goes in he he go he he obviously is like alissa must have flipped um we need to take that shot at alissa i can't believe she would have done this and uh and then equally important

[02:24:08] he uh coordinates this so that spencer and judd and gina marie they all come through and they support this as well like hey you know uh mcrae we really think that alissa should be the shot and so um you know and mcrae i think has said different things about this like how much he fully believed in the lie at the time versus how much was like just feeling like well i need to

[02:24:32] appease the group but whatever it was the callment the combination of all of these things leads to mcrae putting up alissa and gina marie together on the block in the double eviction andy gets off scot-free uh judd wins the veto doesn't use it and they send alissa home framed for a crime she did not commit oh yeah this is like this is eric reichenbach giving up the immunity necklace levels of just

[02:25:02] coordination you know like people think about it as they they coerced him to do a thing but it was really an ensemble cast of all of them playing their parts you know saying different things to him to where he didn't know where to turn for the truth in this scenario andy had already told them that alissa gave the wedding ring as well so when gina marie comes with this secret you know like she should not know about the wedding ring thing so she's coming to uh mcrae like yeah and i know she's gonna take the wedding she was gonna give the wedding ring and then she was still gonna vote

[02:25:29] her out because that's what she told me she was gonna do but craig's like damn she did she did give the wedding ring like so it sounds like it's adding up and then like you say in the moment mcrae is saying like they're on my back anyway i have to play ball because if not then they're probably gonna come after me next time anyway so there's a lot of reasons why this works but ultimately this is andy using his alliance to protect andy not to protect the rest of them this is an andy protection play from all sides so spitzer should honestly not even be okay

[02:25:57] with andy doing this and getting away with it he'd be like no you voted with us be with us you know like it's fine eff it why should i have to fall victim you know end up on the block next to gina marie potentially or something like that you know like why should i have to be it but they are all in on andy's plan and it works flawlessly yeah i mean and the good argument is that like taking out alissa here is great for them is they don't want mcrae and alissa to both make it to uh like the final

[02:26:22] five final four together um and be you know be a new duo against them that would be really bad um and so making sure to frame alissa to take alissa out is is is really good of course from andy's perspective it's really just like as long as i don't take the hit for this i'm fine um so uh so that is it in a one-two punch uh amanda and then alissa are both evicted from the game

[02:26:48] uh amanda of course we've talked plenty about at this point uh dominant force in the game really uh i think you can credit a lot of that to uh to andy running defense for her you can credit her for getting andy to run defense for her um she comes up with a lot of plans for andy like hey you should go into an alliance with these people at this time um and uh and ultimately nearly escapes the

[02:27:14] betrayal that andy uh that andy coordinates by flipping alissa back over to her um but uh you do have to wonder like what happens if she doesn't have andy uh you know on on board for so long uh she was such an early target um but uh certainly um a compelling player of the game uh despite um you know the the ultimate ending and maybe in part because of the end she played such a dominant like uh like

[02:27:44] uh iron fist type game you know it's like uh it was it's her way or the highway and we just don't see that in big brother a lot we see a lot of committee wins uh her and mccray as a duo obviously is a big threat but she was the alpha as far as people were concerned in that in that threat it was always going to be and mccray will say it later on like i knew if it ever came down to me and amanda y'all were going after amanda first you know um so she just played a game that was out in front that was loud that was brash and sometimes racist uh but uh people really looked at amanda as you know like this

[02:28:14] could be a new way of playing the game for a lot of women characters moving forward but we never get a return from amanda uh largely because one she says i'm kind of some racist stuff on the show uh but also big brother 15 is kind of preside and agrada you know it's like uh do we ever see any of these people ever again uh you know i think they kind of dig their own grave here um with their actions in this season so yeah pour one out for amanda she's a good she's good tv if nothing else

[02:28:41] yeah and then uh elissa taking this hit uh you know this was one of those moments where like the fans were rooting for elissa so much um but like i would say i saw a lot of like you kind of have to yeah kind of have to give it up though that was pretty impressive like there were definitely a lot of people like so mad you know like how dare they do that to elissa but there was a lot of also sentiment of like wow i mean okay that i mean that was that was pretty good

[02:29:09] what they just did um so uh but yeah i mean similar thing with elissa i think uh massively to her credit massively popular player of the season um and uh and her willingness to um you know uh not only like be on uh aaron's neck for so long but but also then like being willing to uh like work with people like amanda because this wasn't a situation of like oh well amanda has done wrong

[02:29:37] to other people therefore you know it's it's okay for me to work with her because the other people will still be mad with other people still have that friction with her and it'll be beneficial for me this is no i have had friction she has tormented me and she was willing to vote to keep amanda was that actually good for her long-term game probably at that point i mean it was like kind of a hail mary she was iced out by the exterminators um which was brutal for her but like uh there's a lot

[02:30:05] to credit i think elissa um in sort of like her time in the game and uh and also like her ability to she fully recognized that she was being used as a weapon early on with the mp twist and played into it um you know that's uh it's uh you know good on a list but at this point terry elissa's gone the pigeons are slim for the fandom because who the hell are we rooting for to win this season it's

[02:30:33] starting to come down to the point where like this judge do we want my cradle in my god we can't room for andy dispenser no never gina marie like the another reason why big brother 15 is not looked at in a in a bright light to my experience is that the fandom doesn't really have a rallying point at this point you know i think that we love to get behind a winner's story or you know or at least to

[02:30:58] be upsetting the power structure or whatever and here it's kind of like i mean i'd be all right if all of them lost you know like it kind of felt like that at the time well i think it might have been this double eviction episode recap that ian famously on rhap said i think that if andy wins this game he's a top four winner all time um and that was the first time that i had really heard somebody complimenting

[02:31:27] andy's game and i was like i agree and he got a lot he got a lot of heat for that he got a lot of heat call um i think i think it was and i think it still is um for the time at least um and so uh you know this definitely there is a contingent of the audience that is starting to turn around on uh andy's game but

[02:31:52] it is certainly not a majority at this point um and i would say that judd is probably the next biggest fan favorite left in the game uh which it's a good thing he's part of the exterminators because that means that you know of course uh mccray is the next target so judge should be oh yeah that's the thing we all pivot to judd judge got the bear shirt judd's back you know there can we vote for

[02:32:17] somebody who actually got voted out fine fine we can do that it's fine because it's judd and we like judd just like he's not as bad as the rest of them right like just got this i think judd can win it and then judd goes home yeah spencer wins the hoh uh nominates gina marie and mccray but mccray wins the veto preventing them from taking mccray out and that of course leads to the second betrayal of judd the next biggest threat uh in the game of course he's not going to nominate andy andy is really

[02:32:45] locked in spencer at this point judd just makes more sense he's too likable all the reasons that he was evicted before uh judd takes the hit gina marie not a big enough threat um and that's that's curtains for judd the second time um and uh you know not much more to say about it the rest of the game is very straightforward from here um andy wins the next hoh and veto which finally sends

[02:33:09] mccray out um mccray you know uh solid performance throughout the game really pivoting from his initial position uh in the moving company into this majority alliance helps uh you know amanda take control of the game uses amanda essentially as a shield for a long time um really just like the biggest mistake here of course is that double eviction if he's able to recognize that he has alissa on his side and takes

[02:33:36] a shot at one of the exterminators um then uh then he is you know potentially in this with a shot especially because he wins that final five veto um and you know it's just it's a whole different ball game at that point for him and he really does come close to potentially winning the whole thing if not for that double eviction so um you know a a solid performance overall no no like massive errors on

[02:34:01] mccray's part other than the big one i think yeah i mean i argue he's probably the second best player of the season you know uh with andy being number one um despite him going out in this spot you know i think a lot of good big brother players will go out in a spot like this um but no uh not a lot of notes for mccray uh but i will say this judd and mccray going to the jury house um first two guys to enter the jury house uh the the women have been in there kicking it and i'm sure there were fireworks

[02:34:26] considering how much gina marie aaron amanda and um and candace all got along oh and helen all got along i'm sure they were all great in there excited to see each other uh before judd and mccray walk in and um maybe temper some things but mccray doesn't show up until with the jury round table right and so he's there just in time to meet dr will who will try to remind these people that

[02:34:50] look this final three is spencer andy and gina marie you gotta vote for somebody they all play the game differently and they all beat you and so you need to come up with the idea that maybe just maybe your idea of how to win this the show is not the only way to win the show i think dr will comes in at this point and legitimizes the jury format at least for bb15 uh so andy ends up

[02:35:15] winning the final three hoh he evicts spencer um quite frankly though he's already won the game um that uh yeah and and i think spencer has said um slightly different things about this but like at the certainly at least at the time it was believed that both spencer and uh and gina marie are taking andy to the final two and he beats them both um and so uh regardless he wins this hoh

[02:35:43] and takes gina marie where he crushes her jury vote uh seven to two um with uh with with judd and uh and aaron being the two gina marie votes um so uh spencer though um really i think uh especially because you you did start to look at like what are the positives of these people's games near the end

[02:36:07] um spencer nominated a lot of times uh i think it was seven yeah he was a block for sure the season and um but like he was a player who who was able to play into that in fact some of those were were uh volunteer spots um he recognized that trying to play this power position early on got him in a lot of trouble and he saw eventually that he kept getting in trouble when he kept trying to play

[02:36:34] this power position and he eventually played into being this week nominated pawn star kind of player um and did it consciously and did it strategically to the point where it ended up working really well um and got him all the way to the end game the issue of course is that you're gonna have a hard time winning a jury vote uh generally um but uh but really like i think a player that that is underrated in terms of how he was able to adapt to his situations and play to his strengths and really

[02:37:04] uh succeed strategically in a spot where most people are not really able to have any kind of um uh you know agency at all yeah yeah spencer uh i think understood the assignment uh about halfway through the game he kind of he just kind of knew that i'm gonna get put on the block but with his alliance with andy and andy being able to let him in on all the votes and where the numbers were going he knew a lot of times that he was just safe um but you're right it's not really a winning game

[02:37:31] per se uh the people in the jury are gonna say well spencer made it this far because none of us were threatened by him and none of us wanted to uh what like actually thought he could beat us uh he gets nominated nine times in this season uh uh which would be the record for being nominated in a single season uh and that record will then be beat by uh victoria in season 16 or the record-breaking

[02:37:54] 10 times uh and so yeah it's a it's a good run for spencer but it's not time like it's not really the winning game that this can't this uh uh this particular jury was is going to respect i don't think like i think that he he probably loses to andy for sure um can he beat gina marie maybe you know like the fact that people were still willing to vote virginia next to andy shows you that you know this jury needs to be doing stuff you know uh like i said uh alissa got to the jury house

[02:38:21] and the first thing she says is so we all voted for gina marie right you know and i'm like oh no what's what you know and so um spencer i think he could have won the game uh and that's that's saying something considering how many times he was on the block and i think he he knew what he was doing throughout uh so that of course means that andy uh and gina marie are their fine are your final two um the andy very uh humorously reveals that he's had a final two of gina marie from day one

[02:38:48] um and uh they've been working together this whole time um and it's quite an obliterating jury performance uh from andy i don't think it's hard when you're up next to gina marie um but uh i think very famously he has a line about like um you know uh he's asked something along the lines of like uh you know all season long you were saying that you'd never forgive us if you'd like lied or betrayed

[02:39:13] uh if we lied or betrayed you uh you know stuff like that why would we forgive you and give you our votes and he was like well yeah of course i said that i was lying when i said that right i was lying betraying you but i didn't want you to vote for me yeah um yeah i mean he's next to gina marie whose big speech is kind of more of like hey yeah it's me i'm gina marie i'm from new york i'm italian and so i'm sorry if i said some stuff because i'm italian you know so like don't take that personally

[02:39:42] but like i love y'all it's good to see y'all very happy you know you can come over to my italian household like it was very much that and then they're like okay andy your speech and he goes okay from week one i knew i had to come in and do this this this and this nobody thought i was a threat and so i was able to do this and i kept running stuff back to amanda and then i was able to do this like julie legit has to be like all right andy all right all right we get it you know you won like she stops him like all right andy andy damn she did you know get your foot off her neck

[02:40:11] uh so yeah here we are gina marie she takes the l here um you know i have nothing to say about gina marie she said some racist stuff too i don't like it i don't like her as a character uh we don't need more racist characters on tv um yeah and uh and that's the season i mean um again as you may have a note like this is a very long podcast partially because we have to talk about the strategy and a

[02:40:37] lot of other stuff but also because the strategy portion of it is also very intricate and complicated and there's a lot that's happening strategically over the course of the season this is a story of you know a dominant majority alliance coming together to take advantage of a twist to dominate the game yes uh it is again as i mentioned at the start of this podcast the seeds of that are there that grow into what eventually becomes big brother 16 and the bomb squad um but

[02:41:02] also because there are so many people playing the game so hard and this is also brand new and fresh uh there's a lot of messiness in the strategy of it um and you have a player like andy who is not your dear derrick levasseur who is not the person that's going to be at the head of the table orchestrating all of the moves andy is not the mob boss he is worm tongue he is the one that has to be

[02:41:27] doing the whispers in the ears and uh and coordinating events so that he is able to rise to the top the rat uh who survives the you know nuclear blast uh the cockroach maybe um and uh and and so because of that um the game has to play out in a very different kind of way and he is you know is given the space and creates the space that he needs to in order to make that happen and that makes

[02:41:50] the game pretty interesting to watch as long as you uh like if you are watching for uh the strategic landscape of things because even if you do like the what we've talked about the strategy and how like much that was like how that went uh if you don't like the characters a lot of people will still say i don't care though it still sucks to watch because all of my favorites left and i didn't like

[02:42:17] any of the people left in the game uh and that's very fair um but uh but i think you know ultimately the reason this podcast is so long is because there's just so much to talk about in this season and that at least is something compared to uh a season where there's very little to talk about and also has lots of racism yeah yeah because those happen uh also andy's game is largely underappreciated because they don't really show it on tv uh it's it's like andy's confessionals are

[02:42:45] often shown like and then i had to go tell amanda you know it's like oh then i think they were about to take out amanda so i had to stop them and it's like that's not a compelling strategy for us to watch at home when you don't show all the other things that he's doing to make that happen right the reason why he's keeping amanda like you said people thought he was just amanda pond who she was just dragging to the end to kind of beat as a goat or something like that and he was just simping for her but in reality the show doesn't really depict a lot of the intricacies of andy's game and so you ever get a chance to go watch one of those compilations or something like that

[02:43:14] you know definitely go do that if you want to see andy's moves because the show doesn't do it justice yeah uh so that is big brother 15 chappelle who should be on the poster helen helen pushed herself i have amended my hashtag helen pushed herself um hashtag helen pushed herself in the comments helen has to be on the poster for that reason for that reason alone the most

[02:43:41] iconic thing that came from big brother 15 aside from the disclaimer is helen was pushed uh second andy of course our winner here and then why not our running mvp not america but alissa i think those are my big three uh and i don't think i can make an argument for anybody else what about you i think i think andy and alissa are the obvious top two uh i mean i think uh i think that like uh you

[02:44:10] i could definitely see a scenario where helen is pushed out of the top three actually not anything she pushed herself uh i could see amanda i could see that i think that's a possibility um i also could see some some like uh ground support for jesse um i could i don't think it's likely but i could see it

[02:44:33] because jesse because here's the thing i think that being problematic is uh is is a bit of a a hindrance to your ability to get on a poster not doesn't it doesn't uh prevent you from getting on a poster we've seen that um but it is a bit of a hindrance and uh and jesse has some of the fewest amount of problematic things weighing her down um of i think many of the options available if you're gonna vote for jesse vote for candace you know they're like stop don't wait that is true you know

[02:45:04] i plan you know like what's the half measure for vote for candace that is a very good point but yeah give me helen and give me alissa and then you know the man is not awful i mean she is awful on the show but like she's not awful choice for the for the third spot on the on the on the cover but yeah those two those top two helen and alissa uh easily and then of course andy you know as our

[02:45:30] winner i think that's my three all right well we will see what the audience decides uh next week when we talk about big brother 16 um so stay tuned for that uh chappelle thank you for joining me uh uh what do you got going on thank you for having me taryn i get i got to come back for a return visit and so uh i had to make sure that people knew how i felt about this uh ridiculous season of television

[02:45:56] as far as what i'm going through now i should be just coming back from boston by the time people hear this uh and so they can uh make sure they uh hopefully have attended that show check it out on youtube i'm sure it'll be there i won't be on the youtube though uh and then uh subscribe subscribe to my podcast recapkickback.com slash subscribe and uh show some love go and give me a five-star review and be like hashtag helen pushed yourself i would love that i would love to see that

[02:46:22] all right well uh of course you can find me on twitch and youtube streaming talking about things having a good time uh check out the tastemakers over when we know scripted tv talking about lots of shows the last of us is starting up we wheel of time all kinds of stuff check it all out you know where to find it thank you all so much for joining us and of course uh if you want to vote uh rob's website.com slash bb retrospective that's where we vote for the people on the poster but thank you all so much for joining us we will see all of you next time

[02:46:50] we are theresa and nemo and so we have to shopify we've switched the platform before shopify used to have regularly updated which have often led to the shop that didn't work finally makes our nemo boards shop so that's why we have a good figure and the illustrations on boards come now very clear what is important and what our mark also makes us

[02:47:17] start your test now today for 1 euro per month on shopify.com radio