Big Brother recap: Three of the Final Four compete in the penultimate HOH
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We're down to the Final Four! After Memphis was sent to the Jury House last week, the winner of the $500,000 prize will be either Cody, Enzo, Nicole, or Christmas. Nicole is in a tough spot right off the bat in this episode. As the outgoing HOH, she can't compete in the second-to-last HOH competition, meaning that her fate is in someone else's hands. This is a huge week, and she has to sit on the sidelines and watch the other three compete.
The competition is Knight Moves, where the players stand on a chessboard and must move only as a knight would. They land on a square, flip it over so that it's red and therefore out of play, and continue doing so until the other players are eliminated by having no squares to move to. It's a strategic game and you have to think a few moves ahead to really grasp it, so if past experience tells us anything, Enzo should be terrible at this. He's been brutal at challenges all season long. But, things are different this time. Both Christmas and Cody presume that Enzo is going to help them box the other person in; Enzo, though, has no interest in that.
It makes for a pretty entertaining competition because Christmas and Cody get so whiny about Enzo not helping them out. It's insane! This is a Final Four competition, and Enzo desperately needs a comp win to add to his résumé. He's played a great social game, but he doesn't have much in terms of moves to his name. He was HOH early in the season, but that didn't really make any waves. So of course he's trying to lock in his spot in the final week! But no, Cody and Nicole are mad that he's not being a "team player" and trying to get Christmas out, and Christmas is upset that he's not targeting Cody. My goodness.
Anyways, Enzo's strategy works, and he wins the incredibly important HOH. If his Final 2 deal with Cody remains true, then the rest of the episode should be pretty straightforward. Nicole and Christmas should go on the block, and then everyone has to wait for the veto competition to figure out whether anything changes. Because remember, there's only going to be one person voting for eviction this week. Two people will be on the block, Enzo will be HOH, and that leaves the player with POV casting the sole vote for eviction
Unfortunately, most of this episode is annoying because, like so much of this season, we get scene after scene of the players that aren't Enzo whining about how someone besides themselves was playing the game for themselves. Christmas is livid that Cody started the competition next to her and targeted her the whole time, despite, you know, this being a competition where everyone is playing for power and has to win to guarantee their safety. This has been happening all season long and it's maddening. Whenever someone makes a move to benefit their own game, like you should do in a reality competition, everyone else turns into entitled kindergartners upset they didn't get their way. I'm so happy this season is almost over because three nights a week with these people is too much.
But oh, we're not done with this yet. Christmas pulls Cody aside to "clear the air," which is a weird thing to do in regards to a competition with three people playing for one prize. She wants to know why Cody targeted her like there's any explanation that will satisfy her, or that anyone's strategy should be taken as a personal afront. So, he explains that he was trying to be the aggressor and win the competition, and that meant starting next to the first person on the board and chasing them down. Was he also teaming up with Enzo because he wants Christmas out? Sure. But he's also just playing the game, and somehow she's mad at him for it.
But wait, there's more! In the HOH room, Cody starts chastising Enzo for playing the competition the wrong way and being selfish about it. He says he "played the competition for himself" and didn't help him get Christmas out. As Enzo rightly points out, everything turned out fine and there was a chance that if he'd kept closing in on Christmas, both of them would have been trapped. Cody is just mad that he had to be the one to sacrifice himself in the competition, which is the kind of entitled behavior that's dominated so much of this season.
So, just to check in: that's 46 minutes of the hour runtime dedicated to everyone being mad at Enzo for winning the wrong way. The final stretch is a little more fun. We get Christmas' awkward dance from middle school and Cody's lamentations about making small talk in the house; we get Enzo laughing at Cody for being insecure about his nose, which is great; and eventually, we get the nominations. Enzo ends up staying true to Cody and putting Nicole and Christmas on the block.
So here's what could happen: Enzo wins POV and either keeps the noms the same or attempts to backdoor Cody. Cody wins POV, keeps noms the same, and remains the lone vote of the week. Nicole or Christmas win POV, pull themselves off the block, meaning Cody has to go up, leaving the POV holder as the lone vote. In other words, the POV is the most important part of the week. We'll be back on Wednesday to see how it plays out!
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