I don’t know how your weekend was, but it was probably better than Nicole Anthony‘s on “Big Brother 21.” She has been through it, thanks to the usual snakiness of Isabella Wang and general grossness of Gr8ful. But there may be light at the end of the tunnel as she could still survive this week through a blindside.
Nicole was looking good Thursday after Jackson Michie made it quite obvious he was the one who cast the hinky vote, not her. But in her effort to secure her safety, as shown in Sunday’s episode, Nicole told Bella and Nick Maccarone that Jackson Michie, Jack Matthews, Holly Allen and Analyse Talavera wanted to target Nick and Bella this week had Nick not won HOH, and that Analyse and Christie Murphy called the couple bullies. Nick still nominated Cliff Hogg III and Jessica Milagros as originally planned, but after the nomination ceremony on Friday, Gr8ful became H8ful (or depending how you already feel about them, even more H8ful).
Once again trying to cover her own ass, Bella told the rest of Gr8ful and Sam Smith what Nicole had said, twisting it into Nicole being the one spreading lies around the house, thus spurring everyone to kickstart a Trash Nicole Fest. (It starts circa 6:40 p.m. PT Friday if you want to watch.) It was loud and vile, and they made themselves look even more petulant by refusing to let Nicole in and also shooing away Ovi Kabir because of a stupid “house rule but not really” Jack had instituted last week to not talk game with Camp Comeback folks.
They then jubilantly agreed that Nicole will be backdoored this week and will go. Really, it’s hard to overstate how plain-out rude they were all being for hours. Yes, this is all a game, but you don’t have to be a dick to people. At one point, Nick called Nicole a sociopath. Lest we forget, Nick is a children’s therapist in the real world.
SEE ‘Big Brother 21’ episode 9 recap: Who did Nick nominate for eviction?
Nick and Bella finally agreed to talk to Nicole on Saturday, with Tommy Bracco, Holly and Analyse as mediators, which just further exposed what a messy liar Bella is. She claimed that if she were the one starting lies then she’d be on the block this week. Um, no, because your boy Nick is HOH. Absolutely no one expected you on the block this week. Try again.
Bella told Nicole to stop “getting caught in lies.” That’s when Nicole ran out of f—s to give and went off on Bella. “It’s you,” Nicole told her. “I think everybody in this room is aware of it. Everybody in this house is aware of it. You manipulate, you twist, you lie, you make up stuff. You take what people tell you and you just flip it. And that’s evident in the fact that you told me yesterday in the room that you trust me … and then you flip it.” It was great. You can watch part of it below.
For a bit, Nicole’s only ostensible path to safety was the Veto, but she wasn’t chosen to play. Jackson and Kathryn Dunn were drawn, and Jess had Houseguest’s Choice again and one-upped her Jackson pick last week by choosing Christie — you know, just to cement her status as one of the worst and most clueless players ever. Kat won the Veto and plans on taking off Jess, paving the way for Nick to renom Nicole.
But somewhere along the way, Christie, ever the flip-flopper, realized that booting Nicole would be a bad idea because she’s willing to target Nick and Bella, aka do the Six Shooters’ dirty work. She floats the idea to Tommy and Jack — with whom she solidified a final three called Lots of Love or LOL, which lol — and they were on board. Pretty soon, all the Six Shooters were on board, meaning Nicole would have the six votes to stay over Cliff, and Nick and Bella would be sitting there like, “WTF just happened?!” They’ve all witnessed and/or been burned by Bella’s lies and rat game and were already trying to disassociate from Nick and Bella until he won HOH, so keeping Nicole would be smart for them. By Sunday, they were planning on reeling in the Camp Comeback winner to take out the trio of Nick, Bella and Sam.
“If we take a shot at Nick, we need to make Sam believe that Bella is next and we don’t associate them anymore, and then we go to Sam,” Tommy said.
“It’s a savage move, but I agree,” Holly concurred. “By then, the whole house is going to be against Bella.”
“If we save Nicole and the Camp Comeback person, we can take them in because our priority will become that trio,” Tommy added.
The Six Shooters decided to table the Operation Save Nicole talks until she’s officially the renom (she has no idea herself there’s a movement to keep her). Given this cast’s proclivity to flip on a dime and blab to anything that moves, chances are this plan will either break down or won’t be kept a total secret. But if it does all work out, we could have the first blindside and worthwhile plot twist of the season.
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