Barrett: “I May Only Be HOH Once. So Why Not Be a Little Bit Petty?”

10:42 AM — Barrett alone (HOH)

Barrett gets the camera to himself for twenty minutes and spends them mapping the rest of the season out loud. It is the most complete piece of forward planning anybody has done on the feeds this year.

Barrett: “Good morning, everybody. Happy Sunday to everybody. It’s raining outside. That’s a bit strange.”

With the veto in Yash’s hands and the ceremony tomorrow, he is treating the board as final — which means an Icon is guaranteed to leave this week.

Barrett: “Unless Yash wants to completely shock the world tomorrow…”
Barrett: “And I guess barring, you know, maybe I’ll shell out a second Diamond Power of Veto to somebody that I don’t know about. One for me, that’s for sure.”
Barrett: “I’m getting the idea that, like, the Crossovers is done. I don’t know what happened.”

Then the most honest account of the move anyone has given, including him.

Barrett: “And maybe that’s not, like, the most strategic move on earth. I acknowledge this. But I may only be HOH once. So why not have a little fun? Maybe be a little bit petty in the process.”
Barrett: “It could result in my downfall immediately. Still a great time.”
Barrett: “Or it could be the move that wins me the game. And I like that option.”

He gives the BB Comics times, which is the closest the feeds have come to a scoreboard — and rates the artwork while he is at it.

Barrett: “Dee, I think she got like 17 minutes. Devens got like 14 minutes. And then Yash got like 13 and a half minutes. And then me and Taylor and Angela had no f—ing clue where we stood there. None of us timed out apparently though. So cool.”
Barrett: “My comic was, like, pretty evil, to be honest. Don’t know what I’ve done that’s evil.”
Barrett: “My favorite is Burger Kong. Mallory is the Pipe Queen — incredible.”

Then the deal that reshapes the endgame, stated plainly for the first time on the feeds.

Barrett: “There was a ceasefire made yesterday with all of the newbies — that after this week, if there is a double eviction, assuming this is the last Blockbuster this Thursday, that we all agree not to go after each other in the double.”
Barrett: “That’s neat.”
Barrett: “We’ll get to find out if Yash is telling the truth or not, if he wins that HOH.”

Which Icon he wants gone is still open, and he is honest about why.

Barrett: “Devens scares me more going into that HOH for a double. So if we got him out this week, that would make me feel a little bit more at ease.”
Barrett: “But Dee and Devens are both pretty damn good at everything.”

He also, without announcing it, stops treating Dee’s bribe story as a lie. On Friday he had decided she made it up. This morning he plans around both versions.

Barrett: “Yash could very well win HOH and not be able to nominate Dee.”
Barrett: “Or he could be lying about the entire thing, and he can’t nominate either Dee or Angela.”

The worst case, walked all the way to the end.

Barrett: “If Yash wins that double HOH and Dee is still in the game, he can only put up Angela and then a pawn, and then we just have to hope that Dee or Angela doesn’t win the veto.”
Barrett: “And even if one of them did — it could be, like, a me and Drew sitting on the block together at the end of that.”
Barrett: “And if that were the case, then I’d have to rely on Melody keeping me. Because I think Taylor would keep me, but I think Angela and Dee would vote me out at that point.”
Barrett: “So I’m relying on Melody in this case, who is famously, like, in a showmance with Drew.”

He runs the three Icons’ boards and gets the same answer every time.

Barrett: “I think Angela would nominate me and Yash. I think Dee would nominate me and Yash. I think Devens would nominate me and Yash.”
Barrett: “I have a slight feeling that I am target numero uno, if any of the Icons win anyway. So, kind of out of my control at that point.”

Sat next to Yash he thinks he survives, on the grounds that nobody keeps the man who wins everything: “I don’t know why they’d wanna willingly keep Yash around if he was sitting there on the block… So hoping they remember that.” Sat next to Drew, he has already made his peace.

Barrett: “If she does vote me out, I’m only gonna assume it’s because I am just a really great threat to win. Which is fine too. I can live with that.”
Barrett: “Regardless, I just need to win. I just need to win competitions. I got one of them. I can do more.”

Then he builds the good version, and gets specific enough to name it.

Barrett: “If it’s the ropes competition for the Blockbuster on Thursday, I can only assume Dee will win that. Which means Devens will go. Which would be getting a huge target out of this house for sure.”
Barrett: “The beautiful thing would be ending the double with Dee and Devens out of the house. I don’t think that’s impossible.”
Barrett: “Okay, I’m gonna be super specific. The miracle of all miracle runs would be: both Survivor players are gone at the end of the double, one member of FAP wins HOH, we get out Yash at five or at six. Then it’s just FAP, Taylor, and Angela.”

His first attempt at the running order collapses when he realises Yash would be eligible — “well, actually, never mind” — so he starts again, and the second one holds.

Barrett: “Devens gets out. Yash wins HOH. We get Angela out. Final six HOH — Drew wins. We target Yash.”
Barrett: “But if we can’t get Yash out, we just get the other Icon out. Win-win, really. Well, not a win-win. Yash is still in the game and can kick our ass.”
Barrett: “I feel like at the end of the double, that next HOH is going to be the pressure cooker. And if Yash ain’t competing in that, I’m feeling pretty good.”

And after twenty minutes of building himself a path to the end, he finishes on the one thing none of it solves.

Barrett: “I don’t know if Yash down the line would want to keep me in the game over Drew.”

Where it stands: Two things came out of this room that change the week. The ceasefire is real and Barrett is in it — all five newbies agreed Saturday not to target each other in the double, which is the shape of the endgame everybody is now playing toward. And Barrett has quietly stopped calling Dee a liar; he is planning around the bribe being true, which is a bigger shift than he lets on. The rest is a man checking his own arithmetic and finding the same answer every time: whoever wins the double, he is the first name up, and the vote that saves or ends him belongs to Melody — who is, as he puts it himself, famously in a showmance with the other guy on the block.

10:51 AM — Yash and Devens (Backyard)

Nine minutes after Barrett finished telling the camera his nominations were locked, the man holding the veto is outside being pitched.

Devens: “I don’t want to take for granted that you’re going to use the veto on me. Like, if you’re open to it, I would love [that]. And if you’re not, I totally get it. And I certainly don’t expect it.”

Yash stops him to check the yard first.

Yash: “Is Odie there or not?”
Devens: “Nah, she went in.”
Yash: “Oh, okay. Yeah, what’s up?”

Devens: “I’m just wondering where you see your game going. Because if you get to the end, I think you’re in really good shape. You’re building a resume. It’s amazing.”
Devens: “Obviously, I don’t think anyone wants to see you at the end. They all love you. I don’t hear a bad thing about you at all. But it’s going to be weird.”

Yash won’t give him the route, but he gives him the shape of it — and it is the first time he has laid out an endgame on the feeds.

Yash: “I kind of see one. I’m not going to obviously reveal it. But I do know when it’s that fourth HOH, I need to win that one for sure. Because then you pick who goes home, essentially.”
Yash: “And then that third one — that third competition of three people. I know I have to win that, because I’m probably not getting picked.”
Devens: “No, there’s no way you’re getting picked. Which is a compliment.”

Devens compares it unfavorably to his own show — at least Survivor gives you fire-making — and Yash reaches for a different game entirely.

Yash: “You ever play Catan, the board game? You don’t want to be in the lead. Because of that reason.”
Devens: “Because then it’s like all fingers pointed. Everyone’s after you.”
Yash: “But I also knew there would come a point where you have to just flip the switch and just win, win, win. Now the cat’s out of the bag that I’m a strong competitor. So I know I’m at that point.”

Then Devens makes his case, and it is entirely about Barrett.

Devens: “And just to discuss the Barrett-ness of it all — I love Barrett, I love everybody. It is what it is. It’s gameplay. But we were locked in from the beginning. Day two. We were the Crossover alliance, bro.”
Devens: “And I thought this guy had my back. I volunteered to go up last week because I was like, I got Barrett, I got Drew. And he told me straight up he would have voted me out. He would have blindsided me.”
Devens: “I’m like, damn, dog — you cried when Mallory went home. You were smiling to my face.”

He has the receipt because he went and got it himself.

Devens: “I was like — hey man, just out of curiosity, would you have voted me out? He was like, yeah. I was like, wow.”
Devens: “I didn’t know you had that in you, because you were so emotional with the Mallory thing. I was like, either you don’t care about me nearly as much as I thought.”
Devens: “But again, that’s the game. No hate at all.”

Yash puts the rest of it together out loud: “This makes sense why, like, the reaction. Because all five were locked in.” Devens does not soften it — “we protected him all game. Never put him on the block, and the first chance he got… And again, respect. I did some s— like that. I’m not hatin’.”

And then, without seeming to notice he is doing it, Devens hands Yash the state of the bribe — and reveals that the Icons do not know what Barrett actually knows.

Devens: “He was pissed that Dee didn’t put you on the block. That was one of the things, I think, that turned him against us — because he was like, it was supposed to be Yash.”
Devens: “And then she told him about the deal — but only that it was a one-on-one thing. Didn’t tell him that it was all three of us. Worked out f—ing great.”

Devens also sees the fuse on it, which is more than Barrett has worked out.

Devens: “Obviously you are going to win, and that is going to come out, and you’re going to have to put people up.”
Devens: “And then when you do have to not put them up, and they know… anything you think you have built is gonna be out the window.”

Which brings them to Drew, and Yash has been waiting to say this.

Yash: “He just plays this s— too. Wherever there’s the power. You know Game of Thrones, right? He’s Littlefinger, bro. Drew, he’s Littlefinger.”
Devens: “You and Drew have a little bit of a thing right now.”
Yash: “I just don’t respect it. I don’t respect that type of gameplay. To me it’s weaselly.”

The cause is a conversation upstairs after the veto. Yash had gone up to thank Barrett for picking him to play, and stayed long enough to hear the room turn.

Yash: “They bring up the conversation, like — so who would go. And Drew instantly says: you.”
Yash: “I’m like, bro, that’s your dog in here. And instantly, the second the opportunity comes for you to be in this HOH — now that the three of y’all are nominated, he’s jumping ship.”
Yash: “I don’t know if Barrett and Melody see it. That’s also, I feel like, not my place to introduce that conversation with them. But I see it and I’m like, hmm.”

He tells Devens the part he came outside to tell him.

Yash: “I hope you know, too, with Drew — that he completely frauded on you. Yesterday, upstairs.”
Yash: “Completely jumped ship. Talking about, like, we shouldn’t let any of the Icons make it any further. And in my head I’m like, bro, you were fully rocking with them for all of this.”
Yash: “I would honestly rather keep the Icons than him. If I could pick someone to go, I would pick him to go.”

He has also clocked the pitch coming from the other side before it arrives.

Yash: “They’re going to say to me, let’s get all the Icons out. They probably think that’s what I want to hear. Because they don’t actually realize.”
Devens: “Right — but how does that help you?”

And then Yash says he has thought about using it.

Yash: “If I do that, there’s a chance that you or Dee stays — which I’m also cool with. So I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about it.”
Yash: “That Blockbuster would feed families. You three, all three individually, good capable competitors. Y’all should give the BB fans out there a present.”

Devens makes the closing argument, and it is a threat-versus-threat pitch rather than a friendship one.

Devens: “I don’t think there’s anyone you can trust. I definitely don’t think the Barrett-Melody-Drew group is trustworthy at this point.”
Devens: “As much as I know it would be hard to trust me — I see a route. I won’t even put it out there. I’ll just be like, think about it. And just know that I’m open to it.”
Devens: “I think we’re both huge threats. At this point it’s almost like, you know what — I’d rather just have a chance to make an argument at the end than get picked out and have to root for Taylor or Melody.”
Yash: “I would not want to see an undeserving winner.”

He also admits what he has been doing with his mouth all week: “I’m telling everybody, oh, I’m rooting for Barrett. That’s just trying to put a bigger thing on him.” He promises not to do the same to Yash — “I won’t tell other people that I’m rooting for you.”

Both of them land in the same place on what the rest of the season requires.

Yash: “For me it’s just win-out mode. You just gotta keep winning. It’s the only way. Because now, threat-level-wise, you can’t rely on any social. It can benefit you and it will benefit you in some ways, but you can’t rely on it. Now we just have to win to stay safe.”
Devens: “Agreed.”

Devens gets up to check on the food, and asks for one thing on the way in.

Devens: “If you stay and you do end up winning, I would hope that you don’t put me up. I would hope that that handshake meant something.”
Yash: “I don’t blame you if it doesn’t. But I would honor that.”
Devens: “Let me tell you right now. I have one singular focus in this game — and if I lose the Blockbuster, I’ll say it in my speech.”
Devens: “I wouldn’t be after you or Taylor. I would be after Barrett, and then Barrett’s people.”
Yash: “It’s a revenge tour.”
Devens: “It is.”

Where it stands: This is the most consequential conversation of the week and Barrett does not know it happened. Yash is openly considering using the veto — “there’s a chance that you or Dee stays, which I’m also cool with” — which would blow up a board Barrett spent the morning treating as final. He has also decided he would rather sit with the Icons than with Drew, and Devens now knows Drew argued for his eviction upstairs within an hour of the veto being won. On top of that, Devens handed over a piece of information he does not realize is stale: he believes Dee only told Barrett the narrow version of the bribe, one name rather than three. She told him all three on Friday, and he decided she was lying. Everybody in this house is now working from a slightly wrong map, and the only one holding a veto is the one who has thought hardest about it.