Big Brother 18: A Weekly Big Brother Season Retrospective

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[00:00:46] And welcome back to RHAP, We Know Reality TV. I'm your host, Tern Armstrong and we are here today back for more Big Brother Retrospective podcasts in the off season. And today, this week, we will be talking about Big Brother 18. It's you may not have guessed it, but it followed Big Brother 17.

[00:01:10] And it was actually the second season, the second American season that I covered here at RHAP. So we are getting into that territory. We're almost at the live feed update territory. So we'll talk about that soon. But with me to talk about Big Brother 18 this week, I have a panel of wonderful commentators. The first one is Scali. How are you doing, Scali? Oh, hello. Hello, Taryn.

[00:01:40] I was bred for this. I am so excited to talk about what I think is an extremely underrated season of Big Brother. One of my favorites in this stretch. So I'm very excited. Yes. Well, I'm also excited because we also have Kirsten with us here today. How are you doing, Kirsten? Are you serious? No. Did you just mute yourself in the middle of your... Nicole and Patrick. I unplugged my mic. Is it the right mic now?

[00:02:09] Oh my God. It was too powerful. I'm like BB 18 defender logging on. So excited to talk about this season. I used to walk around doing Nicole Franzel impressions so much that I think it was a contributing factor to the end of my last long term relationship. I'm not even joking. So excited. Well, there's plenty to talk about with Big Brother 18.

[00:02:38] But before we get too deep into it, there is some unfinished business from Big Brother 17. The poster. We pulled the audience three players from Big Brother 17, made it onto the Big Brother 17 poster. Scali, Kirsten, what are your thoughts? Who is on the Big Brother 17 poster? Well, I feel like Vanessa one, probably Steve two.

[00:03:06] And then the third spot is where there's like some room. I could see the RGP audience voting for Johnny Mac in that place. But I think there's arguments for, you know, Dave on. Yeah. Other people. I can see it. I can definitely see it. I feel like at the time you probably look at a Johnny Mac, but just, you know, less than a year later, Dave on is being a fan. I think it's like back on screens and people are obsessed. So I can very much see Dave on pulling that spot.

[00:03:36] Even James is like a big character. But if I had to bet, it's probably on that Steve Vanessa Johnny Mac trio. The two of you are very, very close. But I needed specifically shirtless Johnny Mac. Oh, of course. Oh, of course. Because it is Vanessa Steve and Johnny Mac on the Big Brother 17 poster. What a banger this one is. It's a pretty great poster.

[00:04:06] You know, I wasn't on the BB 17 podcast for a reason because I like it was fine to me, but it's not as iconic as many people think it is. And I know that's a controversial opinion. I went to a Big Brother Canada casting call like two weeks after BB 17. And Robin Cass was like the person. And she asked how everyone felt about BB 17. And when I said, I loved how Steve took Vanessa out and that was so good. It was like such a satisfying ending. And she was horrified.

[00:04:37] Oh, I like honestly, I think that contributed to my casting journey taking longer. So yeah, you know, no losers on that pick. I see three winners. Definitely. It makes sense for me. Yeah. All right. That was Big Brother 17. But let's dive into Big Brother 18. Big Brother 18 brings back some players once again.

[00:05:03] In fact, they're going to kind of do a very similar formula to Big Brother 17. Big Brother 17 had the four coaches along with a sibling of a CBS reality star in Willie Hans. Big Brother 18 is going to do something very similar for returning players and one sibling of Vanessa, who we just saw on that poster.

[00:05:31] And sorry, not just one, but also the other one, of course, Polly. It's weird. I don't think of Polly as a sibling anymore. I thought you were going to say one sibling of Vanessa and one sibling of Cody. And I like that's such an interesting way to phrase that. I know Cody as Polly's brother, Cody, at this point. Polly has incepted my mind. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. So really combining the two.

[00:05:56] But the the four returning players were leaked ahead of time that it was pretty well known who was going to be on this season.

[00:06:05] And in terms of like comparing it to Big Brother 14 returning players where you had Dan Giesling, Janelle and in Brittany Haynes was like the most what player to return, which, you know, you would look at now and be like, yeah. Yeah, you had you had James coming back from season 17 right away.

[00:06:33] And while he did win America's favorite player, I think to the more intense audience online, they were kind of like we didn't even want him to win America's favorite. Now he's back again. You had Frank, who also was a fan favorite from the casual audience perspective, but I think from a more online fan base, you were kind of like, really this guy?

[00:06:59] And then you had Nicole, who actually did have some goodwill coming into this season, I think, from both the casual audience and from the super fan audience. And then you had Dave Vaughn, who was probably the most consensus, like, even though she was only out week two, that still makes a lot of sense, kind of pick. But either way, it was it was there were four people that were fairly surprising in terms of their return.

[00:07:27] And and so here's here's the the full cast list. But Scali, what do you do you remember this time? What were your thoughts? Yes. Oh, I remember it well. And it's just, you know, there are good picks in there, but you look at them on paper and it's like, all right, we're bringing back only people from the last couple of seasons. They are not particularly high placing players from their seasons. And we're questioning it quite a bit.

[00:07:52] But for me, I think especially with Dave Vaughn and, you know, others where they go out early and we are mad at the cast for screwing that up for us. Just bring them back next season. It's fine. I want to see him again. We they didn't get the real shot. So it made sense.

[00:08:35] Mm hmm. I mean, there was a lot of Big Brother 17 influence on this season. And yeah, I mean, like in terms of the recency bias, you know, Dave Vaughn and James were both straight from Big Brother 17. Tiffany was straight from Vanessa's run in Big Brother 17. And then Nicole was from Big Brother 16.

[00:09:02] Frank was the oldest sort of person there representing Big Brother 14, which was only four years old at this time. So, you know, it was it was definitely very recency heavy. But but but this was the idea. You're going to bring four four returning players in. And guess what? Twist. There's going to be four teams. Never seen that before, Kirsten. Yeah. Brand new.

[00:09:30] We have never experienced anything like it before. Taryn, you've got the wrong cast photo up, though. You're missing the national like nudity day photo that they did for Big Brother 18, which I think I don't seem to have that one like really important to note that that happened. The least iconic Big Brother photo of all time. It's just why did they do that to them?

[00:10:00] We'll never know, but we can certainly guess. Yes. So I think we're 18. So, yeah, the idea here is that they are going to do this this team thing that we've done teams before. Obviously, with the coaches, we've also done like duos and stuff like that. The idea with this one is that if you if somebody on your team wins HOH, you are immune for the week.

[00:10:26] And so you are kind of playing in teams to some degree. You also had the what do they call it? The roadkill twist, which was you guessed it. Another brand new idea. A third nominee could be introduced. This was basically the MVP twist. Just instead of the audience voting for it, you you won the ability in a competition.

[00:10:55] Which I mean, I do. I like the idea of having to earn that ability, though, at the same time, obviously that significantly advantages like strong alliances. Right. Like instead of instead of this being used as a weapon to like build and maintain a majority like it was in season 15.

[00:11:20] Instead, theoretically, if this was just more incentive for like a Big Brother 16 to happen again, where you just pick up all of the best competitors and try to control the nominations that way. And production loves BB 16. Like this is definitely the era where everyone is getting BB 16 to watch and sequester. So that motivation definitely could be there, though, of course, we never really know.

[00:11:46] So they enter the house, the returnees. I don't know if you likely remember this if you watch the season, but the returning players popped out of a box to to make their grand entry into the game. When I talked to Nicole after the season, because I just thought like they probably just put them in the box. They just like stepped in and then they popped out, you know, like editing magic.

[00:12:16] Nicole said afterward that she was blindfolded crawling through tunnels to get to the box to crawl out. And I that makes sense. Like they. They did the blindfolds on BB can too. So that is definitely a real a real thing that they do. Absolutely. I hate it. Now we just have a random hole in the floor with some luggage in the middle of the room. So inconvenient. Like, did they fill that hole in safely and properly in the floor?

[00:12:46] Like we don't see the maintenance on the Big Brother house being done so well. I wish I could show you. But when I played some clips in the background last time, the video got flagged. So YouTube apparently does not like me sharing even a little bit of a clip from the season. So we will stick to our slide shows. Thank you very much. But it was very funny. They pop out and right away they end up, you know, forming teams.

[00:13:15] And, you know, I did not look up the names of the teams. Uh, they were called. I've got them for you, Taryn. We've got team big sister, which was Dave on one. Jose, Paul and Zakiya. We've got category four, which was Frank, Bridget, Michelle and Polly. Never remember that. Freakazoids. Nicole, Glenn and Tiffany. And team unicorn was James Bronte, Natalie and Victor. They shouldn't be allowed to name their own team.

[00:13:44] Like they didn't name their teams on BB 14, right? The thing is, I feel like the team names actually do give me a lot of insight to the members of this team. Like if you had, you know, erased my memory and said, line these 16 people up with the names, like I could do this pretty well. Yeah. Well, really, these teams don't come into play that much in the first weeks of the game. They eventually get disbanded.

[00:14:13] Really, the only thing that matters, I think, the most in the teams is what happens in the first week with, you know, how Nicole becomes HOH. I think there's a little bit of like, ah, damn, we can't take out Frank because he's on our team. But for the most part, the teams are only lightly influential. You know, maybe Tiffany survives an extra week or two because she's on Nicole's team.

[00:14:41] But ultimately not that impactful apart from the fact that we did have another night one eviction in Big Brother 18. This one, the victim was one Joey Rodgers. I mean, sorry, Glenn Garcia. Glenn Garcia was the victim of the night one eviction.

[00:15:04] And it was basically just a full on competition tournament where the Freakazoids were in last place. And then they had to compete amongst themselves. The person who completed their, you know, coconut task, the slowest, ends up evicted. And it was actually very, very close between him and Corey, who goes on to get fourth place in the season and is Nicole's showman. And very, very close.

[00:15:34] According to Glenn at the time, he said that it was so close they had to like review the footage and everything. I don't know how true that is. Glenn Garcia, not necessarily the most reliable narrator. But it was it was very dramatic. It was shown as like super photo finishy. And yeah, just the only thing about the teams that really mattered week one also is Team Unicorn was safe from the first two eliminations.

[00:16:03] They were safe from this one and being nominated just to to cue that up. Hmm. So with Glenn gone, Glenn, of course, we don't have to get too deep into it. But the the big thing with Glenn is that he came out of the house and it was very funny because he was talking about how like he was he was definitely going to win the game if he had if he had beaten Corey there. And it was so close.

[00:16:29] But then later there was there were rumors and allegations that he had another account called Joey Rodriguez that he used to sort of pump himself up, I think would be the most generous way of saying it. Listen, Rob and I talked about that for 15 minutes on the 15 year RGP anniversary. It's still potentially my favorite day on Twitter. It was so funny to watch it unfold.

[00:17:00] But after Glenn left the the the other side of the fact that this team had come in last place was that one of them would then become a toH. And that meant that one of Tiffany, Nicole or Corey would be the first H. H. Nicole wanted to be the first H.O.H., but acted like what? No, I was. Who should it be?

[00:17:26] And and then ultimately was able to convince both Corey and Tiffany to let her have it without seeming like she really wanted to have it. The idea being that she wanted to make sure that the other vets in the house felt like she was working to keep safe, but also didn't want to appear like she was power hungry. She comes in with a pretty good reputation. A reputation for not being much of a game player, not being a liar, a loyal player, a likable person.

[00:17:55] And so aggressively coming for the H.O.H. early on wouldn't have fit that perception. So getting able being able to to get it without without, you know, coming off too strong was very good for her. And she uses this H.O.H. extremely effectively, sets up multiple power structures that ultimately don't last, but are the foundation for how she will sort of navigate the game for the rest of the season.

[00:18:21] Yeah, she comes in extremely underestimated and presents it to her team like none of us want this, but I will take the bullet. I am doing this for you. You owe me next time. But she's also able to build alliances with new players, protect the, you know, the old players. And it is definitely a very successful move for Nicole that sets her up for a much easier path had this gone different. We are Teresa and Nemo. And that's why we switched to Shopify.

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[00:19:48] Basically, what happens here is that Nicole and the vets, they do their thing. They team up. They say they're going to work together. And they pretty quickly form a big alliance. You know, ever since really Big Brother 15, but certainly into Big Brother 16 with the Bomb Squad, and then into Big Brother 17 when they created their big alliance. Vanessa dismantled it and created her own. But this is still pretty much just the playbook.

[00:20:17] You take the first HOH, you make a big alliance. They called this the 8-Pack Alliance. There were eight people in it. And I think it was, who was it? Corey had an 8-Pack or something. And so they were like, yeah, 8-Pack. And it consisted of all of the vets plus, you know, the most amenable people to their cause, which, of course, included Corey himself. Michelle was in there.

[00:20:47] Zakiya. And who else? Tiffany. Tiffany. Thank you. And so the 8-Pack was formed. They have this big majority. Within the 8-Pack, you had the Fatal Five, which was an all-women's alliance. This was quite the topic, you know, in this era was, oh, can women work together, though? Women's alliances never work.

[00:21:16] Of course, this one didn't work. But this one was basically the women of the 8-Pack coming together and having a five-person thing within the eight-person thing. And so this is a structure that will last roughly half the game, but it is very messy throughout the entire process.

[00:21:39] Yeah, that's kind of one of the most fun things about BB-18 is not that much is actually built to last. And so you get these really, really messy fights and conflicts as things just kind of shatter well before they really needed to, which is, I think, one of the things that makes the season so fun and entertaining because it's not just a march to the end.

[00:22:05] There isn't really one obvious front run. Like, even watching it back, you don't see everything Nicole is doing until it kind of clicks into place at the end. And you're like, oh, damn, that was actually so phenomenal from the jump. Yeah, I remember being ready to stand. And it's like not a week before I'm like, oh, these five hate each other.

[00:22:31] There's a really funny fight where Tiffany is just like really channeling that Vanessa. Well, I must be silly then. I must just be silly. I'm a silly, silly girl for thinking the women would have my back. Yeah, there are some issues here. One of them was you had Tiffany and she looks and sounds identical to Vanessa in many ways.

[00:22:57] And so it was it was not hidden at all that she was Vanessa's sister. Vanessa, again, had just dominated the season before and had a massive, massive reputation. This was not like an Alyssa Slater or or even a Pauly who in many ways benefited from the reputation his brother had as being a loyal player. This was like, oh, she's dangerous.

[00:23:24] If she is anything like her sister, she is going to be really dangerous. We just watched this season. And now I feel like I'm talking to the person that I should be very scared of. And so Tiffany came in with a really, really rough road in front of her and never really found a good footing in terms of, you know, like finding solid allies. Yeah. She did herself no favors by not admitting immediately to being Vanessa's sister.

[00:23:53] Like, I think that she could have found more of a path if she had been more upfront. But by lying when it's so obvious, it just adds a level of distrust that I don't think she could recover from. Exactly. Davon is still recovering from her like Vanessa trauma of last season. Davon like clocked two sisters telling them apart from each other in Big Brother 17. And then she comes in here looking like Vanessa in a wig and expects for her Davon not to like clock this. There was absolutely no way that Tiffany was getting away with it.

[00:24:22] And by lying about it, it only, you know, supported everyone's notions about her. Then you had not Natalie, but but Michelle in this group. And Michelle was your classic as a super fan. And and she, I believe, rumor was she was a big Nicole hater before the season even started.

[00:24:52] And so this this was also not a great fit for working with Nicole. And so there was just there was a lot a lot of stuff that would potentially go wrong with this group. And this being the power, the core of the power within the eight pack was a bit of a disaster to begin with.

[00:25:12] But then on top of all of that, you had the guy we I mentioned before, Frank, who really the only reason he lasted as long as he didn't be brother 14. Him as part of the eight pack was because he won so many competitions that he was able to save himself so many times.

[00:25:33] But on top of that, his biggest regret from big brother 14 was that week when he was a show age when he could have taken the shot at Dan and everyone talked him out of it. And then he was a show again. And he could have taken a shot at Dan again and was again talked out of it. This guy was desperate to turn on an alliance because he was never allowed to before. And he thought that was the way that he should have gone. And so very quickly, he's going to start to feel antsy about being in an alliance.

[00:26:01] He feels better about broing out with Pauly, wants to tell him all about the eight pack. And so there's a lot of tension from that angle, too. And he tells them that he wants to tell, like, bring people into the eight pack. Like he's it's not even like he's just snitching. He's like, I'm going to snitch. I'm going to tell them in advance. He's Devin with one extra step. Yeah. Yeah. Literally. Frank is an abysmal big brother player. I can see like the reasons why you think you might want to work with him.

[00:26:31] Like he can win a lot of comps, but he's not actually that good at this game. And he seems kind of loyal. But then he telegraphs to everyone on his team. Like, I'm actually just going to blow this up for no reason. Mm hmm. Yeah. So so that was all of the problems on the inside.

[00:26:48] But those problems were not enough to save Jose because Jose came into the game not really knowing much about the game and really wanting to, you know, in your classic fashion, form some kind of counter to the the vets. He was the messiah of the newbies and he ran through many scenarios. But those scenarios were not they did.

[00:27:16] He did not find the one in however many million that Dr. Strange did. And it was very obvious that he was working against the vets. And so he's a very, very easy target for Nicole. And yeah, she just nominated him straight up next to Pauly, who she was able to convince to volunteer as a pawn because he's yeah, yeah, of course I'll do that. And then Paul actually went up via Frank's roadkill win, but that was not super, super relevant.

[00:27:46] He did win the veto. But and then and then Bridget ended up going in his up in his place. But that was all irrelevant because the whole big thing was it was Jose versus Pauly. And what a character, Jose. Mind you, I voted him through to round two of the diary room podcast just a few months ago. A decision. Up against Greg from BB can three. Oh, well, I mean, a lose lose.

[00:28:17] Jose, like, thank God we got him for at least a week. It is so funny to see him telling everyone he's the Messiah of the of the newbies. Don't worry, Davon. We're going to take out all the returning players, but not you. You'll go home. I don't know. Early jury. You'll be fine. I have this all figured out. And was the Messiah wrong about Davon's placement? Scenarios. Yeah, just this is just the thing.

[00:28:46] He just didn't know enough about the game and wasn't given the space to figure it out. I mean, I think that's the reality of this. If there weren't returning players, he still would have been a pretty early target, I think, just because of the way that he was playing. But he would have had more space to screw up and maybe stick around and then maybe learn from those mistakes. Who knows? But Jose, the first person out. Very classic.

[00:29:10] You know, when Pauly first entered the game, for as much as people were kind of frustrated with Cody after the end of season 16 for taking Derek and for constantly kind of chirping about how he was going to do something and then be talked down by Derek. Pauly came in with, I think, at the very least neutral to somewhat positive expectations. A lot of people were kind of hopeful for what Pauly might bring to the table.

[00:29:38] They felt like, oh, hey, he's, you know, he's very good looking. He's maybe the smarter of the brothers. Maybe he'll play a little harder. And he was pretty popular even in this first week. In my memory, the first time I really started to look sideways at Pauly was the end of the week when Julie is reading out the vote between himself and Jose. It's something like seven to four.

[00:30:09] And and he. Stares at Jose. With like this look of like, yeah, that's right. Like he just wants to see the pain in his eyes. And I was like, wow, that was that was intense. Like you don't see that a lot on Big Brother. And so I was like this. This guy, he's he's kind of he's kind of here to do something. That's for sure. Yeah.

[00:30:38] Little did we know we might need someone to talk Pauly down. So he's only chirping as well. You know, there are good signs early to the point where people are like, this isn't going to be boring. Pauly's just going to run the whole thing. But that falls apart very quickly. He has an intensity about him that makes him very compelling television. And he is.

[00:31:02] So hateable on BB 18, like I know he's he's had like a whole other arc over on the challenge. I don't know where the public perception of Pauly lays as of now in 2025. But like BB 18, we were on Twitter hating this man. Yeah. So Pauly ends up winning the next HOH.

[00:31:29] And it was, you know, around this time, week one, week two, roughly that Frank goes ahead and does just tell him about the eight pack. And that's because, again, Frank, Frank, just he really wants to bro out just like he did with with Mike Boogie. And he, you know, just, you know, a fantastic group of people that he this guy likes to hang out with.

[00:31:58] And he he lets Pauly know. Pauly then takes that information. He's like, OK, that's useful to me. He actually does a really smart thing here, which, you know, Pauly actually is playing a pretty, pretty decent game for a little while in this game. He does not blow this up. He does not freak out. But he also doesn't just ignore it. Pauly starts working. He goes, OK, if there's a big alliance and I'm not a part of it. Sure.

[00:32:23] You could bring me in as a ninth or I can start kind of working the cracks that I do see to form my own power structure. He knows that his brother worked really well with Nicole in season 16. He is initially fearful that that's going to cause an issue because his brother ultimately betrayed Nicole. However, they are developing a good relationship over the first week of the game. And he volunteered for her to be a pawn on the block. And so that relationship is starting to blossom.

[00:32:53] At the same time, she's getting closer to Corey. And Pauly is really good with Corey. Pauly is bonding really well with a lot of the men in the house. And so with, you know, Pauly bonding with Corey, with him bonding with Nicole, things are kind of working in a good direction. Pauly is also connecting really well with Zakiya. And so that is not Zakiya. When did Zakiya get voted out? Earlier than Bridget. One more. So.

[00:33:25] So. So they are kind of the two couples in the house. And they start to think, like, why don't we make a little bit of a couples alliance? That is Pauly's proposal. Going to Nicole and Corey and being like, why don't we make some kind of couples alliance? And now at this time, he also wants to work with Davon. And the two couples kind of like offer Davon a spot in this group as well.

[00:33:50] Would you like to be a part of this new power core structure alliance? And Davon very famously is like, no. Why would I want to be the fifth person in a group of two different couples? And this was frustrating, I think, for us analysts at the time because we were like. Because at the final five, the two couples will go against each other.

[00:34:20] And that's worst case scenario. And you're going to be in the best spot at the final five. Now, you know, should she have actually gone all the way to the final five of those two couples? No. But still, they will both be massive targets in front of her. They will both target each other before her. And it was just like, please, please, Davon. She does not want to do this, though. Instead, she kind of tries to go off in her own direction,

[00:34:47] which is going to prove difficult because her and Frank start really chafing for various reasons, one of which is him inappropriately touching her. And so this is causing a massive rift within the eight pack, which is already starting to blow up because Frank and Davon are against each other now.

[00:35:13] But now in the fatal five is is, you know, barely holding on. And then you also had Polly creating this new couples alliance, all kinds of things going on that are sort of disrupting the flow of this big majority. So despite the fact that, again, there was a big majority, a group of people sort of dominating the first part of this game,

[00:35:38] there are so many things happening within it that are just completely destroying it from within. Yeah, this is such an interesting beginning of the game, because as much as the eight pack comes together and seems so solid and you feel like you have that you have the alliance structures within it, things start flipping already in week two. And it's like, oh, this is not going to be one of those seasons where everything goes smoothly.

[00:36:04] Well, I think part of what was interesting was that like Nicole was the first HOH that sort of set all this up. The thing is, Nicole is not a player that leads from the front. Nicole is a player that wants to like hang back and wait for opportunities to strike. And so the fact that Nicole was kind of the builder of this structure, she was not the person that was going to take the reins and keep control of it and make sure it stayed on focus like Derek was.

[00:36:32] So she set it up and then just kind of like, let it go. Like, I'm just going to ride this until it breaks. And it broke pretty quickly. And thank goodness it did, because I love mess. I love chaos. That's why I love BB-18. When we start bringing up Davon flipping on the couples alliance, it's like, OK, maybe I don't like Big Brother 18 that much anymore.

[00:36:59] The problem is, is that being a Davon stan is so much suffering, like all the time. And it's so hard. You just love her so much. Yeah, there's a modern turnaround, but it's just hard, especially when Davon is close with both women in the couples at this point. So it would have been a really nice spot. But as fast as things are coming together, people are actively working to dismantle them.

[00:37:28] So while all this is going on, Pauly is going after Victor. Victor is kind of another new player who seems pretty strong and seems like a pretty viable target. I went to find Victor in the slideshow and remembered he is not the third person in the slideshow. Victor, despite winning the roadkill competition,

[00:37:57] is going to be backdoor this week after Pauly also wins the veto competition. There is some amount of push to potentially take Tiffany down. He nominates Tiffany with his roadkill power. But for various reasons, it doesn't follow through. Again, he's a bit too much of a threat. Nicole, who might have been sympathetic to his cause.

[00:38:24] Of course, we know now that him and Nicole are eventually going to get married. But at this time, she's with Corey. But there was still a little bit of a connection between the two of them, even as early as week two. She kind of wanted him to stay, but not at the expense of Tiffany, who is on her team still. And so it is going to be Victor who is voted out here. But only for now. Yes. Yes. It's a the battle back is happening week by week.

[00:38:52] So now in week two, we see Jose beat Glenn and fully eliminate him from the game. And next week, we'll see Victor beat Jose and so on and so forth. Mm hmm. So this is when things start to get a little more interesting, or at least could have gotten a little more interesting, because Bridget wins the next HOH. Now, Bridget is is an interesting character.

[00:39:23] Nailed it on that one. In that. Stay crushing it. She ends up getting really close to Frank. That's kind of like her person. Again, Frank already pulling away from this eight pack alliance. And very, very importantly, Nicole is playing the middle between Frank and Dave on throughout this. So in Frank's mind, he's bonded with some of the guys like Polly.

[00:39:50] He's still got Nicole and he's going to go after Dave on again. And they've gotten into various feuds. She has expressed that she doesn't like it when he touches her bottom. And he think that he thinks that's a little ridiculous. And therefore, she probably needs to go. And so while all this is happening, he has also started to bond with some of the other players. Bridget being one of them.

[00:40:16] Now, he is the person who nominated Bridget in the first week via the roadkill competition, but she doesn't know that. And while she is HOH, he is going to sort of try to push her in a certain direction while also winning the roadkill competition that week as well. And really just kind of screwing Bridget over in many different ways. Bridget deserved better is kind of a pretty common refrain in the Big Brother fandom.

[00:40:44] I mean, like they wouldn't talk to her. Like there's a point in the season where her only friend is a basil plant. She's named Mr. Jenkins. Like it's actually wild to look back how she's treated. There's even she confronts Michelle at one point about how Michelle's kind of mean to her. And Michelle's like, well, I'm nice to you sometimes. Hello? That is not an appropriate response. Well, what did you want her to say?

[00:41:13] They're all good and best friends now, Kirsten. Look, Bridget is trying. And I think that this is a week where people think like, ooh, things could actually flip here. We could see some different people nominated. But because Frank is getting close to Bridget and Frank wins the roadkill and can't do anything right. We do unfortunately see Bridget's, you know, Spy Girls Alliance member Bronte all of a sudden hitting the block. Yeah.

[00:41:39] And we haven't talked much about them because they ultimately don't have too much of an impact here in the game. But the Spy Girls were one of the newbie alliances that tried to operate here early on in the game. It was Natalie Bronte and Bridget. But they very famously had probably their most famous moment is when Bronte revealed her secret. Oh, geez.

[00:42:08] It's a pretty big secret. Like Derek before her is holding quite a dramatic secret that she's a secret. Mathematician. I love this so much. It's so funny. They even call themselves flirty spy, wifey spy and spunky spy. So like they are trying. It's not really going anywhere. But this is like a fun little niche alliance at the beginning of the season. Mm hmm.

[00:42:39] And the math just didn't math for them. Unfortunately, it really didn't. With Frank's influence both directly and indirectly via the roadkill nomination of her ally Bronte on her own HOH. She at the end of the week after she wins HOH and veto. Tiffany, Paul and her ally Bronte are left on the block.

[00:43:06] Bronte is going to be voted out here on Bridget's own HOH. Again, just further solidifying how awful these third nominee twists are for a minority group in the house, minority alliance in the house. Because I Bridget won HOH and veto and her ally left the same week.

[00:43:28] That was like, how often does that happen in Big Brother that somebody one of three people on the outside wins both HOH and veto? That's exactly the thing. And like, to be frank, which I would never want to be frank, but having it only blow up in our face once where this twist really screws the HOH over. And it just so is like a miracle. It just so happens that it's the one time that someone on the outside wins. Well, it's designed that way.

[00:43:55] It didn't blow up on the other HOHs because they were in the majority. And so it's designed in a way that it is only going to screw over the minority. I thought you were going to say that this solidified how bad Frank is at Big Brother, but you took it in a different direction. That had been solidified years before. Just in case people like forgot, you know, like this is why he makes poor decisions.

[00:44:22] Um, so, uh, with Bronte out of the game, Polly wins another HOH. And, uh, I believe it is around this time, maybe a little bit later that we as a podcast, uh, got a question. Uh, and I remember this very vividly. It was very funny. We had a question from a listener who asked, is Polly, uh, playing like one of the best games of all time, essentially.

[00:44:49] Um, and, uh, and our answer at the time was like, whoa, so maybe a little early. He's playing very well. He's being very, he's playing very dominantly. Sure. But, uh, but I think we have to, to be a little careful before we may come to any conclusion, jump to any conclusions.

[00:45:10] Um, and I remember at the time, one of the things that I was saying a lot was that I felt like Polly had the most social capital, but he was just constantly burning it all, uh, at both ends. Um, he was in a really dominant position because the APAC had basically been blown up at this point. Uh, and out of the rubble of that was Polly in this, in this really crushing position because he had the couples alliance still kind of working, uh, a little bit.

[00:45:39] And then on the other side of that, he also had this new burgeoning bro alliance that was him and Paul. And, uh, I think at this point, Victor is, is about to come back into the game. Um, and, uh, it was when Victor comes back that they really solidify it. And I think they call it the executives at that point. Um, but he is about to become the center of the entire game. But at, while he's doing all of this, he's winning HOH at every given opportunity.

[00:46:08] He's winning vetoes when he doesn't have to. And he's just playing so, so hard and taking out, taking big shots and taking out big players. Um, and, uh, and, and it's, it's causing him some trouble, uh, and, and leading to his eventual downfall, but he is going to win this HOH. And this is going to be a crucial week for the, the, the destruction of the existing structure. Um, because, um, he is, uh, going to nominate Natalie and Tiffany.

[00:46:37] Tiffany, it's kind of finally time for Tiffany to go. But Tiffany herself, like Victor before her wins the roadkill competition. And, uh, and this is interesting. She nominates Corey, um, you know, as you know, Hey, he's a big target. He's somebody I could beat on the block. It makes a lot of sense. Corey wins the veto. Um, and her, you know, cause she's looking at like Corey and, uh, Nicole. She doesn't really care. She was on their team. Um, she sees them as a big threat.

[00:47:05] Uh, she's initially going to replace Corey after winning veto with Nicole. Um, but Nicole is able to kind of get into her ear and, uh, and tell her like, Hey, don't you know who was kind of pushing for you to go last week? Cause she was on the block and she actually had four votes against her, uh, again with, with Bronte next to her. Um, like Dave on was pushing that, uh, basically just doing anything she could to get the, the, the target off of her for the renom.

[00:47:33] So Dave on ends up on the block instead of Nicole via Tiffany. And there's some talk about potentially taking the shot at Dave on again, all this time, Nicole has been going back and forth between Frank and Dave on telling Dave on. Yeah, we got to get Frank out telling Frank. Yeah, we got to get Dave on out. And so Frank really tries to make a bit of a push here. It doesn't work though. And Tiffany is going to end up evicted at the, uh, I don't even know.

[00:48:02] There's too many buybacks this season. I don't know what place she came in. Yeah. Well, and it's just such a rough spot to go out because Tiffany goes out as Victor comes back in after having beaten Bronte in the last, you know, round of the duels. And then we find out that, you know, another like buyback twist comes in the following week with the round trip tickets.

[00:48:27] And so Tiffany's the only person so far that's been evicted without any shot to come back. So, uh, so yes, uh, Tiffany ends up evicted here and that brings us into no more roadkill. It's time for a bit of a reset in the game. And this is, uh, quite a reset in the game because, uh, I believe this is, uh, they are now going to have an endurance competition.

[00:48:57] Uh, Victor is back into the game and, uh, it's a lengthy endurance competition where they're holding their hand up very famous one because, uh, Frank having failed to get Dave on out and her doing really well in this HOH competition has decided that he is going to rat Nicole out. Um, instead of taking all the heat for, uh, for being, you know, this, this him versus Dave on thing has been going on for so long.

[00:49:21] It's time for him to tell Dave on, Hey, Nicole's the person that's been telling me you need to go this whole time. Uh, and he does this in public, uh, during the competition, he's standing there talking to Dave on. No, but it's so funny because he's trying to get Dave on to drop because the only other people left in the competition are Bridget and James. And he feels obviously better with both of them winning HOH.

[00:49:48] And when Dave on is like, well, like tell me and I'll drop. So Frank like turns to Paul and I think Natalie goes, can you give us a second? They like move aside. They like Frank and day have the conversation without everyone knowing fully what was said, but then Dave on doesn't drop. And it's a big conflict of, of Paul being like, well, let's put it out in the open. Let's talk about it. And then Dave calls out Nicole in front of everyone.

[00:50:15] And Nicole is just like, I didn't say that. I didn't say that. So good. Because you have, he's like Dave on, you said you would drop. And to which she responds like, well, if what you said is true, I'm screwed no matter what. So I have to be up here. So deals off. And it is back and forth. Dave on finally just exposes it. Nicole denies it. Frank gets mad at Nicole. And it is so funny. Everyone in the whole house is arguing. It's so good.

[00:50:42] And ultimately Bridget and Dave on agree that they'll both drop to James because both like James is saying, I won't put either of you up. It's totally fine. They both feel confident in this. And so they throw it to James who immediately nominates. Because like they all watched season 17. They're all so scared of Vanessa. Apparently they didn't pay attention to when James did the exact same thing to Shelly and Clay the year before.

[00:51:09] Like I cannot believe, I still can't believe that they, that anybody would have been like, all right, James, you promise you're not going to nominate me. I'll give it to you in this endurance competition. And not thought about when he was in the diary room quoting Mike Boogie saying you can bounce checks in the Big Brother house. I couldn't believe it. But yeah, that's exactly what happened. James wins and he immediately turns around and nominates Bridget and Frank.

[00:51:36] And it's just like, I can't even, I'm sorry, Bridget, but like you really, you really did this to yourself. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, James quoting Mike Boogie sounds so fake. I would also think I imagined it. Unfortunately, it's real. Believe it. It is such like an obvious mistake. And yeah, this is Frank ends up going out having zero chance to come back into this game. Mm-hmm. Yes. And thank goodness.

[00:52:05] And basically like the entire season, people are like, there are so many buybacks this season because they were sure that Frank would catch one of them. And then they're like, oh, you missed it. But this is a pivotal moment because it is also like the first time that Nicole has properly been exposed for, you know, really being in one of the best positions in the game.

[00:52:26] You know, she, like Polly, has been nearly just as insulated, but without as much exposure until she gets exposed here. And she really doesn't know what to do with it. She's just like, no, no, that's not what happened. What? And really has to sort of reevaluate her game. Devon is now openly targeting her.

[00:52:52] And she kind of has to retreat into the couples slash guys alliance, which again solidifies now with Victor back into the game as the executives. And this is when I think a lot of people really started to be down on Nicole's game this season because they felt like, well, now she's in no position of power whatsoever. She's entirely reliant on these guys. She was exposed. She very poorly lied trying to get out of it. She's being targeted.

[00:53:20] These are all really bad things for Nicole. What I think a lot of people didn't see at the time is how she was able to recover over the next few weeks. She did get a bit lucky with comp outcomes, I will say. But at the same time, like, you know, you kind of have to predict who's going to be winning these comps. And so working with these guys did make a lot of sense. James with this HOH ends up, as we talked about, taking out Frank. And that is the end of him.

[00:53:50] No place on the jury either this time around. Yeah. So. Gotta cut him. But what I will say about Nicole is also, even though she does get caught here, and, you know, oh, she has to rely on Pauly and, um, and, uh, Corey. Is it's like, well, that was the intention. Is if she gets caught, she has these big giant shields that, okay, Davon wants to target Nicole. But like, you're almost forced to target her allies before you're able to target her. Yeah.

[00:54:17] If Nicole was somebody who, again, like, wasn't the person that was going to be out front, leading the charge, organizing everything. She was the person that was going to set as much up as possible and then sit back and then, like, wait as the options diminished and jump to this, to the place she needed to be. Um, not quite like the June floater game. Um, but, uh, but, you know, similar style of jumping once the things were set into place.

[00:54:44] Um, and, uh, it's not until a little bit later in the game that I think, uh, more people started to really come around on her game. And that was, of course, around the final seven, which we'll get to. Um, so, uh, Paul wins the next HOH. And, uh, this is when, uh, again, you know, Nicole does some good work here. Uh, Davon is, is now like an enemy of Nicole's.

[00:55:09] Uh, and with Davon, you know, certainly now like Michelle is super against Nicole. And, uh, you know, she's being called a snake and all of these things. And Paul is not the best person to win this HOH because, uh, Paul is on his own kind of rise to power. Uh, he has this thing called, uh, uh, what was it? The PP Alliance, PP bros. PP always pulls through. Always pulls through.

[00:55:39] He's, uh, him and Polly have started to look like twins. Um, uh, or sorry, I should say they and Polly start to look like twins. Paul, uh, I believe now goes by they, them pronouns. Um, and so, uh, uh, with Paul in power, um, theoretically, this is a good thing because Paul is part of this, uh, executives Alliance. Paul is close to, uh, Nicole, but they're really close to, uh, Davon also.

[00:56:06] And, uh, trying to get Paul to target Davon is going to be a bit of a, uh, a tricky thing to do, but largely through Nicole's influence with Polly there to back her up. They are able to convince Paul, uh, when Polly uses the veto, uh, on himself. Uh, he was initially upon, um, to, uh, to put Davon up on the block. Paul gets to, to sort of say to, cause again, the whole thing that week was like, I need a pawn and a pawn. Obviously we're taking out Bridget.

[00:56:36] Uh, there was this whole thing about like Nicole, maybe being willing to be upon, but not really. And then Polly steps up instead. And Corey tried to volunteer too. Um, and then when Polly wins, they really sort of use all of that to convince Paul, uh, Hey, you need to put up Davon. Paul is like, Hey, Davon, you're just a pawn too. Everyone needs to be a pawn. Uh, but in reality, Paul had been convinced to, uh, let Davon be voted out, uh, with hopefully

[00:57:02] the sort of like, uh, plausible deniability of like, Oh, I thought you were just a pawn. I'm so sorry. Um, and this was, again, we had seen Paul be too much in the early weeks of the game. Um, but then he had been sort of crushed by the weight of the veterans. Uh, now, as he was rising to power in this executives group, he was kind of going back to his old ways. Only this time he had some weight to throw around. Um, and these are the kinds of things that you'll see Paul do in big brother 19 as well.

[00:57:32] Trying to avoid blame for things, uh, while really, uh, you know, doing a decent job of actually navigating the game, just not really, uh, necessarily managing the jury in the right way. Um, and they had never really watched big brother up to this point. Paul was learning the game as they went and like the audience was really, uh, felt positively towards Paul and Victor as a duo.

[00:58:00] And you just, it's like the seeds are right here. Like Paul is who Paul always was and perhaps always will be in big brother. Sure. Yeah. And that's the like fun thing about the final two is I think with both Paul and Nicole, you really get to see them play like from in front and also from behind because their positions in the house are constantly shifting.

[00:58:25] Uh, so this is going to be it for Dave Vaughn, uh, for the second time this time she makes the jury for person of the jury. Luckily we get some great content from that. Uh, good night to our queen Dave on, uh, gone, but not forgotten. She gave us so much. She deserves a break. Literally carrying half a season's really hard.

[00:58:56] I hope they have a chiropractor injury. Um, so, uh, as Paul, uh, now, now again, what I will say here is that like from Polly's perspective, pushing, uh, Dave Vaughn benefited Nicole a lot more than it did Polly. Um, and this was another example of Polly just overplaying his hand and burning social capital that he didn't need to burn.

[00:59:25] And Paul recognized it. He was, they were like, uh, like this guy's really trying to push me into doing this thing and I'm going to do it, but I'm also going to remember that this is happening. And so, uh, Paul has been really bonding with Victor throughout this. Uh, they have become a bit of a duo. Um, and now there was, you know, team PP, which was Paul and Polly, but, uh, but Paul and Victor, uh, what do they call themselves? The, uh, the sitting ducks, um, start to form here.

[00:59:55] Uh, they're, they're a little final two. And so when Victor wins the next HOH, uh, the, uh, the idea here is that, um, you know, Michelle and, uh, Zakiya as a pawn are going to be nominated with the idea to take out, uh, Michelle again, something that benefits, uh, Nicole more than anyone else, because Michelle is just yawning for Nicole. They got into, they got into it, uh, a couple of times. Yeah.

[01:00:22] And little known fact, this nomination episode was my first ever podcast on RHAP when Victor throws the Mardi Gras beads down at, uh, Michelle and Zakiya gets Michelle crying. And then he goes, nominations on fleek and walks away. See, my favorite part of this is, uh, underrated stars of the season was, uh, Michelle's family on Twitter tweeting about how they've abandoned Michelle and they're actually prone to Nicole.

[01:00:51] Now it was very wild to see her family. There was two rounds. Well, it was like her two sisters, like fighting each other. It was so dramatic. A lot of drama around a big Meech that season. Um, so the idea is that Michelle is going to be the target here. Zakiya, just the pawn. Um, and again, Pauly goes ahead and wins the veto this week, uh, which goes against really

[01:01:20] what he was supposed to do because with Pauly having the veto, you would assume that, uh, that Pauly would, uh, would veto Zakiya, uh, that, that he would, uh, save Zakiya. And, uh, and then that would put Victor in a rough position. Right. Um, so Pauly goes ahead and, uh, just kind of let Zakiya know, I'm going to use it. I'm going to use it on you.

[01:01:45] Uh, and, and this is really like a season of egos, uh, in many regards. Um, Pauly really felt so comfortable and he really got so like weird about like, uh, why Zakiya even asked me to do this? Like, uh, like, uh, really just, just riding so high. And you would think maybe at least probably in Pauly's eyes, uh, this is like, I'm really,

[01:02:14] you know, really standing up for my bros here. Um, but in the eyes of Victor and Paul, they were like, this guy's out of his mind. Um, and it put them in a ripe position to be okay with what comes next. Uh, not that they needed to be, but I remember at the time it was very much a discussion. Was the twist necessary for the flip to come because the America's care package, uh, twist

[01:02:44] came into play. Uh, this was, um, when, uh, the audience started voting for somebody to receive, uh, various powers. Um, and, uh, this week James won the ability to nullify two eviction votes. Uh, with this power, uh, James started thinking.

[01:03:10] Uh, and when I say James started thinking, I mean, Natalie started thinking. Um, Natalie, you may recall, uh, was, um, part of the, this, this, the spy girls. Um, but she's been bonding with, with, uh, with James for a while. Uh, reminiscent of, you know, James and Meg in season 17, a like weirdly almost romantic,

[01:03:36] but definitely not romantic, but maybe romantic, uh, connection between him and, uh, a woman in the house. Um, and they are quite the duo. Is this the week when Natalie gets into the big fight with Polly and he drops the horrible line? Like, oh, you're as fake as those things on your chest. Uh, it was around this time, but I can't remember. Was this week or next? It was, I think early because, uh, I think Zakiya's around for it.

[01:04:06] She's like involved. It's, there is so much back and forth where Paul. No, I think you're right. I think it is this week. Cause part of why she's flipping and is able to get so much traction is because Polly is just really starting to rub people the wrong way. Not just Paul and Victor, but like everyone in the house. Yeah. And Polly, one of, uh, many, many people on this season who talked to the women crazy over and over again.

[01:04:34] And this is just one kind of the biggest example that people think about, but like even during this week as well, Polly and Zakiya are getting into, you know, little fights and Zakiya's upset about the veto not getting used and is upset. And then Polly is very, well, why are you upset? Well, I'm just speaking with logic. And he's like, why are you being so cold to me? Like, why are you being so cold? Like, I like we're in a relationship. I was like, I'm just being logical. I talk logically when I speak, I, I show logic.

[01:05:03] It's her saying uncomfortable. I'm uncomfortable. And he says, I'm not the type of person to make people feel uncomfortable. So that's on you. Crazy. Cause he made me uncomfortable in that moment from. From California to my home. This was a really interesting time in the edit as well, because up until now, Polly had been doing so well for so long that he was pretty protected in the edit and was, you know, despite

[01:05:31] having some goofy moments still, I think fairly well liked by the casual fan base. And so when this sort of underdog revolution flip came to take out Zakiya as a shot against Polly led by underdogs, Natalie, underdog, Natalie fan favorite, James, who just is going to use a power given to him by America. They realized we need to flip this really fast.

[01:05:56] And luckily for them, Polly gave them so much material that they were able to bury him in in, in, in, in like a single episode, um, and, and completely turn everyone against him. Uh, and you know, part of that was his argument with Natalie. Um, and so, uh, with the use of the power and the fact that Paul and Victor were on board in the

[01:06:17] first place, they flipped this vote against Zakiya and, uh, the executives have been, uh, have a massive shot taken against them. You know, losing Zakiya doesn't lose one of their numbers, but with Zakiya gone, um, they have lost a number and unbeknownst kind of to, uh, to Polly at this point, but soon to become known is that Paul

[01:06:43] and Victor have abandoned ship. Um, and Paul and Victor have now joined the ranks of Natalie and James and Bridget and, uh, and, and all of them. Um, and so, uh, it's, it's not looking great, uh, for Nicole, who was, you know, sort of relying on this group, uh, and the executives as a whole, um, as they are blindsided in this event. Oh, sorry. No, no, hold on. There's something else we

[01:07:11] have to talk about. Oh, the double eviction or no blindsides, blindsides this season because there weren't any, uh, why weren't there any blindsides you might ask? Well, it all comes down to one man, one man who says that it's okay to both, uh, bounce checks and ruin blindsides on big brother. And that man was James Hewling, uh, because he would wait until the feeds went down every single week.

[01:07:40] He would then go to the people they were about to blindside and let them know that the blindside was coming just so that we wouldn't be able to see their actual reactions. And it wouldn't be a blindside on eviction night. Uh, maybe the most vile behavior we've ever seen on big brother. I will never forgive him. It's like the flip-floppiest season of all time. And James ruins it. There would be so many good reactions if not for this one single man. It is so upsetting.

[01:08:09] Boo this man. Boo. Um, so after Zakiya is voted out, uh, we head into the double eviction. Uh, this is a crucial moment again for Nicole for the, uh, the remainder of their, uh, alliance. Um, and unfortunately for Bridget, uh, a crucial moment for her as well, because despite, you know, clawing her way back

[01:08:36] into the game, uh, massive assist on pulling off this, uh, this upset with Natalie, um, pulling together a new majority Alliance, uh, of all people, Corey is going to win the double eviction HOH. He is going to nominate Bridget and big Meech together. He's also going to win the veto. And just like that, Bridget goes out. Yeah. I think this is just like a consequence of it being

[01:09:03] too quick to reel with the information of James and Natalie and Paul and Victor potentially flipping on them. It's like, all right, well, let's just stick to the plan and then we will address everything we have with everyone after. And so maybe if this had not been the exact timing of the double eviction, uh, Bridget could have recovered a little better, but it's not like she played well coming up until this point. Yeah. So, so basically what happened here just very quickly is that because of the

[01:09:29] vote nullification twist, Paul was able to hide the fact that he was also flipping with James and them. Um, and so, uh, if anything, the twist benefited Paul more than anyone. Um, and, uh, and because Paul was able to do that, they were able to really survive this, as Scali said, this double eviction without any real blowback. Um, and, uh, and really, you know, similar kind of thing goes to

[01:09:58] James and Natalie who, uh, were also behind this, but, uh, you know, big Meech and, and Bridget had been the enemies for so long. There just wasn't enough time to really, uh, flip the script in their own minds. Everyone was an enemy and Bridget was a strong competitor. She had won multiple competitions before James had just won the one HOH. The only thing he ever seems to win, which is that endurance competition. Natalie hadn't won anything at this point. Uh, so it actually did make some

[01:10:25] sense for Bridget to be the biggest target on that side. And this is, I believe another trend of double eviction happens and Rob gets mad on the podcast. Look, it was hard. Pauly like does confront Paul during the double eviction. Like when were you going to tell me what is wrong? We get hashtag PP fallout. Uh, it is not going well for the duo,

[01:10:50] but Paul, you know, as Terrence says, is able to, uh, smooth things over just well enough to hold through. Yeah. I didn't have a vote. Like, what do you want? Um, and, and, you know, you can also point to the fact that there's a whole other group of people that just essentially made this move against you. Um, so, uh, following that double eviction, Victor wins again. Uh, he doesn't even move out of the HOH room. Uh, it's a, it's a bit too often that that happens quite frankly. Um,

[01:11:18] and, uh, this time, uh, he is going to have to show his true colors. He targets straight out, uh, Corey and Pauly. Um, they are just straight up nominated. Uh, and this is where again, like Nicole's meat shield strategy is really coming into play. Now, granted worth noting the America's care package twist has given her safety for the week. So she wasn't in trouble necessarily anyway,

[01:11:46] um, on either end. Uh, like if she hadn't had the safety, I don't think it would have mattered because Corey and Pauly were always going to be the people voted out here, not her. Um, and, uh, you know, but since she did have the safety, it didn't quite matter that she had those meat shields. In fact, it was the worst week for her to have to lose one of those meat shields because she was safe anyway. Um, but, uh, Corey and Pauly on the block together and Pauly is going to melt down over the

[01:12:12] the week. Yeah. Once he loses the veto and has to make, uh, apple pies for independence day, uh, he's having a rough go. He cries over a butterfly. He's extremely emotional, uh, seeing a side of him that we just had not seen, uh, up to the, like we we'd seen him emotional, but not this type of

[01:12:38] emotion. Yeah. He, uh, he sees a butterfly. He breaks into tears, breaks out into tears. Um, he, he doesn't want to bake his pies. Uh, it's, it's a rough week for Pauly. Yeah. He's like, I'll take the penalty votes. I'm done. I'm not doing it. Pauly is, you know, can't count me out till after the veto. But as soon as that veto, Pauly is counting himself out.

[01:13:02] He's done. Send me home. Uh, rough stuff. And with Pauly's eviction, uh, because Victor did win that veto. Um, and they all sent Pauly out. Um, we head into the final seven and at the final seven, you had this newly created power alliance of five. It was Paul, Victor, uh, um, Natalie,

[01:13:29] James and big Meech, uh, all against the showmance of Corey and Nicole. But this is where Nicole really, cause again, like her strategy, basically this whole season was when the first HOH set up a great structure for myself, get good bonds with people, play the middle as much as

[01:13:55] possible, stay off the radar, use other people in front of me as shields. And she has taken that strategy and written it to its deepest and most, you know, obliterated conclusion. Um, there are other players that have done this in the past or, and will do in the future. Tommy does it in season 21. Um, but these players often, when they run out of that runway, don't have other tools left to use. And, uh, and, and they just, they just run out of space.

[01:14:23] Nicole has now run out of space. And if she doesn't have any other tools, it's going to be over for her. Luckily for Nicole, she's not a good liar when confronted, but she can be a good liar when she just makes stuff up out of nowhere. And she goes, she is going to go to Natalie shortly before Polly's eviction and having sort of sussed out what's going on, that there is an alliance against them. The Alliance is trying to keep things quiet.

[01:14:52] They're not like a real solid Alliance by any means, but, uh, they're all working together for a common cause. She sees the writing on the wall. She knows that these people are all coming for her. So just kind of out of desperation, the thought pops into her head. Uh, I believe she described it, uh, in her podcast with, uh, myself and Jordan Parha back in the day, uh, that, um, she just needed to go to the bathroom, ran into Natalie and James and just made this up, said,

[01:15:19] Hey, uh, Polly, let me know that, uh, or sorry, that Paul has, has told me, uh, you know, via Polly or whatever, that, uh, that you've, you're saying you're going after Corey, uh, James. Um, and they were like, what? Because of course James had been saying that. Uh, but James had a, I did still had a decent relationship with Corey, uh, for as much as they flipped on Polly and they were targeting Corey for various reasons. Corey was just a pretty chill guy and he got along with a lot

[01:15:48] of people. And so James especially didn't want that relationship ruined. Uh, he didn't want his plans leaked ahead of time. Cause who would do that? James. Um, and so James was kind of freaked out by this. Natalie was like, wow, I can't believe Paul and Victor have turned on us. They've tried to place the blame on us. They've leaked this plan. They're trying to play all sides. Um, because again, it was true. Uh, Nicole was saying something that was true information. She was

[01:16:13] lying about the fact that she was told that information. Um, and so when Natalie goes on to win that HOH, she is now looking at Paul and Victor sideways. And, uh, and this is vital, uh, for the outcome of this game. Yeah. This is also where, uh, they have the carnival with BB Rexha performing and they had to edit Polly out of all that footage because he was absolutely there

[01:16:40] for that, which I just think is important to note. Um, as well, something super beneficial for Nicole that happens here is that Michelle gets America's care package to be the co HOH. And so now after this week is all said and done, Natalie and Michelle both can't play for HOH. Yeah. Well, yes. I mean, it's, it ends up being beneficial. It is initially a bit sketchy because what happens is that Natalie,

[01:17:06] uh, kind of, she ends up believing Nicole, at least temporarily enough to get to the place where she's like, you know what, we can't waste our shot at Corey and Nicole when Paul and Victor are sitting there right about to, to take their shot at us. Um, you know, and, and it does make some sense from Natalie's perspective, uh, you know, leaving Paul and Victor in the game, they are two really good

[01:17:29] competitors and, uh, and people who could potentially pull big Meech in, uh, whereas Nicole is never going to pull big Meech in. Um, and so by taking a shot at one of Paul and Victor, you might be able to leave Nicole and Corey still taking a shot at one of Paul or Victor and big Meech where Paul and Victor and big Meech might take the shot at Nicole. It makes some sense. The argument, uh, on top of all of

[01:17:54] that, Nicole has always had this connection to James. They're still the veterans of the game and, uh, the only two left. And so she's pulling on that string, uh, as well as, and she told us this in her, uh, her interview, um, the fact that she won the America's care package the week right after James did, uh, that was huge for James. Like, uh, and she was able to use that to her advantage. Like, oh yeah,

[01:18:21] Nicole, she's my buddy. Like, you know, James was the, the biggest sort of like, uh, audience guy there was. And so, um, that also becomes crucial throughout the week, but Natalie initially decides she wants to go after Corey, uh, uh, sorry, after Paul and, uh, and Victor, but Michelle wins the, uh, the, uh, next, um,

[01:18:45] uh, America's care package, which is the co HOH. And so she's of course wants to nominate Nicole. She wants to go after Nicole. Um, she's wanted to do that for a long time now. Um, but, uh, she has talked into not doing so by Natalie. They need to work together to make this happen. And so together they go after Paul and Victor. Um, Paul does win that, uh, veto again, they want to put Nicole up on

[01:19:12] the block, but again, uh, they're taught and Michelle has talked out of it. Um, and so Corey and Victor end up on the block at the end of the week, but it's, it's quite a struggle all week long for, uh, for Nicole. Yeah, this is like on paper, the worst case scenario. Nicole has better relationships with every person in this house. Other than Michelle, you think Michelle hears logic and it's like, no, I'm hyper focused on, uh, Nicole. That doesn't matter. It works out for her

[01:19:38] now losing Victor. Super nice. She keeps Corey and she set up a nice little Alliance for herself to move forward. You think that, okay, now her Natalie and James are all good, right? You'd think, um, so, so yes, uh, with, with Corey and, uh, and Victor on the block together, uh, Nicole has managed to evade the block at the very least, but she's still in some danger. Um,

[01:20:06] and that's primarily because over the course of the week, her lie isn't holding up to scrutiny. Um, and Natalie is starting to realize that, uh, wait a minute, should we have taken this shot? Because Paul and Victor are like, why are you doing this to us? Um, and, uh, and, and Natalie starting to want to change her mind. She actually is thinking I would rather take out Corey. Um,

[01:20:30] the issue is she needs James to cast that vote and James does not want to do it. He's still again, close to Corey and more importantly, close to, to Nicole, um, and does not want to turn on Nicole. And, uh, this leads to a big blow up, uh, where Paul and Victor are yelling and, uh, James ends up saying like, uh, well, if it were up to Natalie, Corey would be leaving. And, uh, this gives Nicole

[01:20:55] the ammunition she needs once, uh, James does vote to keep Corey to flip the script again, uh, the following week. Um, of course this week was for not anyway, Victor ends up, uh, getting voted out and then immediately coming back into the game for the second time in one season. This is where people were calling Victor Juan Snow, the prince who was promised. Um, and it's the

[01:21:22] wall again. And so he comes back in via the wall. No one was, uh, allegedly pushed this time. And Nicole wins the wall. Yeah. Uh, you do have Dave on and Zakiya like immediately jumping off much to every fan's dismay. Um, but Victor does, you know, when that spot back in the house fair and square should just be a repeat of the week, except that James quote is going to throw himself under the bus

[01:21:48] and really throws Natalie right under that bus. Um, this is a perfect scenario for Nicole. You could easily say that she should again, take out one of the remaining duos, uh, or take a shot at one of the remaining duos, um, to, to cut down at numbers. But, uh, she really just plays these two weeks really, really well. Um, getting Natalie and James to take the shot at all and Victor, then winning the

[01:22:15] next HOH offering an olive branch to Paul and Victor, uh, using the fact that, that Natalie was going to turn around and betray her anyway, to get them back on board with her, uh, and using this opportunity to take out her one biggest op, which was of course, big Meech, uh, leaving a final six of three duos, uh, not a very common scenario in big brother. Um, and they were three duos that Nicole

[01:22:45] and Corey right in the middle of from just two weeks before it was five V two. And now she was riding the middle of a final six with three duos and her being the middle duo. It was impressive stuff. And a lot of people did not want to see it or admit to it, but it was very impressive. Well, she did what she had to do. And then when Michelle makes her little outburst, when she leaves

[01:23:13] the house, then Nicole has the opportunity to say, well, look, I needed to get her out because look at this, this is so like, I had to get her. And just that kind of posturing is something that I understand why people don't like to watch it, but Nicole is very good at using her stature and non-threatening personality to maneuver her way from at the, being at the top, being at the bottom,

[01:23:42] riding the middle. Like we see the full range of game possibilities this season and she excels in all of them because of the structure she created. When your favorite is the person floating around alliances, it's the most fun strategy to watch when your favorite is not that person. It is the most infuriating person to deal with in the house. The audience hates them so much. They are inspiring all of the wrath. So it's a, you know, frustrating, but not very surprising that though Nicole is being

[01:24:10] extremely successful and impressive, it is, uh, met with a lot of ire from the audience. Yeah. Um, another thing that happens is, uh, as you talked about, uh, big Meech, even like on her way out is just like, uh, costing out Nicole, uh, calling her a snake, like all of these things. And Nicole is kind of like, thank you because she then turns around and uses that, uh, very crucially

[01:24:35] as an argument for why she's not going to get jury votes. Um, and, uh, and that's going to really come into play of course, later on. Um, but, uh, again, just more sort of examples of, uh, smart decision-making by Nicole. Don't worry. There are some bad decisions that she, uh, tries to make at the very least. Um, but out, uh, going out of that week, we head into the, uh, the final six again,

[01:25:02] three duos, Victor wins this HOH. And, uh, instead of targeting Nicole and Corey, Victor puts up James and Natalie, Corey wins the veto and it is finally time for Natalie to go. Um, it was this, it was a valiant effort, a valiant attempt. She flipped the game into her favor. She led a new majority

[01:25:27] alliance. Um, and she came close to doing something, you know, and really even again, like I can't even fault her too much for not targeting Nicole and Corey on her HOH week, because I do think there, uh, were reasons for her not to do so. The biggest problem for her is really the Victor one had buyback. Uh, and then was able to win another HOH afterward because she was probably, you know, I, that was

[01:25:57] the biggest problem. The second biggest problem was James leaking the fact that she had flipped again on, on Nicole. That's that indecisiveness alone was bad. The fact that it leaked was worse. And then the fact that Victor then stayed was the, the nail in the coffin. Yeah. And then on top of it, the James and Natalie have a fight in this week where Natalie's like upset because she's going to go home and is just like, Oh, James, I'm going to sleep alone in a bed tonight. Like I don't want

[01:26:22] to sleep in the same bed tonight. And James acts like she shot him with a gun. Um, like, Oh, these are your true colors. You don't really like me. You were just using me. It's like, she's upset. Let her be upset. Well, especially cause when Polly and Natalie were fighting, Polly had brought up like, Oh, you flirt with every guy in the house. And she's like, Polly, you flirted with me and I turned away from your attention. But then when James is mad at Natalie, it's well, Natalie, you flirt with

[01:26:48] every guy in the house. Like, Oh, like don't bring this back up what you'd previously defended her for. So gross. Yeah. Um, again, another crucial element here that, uh, Natalie's eviction week is a dramatic one, not only with James, but also with Paul, uh, who is going to call her, uh, quite a few names, uh, on, uh, her way out the door essentially. Um, and, uh, this is, you know,

[01:27:17] this is worth noting, not because it was a unique occurrence on the season because it was happening a lot, but because particularly in the post season, it's one of the things that you might point to, to say, Hmm, maybe that's why. Um, so, uh, Natalie is out here followed by Corey winning the final five HOH. And, uh, I, I remember this distinctly. I remember, uh, Corey winning that

[01:27:46] HOH and me being on a podcast saying, hold on guys. Uh, Nicole just made the final three. Yep. Um, because pretty much as long as a very specific scenario didn't happen in the final five, uh, you know, RIP Karen, um, uh, with, with Corey winning the final five HOH, he's going to protect

[01:28:11] Nicole. She's going to survive to the final four. Um, at the final four, Corey can't win the HOH. He cannot be immune at the final four. The only way for Corey to be immune is if he wins the veto, the winner of the veto at the final four has full control of who they evict. Corey is never going to evict Nicole. So therefore the only time Corey is ever immune, Nicole is also immune. And if Corey

[01:28:41] is not immune, he will always be voted out before Nicole because people saw him as a bigger threat. So she was guaranteed final three, basically from the moment Corey wins the final five HOH. And once again, they do the thing that they've been trying to do for quite a while, which is evict Victor.

[01:29:02] One final time. Yeah. And they get there. It works. Finally. He just, he has such an unbeatable story at this point of coming back in and out and like, was it good gameplay? No, but like, does it inspire the jury vote? Probably you can't leave Victor in the game at this point. He's also just way too likely to win these end game comps. And so it's Victor's time.

[01:29:30] Of course, you know, we don't need to sort of go too deep into this, but there was a good relationship between Nicole and Victor in the game. They are eventually going to get together out of the game. Um, it doesn't matter for the jury vote. Um, but, uh, it is, it is kind of, uh, funny. Uh, how it happened. Yeah. Cause Victor was flirting with him, her all season long. And like,

[01:29:58] she would sometimes start back a little bit, but generally she didn't really pay him that much attention in that way. And so to think that now they're married baby, like crazy. He says, Nicole, if Corey doesn't marry you, I'm gonna. And, uh, what do you know? Oh my God. Is he manifesting more than Haley Bieber? That's crazy.

[01:30:22] So heading into the final four, uh, it is, uh, it's basically, you know, Paul and James have now sort of, uh, teamed up, uh, against the couple of Nicole and Corey. Um, Corey is the target of Paul and James at the final four. And Paul is the target of, uh, Nicole and Corey at the final four,

[01:30:46] but that's when Paul wins a clutch final four HOH. Um, and at this point, Paul has been a little up and down in the fan base, but has really become the ultimate underdog in the face of, you know, the remaining field, uh, of, you know, James and Nicole and Corey. Um, we can talk a little bit about Corey and his Harry Potter, uh, sleep talking. Um, but like he did not leave a, a huge

[01:31:15] lasting impression on, I think either the casual or the fan base or the, uh, super fan audience. Um, and so, uh, Paul was really like the guy. And when he won this HOH at the final four, he broke down and much of the audience was feeling like, yes, like we can do this. Let's go. Uh, because Paul was now just one HOH away from, uh, from winning this game was kind of the thought

[01:31:41] process. There were a lot of votes in the jury for them. And, uh, you know, all they needed to do is, you know, just take the right person. I, is this the first time they did what the bleep? I feel like it might've been as well. That's the HOH that Paul wins too. And I feel, so that was like also very fun the first time they did it, uh, with all the, the censored words, words and all of that.

[01:32:06] Um, I just can only speak for myself, but with Corey, like, I feel like we never got concrete evidence about the whole goat thing. And that really kept a lot of the like live feed audience from being willing to root for him. One other, like in the game, I feel like he was fine, like a little dead behind the player overall, just very bland, really good social game. He had like a

[01:32:35] pretty decent strategic. It's just, and I know that a lot of the criticism that's like hurled at Nicole is like, especially is for her was like, Oh, she was just in bed all day. And I think what it is is a lot of people like see a showmance in bed and change to the other live feed. So really don't know Corey very well, but played pretty decently. Mm-hmm. Uh, Corey does get voted out here after Paul wins the final four veto as well. Um, and,

[01:33:02] uh, it plays out exactly how it needed to, at least for Nicole, in fact, quite needed to for Nicole, because she does confirm after the season, she very much was planning to go to the final two with Corey and, uh, maybe not very likely, but, uh, probably loses the game to Corey in the final two. Like basically everyone on the season, who's not a woman and some of the women

[01:33:33] explain displayed some rampant misogyny. So I, I don't think that Nicole wins against Corey at the final two. And, and, you know, the, you could say, well, she would say that after the season because she's trying to maintain, like, she's just, she didn't need to be in that position in the same way that a lot of people say like, Oh, Derek says he would have taken Cody, but who knows what he would have actually done. Um, however, having watched big brother 22,

[01:33:59] I think we can all agree if she was willing to take Cody to the final two, she was definitely also willing to take Corey to the final two. Uh, and in both situations, likely loses here, definitely loses there. Um, and so, uh, definitely the biggest flaw I would say of her game this season. Uh, but, um, you know, it doesn't need to happen because he gets evicted here.

[01:34:26] And Nicole does a really good job kind of coaching Corey on what to say to the jury about her game. Very good job. This is something that I talk about a lot. I know, uh, but it is so incredibly effective. And this is one of those classic examples of knowing that Corey is about to leave, to go to the jury, uh, knowing that Corey is somebody that will advocate for her and will not, you know, uh, sort of, uh, hold it against her that she's having this conversation with him,

[01:34:52] uh, essentially gives him talking points, coaches them up, what to say, what they can expect to hear her to say, so on and so forth. Um, you have to imagine this is, uh, a, a huge part of how she's able to pick up the crucial votes that she needs to. So we head into the final three. It is James, Paul and Nicole. Uh, at this point, anybody that takes James to the final two wins the game. Uh,

[01:35:21] we know this theoretically, they don't, there've been somewhat conflicting reports about like the varying, uh, levels of fear that, uh, specifically Paul had about taking James because of various things that may or may not have been said in the game. Um, but this is sort of similar to the Victoria situation where it's like, you can say that maybe people would have voted Victoria, but like

[01:35:45] in reality, uh, James was the goat here. He was the person to take to the end and you win. Um, but, uh, Nicole was doing a really, really good job of kind of attacking Paul on two fronts. One was look at all the people that left this game, hating my guts. You definitely have Dave Vaughn's vote. She loved you. She hated me. Definitely have big Meech's vote. She's never voting me. You have Victor's vote.

[01:36:15] You have, uh, you know, like all of these people are definitely in your camp. Think about all the people that James might have James and Dave Vaughn. They have a personal connection from last season. Um, you know, he might be able to pick up her vote. He's definitely getting Bridget and Natalie, and these are people and, and big Meech. And these are people that you would pick up over me. Those kinds of arguments being made on top of that. She's also, uh, hitting him on the like, Hey,

[01:36:41] James has never been loyal to you front. Um, giving him sort of an excuse to, to go back on his word to James. Um, and so, uh, there's a lot of things happening here, um, that, uh, that are happening even before the, uh, the final three HOH, um, occurs. But of course, uh, when it comes down to it, Paul wins that final three HOH and they have to make a decision who they want to take to the final two.

[01:37:06] And, uh, I would say much of the audience thought it was a given regardless. They thought no matter who Paul takes, they're going to win this game. Um, there were some doubts. Um, but, uh, when Paul cuts James and takes Nicole, um, there were, I think still most people thought this was Paul's game to lose. Yeah, it was watching it. You know, what's probably going to happen in terms of who Paul is going

[01:37:36] to evict, maybe hoping it goes the other way. If you're rooting for Paul and then like, okay, maybe there's still a chance. Maybe this can still go through. And I would say they both do a pretty decent job in these jury questions as well. It's not awful. It's funny though. Like Nicole couches her answers. Like, Oh, I'm so bad at talking. Stop it.

[01:37:58] Uh, yes. Um, so, uh, James is gone. Final two questioning. Uh, I think the questions to my memory were, were well handled. I think the speeches were a little rough. Um, that's, that's, that's my memory of it at least. Um, but, uh, it comes down to a very close vote. And I remember,

[01:38:24] I remember distinctly because this was a huge thing that, uh, everyone thought Dave Vaughn was for sure a vote against Nicole. And we haven't talked a lot about the jury segments. Um, and maybe we should, we desperately need to, because this is where we get Dave, like Dave Vaughn, like everyone kind of like when Polly comes into the jury, it's, it's contentious. It's a, it's a bit of a problem,

[01:38:53] but Polly and Dave start getting into it. And then he brings up her daughter and her being a quote, bad example for her daughter, which is just a false, insane, and a ridiculous thing to say to someone. Like, why would you say that? There's just no reason to, and that's where she gets mad. And she says to Zakiya, this is who you lay with? Like, what are we doing here? And she was

[01:39:21] right. And she needed to say it. That was what everyone in the audience had been saying. Yep. Yeah. And like, she calls out that, uh, you know, Polly has a lot of smoke for women, but he doesn't have the same energy for men. Yeah. And again, she's right. She needed to say it.

[01:39:45] Uh, unfortunately, uh, Zali does last into the post season. So I, the, the event where, um, we're singing karaoke, Bruno Mars while spinning Zakiya around is that lives in my brain. Run free. Probably the best jury segments in any season. Yeah. Yeah. I can't think of better.

[01:40:13] When people say, turn the feeds off in the house, I want to watch the jury house. Um, probably like really here, but like, let me watch both. I feel like both have a lot of interesting things going on. There was so much going on. Uh, I think this was one where, you know, people will sometimes say on Twitter, like, Oh, I wish the jurors just lived in the house with them, uh, so that we could see

[01:40:37] more. I'm like, yeah, this is the season where I would have been okay with that. Um, so I remember, uh, I remember, I remember thinking Davon is going to be a vote for Nicole, but then, uh, this was a time where like, I think the, like, at least me in particular, I really let like the jury segments, uh, trick me a lot. And I remember Davon saying something along the lines of like, Oh, I really,

[01:41:05] I really want to see Paul, you know, get to the end and like win the game. Like, I, like, I really want to see Paul walk into the final two. Uh, and I was like, Oh man, maybe, maybe I read it wrong. You know, it was kind of a, it was kind of a hot take. Uh, like, I think, I think, I think Paul must probably has this then if, if Paul has Davon, um, I think Paul wins. Um, because in order for Nicole

[01:41:28] to win, she needed to pick up a couple of votes. Um, Paul would for sure have Victor. Um, he would for sure have big Meech. Um, and he would probably have James who wouldn't have a lot of time to talk, uh, to the jury. Um, and then you don't even know for sure if Paul is like where Paul is going to go. But, um, you know, you, you, you'd kind of hope if you were looking for Nicole to get votes that,

[01:41:56] you know, Pauly, Zakiya and Corey would be the three opposing votes there. And that leaves, uh, you know, Natalie who was pretty upset with Nicole, but also pretty upset with Paul. Um, but I believe like shortly before Natalie left the game said, I absolutely don't want Nicole to win under any circumstances. So I was like, well, that's not great. Uh, you had Dave Vaughn who had had such an issue with Nicole for so long and loved Paul and was now talking in the jury segment about

[01:42:23] how Paul, she really wanted to see Paul in the end. Um, and so it was just like, who is Nicole going to be able to pick up here? Uh, if she wants to get these votes. And so, sorry, can we just say how absolutely wild it is that Paul literally called big Meech a C word bully and Meech put it for him to

[01:42:45] like, she hated Nicole that much. She did. She really did. Yeah. Yeah. So the vote comes down and it's, it goes in the most dramatic fashion possible. It is four to four. And, uh, you see that James has voted for Paul, but Natalie voted for Nicole. They did not, they were not able to

[01:43:12] coordinate in the time that they had. Um, and, uh, we're not able to get on the same page, but Natalie is now a vote for Nicole over Paul. And that's huge. That's one of the two votes that, that Nicole needed to pick up the other person that Nicole needed to pick up now, as we see it was, she was, she didn't get James and James was one of the other people that probably the more likely person that she could have picked up. Um, especially after Paul cut James, she didn't get James. Now she needs Dave on.

[01:43:41] The final vote is Dave on the biggest conflict of the entire like season. Uh, like the biggest war was Dave on versus Nicole for so long. Um, and the vote is read Nicole and Paul breaks down. Nicole is shocked. Uh, Nicole has won big brother 18 dress like a picnic blanket. She won

[01:44:08] would be a lot more in style these days. I feel like to be fair, honestly, like, yeah, but the, the thing is with Nicole is that she does not believe in trends. So I'm sure she'd be wearing something else if it happened today. Uh, Dave on both a queen and a queen maker in this season. And this was the thing, this was the thing that we talked about, which was that, uh, Dave on at her

[01:44:33] core is just such a game player. And, uh, and she just felt that Nicole played a stronger game, even though she liked Paul more and she was frustrated with Nicole betraying her. She felt like putting personal feelings aside, she had to give it to Nicole. Um, and, uh, and that was the key. And, and we talked about the irony of it being that like Nicole was maybe even made out to be more

[01:44:59] of a game player than she even was in the house because of all the people calling her out and calling her a snake and constantly yelling at her. And Dave on heard, uh, lots of complaining about this jury vote to not get away unscathed. Paul was definitely a favorite of the audience. And unfortunately, Dave on did come out to quite a bit of criticism, but she really like held fat,

[01:45:24] like held sure. This was never in doubt. I was always running to Nicole cry about it. I don't care. And yeah, like Nicole, especially hearing Nicole talk about the season, uh, in hindsight, I re like, I remember when you and JP did that interview with her, which unfortunately seems to be scrubbed from the internet now, which is wrong because I wanted to listen to it,

[01:45:50] uh, in preparation for this podcast and it's gone. Uh, we gotta get on there. I'm sure we have it somewhere. It has to exist somewhere, right? Like it's not even on the YouTube. Uh, but, she was so deliberate and she explained all of her decisions with more context than what we saw and knew. And it rang true to me that she had done all of this. And this is also the first time

[01:46:19] ever, uh, you know, at the time Paul using he and pronouns, uh, but this was the first time ever for a woman to win against a man in the, in the final two, um, which played into it as well. And Paul just didn't know big brother enough to know that there could be an appetite for that. Hmm. Yeah. Um, that, that was actually a huge, huge part of it. Um, and, and I will apologize again,

[01:46:47] cause I've definitely gone back and forth between, uh, he, him and they, them. Um, and I, I am making an effort to do that. I, I believe they, uh, they, they may accept both. I think they did initially, at least, uh, I don't know if they still do, but still regardless, I would like to, uh, make the attempt, but it's difficult when, um, you know, you, you remember it in a different way. Um, but, uh, uh, but yes, at the time, uh, Paul, uh, versus Nicole, the big talking point was this is the

[01:47:16] first time a woman has beaten a man in the final two. It was also something that Nicole used in the game as a strategy. Also like, uh, a woman never beats a man in the final two. Uh, and had to imagine that that also came into play at least a little bit, uh, when it came to the decision of who to take to the, uh, to the final two. Um, uh, now this, this was like a statistic. I think that at the time, uh, it was kind of like, um, you know, like it is, it is true. Um, but, uh, there

[01:47:46] were definitely plenty of, I think it was less so a, an issue with the jury and more so I thought an issue with the competitions because the woman that would have won the game consistently got kicked out at the final three because she didn't win the final three HOH. Uh, that was like my big thing at the time. I was like, yes, there's obviously like an issue regarding a jury perception, but the bigger issue right now is competitions. Um, and, uh, and you even kind of saw that here,

[01:48:13] uh, except in this instance, Paul took the wrong person. Um, it nearly happened to Nicole as well, but, uh, but yes, Nicole wins, um, much to the dismay of many people. I remember the, uh, debates about like, who's the better player between Nicole and Paul. Um, and, or at least who had played the better game. Uh, I believe my take at the time was that Nicole had played

[01:48:38] the better game that season, but I couldn't, uh, for sure say that she was a better player than Paul because she had the advantage of being her second time. And Paul came in not knowing the game. Uh, they had to learn on their, uh, on their way. Um, and while I don't think they played as well as Nicole, theoretically, if they got a second chance, they might be able to surpass what Nicole did. Little did I know how, uh, how quickly that would, uh, maybe play out.

[01:49:08] I think the unfortunate thing is that you can't think about Paul's game on BB 18 without now the context of what happens on BB 19. And it really colors their gameplay in a way of things that you maybe didn't notice during BB 18 once kind of the same things happen in BB 19, you see a pattern and,

[01:49:35] uh, a lack of further learning that kind of makes it worse in hindsight. I think that Paul played a great game in BB 18, really impressive that they did not know the show at all. And they got the opportunity to pick it up on the fly, but it wasn't as intentional as what Nicole did, which is where I, I lay on the debate. They have a lot of good moments of recovering from, uh, being on the bottom, uh, you know, some assisted by Victor coming back into the game at

[01:50:05] points, but in general does a good job of switching up their game on the fly. I would say, I don't think BB 18 was a unwinnable position for Paul by the end. I do think that they could have won a jury vote. Uh, it's just some of those issues. I think get even more exaggerated. Also remembering that both Paul and Nicole are 23 years old at this time. They are babies. Yeah. It's wild. Yeah. This was, this was nearly 10 years ago now.

[01:50:36] Like for some context, Frank was 32 on this season and he was like the old man. That's how old I am now. Um, yes. So, uh, interesting stuff, of course. Um, I remember very, uh, very vividly Rob interviewing

[01:51:01] Paul after the season, um, and kind of like asking them about like, uh, some of the things that maybe they should have known, you know, uh, like, will they be looking into like researching the game? And then in interviewing Paul at the end of big brother 19 being like, so did you end up like watching much like learning much? And Paul being like, nah. Um, and then it's like, oh, that was, that was the piece that you were missing. Um, but, uh, but that is big brother 18. Um,

[01:51:32] you know, it's, it's a weird season and it was weird at the time because I remember the, there being a debate, like, does this season suck or is it great because we can't really tell. Um, there were a lot of parts that people were frustrated by, uh, Polly's reign. People were like, this is annoying. And then, you know, the revolution comes and that's exciting. But then Nicole almost immediately is able to flip the game back into her favor. And now it's Nicole's game.

[01:52:01] And that's almost somehow worse, I think for a lot of people. Um, and so despite there being a lot of fluidity, there was never a moment where like the fan favorites were ever like in power for an extended period of time. You then finally it's, it really was like, uh, you know, uh, Charlie Brown in the football this season. It's like, um, like, oh, we're, we're kind of fans of like, what is Polly going to do to dismantle this power system when he figures it out? Oh,

[01:52:28] he's just going to create his own and then become a douchebag. All right. Well, the spy girls seem fun. Uh, and we're always fans of Dave on. Oh, the spy girls just got screwed over by Frank. Oh, and now Dave on's getting screwed over by Frank and Nicole. Um, no, oh, but here we go. Here we go. All right. There's a bro alliance. Yes. But Natalie is coming in clutch with this power ship. Nicole. No, no, Natalie don't listen to her. Oh, geez. Um, and then, and then it was finally like, okay, Paul wins the final four HOH. They're going to come in. They're going to

[01:52:58] underdog clutch this game. And then by one vote, Nicole wins. And so for those people, I think this was a roller coaster that had, uh, a rough results. Um, but, uh, but the fact that it was a roller coaster at all, I think is, uh, a testament to the season. Um, there's a lot here, especially in the era that it exists in, um, where like the fluidity, the, the, uh, despite the fact

[01:53:23] that you did have a few really massive comp beasts, like the power fluctuations because of how the fluidity was happening, uh, leads to a lot of power shifts and interesting scenarios. Um, you know, when you, uh, I think if more than anything, this season being right next to big brother, 17 is its biggest downfall because big brother 17, I think is more widely recognized as

[01:53:47] being fun, um, and less annoying than big brother 18. Uh, but if you, you know, if you stick big brother 18 up right next to big brother, like 16 and 19 and 21 and 22, like now you're going to be like, that's, that's pretty big, fresh, uh, breath of fresh air. Like that's a really good one. Um, so I don't know. I think, uh, it's, it's not a terrible season. I don't think so. No. And conventional wisdom can be wrong. That's fine. I think it depends on what you value.

[01:54:18] Yeah. I think it depends on what you value. I think like, yeah, this season's going to hurt you, but like, I feel something. It makes me feel at least I enjoyed, like I had my high highs before they came crashing down. The highs were there. It was, and it was so messy. There was fight. There was, uh, almost blind sides there. There was big characters like the production through so many

[01:54:47] twists at the wall. And I don't think any one of them was like the worst thing ever. Like we've certainly seen worse. We've also seen better. Uh, it's just, it's so fun. It's so, so fun. Yeah. It's, uh, I think, I think it's a, it's a good season. I think so. Um,

[01:55:11] but the question then becomes who is on the poster for big brother 18. Just a reminder. This was the poster for big brother 17. Nope. That's not it. That's Paul. Big brother 17. Oh, that was the poster for big brother 19. Um, uh, no, actually the poster for big brother 19 should just be three Raven Waltons. How dare you?

[01:55:35] Um, so it's a character extremely important to me, uh, who I don't get to talk about next week. Um, I feel like, like you, I would want it to be Nicole, Paul and Dave on, um, not necessarily in that order. Maybe Dave on could be first. I think that's the three, especially when you look at like,

[01:56:01] who are the audience favorites? Who are people going to look at like biggest impacts on the season? I'm like, could Victor sneak in there? Could you have like, I mean, you know, the, I was going to say love him or hate him, but you know, be okay with him or hate him. Um, Paulie is a big impact on this season, but I don't think, you know, nearly enough to edge out the presumed three. I think it's Nicole, Paul and Dave on. And like this, I feel is like the strongest

[01:56:29] opportunity to get Dave on on a poster, right? Like she didn't make it for 17. This is, this is Dave on's, uh, biggest season. I would say like, like she, I just think that like Dave on deserves to be on a poster. Uh, if not three posters in my brain. Uh, so she should be on this one. I would push hard for people to vote for, for Dave on. And if you listen, if you're worried about Victor,

[01:56:57] he and Nicole are married. They have a division of assets where it's shared. Nicole being on the poster is good enough for both of them. It's fine. It's a balance between like Dave on is for sure an important character here, but also like one of the most important characters in big brother history. So you have to like weigh that as well. Uh, yeah, I mean, obviously there's the argument for Victor, but I think if you have Paul on there, I think that Victor's value goes down a little bit, uh,

[01:57:24] cause you don't really need both of them. Um, you could see the argument for Natalie, I think as well, but ultimately I do think that Dave on is just the bigger character, her appearing over three seasons, leaving such a big impact on the show. Uh, this being probably the best opportunity to get her on a poster. I think this one is probably pretty obvious. I think it's pretty clear. I think it's all, I think it's Nicole. I think it's Dave on and it's not necessarily in that order. Um, but, uh,

[01:57:52] yeah, I don't, I don't think this one's too hard. And if you don't buy this poster, you know what it's fun. And listen, if you didn't, don't put Dave on on the poster, we're in a fight personally. So just, just consider that when you're filling in your ballot. Uh, all right. Well, that is big brother 18 then, uh, Scali, any final thoughts on the season? Uh, no, it's a fun season. We even get to talk about like the fun moments, like the boys sitting around making fun of ugly being like, Oh,

[01:58:22] you go to a high school reunion. It's just you and one other person, the tiny town that Nicole grew up in. So like, there are really funny moments on top of all of the drama. If you have, don't remember that go search it on YouTube. Um, but just a good season overall underrated. And I'm glad that we got to talk about it. All right, Kirsten. Uh, I feel the need to share after this season. I did in fact, ride a Greyhound bus for three hours to go to a Paul and Victor meet and greet at a bar in Edmonton,

[01:58:51] Alberta. So just so you know, my qualifications for being here are extremely strong and I would have done it to me, Nicole too. Uh, it's just so fun. If you, if you hate BB 18, you hate fun. All right. Well, uh, we'll see if anyone says that about next week's podcast. When we talk about big

[01:59:13] brother 19 in the meantime, go to Rob's website.com slash BB retrospective. So you can vote on who gets onto the poster for big brother 18, but I will be back next week. Talk about big brother 19. The first season fly feed updates. Uh, so there's, there's that, uh, who's joining you for it.

[01:59:37] Uh, I don't know. Sam, Sam in the chat. Who's it going to be? I believe Sam told me, but it was supposed to be one person, but now it's a different person. And so I don't remember who the different person is. Um, but, uh, we'll be talking about big brother 19 next week. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, thank you all so much for joining us. Uh, you can of course find me over on Twitch and YouTube. Uh, I actually, I just tried a new thing. I, um,

[02:00:08] I recorded myself watching the first episode of the genius game UK. Uh, so I'm going to drop that on YouTube, me reacting to the episode. See if you like that. Uh, it was fun. The genius is, is back. It's in the UK if you didn't know. Uh, so check that out over on YouTube and find me on Twitch and check out all the other podcasts I'm doing here. Uh, we know scripted and, uh, all the other stuff, uh, all the jet lag stuff we did recently as well. Scali, uh, what are you? Uh,

[02:00:35] if you like this revisiting a reality show, TV's history, uh, you'll enjoy myself and Matt Liguori are going through the challenge on a rewatch all the way back from season one. Those seasons are basically impossible to find. So we're watching them. So you don't have to, uh, over on the free agents podcast, talking about every single season all the way from season one. Uh, so check that out. Anything else I'm doing is on Twitter at Brian underscore Scali on blue

[02:01:03] sky at Brian Scali with the other stuff behind it and on Twitch at twitch.tv slash B Scali. All right. And Kirsten? Uh, yeah, big week for me. I was over on recap kickback youtube.com slash at recap kickback, uh, doing a book club with Mari about the latest book in the Empyrean series, uh, Onyx Storm. So please go check that out. Um, as well, Chappelle and I interviewed QT and Trey

[02:01:29] over on nothing but Netflix to talk about battle camp. I was on the 90 day fiance recap. And of course, it's mess magnets as always talking pop culture, celebrity gossip, trending topics with Sasha Joseph. And you can follow me everywhere at Kirsten said what? All right. Well, thank you all so much. One more time for joining us here today and we'll see all of you next time.

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