Big Brother 26’s first regular episode let us know the two secret powers in the game, who the first Head of Household is and who the first three (yes, three) nominees are. So there were a lot shocked faces this episode.
Sunday night’s episode picked up right after the two batches of houseguests merged and learned that Cedric and Chelsie lost their competitions are had their games downgraded to AI Mascots.
After the houseguests get to know each other, BBAI pops up and asks for four people to volunteer as have-nots for the summer. Tucker, Kimo, Cam and Quinn volunteer.
And then we get the arbitrary girls alliance proposal. You know, the one that happens every season but never goes beyond night one. Rubina, MJ, Brooklyn, and Chelsie start talking about said alliance. And right away, Chelsie tells us in her Diary Room she’s not feeling it. Brooklyn also doesn’t seen to be feeling it.
Elsewhere, Angela has come in hot and everyone starts to notice her right away. As for her, Matt is the one on her radar and she calls out the fact that she is certain he will end up in a showmance. He is thrown off by this and isn’t sure what to make of it.
It’s time to for the players to find out if they won the upgrade power or not. Makensy learns that she won her competition and her power is America’s Veto. She learns that at the end of a veto ceremony she can use America’s veto to take someone or herself off the block. But America, not the HOH, will name the replacement nominee. She has to use it within four weeks. As for the second competition group, Quinn learns that he won the upgrade and his secret power is Deepfake HOH. So what does that mean? Quinn can strip the HOH of all their powers and control the nominations for the week. He also has four weeks to use the power.
BBAI pops up with yet another new announcement. She tells them that people want a more exciting eviction night, so the HOH will name three nominations. But the players get to play in the AI arena after the veto and the winner gets to come off the block. All on eviction night.
It’s time for the HOH competition. And they’re playing in teams. The teams are Angela, Joseph and T’Kor; Brooklyn, Kimo and Rubina; Leah, Cam and Lisa; and Kenny, Quinn and Matt. Tucker and Makensy are out because they don’t have a team.
Another element of this competition is a team has the power to eliminate another team for the first round. Kenny, Quinn and Matt win Round 1 and they eliminate Brooklyn, Rubina and Kimo. And then the rules change for the second round. This time they compete against their teammates and the person with the highest score from each team moves on to the final round. The other two players get eliminated. After this round, the remaining players are Kenny, Leah and Angela.
For the final round, the last three players have to score the highest number but it has to be an odd number. Leah scores a 26 and is out. Angela lands on 23. So it’s between her or Kenny. And Kenny overshoots and doesn’t score. Angela is the first Head of Household of the season. And she’s happy, but then immediately sad that she has to nominate three people for eviction.
And since she’s the new HOH, Quinn decides to tell Angela that he won the power. He lets us know that he needs to make connections and telling Angela about his power is one way to ensure she trusts him and won’t consider nominating him. She promises not to tell anyone. And wit that, they decide to make a Final 2 deal.
So Angela won’t be considering Quinn for nominations. She tells us she’s thinking of nominating Kenny, but she has to decide to other two. She starts doing one on ones and several people bring up Lisa’s name. So it’s Kenny and Lisa. But for a third, she’s got to dig deeper.
Then she brings Matt into the room. She tells him that he might have misundersood something she said previously about him probably ending up in a showmance. Matt tells her that it really did take him aback. She apologizes for that. He tells her that he was convinced she thought he was a threat. She says that wasn’t the case at all. Then he tells her that with two chances to take himself off the block, he would be a really bad choice for her to put on the block. He says he would win one of the competitions or people like him so much he’d never get voted out. And this cockiness doesn’t sit very well with her. So will he be her third nominee or did his veiled (was that even veiled) threat deter her? Let’s find out.
Angela nominates Kenny, Lisa and Kimo. Not sure where the Kimo decision came from, but Kimo and Lisa were beyond blindsided by her decision. Angela lets us know that Kenny is the target and the other two are just there because she’s talked to them less.
