Kamu won the third straight HOH for the Toolshed and spent the week turning a simple backdoor into the loudest six days of the season. He nominated Lala, Lyric and Mallory with Jason as the real target, made a private deal to keep Jason off the block, then found out Jason had promised the veto to all three nominees. His answer was to call a house meeting in the middle of Mallory’s tea party — a speech he rehearsed line by line, with a planned pause and a sip of tea — and read Jason’s whole game out in front of everybody. It worked, and then it curdled. Devens later admitted he encouraged it partly so it would blow up on Kamu. Dee said she felt bad. Jason turned the isolation into a tactic. And by Wednesday night two separate vote counts were running in the same house, neither side knowing the other’s number, with Taylor holding the whole thing in her hands and telling nobody the truth except the man on the block.
Week 3 eviction and the BB Blockbuster air tonight, Thursday July 30.
Friday — the deal
Kamu took HOH, the third week in a row a Toolshed member held it, and the plan changed almost immediately. He had wanted to nominate Jason straight out. Drew talked him into the backdoor instead, the same treatment the Toolshed had just given Rome.
Noms went up as Lala, Lyric and Mallory, with Lyric as the pawn Kamu intended to pull down. Before the ceremony he pulled Jason aside and made him an offer.
Kamu: “Jason, I’m not gonna put you up on the block, but I wanna strike a deal with you. If you get picked to play in the veto and you win, I get to decide how it’s used.”
Kamu: “And he goes, absolutely. He goes, if you don’t put me up, I will do anything you want with that veto.”
That night, Devens denied to Kamu’s face that he had a power. Thirty minutes later he walked Dee through the full mechanics of the Diamond Power of Veto in the storage room — six weeks, pull anyone off the block, name the replacement himself, HOH cut out. Dee has been the only person who knows all week.
Saturday — the veto, and the lie that broke the week
Six played: Kamu, all three nominees, plus Haley and Jason — Lala drew Houseguest’s Choice and picked him. Angela hosted. Lyric won.
Then Kamu found out what Jason had been doing.
Kamu: “After the competition, I found out that he told everybody that was on the block: if you pick me to play, I will use the veto on you.”
Dee: “He f—ed up. Bro, I’m telling you, that’s why you can’t trust him.”
Kamu: “He’s so stupid.”
Sunday — the BB Tea Party Massacre
Mallory had scheduled a tea party for five o’clock. Kamu decided to hold a house meeting inside it, thirty minutes in, once everyone was dressed up.
He built the speech across the morning with Dee, then rehearsed it for Devens in the afternoon. Four steps: love you guys, congratulate Lyric on the veto, address the elephant in the room, and give Jason a round of applause for how he handled the previous week’s blowup. Then the turn.
Kamu: “You really turned things around and you really played an admirable game.”
Kamu: “Or so I thought.”
Dee: “Bro.”
Kamu: “Boom. Bass drop.”
Dee: “But then give it a pause when you say, or so I thought.”
Kamu: “Take a sip.”
He had a name for it before he did it.
Kamu: “Worst case scenario, during the tea party. The BB Tea Party Massacre, bro.”
Kamu: “Look who’s spilling the tea. It’s piping hot.”
Dee’s own verdict, delivered to Angela after she’d talked him into it: “It’s a stupid-ass plan, but it works great for all of us.”
Dee also asked him twice not to use her name. He agreed, then took the question to Devens instead, got a yes, and named the icons anyway.
The blowup itself ran the better part of an hour. Jason held his seat. Lala pushed back and asked the room how she had become the biggest threat in a house where she has not won anything.
Lala: “All I’ve been trying to do is be a good person, bring happiness to people, make a meal — and I become a target.”
Lala: “I’m not nobody’s mama in here. I have four babies and that’s all I need.”
She also took the meeting apart on its own terms, which nobody else did.
Lala: “But if you are truly airing it out, then why aren’t you saying who came to you with the stuff? An untrue air out is a halfway.”
Jason asked the room directly whether Devens had the power. Devens did not deny it — he told Jason he was entertaining and changed the subject. Mallory noticed.
Then Jason made the only argument that could still hurt anybody.
Jason: “And if you’re not with him right now, I can best believe this will be your seat later.”
Jason: “Because this is the same seat Rome was in when Devens was in power.”
He spent the last four minutes of it alone, asking whether anyone wanted to help him pack and offering to help people with their dreams. The transcript runs three minutes with nobody answering. Taylor closed it.
Taylor: “I guess the tea party is adjourned.”
By midnight the two people who had planned it were walking it back.
Devens: “I just wanted it to kind of blow up on Kamu and take some of the shine off of him.”
Monday — the veto ceremony, and the fallout
Lyric used the veto on herself. Kamu named Jason.
Angela spent the evening quietly undoing Kamu’s whole week. Her reasoning was that Jason has a very good chance of winning the Blockbuster and still being here, so Haley needed to keep him from feeling isolated. Kamu had spent Saturday saying he wanted every bridge Jason had rebuilt burned down.
Chuk put a target on Taylor and then apologised for how it sounded.
Chuk: “So it’s good that we make sure she doesn’t get her legs.”
Chuk: “Oh, my God. I’m sorry, Mom. That sounded so rude.”
Chuk: “I said, we need to make sure she doesn’t get her legs.”
And Taylor, who has spent the season being described as lost, mapped the entire house for the HOH, told Yash to fix his game, and turned the colour-coded M&M alliance she had diagrammed into a tight three with Kamu and Devens. Kamu told her to think of a name.
Taylor: “A name? I let the boys do that stuff.”
Kamu: “No, but hey, you came up with the strat. You put this in motion.”
Taylor: “You’re right.”
Kamu also said something to Taylor he has never said to Chuk or Haley.
Kamu: “I’m aware. I can see that I’m at the bottom of that trio.”
That is the exact rumour Drew admitted inventing and seeding into the other side of the house days earlier. He made it up and it was true.
Tuesday — two counts, and the first crack
Kamu and Devens spent half an hour in the backyard deciding the week was a wasted HOH unless Jason or Mallory went home, and counting the votes to send Mallory. Devens wanted Jason to win the Blockbuster anyway, for a different reason — it would force Drew and Barrett to declare a side.
Devens: “They are playing middle. They pick depending on who wins the next HOH. That’s who they’re with.”
The thing that turned Kamu against Drew was a single argument. Kamu told him Mallory had said she’d nominate Dee and Devens. Drew’s counter was that she’d actually nominate Kamu, Chuk and Haley — offered as a reason to keep her.
Kamu: “That makes me want to take her out even more.”
Kamu: “I went to sleep thinking about it. I woke up this morning thinking about it.”
Devens found the picture for it.
Devens: “You’re trying to leave that back door open, that you can go running out and leave us in a burning house. And hang out with the people that set our house on fire.”
Meanwhile the other side spent Tuesday night building a seven-vote plan to keep Jason. Melody made the case, Yash came in planning to vote with the house and left saying keeping Jason was the better move, and Barrett named the cost.
Barrett: “We would’ve had our last family dinner if we do this. F— it. We still have eight.”
Mallory said the thing the whole week had been building toward.
Mallory: “Block whore over here with a bunch of block virgins. I’m sick of this.”
Mallory: “Three weeks they’ve been in Disneyland.”
She also worked out who has the power, from a non-answer.
Mallory: “Even when Jason called him out at the tea party, he was like, do you have the power? But he wasn’t like, what? No.”
Mallory: “I feel like if I didn’t have the power and he was like, don’t you have the power — I’d be like, I f—ing wish.”
Wednesday — the count falls apart
Jason stopped campaigning for himself entirely and explained why.
Jason: “I’m doing it on purpose. The more I look ostracized, the more they’re gonna think, oh, Jason has nobody.”
Melody and Mallory ran the numbers and hit a wall. Nine possible votes to keep Mallory over Lala. Only six to keep Jason, because Drew wouldn’t move.
Melody: “I’ve talked to him, like, several times, and every single time he’s not having it with me.”
Drew went upstairs and pitched keeping Mallory to the HOH room, using the memory wall as a visual aid to argue that Lala only annoys his own side. They told him it wasn’t a valid reason.
Drew: “I was like, what was when you were pitching it to me?”
He came back down and named the price out loud.
Drew: “I think us flipping on them is going to make us bigger targets than her and Jason. So if we don’t win, we’re sitting on the block next week. I hope you know that.”
His fix for Taylor was to stop talking to her.
Drew: “Here’s what we should do is not talk to Taylor at all. And then in the moment, say that majority is going this way.”
Drew: “I think she would be more scared to be not in the majority than to do what she wants.”
Kamu counted his own votes with face masks laid out on the bed and got five to seven for Lala, then said the part that decides tonight if it ties.
Kamu: “If it’s Jason and Mallory, I vote out Jason. If it’s Lala and Mallory, I vote out Mallory.”
He also asked the question the Toolshed has been avoiding all season.
Kamu: “Are we all in this together, or are we all just shields for you?”
Then, Wednesday evening, in one short conversation, the keep-Mallory count quietly stopped existing.
Taylor: “I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t think I can vote against Lala.”
Taylor: “It would be smart to keep her, but — competitive-wise. But I can’t do Lala like that. It just hurts.”
Jason: “Well, in my mind, I was going to do a sympathy vote to Lala, since I figured Mallory was going to stay anyways.”
Taylor: “So at this point, it feels like I’m the tiebreaker.”
Both of them are inside Melody’s seven.
Where it stands going into tonight
Three nominees, one Blockbuster, and nobody counting honestly.
If Jason wins the Blockbuster, it’s Mallory against Lala, and the vote is closer to Kamu’s number than to Melody’s. Taylor has told Jason she can’t vote out Lala. Jason has told Taylor he’d throw Lala a sympathy vote. Drew is solid for Mallory but wants Jason gone. Angela and Dee have both privately counted themselves for Mallory without telling Devens. Kamu breaks a tie and has already announced which way.
If Jason doesn’t win it, the house has been saying all week that he goes, and Kamu gets the week he planned.
And Devens is holding a Diamond Power of Veto that can pull anyone off the block and install a replacement of his choosing, with five weeks left on it after tonight. One person in the house knows. Three have guessed.
Two new alliances formed this week that the episodes have not shown. The Wolf Pack — Kamu, Yash, Dee and Devens — where Devens quietly engineered his own recruitment so that Dee believes she brought him in. And the Giggle Girls — Mallory, Melody and Lyric — who made it official with a hands-in count of three and named it by stealing the name Haley, Angela and Dee had been trying out for themselves.
Melody’s reasoning: “Yeah, it’s funny, because it’s like, okay, cool, fine. Thanks for the name.”
YEAH, MALLORY!!!!
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