Reality TV Thoughts

People have claimed Big Brother 28 is ruined pretty much every single week, but this time, it may actually be true. Week 7 showed a lot of promise. Dee losing trust in Drew and nominating him for eviction, then regretting it immediately after. Lala winning the veto and shocking the audience once again. Barrett flipping against the Crossovers when he heard Mallory was the replacement nomination. The game actually seeming to shake up, with even Melody agreeing to evict Drew. Then, Drew wins the Blockbuster and it’s all over. To make matters worse, the producers celebrate the 1000th episode by shutting the feeds off for 3 days in order to do another elimination twist that no one asked for. It’s never been more over.

The Week’s Strategy

Dee becomes the first double HOH of the season. Despite being quick on the balance beam, both Barrett and Mallory had opportunities to surpass her score, but threw them away. Decisions they may still regret to this day. The nominations initially seem easy. Nominate Lala, Taylor, and Yash, all of whom were aligned with Kamu and left out of the vote until the last minute. However, Dee still has her bribe ready to be used. She failed to bribe Yash last week, but now, she has all of the leverage. She can just threaten to nominate him unless he takes her bribe.

While Yash is in her HOH room, Dee asks him to keep all of the icons safe the next time he wins HOH for 5k or else she would consider nominating him. Knowing he is in danger and knowing how poorly things turned out last week when he didn’t take the bribe, he accepts. He also has interesting information to report about Drew. It all comes back to the group that was upstairs during Lala’s HOH reign when they talked about targeting the icons (Lala, Barrett, Drew, Melody, Mallory, Taylor, Yash). Yash tells Dee that Drew was one of the people talking about targeting the icons and that he was okay with her being nominated. This just reconfirms Dee’s misplaced mistrust in Drew and is a brilliant play from Yash. When Dee calls Drew and Yash up to the HOH room to defend themselves, Drew largely tries pinning it on Kamu, who is not there to defend himself, while Yash successfully throws Drew under the bus. So, despite Drew’s allegiance being with the icons, he is nominated alongside Lala and Taylor.

Drew is quickly able to get back into the good graces of the icons by fighting with Taylor and Lala at the nomination ceremony. It seems like he is once again safe, with the Moshpit all there to protect him. Then, Lala wins the veto, meaning Dee needs to nominate someone else for eviction. If she wants to stick with the Moshpit, Haley and Yash are the only options. However, she’s trying to rebuild a relationship with Haley and has the bribe with Yash, so she decides it’s time to turn on the Moshpit. Dee could nominate Yash while still having him being forced to uphold his end of the deal, but it seems she wants to have some kind of working relationship with him.

Mallory and Melody have not been spending much time with Dee, or any of the icons, for that matter. The icons have begun to take note and no longer trust them. Also, F.A.P would be a dangerous four-person faction in the jury stage, so Dee decides now is the time to strike. I think that it is the correct move to target Mallory, since she had talked about coming after Dee and Devens. However, Dee does not manage the situation well. She tells Mallory that she’s nominating her because she’s already nominated her before, which pisses Mallory off. She rants in the DR about how Dee is a coward and that she knew she shouldn’t have trusted her. That doesn’t change her fate though, and she is nominated alongside Drew and Taylor.

Barrett has seemingly been the most loyal person to the icons the entire game. However, them nominating Mallory and Drew does not sit right with him. Why even create the Moshpit if this was going to happen only a week later? He does not want Mallory to be evicted, so he changes gears. Drew doesn’t though, scared that any wrong move could have the icons coming after him again. Barrett is frustrated that Drew is so willing to send Mallory home, so instead of Drew being targeted by the icons, he’s about to be targeted by everyone else. Barrett teams up with Yash to make Drew the target again. He tells Mallory and Melody that himself and Drew have been in an alliance with the icons the entire game. He tells them that Drew will always choose the icons over them. It works, and Drew is now going home if he doesn’t win the Blockbuster.

Unfortunately, he wins the Blockbuster. With everyone else looking at Mallory as a bigger competition threat than Taylor, Barrett and Melody are the only two to vote to keep her. Mallory is evicted in a 6-2 vote.

Another Crazy Nomination Ceremony

Drew is desperate to prove to the icons that he is with them. At the nomination ceremony, after Taylor denies ever saying to nominate Dee, Drew calls it a lie and also says Lala said to nominate Devens. At this point, voices are raised and Taylor yells that she was in the shower during that conversation, so how could she have said that? Melody clarifies who was in the room in the DR and also says that everyone was talking about generally targeting the icons while Taylor was showering. Lala claims that she was mainly targeting Devens, but Drew and Melody both claim that she said all of the icons. The conversation is a complete disaster and no one comes out of it looking particularly better. However it does provide for good drama and seemed to signal a promising week. Of course, it’s a shame things turned out as poorly as they did by the end.

Also, Taylor steals Drew’s precious hairbrush and he seemingly never finds it. It is a fun side plot for the week and leads to some fun drama when Taylor thinks Drew touched her stuff.

Player of the Week: Yash Patel

What a quick turnaround. While it initially seems like Yash is theoretically in a bad spot after having taken the BB Bribe, he manages to reverse course. He has the icons now feeling more secure around him while still pushing anti-icon sentiment to the rest of the house. He does great work in orchestrating the failed Drew blindside and now has damning information about Barrett if he ever needs to save himself. If Drew had actually been evicted, he would be in the best spot in the house. Even though the plan failed, he still showed great strategic ability this week.

Flop of the Week: Drew Campbell

This was a rough week for Drew. There should be no reason why the icons are so distrustful of him. yet they constantly are. He gets nominated by one of his closest allies as the target, then takes the target off his back, only to have it back on him by the end. The target coming back onto him is purely because he is so loyal to the icons and scared to make a move against them even though there is plenty of backing to do so. He loses the trust of Mallory, Melody, and even Barrett. It is such a poor showing considering the strong start. Not to mention his other controversies throughout the week, which I do not feel comfortable discussing hear. Worst of all, he got the Never-Not pass from the Time Capsule!

Winner Watch: Dee Valladares

What a weird week from Dee with so many ups and downs. It starts off strong with her winning the HOH and having easy nominations. Then, the deal with Yash is brilliant and probably the best part of her game so far. Everything goes downhill after that though. She targets Drew due to paranoia, then regrets it. The bribe has made Yash a blind spot for her, as she does not suspect all of the work he has put against her this week. In addition, Barrett, who up until this point seemed like her lapdog, turns against her in an attempt to save Mallory. As far as we know, she still doesn’t know that he’s flipped against her. I really don’t know where Dee’s game is going to go from here.

Mallory Aurichio: Pipe Queen

Oh Mallory, my favorite houseguest of the season up until this point. She is gone too soon. I want to focus on the positives, though. She exceeded my expectations, as I did not expect her to have as many relationships as she did. Everyone loved her, but that’s what made her so dangerous. This one hurts, I don’t know how I can watch the rest of the season without her.

Although I said I would focus on the positives, one downside to her game is that she managed her relationship with Dee poorly. She almost never talked to her, even during Dee’s HOH reign. It all stems back to week 1 when Dee nominated her, as it seems Mallory never got over that. It sucks that she got out because of a poor blockbuster result, but unfortunately, she is largely at fault for being nominated in the first place.