“I know it sounds crazy as somebody who put you on the block last week” – Barrett to Devens

Day 71 of Big Brother 28, and the only person who did any work was the one on the block. Nothing moved — no competition, no ceremony, and over an hour of dead feeds in the middle of the afternoon. Then Barrett found Devens in the gym and asked the man he nominated last week to save him.

10:00 AM — The morning after the ceremony

Nothing happens for two hours. No competition, no ceremony, nothing to win — the board landed Monday and the house is sitting in it. Melody, Drew and Devens spend part of the morning back on Day 1, remembering Rachel walking through the door and going straight for Angela. Drew’s version has Devens catching his eye and going, uh oh.

Barrett spends it alone. He is a have-not, he is on the block, and he still has not got his clothes back from the HOH laundry.

12:35 PM — The house decompresses (kitchen, bathroom, gym)

Taylor and Melody sit at the dining table in total silence, Taylor eating, Melody pushing back her cuticles. Everyone else is still relitigating the Pressure Cooker.

Drew and Dee compare notes on what the veto comp looked like from the outside. Dee started talking the moment it began. They both talk with their hands, which she says was hilarious to watch. Drew admits he forgot the people who dropped could still see them.

By 12:37 he is in the bathroom with Taylor and Dee, telling the story of the fight he says he and Yash had at the end of it. Dee’s read, which she is delighted by, is that Yash was fighting Drew and his own demons at the same time. She only wishes she could have heard it.

Then the house scatters. Barrett is at the fridge announcing he needs milk and he needs clothes. Drew is in the mirror telling him they have time, they have days. Devens and Barrett build a list of movies Devens wants to watch with his son Jack and get stuck on whether He-Man is out. Yash warns Dee that if she is not careful he will cough on her food.

At 12:46 Drew finds Melody in the gym and hugs her from behind, apologizing for being mean. He tells her she is in her training arc now. She pretends to throw a punch. A few minutes later she lies on him, he picks her up, and she informs him this is not making her feel better. He leaves. She goes back to working out.

Devens, meanwhile, has arrived at a verdict on the Head of Household: Yash is a s— stirrer. Yash says he is only trying to be silly.

The best thing in the hour has nothing to do with the game. Devens explains that production would not let him bring in socks with his dogs’ faces on them, because pictures have to be earned. He has decided this settles his Christmas list: a silver chain and a bottle of Enzo cologne.

Then Drew asks why he wears a silicone wedding ring. Devens says the real one is platinum. He does not wear it at home because Jimmy Kimmel nearly skinned his finger with it, so it lives somewhere safe and Becca has made her peace with the rubber one.

1:00 PM — Feeds down

Just over an hour of nothing. The feeds go to the block screen shortly after one o’clock and do not come back until past two.

2:14 PM — Dee, Taylor and Yash (HOH)

The feeds return to Barrett and Melody brushing their teeth, and to Devens making slop chips and offering them round. Upstairs, Yash walks out of his own HOH room and tells Dee and Taylor to help themselves to his snacks, which is how two people on opposite sides of Thursday’s vote end up alone together eating his Oreos.

They talk about mangoes. Dee wants his mango. Taylor has a mango tree in her yard and ships the fruit to family in Georgia; Dee’s family has a tree too. The practical answer, from a woman whose mother worked for the postal service until she retired this year, is flat rate priority mail.

When Yash comes back the conversation turns, briefly, into game. Taylor tells him Drew has been going round saying he was tearing Yash’s ass up during the comp. Yash says he is glad. Dee predicts the two of them will be best friends the moment the show ends. Taylor is more certain of something else: the fight is going in the episode.

Then they are back off it, working out which show Dee’s brother would win. She rules out the long ones, lands on something with words, and says he is far smarter than she is. Putting him on Survivor, she decides, would mostly be funny.

2:35 PM — Yash and Taylor (HOH)

Whatever they were doing before this, they come out of it pleased with themselves.

Taylor: “That was so awesome.”
Yash: “That was good for the soul.”
Taylor: “Productive.”
Yash: “Productive.”
Taylor: “Productive.”

Then the Head of Household does his rounds, and there is nothing to collect.

Yash: “How are you feeling? Anything new? Any new developments?”
Taylor: “No, not really.”
Yash: “Your hair looks good.”
Taylor: “Thanks.”

That is the whole game portion. What she actually wants to talk about is finale night, which is a fairly loud thing to be thinking about from the block.

Taylor: “I really don’t want to wear it like this for the finale.”
Yash: “You don’t want to?”
Taylor: “It’s starting to look like I should, because when am I going to have time to take it out?”

Yash does not follow, and it takes them a while to get there.

Yash: “Well, what do you mean? Is it not taken out?”
Taylor: “No. I’m talking about take all of this out. Take it out. Out, out. Like, all the blonde.”
Yash: “Off?”
Taylor: “Yeah, off.”
Yash: “Yeah, out and off. Take it off. You’re gonna take it off?”
Taylor: “Yeah, take it off.”
Yash: “You’re gonna take it off?”
Taylor: “Should I take it off? I feel like I want to take it off.”

He talks her out of it, and his reasoning is the most strategic thing either of them says.

Taylor: “I get that. And then I pop up.”

2:55 PM — Barrett, waiting

Twenty minutes earlier he had walked around the bedroom and opened his drawer, which had almost nothing in it, and then walked around some more. The HOH laundry still has his clothes.

By 2:55 he has changed into something else and is checking himself in the mirror, adjusting the shirt, checking again. It is the most anyone has done all afternoon.

Taylor uses the moment to put him on the spot about whether he would date Mallory. Barrett says that is quite a question. Taylor tells him he does not have to answer. Devens helpfully mentions that Barrett’s niece used her video message to tell him to bring home an aunt. Barrett’s answer is that Mallory can make her own decisions.

3:25 PM — Barrett and Devens (Gym)

It starts as two men missing home. Barrett misses his gym and the routine that goes with it. Devens misses the only exercise he gets when he is not on television.

Devens: “My only exercise back home is just long walks and hikes. I miss them so bad.”
Devens: “It would be great to be able to go outdoors and hike and listen to a podcast and walk and have dogs.”
Devens: “The dogs.”

Eight seconds of silence. Then Barrett opens the most important conversation of his week the only way he knows how.

Barrett: “Devens, I don’t know if you heard, but I’m on the block.”
Devens: “Oh, s—.”
Barrett: “I know.”
Devens: “What happened, bud?”
Barrett: “Yash put me up.”

Then he stops joking and names the problem before Devens can.

Barrett: “And I would feel like a fool if I didn’t at least talk to you about that.”
Devens: “Yes, sir.”

From there it is a real pitch, and the shape of it is: I have nothing, you have a Drew problem, let me be useful.

Barrett: “I don’t really feel like I have many angles here in this game anymore.”
Barrett: “And I know when it comes to you and D, I don’t know how y’all feel going into the next few rounds, especially now that Yash has washed his blood money away.”
Barrett: “And you’ve got Drew, who I would imagine would also go after you at this point in time. Don’t know how you feel about that.”

He describes himself, accurately, as somebody kind of off on their own right now. Then he makes an offer and immediately undercuts it.

Barrett: “If there was any appeal I could make to you, it’s perhaps a bribe, but you don’t have to give me any money.”
Devens: “Oh, I thought you were going to give me money.”
Barrett: “I don’t have any money to give you.”
Devens: “I’m open to it.”
Barrett: “I don’t even think I’m allowed to do that.”

What he does have is the Blockbuster, and the argument that he is a better man to sit beside than the two women on the block with him.

Barrett: “I plan on winning the Blockbuster and staying anyway.”
Devens: “And I think you will.”
Barrett: “Thank you.”
Barrett: “But if there’s any case where I am on the block against Taylor or Melody — if one of you, you or Dee, is up against me sitting on that block, you probably got a better chance.”

And then the whole offer, in one breath.

Devens: “I would never ask you to put that on anything.”
Barrett: “I understand that. But I want you to know that I’m dead serious about that.”
Devens: “But I appreciate that. That is appealing.”

His closing argument is to point at the two men who spent fourteen hours on a wall, and it comes with a shot at one of them.

Barrett: “Because as far as I’m concerned, even if you and D are threats in the game, I think other threats in the game could be, I don’t know, maybe the guys who held up a board for 13 hours without dropping.”
Barrett: “Well, I guess Drew was sweating in the first hour, but besides that.”
Barrett: “It seems like they’re a bigger fish to fry for me personally.”

Barrett: “I’m not saying you and Dee are attached at the hip, but I just know that perhaps y’all would vote the same way this week. And I’ll say the same thing to her.”
Barrett: “And I love the both of you anyway.”

Then he does the bit he has clearly been working on, and it is the best thing anybody says all day.

Barrett: “I feel like it’s like breaking up with somebody and then a week later being like, but weren’t we great together though?”
Barrett: “It’s like, I didn’t know how good I had it until I tried being with this new girl. And she wasn’t as good.”
Barrett: “Yeah, she didn’t want me.”
Devens: “Been there.”

Barrett winds it up by letting him off the hook.

Barrett: “Yeah, but you ain’t even got to say anything to that, but I did just want to offer that in place because I’d love to stay. Obviously, who wouldn’t love to stay?”
Barrett: “And if I can help fight for y’all, I would absolutely f—ing do that.”

Devens takes the out and then talks for three minutes anyway. It is warm, it is generous, and it commits to nothing.

Devens: “I won’t say anything in terms of actually saying anything. Because those are discussions I need to have with other people and to think about.”
Devens: “But just in general terms, even when I was on the block last week and we talked, it was like — it’s weird how this game works. Sometimes people find each other again. Sometimes the case necessitates certain things.”

Devens: “I think you deserve to be here. I think everyone deserves to be here. We’ve all gone through hell.”
Devens: “But like, dude, you know I love you. I would love to be able to find each other again.”

Then the sentence that quietly does the most work, because it explains why he can afford to say all of this.

Devens: “And I do think you’re going to win the Blockbuster. And so it’ll be hard at that point for us to prove anything to each other.”

He knows the feeling, because he was in the chair last week and somebody else got the proof.

Devens: “And that’s how I felt this week, you know. It’s like — Yash and Taylor proved something keeping D. I don’t know if it would have happened with me. You never know.”

Devens: “Like, as close as the game is to the end, time-wise, and as few of us as there are left in the game, this is the most treacherous, perilous part.”
Devens: “And I do the same as you. I look around, and it’s like, there’s a lot of threatening people left. I think you and I included, I would like to think.”

Devens: “So, it’s not on deaf ears. I’m glad you’re getting out and pitching. You got to do it.”
Devens: “I’m glad you’re in the game because that’s the type of person I want to be dealing with.”

What he actually promises is the two days between now and the vote.

Devens: “Thank you for the pitch. I’ll definitely be thinking a lot about it as we have the two worst days of the week.”
Devens: “I won’t talk to other people that you don’t want me to talk to about it.”

Barrett has one more angle and it is the best one he has: the Icons are not the people who did this to him.

Barrett: “I think a lot of people will assume that if I won HOH, I would just continue to go after, like, you and D. And it’s like, okay, they can think that.”
Barrett: “Y’all aren’t the people that put me on the block this week.”
Devens: “Right.”

Barrett: “I feel like if y’all need a person that’s way more likely to get into power and go after the people that might end up going after you in the next couple rounds — I can be there for you.”

Barrett: “Trust is a hard thing in this game.”
Devens: “But we have a foundation of a long time and a friendship that I have not, obviously, haven’t forgotten and value very much.”

And then it stops being a pitch at all.

Barrett: “And thank you again for last night. That really helped me.”
Devens: “No, you’re welcome. I think it helped me too.”

Whatever came out of Barrett the night before, it had been building for a while. He had stopped being able to feel much of anything, and then all of it arrived at once.

Where it stands

Nothing moved. Yash is still Head of Household, Drew still holds the veto he used on himself, and Barrett, Melody and Taylor are still the three on the block. There was no competition and no ceremony, and the only person who spent the day trying to change anything was the one with the most to lose.

Barrett’s pitch to Devens was well made and it got him nothing he can bank. A promise to think about it, from a man who has just told you he loves you, is not a vote. Devens opened by saying he would not say anything in terms of actually saying anything, which is the whole conversation in one sentence.

His way out is the kindest one available: he thinks Barrett is going to win the Blockbuster, which means he will never have to decide. He said so to Barrett’s face — it will be hard at that point for us to prove anything to each other — and he was still sore about last week when he said it. Yash and Taylor proved something by keeping Dee. Devens is not sure they would have done it for him.

Everyone else spent Tuesday processing Sunday. Drew told the story of his fight with Yash to the bathroom, Taylor carried it upstairs, and Yash was pleased to hear it — the Head of Household enjoying the news that the veto holder has been telling people he beat him up. Dee thinks they will be best friends by the wrap party.

And Taylor, sitting on the block two days out from an eviction, spent her time with the Head of Household working out what her hair should look like on finale night. Yash talked her out of changing it on the grounds that the audience already knows her face. Neither of them treated that as a strange conversation to be having.