Summer of Stein Big Brother 28 Week 8

[00:00:01] Brother time, do you hear that sound? Jim O'Shova, Ruffin

[00:00:35] That's right! It's the Summer of Stein! We're back together for Week 8! Eric, how are you? Settle down, Beavis. I'm excited you're back, but let's not get wild here. I am so amped and ready to go today that I have left my playroom dungeon and I am sitting a mere three feet from my router because I've got takes, baby.

[00:00:58] Got takes. Okay, we're so excited. What a week to do the Summer of Stein. I know we are a little delayed. The chat was speculating. Thundercats said Eric is still loading up his AOL CD. It is true, but it's scratched, you know, like you have to blow out the scratches first. You put toothpaste on it, I hear. That's how you get the scratches out of a CD. Well, what do you think I was doing? I was covered in it. I had to change my shirt. It was a big mess. I do have some breaking news that I've only just read.

[00:01:28] I recently learned I am going to meet Ashley, Mallory and Chuck in just a couple of weeks. It's Chuck time, baby. It's Chuck. Wait, so tell me the story of this. So, Ashley, which Ashley? Ashley BB-28 or BB-27? BB-28. BB-28. Ashley Trail, Mallory and Chuck time. I cannot imagine the circumstances that would be leading to this foursome.

[00:01:53] Well, what if I also dropped Sweet Kenny K? Okay. He's going to be there as well. So now I'm thinking could this be some sort of a party where you're putting your keys in a bowl? Mm-hmm. The recently canceled Adam Pock will be there. Why is Adam Pock canceled? I can't get him. Okay. I didn't know. I missed that one. No, it's too early in the podcast. Yeah. Okay.

[00:02:20] There's quite a parade of characters, but I really actually have little to no idea. Yes. Cowboy Mike will be there. He'll be sharing a room with him. No, I have absolutely no idea what's going on. I got a text that said, do you want to come to this thing in Brooklyn? And when I saw that Chuck was going to be there, I said, yes, I'll see you then. Yeah. It's Chuck time. Yeah. So how about that?

[00:02:47] I can't wait. I will have stories on stories after seeing him. I was so delighted the other day. I was on X.com and I saw a picture of Matt Klotz, Chuck, and Nelson from The Challenge. And they were all on a boat together. Did you see this? And then they were like, hey, keep Chuck away from Nelson. Keep him off The Challenge. And our friend Pauline Calafiore reposted and said, it's Chuck time. It's Chuck time.

[00:03:16] The third wheel of the Summer of Stein. Yeah, he's in deep. He's fully with us now. He's Stein-pilled at this point. It's like Chuck's going to be on The Challenge, like hooking up and like fist fighting people now. That's amazing. All right. So, all right. You're fired up. Is this the event? Sam is sharing something backstage. Is this it? Big Brother 28 Watch Party. Your guess is as good as mine. I guess I didn't make the poster, huh? Mm-hmm. You didn't make the poster. Wasn't one of the big names that's going to be there.

[00:03:44] Look, if you were having a party with reality TV stars, you need a big poster with lots of faces on it. And so, a veritable who's who of, let me see if I can name the who. I got to say, I'm blanking on the woman on the top left. There's Tucker. There's Chuck. There's Mallory. Ashley. Is that Christine? Kevin? Adam Pak? Joseph Rodriguez? Catherine? Lauren? Tommy Bracco and Sweet Kenny K?

[00:04:14] Yeah. I think that, to me, this reads as they had like a bingo cage of names of anyone who's ever been on the show and just grabbed 10. Yes. And here we are. Yes. Okay. Sidney Seagal. Okay. Of course. Why wouldn't you have from Survivor and the Challenge Sidney Seagal on the poster? Yeah. She's probably going to be mean to me, so that's making me sad. Okay. Yeah. Well.

[00:04:42] Yeah. All right. So, come out and see Eric Stein on September 16th? No. No. Don't come see me. I'm going to see Chuck. Come see Chuck. I'm busy. Yeah. On a Wednesday night. I have literally, you have as much information, if not more, than I have about this. All right. So, all right. So, Eric is going to be back out in the wild. So, come out and see him. All right. So, I texted you this week. I said, I thought that this past week's events could power a thousand summers of Stein.

[00:05:11] Yeah. This felt like the entirety of everything that happened this week was specifically for my ingestion. Yes. I am. So, I have been beside myself since I've last seen you, which, by the way, did you have a nice time while you were away? Had a great time at RahapCon. It was really fun. You know, the Big Brother vibes were immaculate. Everybody was so excited.

[00:05:32] You have to come to the next one. We'll make that happen if you are so willing. I mean, if you're going to this thing, I mean, I feel like that you should definitely be up to come to. You don't have to get on a plane to go to this. Well, I heard the family feud and there was so much toilet humor and I felt like I was missing out. That's really my lane. You know, I'm great at that. Yeah. You have to be there for the next one. But I was so tickled by your podcast last week with Matt Hoffman. I thought it was so good.

[00:05:59] I was enjoying it thoroughly. And then all of the guest stars started popping in and I had so much FOMO. I was just as surprised as anybody. I had shot the link around with, you know, it's in the middle of the day. It's in the morning. I assumed that these people had other things to do. And nobody actually confirmed. That's a very good point. The allure of another minute of fame has come back and no one confirmed with me.

[00:06:28] And then there we were. And it was nice to see everybody. Yeah. Not to bring it down at all. I thought the only negative feedback I had heard about that was that there were a number of people who were from the alumni who were not on the main podcast.

[00:06:46] That they were off in the warehouse on the back, the back room podcast that there was some consternation of, hey, Eric. I got the invite from Eric to be on the Ballyhoo 1000th episode Summer of Stein. And I didn't get to be on the main podcast in the room. Well, those were the people that paid their way to the podcast.

[00:07:15] The people who appeared actually got an appearance fee. So, yes, yes. Was there an appearance fee if you were on the main show? Well, you know, funny you should mention that. But it's as as I heard through the grapevine, there was somebody who was featured on the main stage who may have let slip at the after party that they were taken care of. Yeah.

[00:07:42] I had like, you know, I don't want to reveal my my sources. I did. I did hear some word of of an appearance fee. But, Eric. OK, my question for you. Had you been had you made the schlep out to Los Angeles? Would you have made it into the audience a or would you have been in the warehouse?

[00:08:06] Well, what do you think that I made more of an impact on the franchise than Holly Allen, for example? Maybe maybe then then Quinn or Leah. No, I would have been so far in the back of the warehouse. They would have had me probably doing stuff with a forklift, actually doing manual labor back there. They would have created a second spillover warehouse, even though there's seats in this warehouse for me.

[00:08:32] And then the thing is, I would have been so pissed off the rest of the time there that I would have been carrying on about it. So bitter. And then everyone would have like everyone else would have been in the greatest spirits ever. And I would have to every single person. I said, can you believe they put us in the warehouse? I'm in the warehouse. I don't think I should be in the warehouse. I'm the mastermind. I don't belong in the warehouse. I mean, you were just on the show last season. I feel like that I think you would have been in the main room.

[00:08:59] I mean, Jesse was front and center, you know, shouting and screaming. Maybe maybe I could have been next to him, you know, by proxy. Yeah, actually. No, I definitely would not have been in the main room. And I would have probably started to cry. And then it would have like really activated me. I don't understand any of this. There was numerous people that were big names that were that were sent to the warehouse.

[00:09:25] Why? Okay, this has been discussed a lot. These are not going to be new takes, but I need to let them out. Why are they in a warehouse? So do you think is your take that they should have put more chairs in the main studio? Great. A room with a ceiling. That would be something to consider. A TV that was an appropriate size to watch it on. These people are literally in a projector. Ball gowns.

[00:09:54] They're in tuxedos. Yeah. I do not see a bowl of popcorn inside. This was all of my worst fears come to life. When I received this picture prior to it leaking publicly and and started getting texts from people, I was gobsmacked. I could not believe this. This is like the room you go into at the start of a squid game. This is mortification upon mortification. First, you receive the email. You think it's for you personally.

[00:10:25] You're invited. Much like a squid game. You get invited to a mysterious thing. Then you you you empty your your pocketbook to get yourself there. You make accommodations with people that you really shouldn't be spending time with. Right. And now and then and then they golf cart you. And where are they taking us to this warehouse? This is appalling and they knew it was appalling and they did it anyway, which is part of what's so funny about it.

[00:10:54] And then to I mean, it was really giving the survivor Karamoan reunion where they, you know, they sidelined half the cast as if they didn't contribute to the production. And it's like if you're going to do this, just put everybody there, have a couple of people backstage. Why do you then need to hand select 30 people to be sitting and featured beyond these people? I mean, it's such an outrageous slap in the face.

[00:11:23] And it's it. It both makes me so furious and so happy at the same time. Like, you just have to laugh. This is Big Brother at its absolute peak. Big Brother. Yeah. Big Brother was Big Brother ring for sure that night. And they should have cut to the like. OK. And then also in the warehouse. Look at these like hundreds of other Big Brother alumni who are here. Yeah, that would have been nice. Right. To hear from to see them. Couldn't they just have had them on stage for five minutes? Live feeds. Cut live feeds in the warehouse.

[00:11:53] Yeah. The reason that they could not have them on stage, you know, for just a group shot or or to wave or whatever is because, you know, this warehouse was in like the bowels of the lot. You know, they were. Oh, you don't even think they were near the house. It was like, don't even think about being a part of the actual show. Yeah. Did you hear any intel from your sources about what this night was like? Well, I, I, I sadly heard nice things for the most part.

[00:12:23] People were pretty happy about it. From what I heard, everyone was in good spirits. The, you know, they did at least muster up an actual lot party. Yeah. You know, right, right, right at the home of the Nethergorgon, which was nice. So that I, that I enjoyed. And that is honestly more than I expected them to do, because at the 20th anniversary, they did the warehouse bit, didn't acknowledge anybody on stage and then sent them away. There was no follow up party. You know, people are complaining.

[00:12:52] Oh, we could only get one item from the food truck. Well, that's one more than last time. That's right. Good. You know, there's 300 people there. That's that's that's a lot of tacos to crank out. We're making progress. But I did find it very funny. Another subplot, although I can't say that I don't agree with them. But to see these very random, just like haphazard smattering of past house guests who were so offended by it, in spite of the fact that I agree with them, also cracked me up.

[00:13:21] Like I saw, you know, Alex from Big Brother 19. Alex, ow. Yes. Really feeling the ow about her experience there. They misled us. They lied to us. No, they did not. They they anyone who has ever participated with the show knew exactly what they were going to. So I don't invite everybody, Eric. I mean, wouldn't it have been easier to make these cuts? Were they worried that they weren't going to get enough people from the people they wanted

[00:13:49] and that this was like, why send out the word to everybody? In their mind, the alum has been boiled down to basically 15 people, right? Yeah, it's the same people they tried out every single time. They should have just had those people there and just called it a day. And I would have absolutely hated that also. But but that still wouldn't have then left people like feeling like, what have I done? You know why? And it's so weird. You know, not everybody lives in a major city in the way that I do.

[00:14:18] And not everybody has stayed tied in and hopped on podcasts for some of these people. This was their first interaction, you know, with the show, with a viewing party in many, many, many years, you know. And so it could have been really like a very joyous reunion. And it sounds like the house guests did have fun. But like, go, go 5% harder to make it a good experience for them. I mean, you know, these are the people that are the lifeblood of the show.

[00:14:47] And I think that the problem is, is that any reality star is going to feel somewhat disposable because it's right on to the next cast and the format and the production team. They're king in their own mind, but there's still no show without the house guests. Right. So, you know, I would have liked to see it gone a little bit farther for them. Yeah. OK. So in addition to the 1000th episode celebration, we really got to see the Big Brother alumni

[00:15:15] on full display at the ChatBCC or now Ramble Battle Royale. And so I think that's something I did see on social media this morning. Some people think that ChatBCC did a rebrand after this to do that. No, that the rebrand of ChatBCC to Ramble was planned for many, many months.

[00:15:42] While that may be the case, I would have liked to have seen it happen prior to the game. I mean, they had the Battle Royale, but they could have had the Royal Ramble. It was right there, guys. Come on. This was a work of art. Yes. I love this. Thank you so much, Ramble, ChatBCC, whoever you are today. That is this was impeccable. First of all, the lineup just demolished the last All-Stars. This was a way better cast. Yes.

[00:16:11] And every moment was was. Did you watch the whole thing? I did. But yes. OK, two extant. You watched it after the fact. You weren't on chat. It was then ChatBCC at the time. You weren't like interacting with Chicken George or another. It was Cliff Hogg who had a big week during the actual live stream. I was I was chiming in with remarks without knowing what was happening. Yeah.

[00:16:41] Which I like to do sometimes just just to rile people up or have very strong opinions about things I know nothing about that I'm not even following. Yeah, that's as we like to do. What were some of the highlights for you of the Ramble Battle Royale? Oh, there was an unbelievable amount. First, I liked the fact that within the cast, we had Rachel, Alyssa, Portia, Ashley, Jimmy and the host choosing veto players to help aid them.

[00:17:10] And that was they were more or less a majority. I would have been just completely shocked if one of them did not win the game because they controlled every single vote because they had five of their dearest friends and the host also playing for them. I really enjoyed Kylan coming out of the gate swinging, putting up all of the winners, putting up his own dear friends. This is a man who said, I'm here to make TV. I do not care if my friends are pissed off. I do not care if it is a good game move.

[00:17:40] He this is not the same calculated Kylan's that we saw back in his cookout days. This is now messy King Kylan's. And I really liked that a lot. I would be very surprised if another all-star season happens and we do not have Kylan on it. He seems ready to go. He was primed and ready. Is this the challenge influence on Kylan? I think it's the I really want to get back on TV in Kylan. And I like that. I like that. I appreciate that philosophy.

[00:18:10] Alyssa. Yes. Star. An absolute superstar. Now, we have discussed this before. Eric, the person versus Eric, the viewer. Eric, the viewer. My God, she was gold. Fantastic. Loved every minute. Eric, the person is going to give a non-Eric take here. Yeah. It would probably be my preference if I was in attendance for a three-hour charity game to not make people cry

[00:18:40] and to not get quite so serious or personal or unnecessarily vicious. And to not cry also. That seems pretty likely that I would have cried. Right. I feel I know what my role in that would have been. I think I would have been Ovi, who was like taking it very seriously and running like really high level. Like it was like Ovi Giesling. Like he was literally crunching numbers. If we do this and do this, then there'll be no other vote that could happen.

[00:19:10] And he's giving Taylor the entire playbook on what to do. I fear that would have been me. I'd want to be the person who is having fun, being casual, whatever. But I think I would have been mixing it up. Guaranteed I would have had a fight for sure. That I know. Crying for sure. Probably sitting in the corner at some point. Absolutely. But then when I played, I would have like played to win, which would have been very embarrassing.

[00:19:37] You know, it's like it's it's sort of like, you know, you got called into the traitors after, you know, two decades. Like if I got called into the battle royal after two decades, I mean, I have a lot of moves I've been playing. Maybe some regrets. Maybe I should have come in and gone full Alyssa on the traitors. That may have been interesting. Yeah, a little against character, but it would have been memorable for sure. Bye.

[00:20:07] Like I would have been really iconic, I think. I think my favorite part of the entire video. And this is actually, believe it or not, in spite of who I'm talking about, this is not shade. I loved schoolteacher Janelle trying to wrangle the 20 of them and to get them to quiet down. I thought considering what was going on and the absolute pandemonium and the fact that they probably finished like five jugs of alcohol in the three hours that they were playing.

[00:20:36] I thought that she did an incredible job keeping it on task, but I also just seeing the stress on her face, like I really could feel that. Like that could very easily have been either one of us trying to be like, guys, please, please, you know, we got to play the game. Yes. And so that was the most connected I have felt to her in quite some time because like I really felt secondhand stress on her behalf.

[00:21:00] Well, we've seen Julie herself struggle with getting the house guests to settle down and to sit down and listen to announcements and that there was a lot of back and forth fighting going on. So not an easy job. No cursing, please. No, no, no. It seemed like Janelle didn't have the programming in her ear a couple of times. You know, it gets pretty tough out there. You know, this is this is your lifeblood. It can get out of hand.

[00:21:29] I I I know I do not have hosting chops. I proved that last week. It was it was really getting away from me. And it was just three people on a Zoom. You know, imagine if there was 20 people running. And I think that this was a better celebration of 1000 episodes of Big Brother than the actual celebration of 1000 episodes of Big Brother. It was incredible seeing some of these personalities mix.

[00:21:52] Like, did did I know that I needed to see Portia and Rockstar making magnet tiles? I didn't. But once I saw it, I knew I needed it. You know, seeing Paul mix it up. I mean, these these some of these people are not like super active. Like the fact that they were doing this and they convinced them to do it. And I think it's sort of like, hey, you want to come and hang out at this mansion today? We have a lot of liquor and food. Yeah, that sounds good. Oh, by the way, you're going to be playing a televised game.

[00:22:22] It's like I think there is a little bit of a gotcha for some of these people. And I think that you could see the divide between the people who like were taking the game seriously and the people who like thought they were coming to hang out. And now we're like in the game. I think the best possible scenario, other than, of course, winning the money for your charity, were the people who were given money to bow out of the game. And, you know, before the game ever started or the people who just like went out in a twist in the first 20 minutes and then got to hang out the rest of the day.

[00:22:49] I don't need that type of stress, honestly, but it was it was amazing. Do you know the backstory of then did they people stay in that house altogether for a few more days after that? And I feel like that there has been very little talk about what happened after the game. From what I understand, they did. There were still people there. I don't think everyone was staying there in the first place. The rooms who got what? Like, I'm so curious. I mean, I'm going to defend Kat here for a second.

[00:23:15] She was one of the people who created this concept, who facilitated the housing, who suggested this fun for the fans and for the players. And and then she she's living there with someone who is terrorizing her. Like, that's so awkward. That's big brother. But imagine freaking brother. OK, imagine, though, you're in Milwaukee last week, right? And it's you've gone to great lengths to plan this very special thing. And Alyssa is just there tormenting you.

[00:23:44] And then you have to stay with her still in your hotel room. Oh, my God. I mean, the content would be gold. The viral marketing for RahapCon. It was it was very surprising. What I liked also was the absolute fearlessness. She didn't care if someone was popular. She didn't care if someone was a better player than her, higher regarded than her. She was leaving no stones on turn, going after absolutely everybody.

[00:24:11] I would have very, very strongly told you that I never needed to see Alyssa play another one of these games again. And in just minutes, she turned my impression around. What's her like what's her win condition? Why is she such a provocateur? I mean, I really don't know. Last year, she was a little a little spicy when Rachel was on. She was in the streets mixing it up.

[00:24:38] Especially when in regards to talking about our guy, Brendan. Well, I feel like, you know, you want type A undeniable personalities on reality TV. People who are themselves regardless of the situation. So this was her being herself regardless of the fact that it was a three hour game for charity that was supposed to be amongst friends. I think the question I have is why is this herself?

[00:25:04] And why would you feel compelled to pick, you know, fights with strangers? But I don't care to ask those questions because I'm happy that she did it. Yeah. Is Alyssa on cameo? That's a great question. Would you like one? I would love one. What do you think about instead of Singbot? Should Alyssa Riley Slater come in and roast the house guests?

[00:25:34] I don't think that they would have any idea who she was. Mispronounce their names. Yeah, exactly. Call them irrelevant. I think there's probably... I mean, well, in all fairness, Singbot does like to body shame people. But I think Alyssa's maybe a little too off color, potentially. Okay. All right. Eric, it was announced in the Big Brother 1000 episode that the Guinness Book of World Records

[00:25:59] have been involved because that there is a new Guinness Book of World Records for the most episodes of a competition reality series, I think. And also it's of a TV show that Big Brother has received the award for at 1000 episodes and counting. We need to fact check the language on this. I feel like there was some semantics going on here.

[00:26:23] First of all, as has been covered ad nauseum, but I need to make this point because I had the very same reaction in real time. The suggestion that the 1000th episode is what triggered this record seems a little strange because what show had 999 episodes that it had clicked? We wish we could have gotten to 1000. Like, ah, we were so close. You know, it's like a baseball player. They're hanging around to hit their 500th home run, like past their primes. Like, if we could just pass.

[00:26:53] But what was the show? You know, because I sort of feel like when you are on for 26 years with three episodes a week, that you're probably like a lot ahead of the other shows. Yeah, you would think so. I wonder if there's any sort of like these talent shows of like, where's American Idol in the rankings, The Voice, all these shows. I don't know if they do one or two seasons a year. I feel like that there's, did any of them hang it up too soon? I don't know.

[00:27:20] Maybe they need to come back and rip the record away from them potentially. I mean, also like there was a lot of like weird language because like, wasn't the Flintstones on in prime time for like 10,000 episodes? I don't know about that. There's a lot of funny freezing going on. We'll see when the timetable goes back that far and see if we can go to the Stone Age. I'm just not sure these were on the up and up. I don't know. It is funny though, that we know that Survivor, especially over these last few years,

[00:27:49] they seem particularly obsessed with the awards, particularly an Emmy. Jeff wants an Emmy. The show wants so badly to win the Emmy. Big Brother is like, hey, we have Guinness Book of World Records. They're going to like go and hang this over Jeff's head. We're not even trying for the Emmy. Look at our Guinness Book of World Records. The Emmy? Come on. You can't even say that in a sentence, Big Brother and an Emmy.

[00:28:19] Maybe they'll have a cast member named Emmy potentially in some way. They are earning an Emmy. Oh my gosh. This show is an absolute mess. There's no, I don't even think they review, if they submit for like for your consideration, they just throw the tape out. Come on. Yeah. By the way, Libby in the chat says 734 American Idol episodes. So where was this guy at 735? Come on. What is going on here?

[00:28:49] And, you know, this alongside of some of the award winners at the thousandth episode really made me want to maybe retally some of the votes potentially. Stop the count? Yeah. There was some very questionable things going on. Namely, the best to never win. Yes. Didn't think that that necessarily was an earned victory.

[00:29:17] You know, there has been some diminishing returns on those appearances. You know, you did play four times, right? That's a lot of time. That's a lot of chances to win. You know, the best to never win might not have had four chances at winning and failing all of those times. Now, I know that this is going to rile people up a little bit, but the average placement of the best to never win was eighth place. It's not that good.

[00:29:43] You know, I just wonder if perhaps some of the other people on the list may have been more deserving of that honor, you know, like Daniel Reyes, for example. Yeah. That would have been a good choice. Was there campaigning that was happening? I don't really know that there was an actual vote. Uh, and if there was, um, it did remarkably land on all of the people that they would have liked to, uh, see win the vote other than the best showmance, which they then cut from the show.

[00:30:13] Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about me. It was medieval week. Maybe it was supposed to be medieval night of the big twist for the 1000th episode where beloved alumni came back to host a tournament where the house guests went back to the year one in the year 1000. And they ended up killing the beloved hog cliff hog. And that there was retribution that needed to be doled out.

[00:30:43] And we saw some BB alum favorites come back and host a tournament to the death. This was better than when you go to the medieval times and you have to hand eat a soup and a rotisserie chicken. I mean, this was the type of mess that I love. Not the twist. The hosting. Ew, ew, ew. That was unintentional, but it'll play. Uh, yeah, it works for me.

[00:31:09] Uh, the, this was a masterclass in acting that I haven't seen since Eric Stein was brought back and tried to remember three lines and pretend to be angry as the mastermind. I mean, what Cody was able to pull off was like a young Rocky Balboa. Uh, maybe they had not even sliced alone, Rocky Balboa himself taking his first acting

[00:31:37] class and, and being told we're going to work on, uh, some historical accents. I cannot even imagine the person in the headset hearing this and then saying, you know what, let's let him continue to do this. Like rather like, how about like, no one said, Hey Cody, just use your real voice, buddy. Are you trying to make us look foolish? You know, actually it sounded pretty good. Yes.

[00:32:02] I did the producers, like, do they say before they go out there and you've hosted stuff, right? Right. I don't know. I'm not sure. Um, I did. I hosted on, on, on, uh, BB nine, but there was no accents. So yeah. Do they, does anybody say, Hey, are, are you going to do a voice? Let me hear the voice. Let me hear the voice. And then they say, Oh, or maybe could they like say like, uh, uh, can we try it again without the voice?

[00:32:30] I mean, I don't, well, a few things about this, uh, over on, on what at the time was Chappy CC and is now Ramble. There was some good inside information about everything that unfolded here. And the word on the street is that it's possible that Cody may have been enjoying his time at

[00:32:54] the after party prior to the hosting so that he might not have been a fully sound mind when he was hosting, which I think would explain some of his choices. At first I thought he was having a medical episode, um, of some sort, which I was like, I knew it wasn't live, but I actually didn't call for help initially. And I was texting Polly. I was like, is your brother? Okay. Um, I don't think that they would have, it's strange. It's hard to imagine him making this character choice.

[00:33:22] It's also hard to imagine them assigning him this character choice. I think it's what came out of him naturally. I think he was in the moment. He was feeling it. He may have had some liquid encouragement potentially. And I feel like this is just, it started to pour out of his mouth and they just probably thought it was so funny that they said, just let's keep going. Yeah. So Alice just said, Tiffany said they had her do her normal voice and accent beforehand.

[00:33:51] And that is interesting. But I also am like, you know what? I don't want to take anybody's secondhand account of what Tiffany said, uh, after yesterday, Mike Bloom reported what Tiffany said on the podcast. Tiffany's like, I didn't say that. Yeah. I absolutely did not hear her say that. So I don't know. That's outrageous. Uh, it does seem surprising that she performed both options and that's the one that they selected.

[00:34:19] But you know, I, uh, I also, um, it, there was a lot of script, a lot, a lot, a lot of script to get through. And that is not easy. They were filming till five in the morning. Yeah. I mean, come on. That these people that they were playing are not supposed to be like, this was not the actual Cody Calafiore that we all know and love. This was like count Cody who just happens to look like Cody Calafiore.

[00:34:44] This is like some, some distant descendant, uh, or I don't know what this is, what the opposite of descendant is ancestor of Cody Calafiore. That did seem like a very nuanced and bizarre wrinkle to the story. Like why couldn't they have just been part of the Royal, you know, courtship of the big brother kingdom. Yeah. Are they all related? And then we got the same joke, like four times. It's like, you know, lady so-and-so reminds me a lot of Brittany. Yeah.

[00:35:12] But we can't fit the end of it in the one episode. Oh yeah. Right. It's so hilarious. Um, do you think the reason that they did a cliffhanger was an homage to Cliff Hogg? Cliff Hogg. Perhaps. Um, it was in lost in the Wednesday night episode. Then the two hour marathon, I just thought that Keanu did a really good job. Keanu, I'm ready to send him to Game of Thrones. Well, this man, uh, as, as you recall, is a dungeon master. He had like pathos.

[00:35:41] Like he was really, he didn't do a voice, but he had gravitas. I mean, from what I understand that he was filming at like three in the morning, you know, so I think this is tired. Yeah, exactly. That's what you were hearing. The seriousness in his voice. It was actually just trying to stay awake. Um, I also really, really enjoyed Brittany's narration of the whole thing. It was just like, like sort of muttering to herself.

[00:36:06] Like I was actually unclear if this was like her stick, like her, I don't really care about this. Or if she was actually just talking to herself because she was bored and they had her mic'd up and then they just captured it. Could have been either thing. I could not, could not tell, uh, which it was. I, I wonder also, um, if, was it a foregone conclusion that this was going to hit thog because of the hog? Was that what was happening here? Maybe. Well, okay.

[00:36:34] As you mentioned, thog down, Haley ends up being unceremoniously eliminated. I will be speaking with her in about 55 minutes. So do you have any questions that I should ask Haley? You know, I don't, uh, I'm going to ask them all of Chuck when I see him. Um, but it's, it's, I, I just, it's, it's strange because in a way she became a sympathetic character to me.

[00:37:02] Uh, she was burning so bright, but then like burnt out. It was like a supernova. Like, you know, yeah. Three weeks ago. She was like a starter. I mean, as, as I think she's a pitcher, she was like a starter that was sort of like Grady Little left in too long. She was like, uh, she's on like 197 pitches. Like, uh, we should pull her out. And it was very, um, poetic as Shakespearean, how everything that she was thinking she was

[00:37:28] experiencing when she was in charge and, and all of the rough weeks, then actually every week thereafter actually became rougher and rougher. And now listen, you, you preach frequently on the podcast that we cannot be results oriented in our analysis of things and lost in the majesty of the accents. This twist stinks. It is absolutely horrible. It is unfair. It is not how you play big brother.

[00:37:57] It is not better because she got eliminated rather than Rachel. It's not better because this reminded me of the start of BB 18 when they just kept playing shit until Glenn went home and that ruined the season. Glenn would have been a star. Freakazoid. Yeah. And, and the thing is like, yes, where was her place in the game? Was she going to be dynamic going forward? Uh, probably not.

[00:38:25] But to see her crap out in this way after what an interesting and unique character, it's like she lost her light somewhere along the way. And then to see it fade out in just such an absolute nothing, something that is unfair and totally beyond her control. It actually made me a little bit sad that we lost her in this way after all of the hoopla early. I mean, that feels like it was years ago. Yeah. We were excited about what was going on.

[00:38:52] So I, I'm trying to think of like, you know, hindsight is 2020. I was so excited about her. I didn't want her to go home over Chuck. I do wonder if, had she gone home in that moment, would we remember her as like, oh, she was an all time character. Bring her back. Like she was so good. We need to see her again, put her on more things, get her in the next ramble battle royale. And then she then like overstayed her welcome by like three or four weeks. And when she really did give us nothing.

[00:39:20] I am worried also, she's going to be like a fact denier. She's definitely going to be a, you didn't see the feed person. Oh, I think she was a fact denier in a lot of things before she went into the house. Oh yes. I wonder why I came to that conclusion, but I think that she's going to be one of these like, no, I was great. I wasn't complaining. And then I think she, when you meet her in person, she's going to be like friendly and

[00:39:46] it's not going to give the character that we wanted or that we had three weeks ago. Like we want her to come in and give some Alyssa energy in her interviews. And what I think it's going to be is like, I was in a good position, but then it didn't turn out my way. And you know, it was very hot outside and I lost some competitions and here I am. And you know, now I'm, I think I, everything it had for me, it lost. Yeah. Unfortunately.

[00:40:12] I mean, so the first wave of exit press goes far enough earlier that I think that we could probably, while we're still on here, Dalton Ross and Mike Bloom and Sharon are going to be dropping their exit interviews with Thog. So we may have good insight into how that's going to go before we even get done with this podcast. Fantastic. I hope Mike doesn't tell her what Tiffany said about her. Yeah. All right. Barrett.

[00:40:41] We have talked about Barrett all season long. At times he was compared to the new Adam Pock, but this past week when he had to vote out Mallory, it seemed like they just pushed him too far. And now he's a new version of Barrett, a man with a mission to stick it to the vets. Eric, what do you make of Barrett 2.0? Badass Barrett. Once upon a time I came on here and gave some unpopular takes during Big Brother over

[00:41:11] the top that, you know, really left people not feeling good about where I was coming from. Well, brace yourself because that's what's about to happen here. Remind me, what was your Big Brother over the top take? You didn't like- No, no. Not going to do that. We don't have enough time today for that. I vaguely remember. I vaguely remember. We have Thog to come. Yes. Anyway, I do not like his gameplay at all. Oh. I do not think that he has been activated in the diary room.

[00:41:40] I am not interested in what he is doing. This is not landing for me. The fan base is, and the alum, they are hankering for anything to happen. They do not want the icons to march to the end. I understand that. That is very boring, but please explain to me how screwing the people who are your closest allies in the house, taking out people that are voting with you and putting yourself at

[00:42:07] the bottom of the other alliance is going to help you. So you're upset that you're at the bottom of your alliance. So now you're at the bottom of someone else's alliance. At least your alliance was your alliance. Now you're at the bottom of Josh and Melody and Taylor and Lala and whoever else defects over to that side in the aftermath of this. So maybe it's exciting.

[00:42:31] Maybe it's just doing something for the sake of doing something, but it is not a good game move. And I am willing to fight about this. Yeah. I hear what you're saying. The problem is that also that you're saying that he should stay loyal to the vets. But the issue is that like, unbeknownst to Barrett and unbeknownst to the vets that you have Dee and Angela trying to flip the vote, the vote out Devins and frame Barrett.

[00:42:59] So this alliance that you feel like he should be working is actively working to sabotage him. And so while there may be no good options for him, at least he's taking the path of which he has some agency where it's all going to end badly. But at least I'm being actively bad as opposed to being a passenger and being bad. I think he's trying to rewrite his story before he completely bombs. The only chance of this man winning the game is sitting next to one of the icons and the

[00:43:27] other bitter jury members saying we're not awarding them the win. Like he only has that as a path, in my opinion. And I know that people feel otherwise, but I am telling you, this man is going home in the next two weeks. It's over for him. He has now put a spotlight on himself that he did not have. He was a nothing. That was a good spot for him. Continue to nothing your way. Maybe win two or three competitions at the end. Steve Moses yourself there.

[00:43:54] You know, at this point, at this point in the game, you were you were documenting how boring Steve Moses was, right? He won a couple of competitions. Vanessa loses and he's sitting next to Liz Nolan in the end. Right. So this is this is what Barrett needs to be doing. Absolutely nothing. Doing this is getting him, you know, fanfare for the immediate time being. But guess what? If Yash wins H.O.H., he goes home. If D wins H.O.H., he goes home. If Drew wins H.O.H., he goes home.

[00:44:21] In what scenario is he he's in big trouble? He's a little effed by the Yash deal that that might be collateral damage for Barrett. But at least he's going out his way. Well, I agree. OK, so I'm I'm being very gameplay centric in my analysis here. At least he's doing something. YOLO. Something. Something. But, you know, if I were doing this, if I had been waiting for this moment, which he wasn't, he's just doing it now because he's upset about Mallory. He's just being emotional.

[00:44:50] But let's just assume this is his summer long strategy that he was going to come to life at this point. I'd like to see a little bit more passion in the diary room, a little bit more energy, a little bit more volume. I also didn't understand. Last week, he's going around the house telling people that he's going to flip on Drew, which was unfathomably stupid, both flipping on him and also telling people that Haley literally came to them and made them aware of this. Did they have some sort of collective amnesia this week that they forgot?

[00:45:19] Why would Devins or Drew or anybody think that he would vote the way they want after he sends Yash out into the backyard to dispose of Haley in the game? Why would they think that he's operating in their best interests anymore? So shame on the rest of his allies for not seeing this coming. The writing was on the wall. This man was not behaving in the same way that he was behaving weeks earlier. And I can't believe they didn't see that. Yeah.

[00:45:45] His diary rooms are like, he's like really like, his attitude is a little bit like, well, you made me vote out Melody. So now how do you like it? Yeah. It's a little assy to be honest. It's not like very tongue in cheek. It's not like, here we go. I'm on fire now. You leave me on fire and I'm running through the thing. Yeah. It's a little, a little coy or something. Coy is a good word to describe.

[00:46:11] And again, I know this is a, I am taking a contrarian opinion here and I'm more than okay with that. Barrett outside of the game is going to be a nice guy. He's going to be on podcasts. He's going to be at parties with us. I'm going to enjoy hearing his side of the story. You'll be on a poster with him. Getting to know him. And yes, he might even be there potentially. That's two weeks from now. Let's not rule that out. He's on the jury. Oh, you're right. Unless he, unless somehow he gets thrown out. You're right.

[00:46:39] But I don't like this and I don't think it's like the big time move that we've all been waiting for. I am not ready to assign that to him. And I do think I'd see a world in which he could win the game. But in my opinion, it is no thanks to his own doing here. Okay. Eric Stein is cooking right now. But I do have to give a programming note. If you're just joining us, the live feed update is still coming today. It is going to be at noon Eastern.

[00:47:08] We have an exit interview with Thog coming up at 1150. And so Eric and I are here to warm you up for the live feed update. Then Taren and I will talk to Thog. And then Taren will be live around noon Eastern for today's live feed update as we get ready for Eviction Night. You were with Taren when the feeds were down. Yeah. Did he take up any new hobbies?

[00:47:36] Did you see a lighter Taren or was he deeply affected? Did it mess up his robot brain? How was he feeling? He certainly was not happy. But I do feel like that for his personal schedule, they could not have timed the feed outage better in that they took the feeds down Thursday night, allowed him to get up Friday morning, do a live feed update, travel home, watch the Chad PC Battle Royale,

[00:48:06] and then put the feeds back on by Saturday night. So it was very fortuitous in terms of the outage where he had time to travel and recoup from the trip to Milwaukee. That's nice. This man doesn't normally get it. You know, I wonder how many episodes of his feed recaps are we up to? Do you think he has over a thousand? I know it's on prime time.

[00:48:33] I think this is year nine of the live feed update. So I don't think we're at a thousand because I think only one of the seasons went to a hundred days. So maybe in the next year or two, we will hit one that. But if you count the Big Brother, do we count Big Brother Canada? Is that canon? Oof, that's a tough one. You know, just Sam, make a note backstage to have a nice plaque ready for him when the time comes. Yes, get the Guinness Book of World Records ready.

[00:49:03] Okay. Zingbot was back, Eric. You know, I never had the good pleasure of meeting Zingbot. And one of the things that really stuck out to me in this episode is that Zingbot is now like a real person. Like they always are like, the one thing I wanted was to meet him. You know, he's here. That cracks me up. I love that. But I do think that Zingbot may be recycling his material a little bit. We get it.

[00:49:32] Every year someone is old. Someone is in an unrequited showmance. Someone is boring. We have heard these before. You know, I do think that Zingbot may need a writer's room potentially. Yep. I mean, it would be great. What are you going to do? It's not happening. No. But I do feel like, you know, of course, we did get one fantastic one in there. The songs are always amazing.

[00:50:01] Poor Drew is not having a good week inside of this house. This was absolutely shameful. That was tough. The Zingbot really came for him to that Melody is never going to kiss him. He's in the friend zone and that he's going to die alone. Did he feel like that the Zingbot was negging him? I don't know. I think that, you know, he put on a brave face, you know.

[00:50:27] You got me, Zingbot, but definitely went and cried to himself under the covers upstairs. Also, I do not think Melody helped the situation because she was whooping up. Like, she basically may as well said, like, he's right. It's true. It's true. You nailed it. That's amazing. Like, and, you know, a lot of times, especially when you have a complicated situation, you know, back home, that triggers like a series of conversations. It's like the person spirals.

[00:50:56] Is that how I'm being portrayed? But she was like, oh, phew. Like, they're not showing that as if we're like a burgeoning showmance at all. They're just showing me owning this poor kid. Like, she seems thrilled about it, which I do not think would have helped him in that situation. Also, I do think there is something more upsetting when it happens in song, potentially. Yes. You think so?

[00:51:21] That that was because of the earworm nature of the song that maybe every time you hear Twinkle Twinkle Little Star? Yeah. Yeah. And also, you know, it's like it was a secondary insult that they were singing him a lullaby because he was he was the baby of the house. It was the people are probably singing it, you know, in there to him now. And then the die alone feel like an unnecessary, you know, tag on at the end. That was a little bit. That was a little.

[00:51:48] It really seemed unrelated to what the rest of the song was about. And then combine that. He was only 22, you know? Yeah, he has time. Combine that then with the rest of the episode where then Melody is going to use her charm to then stay off the block later on. Kind of like further dunking on Drew. Uh, yeah. You know, by that point, I was definitely dozing off because of two hours. I had to do a podcast after. I don't know how you did it.

[00:52:16] That would have been some late night caffeine for me pinching myself, you know, like you're at your kids recital or something. Yes. But yeah, no, it's not great. I mean, I do not think it would have been necessarily in his best interest to put up his own friend in the house wherever their personal relationship lies. He needs somebody there who may vote with him or for him or something along those lines.

[00:52:42] So I can't say I necessarily blame him for not putting her up. But the aftermath and the decision of who he did put up, that is a different story. Yeah, I think we're going to talk about that next. We talked about Melody and Drew. Well, I will say, you know, as someone who showmanced in the Big Brother house, I do enjoy a slow burn. And I enjoy people who enjoy each other's company.

[00:53:09] Whether or not there is ever an outside relationship here, you know, to be real for a moment, having someone who you – well, that's actually the problem here. I was going to say having someone who you can trust, you know, goes a long way in the Big Brother house. The problem is they cannot trust each other. The sparks are undeniable. They're having fun. They're getting each other through it. It is cool to see that they are playing on opposite sides of the game. In my opinion, that is incredibly dumb.

[00:53:36] And they should just simply get on the same page and align. And I think what all of the bottom feeders and the nothings needed to do, including Barrett, which they did not do, is instead of hopping from one alliance to the bottom of the other alliance, is they needed a new alliance. And they did sort of have this, and they still have three of the four original members of it, but they needed to reshuffle the deck. They needed to flip the game on the heads of the alliances.

[00:54:03] So flip the game on D, on Devins, on Yash, and take the bottom feeders and make a new majority like Andy once did with the exterminators. I know that's a deep pull. But you had Alyssa, Amanda, Helen running the game for weeks as Andy sat idly. And I know people want to fantasize that Barrett is now Andy in this situation, but he's not.

[00:54:33] Because Andy took the people who needed a home, who had nowhere to go, who had no chance of winning the game in Spencer, who had been on the block ten times, Gina Marie, who was a laughingstock at that point and obsessed with Nick. They need a new alliance. Who was the fourth exterminator? Andy, Spencer, Gina Marie? I believe McCray, and then I think Judd was like a taggeron, potentially. They sort of were stringing along as an extra vote.

[00:54:58] And I think that's really what the two of them need to do is instead of continuing to be opposing forces to each other, they need to play the game together and they need to grab Taylor and maybe even say, Angela. They need people who are from different factions and say, we're not going to make it otherwise. You know, we are sitting around waiting and then somebody needs to win something.

[00:55:23] The problem is that Drew did win something and then did something very, very, very, very stupid with him. So that's the problem. All right. Rick Devins has volunteered to go up on the block. And if he does not win the blockbuster tonight, he will be the first member of our jury.

[00:55:49] So on Ramble, they like to throw tomatoes at people when they give an unpopular opinion. Yes. Well, get your bricks and tomatoes ready for the second time in this podcast because Rick Devins is winning the blockbuster tonight. So all of this was much ado about nothing. Yes. All of the conversation of the week, all of Barrett's great heroic moves, all of is D going the flip.

[00:56:13] Every last thing that we have hyperanalyzed and drooled over over the course of the last seven to 14 days is meaningless because this man is going to kill them in this game later tonight. Come back into the house and it's going to be like nothing ever happened. Barrett will be so far up this man's butt by the time that the end of the episode has happened that he won't be able to smell fresh air.

[00:56:38] It is it is it is absolutely like this is this is all. And so for all the blockbuster gives us and for all of the we're going to be forced to discuss these scenarios. It also is a major wet blanket to actually making these moves sometimes. I mean, you know, famously MJ or or as she spells it, you know, Mackenzie, she she would have been out of the game in like what week one week to something along those lines.

[00:57:06] And instead she's she's there. She's a huge part of the core alliance and the competition wins to get to the end. And and the thing is, he is really well. We know this. He's really well suited for these types of games. And people also want to imagine, oh, well, it might be one he's not well suited for. And, you know, well, Angela beat Kamu. Yes, I'm not claiming that it's impossible for him to lose. Of course he can lose. Anything can happen. And you're spiraling, you're panicking. It's all in that moment.

[00:57:35] The likeliest scenario by far is that he is not going to lose. We will see. Julie will tease us with what the actual blockbuster competition is. If it involves a ball, Rick's winning. No doubt. If it's like drop a ball, anything that's a carnival game. Rick's got it. If he has to do like gymnastics with a rope and like untangle himself. That's the scenario that I worry about for Rick.

[00:58:05] I still think he has so much experience. We talked about this a lot while you were away about D has so much in-game experience. Rick has played these with his back against the wall so many times. He is going to be moving at mock speed. So even if he's tangled in a rope, this is vastly more important to him than it is to them. And he has done it time and time again. I really would be shocked unless it is a fluke type of situation.

[00:58:33] If he does not win this. Now, this being said. Yeah. His Ricky, Ricky's risky play, as it says on my screen. Are you trying to make us look foolish? This is beyond atrocious. I heard Chappelle call it as something borderline adjacent to a quit. And that is where I fall as well. This is so bad that I was going to bring out the oofometer for this. Yeah.

[00:59:03] And I can't even do it because it's way more than five oofs. This man knows so much better than this. And what in the holy hell is Drew doing? These are. Do not put someone on the block unless you want them out of the game. This is the most common sense thing. If someone puts me up, they do not value me in the game. Anything can happen. It is something that I am definitely guilty of. And a huge lesson learned from when I played.

[00:59:31] You cannot discount anybody in the house. They still get to vote. Even Zach Swiderski will win eventually. He still casts a vote like happened on my season. And Barrett still casts a vote here. It is. You do not control it. You do not have it on lock. And this is inexcusably sloppy. I said, I was thinking to myself, what is the opposite of I love this move? And like, I am in hate with this move. You know, like this is, this is so atrocious on both of their behalves.

[00:59:59] And especially considering he could have just put up D because she put him up last week. It is insane. She said no, though. She said you don't do that. Yeah. Great. Have a spine. To put up a man you are calling Papa. Papa Devons. I put D up. She would have came back with a vengeance. But Papa Devons is always looking out for his son. He's just trying to make my life easier. He's always looking out for his son. Yeah.

[01:00:25] Is it going to make your life easier when your only remaining ally is potentially evicted? This is absolutely ridiculous. And Ricky D. Disgraceful. This is absolutely. This is that this is not. So I think that what I'm actually seeing happening with the survivors is people talk about the speed of play and the endurance needed. But I don't think that that's exactly what I'm seeing here. What I'm seeing here is that you don't need to clean up your mess on survivor.

[01:00:54] I don't think because now something is happening like every day, every other day in a short season of survivor. The person is long gone by the time that there's a mess to clean up here. You create a mess and you have to clean it up for days. And there's ramifications. The people you put up, you know, you get someone out on survivor. They're gone. Here you nominate people. They're still in the game. That that that is something that you have to consider. You you have five days after all the events of the week unfold.

[01:01:23] It's they're used to blowing up the house and walking away from it. This is not blowing up the house. This is blowing up his own game. Yeah. I want Rick to stay and I want Rick to find out that D was going to vote him out. I want to see a rift between the icons. If Rick stays, I think this was this was the one right. This was the time you had your foot on your neck and needed to end him.

[01:01:50] If he stays, I think there is a very good chance that he is the winner of this game. If he goes, then he is. There is not a very good chance. Yeah, he is the winner of this game. I felt like it's been his destiny to know he's on the bottom to play from the bottom to embrace his full Rick Devins form. I don't know if there will be a way for him to find out that D and Angela are going to potentially vote against him.

[01:02:16] I don't know like if that gets leaked in any way, shape or form, but that's what I want to have happen. Well, sure. And bare minimum for self-preservation, let's say he stays and wins HOH. Whoever remains out of Taylor or Lala or Yash should just at least go to him and throw Barrett under the bus. So that way Barrett's the target and not them. So, you know, that's very easy. Like, I think that these people who think that they're moving in secrecy are not.

[01:02:44] That's that's that's part of the problem. And I think that, you know, everyone was saying that last night it sort of dawned on Rick what was actually happening. And, you know, they saw a lot of memes about, you know, giving an old dog one final good day. But how many final good days has Rick had on Survivor? Fifteen of them across two seasons. I mean, if he didn't find an idol, well, he did find an idol. If he didn't find four idols, well, he did.

[01:03:12] If he didn't win immunities, if he wasn't didn't come back from the edge of extinction, if he didn't flip a coin properly, should I keep going? I mean, this is what the man is destined to do. And so while he might not ever quite realize the true danger he was in, he's not going to put himself back in this position if he stays. OK. And if he goes, then he's not going to enjoy his time on the jury because he's going to feel like an absolute dumbass. All right. We're here. We're live right now with Eric Stein.

[01:03:40] We have our live chat. Really, everybody in the live chat is like, I'm enjoying this so much. The live feed update, I don't care when it comes. I am 100% locked into the summer of Stein. We could take questions from the audience. I have a question before you get to the audience questions. Why is your production team repeatedly using 19-year-old photos of me? And in this one particularly, it appears that I might be wearing lipstick and possibly a blouse.

[01:04:10] I don't even know if that's a man's shirt. What do you think? I mean, I think it's probably not. If I had to guess, it looks possibly like a little flowing potentially. They had people that were at the 1000th episode celebration recreate some of their iconic moments for social media. Well, that's interesting. According to the show, though, I do not have any iconic moments.

[01:04:37] If you notice, they did a 10-minute segment about all of the many things that have happened in the history of the show, including, for example, surprising twists. But yet, I was not edited into this montage of surprising twists in spite of the fact that it was the only individual season-long twist in the history of the show. But it did not warrant inclusion in that montage. But you were in the blockbuster.

[01:05:03] Yes, if you really fine-tune your eyes, I was one of 50 cubes. Yes, in the blockbuster. 60, 60. Yeah, right. So let's not say that the show didn't have me on their radar. I think that tells you all you need to know about my warehouse status. All right, so happy 1000th episode to you. Okay, here's a question from MP Knife. These are big brother questions or general questions for Eric Stein in the chat. Okay, Melody. Is Melody an actual contender to win the game? Barrett says he respects her game a lot.

[01:05:33] I don't think so. I don't actually think she's even a contender to be sitting there in the end. She feels very disposable to me to basically all remaining parties. I enjoy her as a character. I enjoy her as a person. I really loved the idea of if you betray me, the game is not going to end inside of this house and I'm going to mess up your real life after this. That's the type of energy that I want contestants giving. I love the petty. I love it.

[01:06:02] But there is a little bit of just like I'm just saying these things and not really doing anything about it. And I understand there's only so much you can do without power, but you can still orchestrate votes and you can still realign and you can still make more relationships. And I just don't see her as being active enough to win this game. I don't see her having the votes and I don't see her being there either. Yeah, she yeah.

[01:06:29] I don't want to make too much about the resume because I always talk about on Survivor how it doesn't actually matter. And again, if she gets to the final two, you have to think that she actually had done something or won some comps to get to that point. But I don't know if she's especially well liked by the people that are in the jury. And I don't know necessarily if she has things that she can say that she did at this point. Right. And also losing Mallory as a potential jury vote was catastrophic for her.

[01:06:58] So I think best case scenario, she gets Drew and Barrett's vote and probably not Barrett's vote because Barrett fashions himself as a gamer. So I do not see her having any win condition remaining. And I said this a few weeks ago and, you know, at this point in most seasons, you have your very strong contenders that are available to win the game. But when you look around at this field and you think to yourself like one of these remaining players is winning this game,

[01:07:27] the way they have told the story this year is so D and well, really D, but D and Devin centric that anyone but the two of them winning the game is going to feel like it's coming a little bit out of left field. I think we've talked very little about Yash today. He is somebody who is rising. Megan Brown as a question is Yash making a mistake advocating for Taylor to go home over Lala.

[01:07:56] But more importantly, I'd love to get your thoughts on Yash. Yash, the TV character is doing well. It did seem, though, like last night they may have had him. I mean, he may have set the record for DRs in an episode last night. They had him narrating the entire thing. But it's like it seemed like he was off his game. You know, two weeks ago, everything he said was genius. It was utterly ridiculous. And it seemed very authentic to him.

[01:08:23] He was doing a lot of, you know, so we went to the backyard and, you know, I need the vote to go this way. And it seemed like he was very scripted last night. But the TV character, great. Love to see someone who was underestimated as a big contender in the game. People were picked off around him and it did not make him shrink. It actually made him rise to the occasion. And I have enjoyed him very much on the show. And I could see him easily as a returner.

[01:08:51] I think he has perfected Big Brother energy. He is not quite too much, but he is definitely not a little either. He is hyped up. He has the cheese in him. Yeah. So I really like him on the show. And I would like to see him mix it up with other people as well. But, I mean, it all comes back to the bribe for him. It really just kneecapped his game. Kneecapped him.

[01:09:19] But in some way, I guess it's helping him because they want to keep him around. It's sort of like they're also enticed by keeping him around with, oh, we got him so bad. We have the goods on him. Let's keep him around. So I guess in some way, I was thinking the week that it happened, he should have told them to go F off. And people would have loved that. But maybe he wouldn't still be here. I do think that, you know, he is not prolific in the competitions in a way that, like, he is going to just win everything remaining for the remaining weeks.

[01:09:46] So I do think it's just a matter of time before he ends up going home. Even Barrett was talking about how even if he bounces Devins, that he might want to then, you know, do the tradeoff and jump back and forth and go after Yash next. Which would be an interesting move to then realign him with the people that he is, you know, betraying. So I just if he makes it to the end, he's the winner for sure. He is reverse melody, in my opinion.

[01:10:13] He is definitely going to get the accolades for breaking them up. He is well liked for the most part inside the house. He seems like he is seen as their leader. It seems like Taylor and Lala might be willing to bring him to the end and lose to him, which is, you know, always a fun trope on Big Brother. So I think he's doing well. And he is definitely one of the breakout characters of the season. All right. We got a super chat for Eric Stein here. Hi, Eric.

[01:10:39] If you were to come back and Big Brother in a traditional manner, what past house guest game do you think yours would be the most comparable to? Probably my own would be my guest. But if I was to look at someone else's, I mean, I don't think I would play the way that I played the last time if I were to play again. Yeah, I definitely played in the era where pulling the wool over people's eyes and having them underestimate you was a viable way to play.

[01:11:09] But it's a much faster game and it's much more. Yeah, I think having the power centric now and having those alliances, there is really nobody that comes to mind. The one thing that I will say is I actually have a backbone. So I'm not going to be at the bottom of an alliance and just wait around to lose. I will lie and cheat and steal to besmirch people's names. I will realign with people.

[01:11:37] I would do anything in my power to stay or change where I was in the game. I am not a sit around and say, well, this is unfortunate. The committee is going to vote me out now. And that's too bad. There would be no committee if I was there. That's not how how I would play the game. So I don't think that I would have any chance of winning a season of Modern Big Brother.

[01:12:06] I talk about forget the endurance. I would be. Yeah. Or to tears tapped out after probably two weeks at maximum. But that being said, once I was there, I am certainly going to try everything in my power to stay. And I think that so many of them now are just happy to be there. Happy to be there. They'll put up their allies. So that way their enemies aren't upset with them. Not considering the fact that now their allies are upset with them.

[01:12:34] I would rather my enemy be upset with me than my ally be upset with me. You see, I think the key difference between myself and the average Big Brother player is that I actually understand how to play. Whether or not I'm in a situation with the right people where I can implement that is a different story. I mean, I worry for a future All-Star season. Not for myself. I will not be there. But I think in the new era, alum that are likely to be there, I think you're going to have 10 people rolling deep again.

[01:13:03] That are going to be, you know, bridesmaids at each other's weddings and stuff like that. And when you have numbers that are locked in like that, the game is insurmountable. There is no game to play. If we were imagining a fictional world in which I was playing against newbies, you know, I think, unfortunately, the game that I would probably play is the one that everybody hates. Which is why I'm never going to be brought back to the show. But what about a ramble battle royale?

[01:13:30] I mean, having now seen it as a viewer and enjoying it as a viewer, I think that the play there is probably just to have five drinks before it starts and just enjoy yourself. And so that I think I can keep myself under control. Okay. This is a question. Leah loves lipstick says, can Eric please catch a whiff of Chuck's sit down air and report back? Come on. We need good questions.

[01:14:00] Leah loves lipstick. Come on. I would like to imagine that I would not be close enough in proximity for anything to waft near me to report back, nor would I do that to the man. I'm sure he will smell delightfully. What the freak? That's what I said. That's what he was going to say to me when I answer this question. I'm leaning down towards him inhaling.

[01:14:28] Did you see the video he did with Matt Klotz where Matt Klotz smelled him at the gym? I did not, thankfully. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, Matt Klotz and he smells great. Chuck smells great. You know, it's always funny about how- What the freak? It's always funny when you meet people in person and it's like the fans are like, you know, we want you to be keeping up that same energy you had with them. It's like, I didn't have energy towards Chuck. I did not smell Chuck in the house.

[01:14:56] I simply recapped the fact that somebody else smelled him. I'm not going to smell this poor man in public. I'm going to speak to him like a normal person. You got to. If I so happen to catch an odor, then I'll come back and report back to everybody. Then we'll report. But you'll be in a crowded room. Who's to say? What if I'm the one who smells? You know, he's back like, I don't know who that fan was, but boy, oh boy. Okay. All right. And then Eric from Sunny Sketches.

[01:15:25] What would Thog's Zing be? Have you given any thought to this? I have not. But it probably would be realistically about her rough weeks is my guess. I think that they seem to lean into it on the show. I don't really know what else there is to say about her. Like it's really shocking. And I do not think this has happened very often.

[01:15:49] I mean, maybe like two of the four Horseman members where you had Chuck, Kamu, and Thog like in an unbeatable position in the game. And then just all three of them gone within the next four evictions. All because they flipped them over and take out Lyric. Right, right, right. It's like Lyric was like the Helen of Troy that launched the whole season. And it's interesting, right?

[01:16:15] I guess those are the subtleties that the icons have been doing that have put them head and shoulders above the game. You know, it's just like the snap of the finger. Lyric instead of Melody. I have noticed that Lyric seems to be prolifically TikToking. Yeah. And instinct. And it's the thing that I don't maybe don't understand about these apps. I am not on them. So you point me in the right direction here.

[01:16:42] It's that she seems to be using the same exact caption over and over again with just a slight variation on the dance or the hand gesture. Like, is that a common thing that you take a sentence and just like beat it into the ground? I guess so. I think your shirt. Maybe it's like, hey, that's my thing. I'm this guy. Can you do that dance that Rome was doing on her? He's doing some sort of like there was a rolling. No, I only do Yash dances. Hmm. Yeah.

[01:17:12] I mean, there's still time. The season's still young. I know you want to get back on Unlocked. So, you know, if you find your Lyric, you could recreate them. Yeah. Okay. Eric, anything else on your mind going into the big episode tonight? Well, based on your facial reactions, you know, as you're reading the live chat, I can tell that I had some popular opinions here today.

[01:17:37] So I'll leave my final thoughts as Devin's is going to win the blockbuster and Barry is going to go home in the next week or two. And he's going to deserve that. And he did not save the season. And he's not a hero to all of us. You know, I don't think that Devin's is going to win the blockbuster is that hot of a take. I said it last night. I said, I hope I'm not jinxing him. But I do think that that is what's going to happen. The Barrett take is an original take. I think I've seen almost universal praise for Barrett over these last couple of weeks. But I like a spicy take. Yeah.

[01:18:06] I'm not here to say the same thing as everybody else. You know, that's boring. I think a lot of times we go to our podcast, we go to the internet, and we want to reaffirm our own point of view. I have often explained to my family members that I think that when someone goes and asks a friend a question, they are self-selecting the friend that they know deep down is going to give them the answer they want. They're going to go to them and say, hey, this happened to me. What do you think?

[01:18:35] And they're going to the friend that they know is going to agree with them or align with their point of view on things. But what fun is that? Sometimes you need to hear some original ideas out here. To me, I'm still waiting for Barrett to become a superstar of Big Brother.

[01:18:50] I feel instead for me like he's reading as someone who knows too much about the show and became painfully self-aware of how he was being viewed outside of the house when he was the only of seven Alliance members that was not voted to get a prize, a reward or whatever the hell they were calling it. But I think that he realized like, oh, this is my life dream and I'm letting it pass me by.

[01:19:18] So I'm going to do something. But what the something is, we'll see. Okay. All right. The great Eric Stein, you can follow him on Ramble. I have been rambling quite a lot here and there. So I did feel like the rebranding was specifically speaking to me personally. You like being live for this? You like being on the live crowd? I don't know. I do feel a little bit judged, possibly. I don't know that I'm being judged.

[01:19:45] But in my paranoia, I'm feeling. I think you're the only judgment was the people who were saying like, why is this on? That was the biggest judgment I was reading. I was intuiting from the chat. I have the same questions. Why isn't this the show I want to watch right now? It was the biggest judgment I was seeing. I thought that everybody was very receptive to your takes. I listen, Taron is a national treasure. I international. Yeah.

[01:20:14] I can't do the facial hair he has. I can't do the recreations. His beautiful locks. He is in there doing the work for all of us. And I feel the same way. If I tuned in and I was there and not Taron, I also would be disappointed. But the great news is he's still coming. Yeah. He's still coming soon. But first, fog coming up in a couple of minutes. So I got to jump over to that. Check out Eric Stein on Ramble on social media. We'll be back next week for more Summer of Stein.

[01:20:44] We will also have for you coming up later on today, a live feed update. And then Brittany Haynes will bring, I'm sure, the same energy she hosted the episode 1000 competitions to the recap of tonight's eviction. Now, I know she has told this story on RHVP probably 10 times. But can you please have her retell the story of Zingbot almost passing out from heat stroke again every single time that one gets me? And it's timely. Zingbot was just there.

[01:21:13] So, you know, she can do the condensed version. But sometimes I like hearing the greatest hits. Sounds like that's what happened to Hayley in the four competitions in a row. Well, the word on the street is that it was brutally hot and humid out there. And, you know, maybe just maybe with her entire game on the line, like they didn't need to make her, you know, compete in a seven layer, you know, costume. Like maybe they could have just said like, hey, you know, like they had bike shorts in medieval time. Like, you know, I would be able to.

[01:21:41] It seems a little easier, you know, for the men to maybe cross a balance beam without a 40 pound dress on. You know, but, you know, I don't. I don't think you're going to come for the queen. At least let her put her gown on. Yeah, I don't think she had too many friends left in production, unfortunately. All right. Thank you so much for joining us. Take care, everybody. Have a good one. Bye.