Well, unless you’re a fan of the Six Shooters, Monday’s live feeds of “Big Brother 21” was a massive letdown. Not only did Cliff Hogg III let Christie Murphy keep her power and keep his word to renom Isabella Wang, but even a house meeting, long a source of fireworks, was a major dud.
It all started after the Veto ceremony; the Six Shooters were obviously thrilled they can get Bella out now and Christie was thrilled she can keep her power. Bella knew it was coming and vowed to campaign, but Nick Maccarone and Sam Smith were annoyed as hell that Cliff did the Six Shooters’ dirty work by renoming Bella. As they pointed out, if you’re going to put up Bella, at least force Christie to use her power so it’s no longer in play.
That really would’ve been the best option for Cliff, whose HOH joins a long line of those screwed over by twists. But he chose to play it safe and “with integrity” to get two weeks of safety from people who just evicted him. Nick ranted about how if he had the live feeds, he’d turn it off because there’s nothing to watch with the Six Shooters running the game (not wrong), and that this is turning into Season 19, where everyone did what Paul Abrahamian wanted to do (also not wrong). He did say that Jack is now going to win, and we all know what happened to Paul, so there is hope yet.
Since double agent Kathryn Dunn had reported back to Christie that Nick had told her that he wanted Cliff to make a deal with Christie to not use her power and then go back on his word and put one of the Six Shooters up, the Six Shooters started to believe that Sam was also in on that plan and blamed him for it. Sam, of course, had nothing to do with it.
“My game is f—ed. I am so f—ed. [Analyse Talavera] does not trust me at all,” Sam told Nick. “Kat said that you said that you and I came up with the plan.”
“When did I ever do that?” Nick asked.
“Did you drop my name?” Sam grilled.
“Swear to God I didn’t,” Nick asserted. “That was my plan.”
Trying to clear his name, Sam decided to call a house meeting, and Nick said he would admit it was all his plan. I know, you’re expecting screaming, tears, unintelligible words, savage roasting. Maybe even a bloody lip. Live feeds gold! Well, we got none of that except for a handful of tears. From Nick. As promised, he took full responsibility and said Sam had nothing to do with it. To drive it further home, Sam said he was “nestled under his covers” while it was being hatched. (This all starts circa 8:30 p.m. PT if you want to watch.)
“The only person I told was Sis the fake idea and Kat the real idea,” Nick said. “I dug myself my own grave. I took my shot at a game move because I felt that I was on the outside. I already know most likely that if I don’t win next week, one of you is going to put me up. I know I can never beat Jack. I also didn’t want Bella to go.”
Nick started crying, and it this was definitely not the way anyone — there or watching — expected it to go. But him bussing himself and his defeated ‘tude just let Christie, Jack and Jackson Michie get on their pompous high horses and tell Nick they respect him for playing the game and to believe in himself, yada yada.
“You gotta shift gears in your head. The line ‘I’m never going to beat Jack’ — you are never going to beat anybody with that attitude. You wont make it another week with that attitude,” Jackson said. “You cant expect anyone to come and save you. You have got to do it yourself.”
“You shooting it straight right now — that’s the best way to do it,” Christie added. “Your truth, your word, and being honest is all that you have.”
Jack: “I will never love you guys any less or any more for anything that you guys do within this game.”
SEE ‘Big Brother 21’s’ Kemi is ‘disgusted,’ ‘horrified’ by the ugly behavior in the house
What is this? Halftime at a high school football game where the underdogs are down 45-3 and need a stirring speech to make an unfathomable comeback? Look, they are partially genuinely comforting him, but these kinds of meaningless platitudes are what the Six Shooters do best. They think they are better than everyone in there and know how to harness their moral high ground standing by lecturing you how to do things better. You know they are secretly giddy that they’ve broken down Nick so much he’s now crying and seemingly waving a white flag.
And then, really, that was that. The Six Shooters came out looking like winners. Nick was crying. Sam got his name cleared but honestly was veering into “the lady doth protest too much” territory that anyone would still be right to be suspicious. And then Jessica Milagros finally made her first substantial contribution to the game: “My house meetings with my family aren’t even this nice.” Mood.
If this season can’t even give us a patented house meeting fight, then it might be completely unsalvageable.
Meanwhile, Bella is trying to save her butt, but it’s a Sisyphean task. She won’t be able to get that fifth vote to bring it to 5-5 for Cliff to break the tie to evict Jack. Kat feels fully committed to the Six Shooters though she’s ostensibly working both sides. So what could’ve been a really fun, game-changing week has morphed into yet another one with the Six Shooters in control.
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