And just like that, the long-awaited return of the Big Brother pressure cooker is squarely in the rearview mirror, and the BB25 houseguests are back to their alliance-forming, clue-missing ways. Last night’s episode saw a solid chunk of time devoted to playing out the pressure cooker HOH competition, which included cameo videos from BB6, 7, and All Stars 2 houseguest Kaysar Ridha, who popped up whenever a player was eliminated from the HOH comp.
With an HOH crowning, nominations, veto draw, and veto win all already decided, Sunday episodes of Big Brother tend to feel ultra-slow, especially if you’re keeping up in any capacity with the live feeds. Luckily for you, I certainly have, and I’m here to break down everything we know so far from the live feeds of week four of Big Brother 25.
**Major spoilers for the Big Brother live feeds ahead**
As we saw in the episode, it was Cameron who ended up taking the HOH victory after a (nearly record-breaking) 13+ hour stint in the famed pressure cooker. After Jared and Cirie dropped early, with their many allies following suit, the last two players were Cameron and America, who threw the competition after securing a promise of safety (both nominations and post-veto) for herself and close ally Cory, though not before making Cameron promise not to “Kaysar” her. This was also the first time we saw the edit of the show acknowledging the flirtmance blossoming between America and Cory, the latter of whom has confessed to other houseguests that she acknowledges Cory doesn’t seem *quite* as interested, or at least—adept at flirting.
Still, America and Cory will spend the rest of the week safe—though Cory has gathered some heat in Cirie and Izzy’s eyes as a result of Jag’s campaigning to stay (though we’re not quite there yet)—as long as Cameron keeps his word. Cameron’s closest ally, Red, can also sit back and relax this week, knowing he’s in no danger of being nominated by his fellow “space cowboy”. Instead, thanks to an alliance with Cirie and Izzy’s side of the house, Cameron opts to nominate Blue and Jag, a close-knit pair who have opposed Cirie’s side of the house since the beginning.
That’s where the episode left off, but not without reminding viewers that there’s still one more day to vote in the newly-announced “America’s Vote” twist. In case you missed the high-speed BB voiceover, the America’s Vote twist gives viewers like us the power to vote for our favorite contestants to get a chance at power. The four houseguests that receive the most fan votes will individually and secretly compete in a bonus competition to win a chance at power in the form of safety.
The winner of this secret competition will be given the ability to save an evicted houseguest (including themself) at one of the next two evictions: effectively, a one-time way to cancel an eviction in the next two weeks. For my money, voting the power into the hands of a houseguest like America, Cory, or Mecole (someone who *isn’t* too closely aligned with Cirie and the large block) is the way to go, but use your votes as you see fit. If you haven’t already, you can submit your votes for the America’s Vote bonus competition on the CBS website.
Between Friday’s nominations and now, we’ve also had a veto draw and winner—though no veto ceremony results quite yet. Following the Blue/Jag nominations, the writing was on the wall that they needed to win and take themselves down—making room for a jucier target, Izzy as a backdoor. Izzy is also hyper-aware of how in danger she may be if the veto is used, though she isn’t able to take home the win, and it’s (drum roll please) Red who ended up winning the week four competition. With power consolidated yet again in Cameron’s corner, that gives the HOH all the power this week—whether that means sticking to the Jag/Blue plan, or asking Red to use the veto and taking a big swing with a backdoor target.
Of course, the gutsiest possible move would be to backdoor Cirie, but both Cameron and Red seem to trust Cirie implicitly (a byproduct of her near-flawless social game) and aren’t all that aware of how low they are on her onion-style alliance totem pole. Izzy (as previously mentioned) has been floated as a backdoor target, though Cameron seems more interested in sticking to the status quo and not taking a shot anywhere near Cirie this week. All things considered, it looks like nominations will stay the same, which means we’ll see Jag and Blue campaigning for the votes to stay—and possibly blowing up some major secrets along the way.
Jag has already inadvertently thrown Cory under the bus in his attempts to shift the target to Jared as a potential re-nomination, not knowing that Cirie is Jared’s mother and would never entertain him hitting the block as a backdoor nominee. As for Blue, she hasn’t done much campaigning or strategic relationship-building this week even after being nominated, but she has made some incorrect inferences regarding Jared’s secret house connections. While cuddled up with Jared, Blue found out that his mom was in the house—but Jared didn’t name names, and Blue assumed he was talking about Felicia, when in reality she was talking about Cirie. So, for the past couple days, Blue has been making nice with Felicia and trying to “get in” good with the woman she *thinks* is Jared’s mom, when in reality she’s working on the wrong woman.
However, her misguided campaign to get Felicia to like her may not do Blue any good—Cirie has told Izzy that (as of Sunday night( she wants Blue to head out the door if the veto isn’t used—which might once again keep Jared and Cirie’s secret under wraps if Blue is voted out before she can spill the beans. There’s still plenty of time for Cameron to cook up a hair-brained scheme in regards to the veto being used, though, so we’ll have to wait until the Wednesday episode to find out if the veto was used and who won the America’s Vote competition.
(featured image: CBS)
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