“It has to be you or me” – Dee to Devens

9:50 AM — Dee and Devens (Backyard)

Dee says she slept really well, despite being up from 12:44 until nearly three and waking with her head pounding. Devens says he slept well too after his own marathon session earlier in the night. Then he raises something that happened around 11 or 11:30.

Devens: “Did you come to my room at like 11?”
Dee: “Was that Drew maybe?”
Devens: “Or a dream? I had no idea. Wasn’t a dream. I lay there and I was like, nope. I’m not even reaching for the remote.”
Devens: “11:30 — come on.”

Somebody apparently knocked lightly, and the Head of Household decided to be asleep.

Devens: “I don’t know if it was someone who wanted to talk, or maybe someone wanted to take a shower or something. But I was like, nope.”
Devens: “I’m not even going to ask anyone else. They can tell me if it was them.”
Dee: “I’m surprised it wasn’t open.”
Devens: “I locked it, yeah.”

Dee has been on the other end of that.

Dee: “One time I left mine open and Taylor walked in. I was already asleep and I see light, and I kind of got scared because I thought it was Big Brother turning on the lights to tell me something, because I had headphones in.”
Dee: “And it was Taylor trying to talk. I’m like, girl, we’ll do it in the morning.”

---

Then it lands on both of them at once.

Devens: “It’s crazy, Dee. No, I could cry.”
Devens: “I was thinking last night, I’ve won my last HOH of the season, because I can’t compete in the next one.”
Dee: “That’s how close we are.”

Which puts today’s veto in a particular light. Devens initially treats the next HOH as the more important competition. Dee immediately pushes back, because there is one veto result that could put her directly in danger.

Devens: “We’re fine. It’s more important to get the next HOH.”
Dee: “No, it’s still important for this veto, because the worst case scenario would be Taylor winning. And she will pull.”
Devens: “She should. But I don’t know if she will.”
Dee: “She absolutely will — to take me out, so that her and Melody vote me out.”

With Drew and Melody already nominated, Dee is worried that Taylor could win the veto and take Melody down, leaving Dee as the only available replacement nominee. Devens thinks Taylor wants Drew gone more than she wants Dee gone. Dee is not relying on it.

Dee: “I will tell her whatever she needs to hear.”
Devens: “But yeah — let’s not let that happen.”

They also keep coming back to the Pharaoh. Neither says they know what it means; this is their speculation about whether something unusual is still coming.

---

Then the morning turns into a retrospective, which is what happens when two people who did not expect to be here find themselves at top five.

Dee: “Every single week since the beginning has been important for us.”
Devens: “And it hasn’t been a lie yet. Every week it gets more important.”
Devens: “It’s crazy just how few of us there are.”
Dee: “We tiptoe, but at the same time, like you said — we got here because of us. Not because anyone dragged us here. I couldn’t even live with myself if that was the case.”

Devens works out what this week would have looked like if Crossover had survived intact, and arrives somewhere unexpected.

Devens: “This is top five. This is where Crossover was supposed to be. And what a nightmare that would have been, to win this HOH. Have to put the boys up. I would feel so awful right now.”
Devens: “So it’s like — thank you, Barrett.”
Dee: “Right. Thank you, because it worked out.”

Dee is less at peace with how she handled Barrett on the way out.

Dee: “Not karma — gameplay karma. It’s like, you don’t mess with us. When I tell you I ripped him a new asshole, I did. And a part of me still feels bad about it.”
Devens: “Gameplay-wise, hell no. This is going to be vengeance, I’m coming for you. As a person — as a person.”
Dee: “I keep replaying what I told him. I’m like, f—.”

Devens remembers the line.

Devens: “The sun’s about to set on you.”
Dee: “Like, I’m a bigger man. Like, why did I do that?”
Devens: “Oh yeah, you got up in his face.”
Dee: “I was so pissed. That’s what I feel bad about.”

---

They put a name to how they have played it.

Devens: “We’ve been playing with house money the whole game. Like, just fearless. Which makes it even weirder that we’re here.”
Devens: “In the beginning, we were just messy. We were doing stuff just to do it.”
Dee: “We were so messy. Let’s get Haley to put up Drew. Now let’s change it at the last second. Remember that? Haley’s going home.”
Devens: “Let’s make it Chuk. Like, we just did crap just to do it.”

Devens: “We were just so addicted to controlling the game. We’re like, let’s just keep doing it for no reason.”

And neither of them can account for still being in it.

Devens: “The fact that Barrett put up all three Icons and you and I were blatantly the targets, and we made it through. We told him so much s— too. Double eviction with no time to do anything. We weaseled our way out of being the two on the block. Like, how?”
Dee: “I’m like, how does this happen? I don’t understand.”
Devens: “We’re doing it, and I don’t know how we’re doing it.”

---

Dee admits what she thinks happens if they both make it.

Dee: “Probably, like, 90 percent, I do feel like I will lose to you.”
Devens: “That’s funny, because I look at the jury and I’m like — don’t think so.”
Dee: “If that is the case, that makes me happy, because in my head I cannot be happy with this experience unless it’s you or me.”

Then the part where the two Survivor players imagine the phone call afterwards.

Dee: “We’d have to FaceTime Jeff Probst afterwards. Can you imagine he’s tuning in and just be like, Probst, did you see what we just did?”
Devens: “Survivor domination.”
Devens: “She’d be so proud. We picked up the torch.”

---

Back to the next ten days, and how the two of them cover the two competitions that decide it.

Devens: “We just got to keep it up for 10 or 11 more days.”
Dee: “Which is nothing.”
Devens: “You need to win, and then I need to win the veto. Or vice versa.”
Devens: “You win the HOH, that way you can win the veto and use it on me. And I’ll have better chances for the veto.”

Dee wants it used regardless, and her reason is the thing nobody can plan for.

Dee: “I don’t care if you’re on the block. I’m using the veto. Just in case of any twist. Not because of me deciding — just in case of any twist.”

Which brings them to Drew, who they both like and neither trusts.

Devens: “If Melody’s gone, who knows what Drew will do? He could legitimately look out for us. It wouldn’t surprise me. It also wouldn’t surprise me if he got rid of one of us and took Taylor.”
Dee: “Listen, we love him, but — the thing about Drew, he’s played the game. It just has never worked out in the way that… you get what I’m saying?”
Devens: “I know. We keep pulling the rug out from under him.”
Dee: “Yes. With everything.”

Dee has ranked the disasters.

Dee: “Worst case scenario is Taylor winning and using it, obviously, on Melody. But after that, I think worst case scenario would be Melody winning. Because if Melody wins and we keep Drew, that’s a duel that we’re taking.”
Devens: “That would warrant some discussion, because at that point there’s no reason to believe Drew would take us to final three when he could take Melody.”

---

The last ten minutes are about going home. Devens got a video last week and letters this week, and the headline was that his son is coming round to the show.

Devens: “That was funny, that Jack was like, I’m starting to like Big Brother more and more.”
Devens: “I’ll be full dad mode. Making dinners, doing the grocery shopping, taking the dogs out for long walks, doing laundry and crap.”
Dee: “That sounds amazing. Becca will be so happy.”
Devens: “I’ll do it for at least three months, because I’m not in a hurry to go back to work.”

He has already started lobbying for a job on next season.

Devens: “I’ll already be giving Big Brother a hard time about how much I want to come back next season.”
Dee: “Let me just host a comp. Let me just say hey.”

Dee is not planning to fly home the morning after.

Dee: “I might extend maybe like two more days just to decompress on my own. Because I know the moment I get home, I want to be with my family ASAP and my friends. I need at least one day to just be by myself.”
Devens: “That’s the blessing and the curse of making it far.”

Dee: “Or it might just come to you randomly too.”
Devens: “I’ll be watching a football game and a dog commercial will come on, and I’ll just be like… freaking dog commercials.”

Dee thinks that is what happened to her when Angela left.

Dee: “We were all together in this game. And then when she left, I think it was a mix — obviously I miss her so damn much, but it’s also a mix of the suppressing emotions.”
Devens: “I don’t think she’s ever suppressed an emotion.”
Dee: “No. Definitely not.”
Devens: “Which is in many ways healthy. She was like, Devens, you’ve never gotten emotional with me. And I was just like — I haven’t done that with anybody.”

He says this season has been different from his Survivor ones.

Devens: “The first season was a lot tougher because the kids were so young. Basically every time I talked about them, I would get emotional. But this time I feel like I’ve been so much more stoic.”
Devens: “Outside of Juju’s birthday — which was funny, because the main person I got emotional with about that was Rome.”

Dee: “It was cool during the HOH comp to watch the scenes, right?”
Devens: “It was weird. I saw you in the background in the mirror.”
Dee: “So weird to know that. We’ve been playing in a TV show — because this feels like real life.”

---

They finish on the two people downstairs neither of them can read.

Dee: “You think they’d try to date after?”
Devens: “I don’t know, man. I think they should.”
Devens: “When she’s like, oh, he’s too young — and he’s like two years younger — I’m just like, Melody, I don’t know if you know what a catch Drew is, but he’s not going to have a lack of options when he gets out of here. If you’re interested, you might want to lock that down.”

Dee: “It’s almost like this whole season, I feel like I’ve been watching middle school kids.”
Devens: “I assume pre-Zingbot they weren’t. But post-Zingbot, I’ve caught them in a lot of situations where it seems like there’s a little something going on.”
Dee: “It’s almost like they were waiting for Zingbot. And then they’re like, all right, nobody can tell us anything now.”

Devens: “Or maybe we got so in Drew’s head after Zingbot that he’s like, you’re messing with me. And she’s like, listen, come here.”
Dee: “Maybe she thinks he’s messing with her. They both think that.”
Devens: “What a couple of goofballs.”

10:21 AM — Melody and Dee (Backyard)

Melody is on the block. Dee is not. The veto gets played today, and this is two and a half minutes on the backyard couch, most of it about nothing.

They spend the first ninety seconds on the sky and on Melody’s nails.

Melody: “It was hella cloudy when I was out here earlier. The entire sky was just clouds. But it was also early.”
Dee: “Yeah, the weather’s getting chillier.”
Melody: “Yeah, it is. Which feels so good. It feels really nice.”

Dee: “How often do you paint your nails? They’re always looking nice.”
Melody: “I repainted these — this one’s already chipped — maybe like a couple weeks ago. I’ve done it twice in the house. I usually get a pedicure like once a month. Do you wear a lot of shoes at home?”
Dee: “I usually just wear flip flops.”

Then Dee changes gear, and the rest of the conversation takes about forty seconds.

Dee: “How are you feeling about everything?”

Melody barely gets a word in for the rest of it. Dee does almost all of the talking.

Dee: “Just know I still want you in this game. Like, everything that we talked about. It’s not what other people want, but I don’t care what other people want.”

Then she says it outright.

Dee: “Just know that I’m thinking, if I win this veto, to use it on you.”
Melody: “Okay, cool.”
Dee: “But do not tell them.”
Melody: “Absolutely.”
Dee: “I trust you.”
Melody: “Absolutely.”

The gag order is hers, and she puts it on the sentence the second it is out of her mouth. Then she gets to the part that comes after the veto — pulling Melody down leaves Devens holding a renom, and Dee does not want to pick it alone.

Dee: “And that’ll be a hard combo, and we’ll talk about that.”
Melody: “Yeah.”
Dee: “Because I would need your advice.”
Melody: “And, like, that’s, again, why I wanted you to stay.”

That last line is a receipt, not a compliment. Melody kept Dee in the house at a point where she didn’t have to, and she is collecting on it at 10:21 in the morning on veto day.

So Dee has promised a veto she has not won to a nominee she is not obliged to save, asked for silence on it in the same breath, and thrown in a say on the replacement as a bonus. Melody’s entire contribution to that stretch is “okay, cool,” “absolutely,” “absolutely” and “yeah.”

10:38 AM — Drew and Dee (Backyard)

Seventeen minutes after telling Melody she is thinking of using the veto on her, Dee is on the same backyard couch swearing to Drew she will use it on him. This one runs a little over twenty minutes, and for most of it neither of them sounds like a person with an eviction tomorrow.

It opens on the pair of them being annoyed at themselves for being awake.

Dee: “Damn, Taylor’s still sleeping? I could have stayed sleeping too.”
Drew: “Yeah, I’m sorry. I should have been sleeping still.”
Dee: “No, I genuinely got up because you got up.”
Drew: “Dude, that’s legit. Like, you are my alarm. If you don’t get up, I don’t get up. But I think the problem is that we’re each other’s alarm.”

Then Drew gets to it. He has asked Devens for this and he has asked Dee for it before, and he asks again anyway.

Dee: “It has to be today, because tomorrow is eviction.”
Drew: “You promise you’re taking me off if you win it?”
Dee: “Yes.”
Drew: “You swear?”
Dee: “I swear. And I’m going to gun for it, too.”
Drew: “Me, too. I believe you.”

Dee says the belief is the whole point — “I felt like if you didn’t believe me, you wouldn’t… agree to go up.” Drew: “Yeah. I get it.”

They run the board. The disaster scenario is Taylor, and Dee tries to price it at basically zero before catching herself.

Dee: “Definitely the worst case scenario is, of course, Taylor winning, but that’s, like, so low. That’s actually, like, not even one percent.”
Drew: “I mean, it is.”
Dee: “You can’t count her out. I know, I know. You’re right.”
Drew: “I’d be worried if Melody won, too. Would you still vote Taylor out?”
Dee: “Yeah. Taylor goes out. She goes out.”

So that is Dee’s answer to Drew, seventeen minutes after the other one. Melody stays in this version too — but only because Taylor is the one leaving, and Dee gives it without a beat of hesitation.

Drew: “I’m serious about the final three, man.”
Dee: “No, dude, I believe you. I do believe you.”
Drew: “I want to sit there with you two and be like, guys, what the hell? How did we get here? And then it could be a dog fight for the third. That’s the part three.”

Drew asks whether a three-way final would favor any of them. Dee says it would be harder for both of them — and when he asks if that’s because of Devens, she doesn’t soften it.

Dee: “Bro, the way he sees a puzzle. My brain does… I don’t get it. I don’t understand how people could be good like that. My brain just doesn’t work like that, I guess.”

Drew then walks Dee through the final Head of Household, part by part.

Drew: “It’s usually broken up into, like, three parts… The first part’s always endurance.”
Dee: “It’s always endurance? And the second part?”
Drew: “A puzzle — like, it’s an active puzzle. You’re moving around, but it’s a puzzle. So it’s like a physical puzzle. And then whoever wins the first part goes straight to the third. And then the second part is between the other two.”

Then the third part.

Drew: “They’ll have all the jury people send in a video… It’s always so random. It’s like, what was Lala’s favorite part of being at the house? And then they give you A, B, C. And they’ll be like, winning the wall. And we’d be like, probably that one. And then whoever wins that picks who they bring to the end.”

Dee admits she used to skip exactly this part of the season. Drew did not. “Sometimes they just do puzzles for the first part. So you and me might be battling it out in part two.”

Dee: “Yeah, for sure. Scary.”
Drew: “Yeah, but at the end of the day, us all three being there — it’s gonna feel like we’ve already won.”
Dee: “Yeah, a hundred. No matter what happens, I’d be like, all right, cool, this experience was worth it.”
Drew: “I believe you, Dee. Go win this veto.”

Dee wants it for a different reason than he does: “I want to win it just so you can see.”

Dee says the speed of it is the only mercy on offer.

Dee: “I’m almost happy this is happening, like, really quick tomorrow… so we can just keep speeding up.”
Drew: “Because then there’ll probably be another one. And then you or me win that HOH.”

Then he does the arithmetic out loud, and for a guy who spent yesterday afternoon trying to hand over his mother’s letter as collateral, the numbers come out clean.

Drew: “Obviously today, I think they’re going to be good, because it’s going to be you, me, Devens playing. Sixty-six percent one of us wins it. And then it’s a seventy-five percent chance that you, me or Devens wins the veto. And then it’s us sitting at the final three. Bro, that is, like, picture perfect.”

Dee is less sold on picture perfect.

Dee: “I know that sounds amazing, but hopefully it does play out like that, because it’s scary right now, you know?”
Drew: “Yeah, well, I’m scared. But I, like, trust you guys.”
Dee: “No, I’m scared of, like, a twist or something.”
Drew: “No, this is the twist. This is the last, like, yeah.”
Dee: “Nothing else is going to happen with the Pharaoh and the curse or whatever.”
Drew: “No, no.”

Neither of them has been told what the Pharaoh is. Drew’s reasoning is that the season has already spent its twists: “If it’s like last season, this is like the… there’s always two twists. There’s always, like, the weird, like, medieval time. Medieval and this. So once we’re done with this, then it’s just competition stuff.” He wants that to be true, which is a different thing from it being true.

Dee: “All right, we got one more HOH. Let’s get it.”

From there it turns into the two of them going back through the season. Dee still can’t get over Yash being gone — “I still can’t believe Yash is out. I think he would have won that comp,” meaning the one Devens won on Thursday night. Drew says it was the same comp as the medieval one, only smaller. Dee isn’t convinced it’s the same at all.

Drew tells her that if anyone had asked him in week one who was going to win the season, he’d have said Dee, and the reason is balance comps.

Drew: “You won the… you did the first puzzle, which was balance.”
Dee: “That’s not really balance, though.”
Drew: “Well, it’s balancing the pieces to make sure they don’t fall.”
Dee: “Well, I’m not the one balancing them. Well, I am putting them together.”
Drew: “Then you won the balance beam. The medieval stuff — all your stuff has been related to balance. You’re like the balance queen.”

Which sets Dee off on a comp from her season of The Challenge — a partner event on a pole above water, tin cans weighted with rubber bands, and a field full of grass and little hills to run it through.

Dee: “The ones that had the thick bands were the tin cans that weighed the most… And basically there’s a pole, a pipe, a huge pipe above water. And the whole premise is you have to wrap the bands around the corner so that you can walk on the pipe, balance on it and take out a flag on the corner and then come back and then you win.”

Drew: “So you kind of build your own bridge?”
Dee: “The bridge was already built. It was the pipe.”

She and her partner Derek went for the heaviest cans first — “because I’m lighter, so we just need more thick bands” — and she was the one who got up on the pipe. Two or three runs and it was over. Drew, delighted by all of it: “I love competing.” Dee: “Dude, yeah, it’s so fun.” Drew: “It’s just silly. I love it. But when you win, it’s like everything.”

His own favorite is still the medieval win, over the Head of Household and over the Zingbot veto — and he is still pleased with himself about the tiebreaker, where he came in eleven or twelve off.

Then the dream.

Drew: “I had a dream last night… that we were in the house and you won the veto today. And I was like, congrats. I was like, dude, you got the HOH and the veto.”
Dee: “You had the dream that I won this past HOH?”
Drew: “No, no, that you won an HOH. Like, you already have two HOHs. But then you won the veto. I was like, dude, you got both now.”

Dee had a weird dream too and can’t remember any of it, which she works through out loud for about twenty seconds before giving up and asking whether he’s already made eggs. He has. He has been making them since week one, after stealing the idea from her: “Bro, you made those, like, week one, and I just stole that s— and ran with it for, like, two months. I was like, yo, this is lit.” Dee’s only complaint about the house at this point is the bread. Drew’s breakfast at home is scrambled eggs and oatmeal — “I love oatmeal” — but he won’t go near oatmeal in here, and Dee knows exactly why before he says it. “Because of slop?”

And then, quietly, the reason he came out here.

Drew: “You and Devens have to talk me off the ledge.”
Dee: “Why?”
Drew: “Until Sunday. Because I’m just freaking out.”
Dee: “Oh, you’re fine. You mean until tomorrow?”
Drew: “Until tomorrow, yeah.”
Dee: “Whenever you feel bad, just come up to any of us.”

He has lost a day somewhere. Eviction is tomorrow and he has it filed under Sunday.

The last ten minutes are nostalgia, and most of it is about Angela. Drew brings up sitting on the high chairs out here around Labor Day, Angela next to him, crying. Dee: “She really does, though.” Drew: “Bro, she loves you.” Dee: “Yeah, she does, and this was such a different experience for her.”

Drew: “I can’t imagine people not wanting to work with her, dude.”
Dee: “Same. Why do you not want to work with her?”

Dee then floats the possibility that they are the strange ones for liking her that much, and Drew takes it: “Yeah, maybe we’re also crazy. But she’s just so loyal. It’s just, like, how could you not? And in her first season, she won two HOHs. She was winning s— too.” Dee’s read is that Angela would take this season over that one anyway — two HOH wins and then on the block week after week. “Every week they were putting her up.” Drew, who was there for the version in this house: “If you know anything about Angela… she thought she was going home seven weeks ago. Every time.” Dee also wants it on the record that Angela came through when it counted: “Dude, she won that clutch Blockbuster.”

What Dee had with Angela, she says, was the girl version of what Drew has with Devens — “we talk a lot about life… kind of like the same way you and Devens talk.” Her favorite Angela memory is more mischievous. When Haley was still in the house, Haley believed Angela was her closest person — and Angela was reporting it all straight back to Dee.

Dee: “So I would f— around with both of them and say stuff in front of the other just to, like, irritate.”
Drew: “That’s so funny. You guys were both fighting to be your mom’s favorite.”
Dee: “No, I wasn’t fighting.”
Drew: “You’re just turning the knife.”
Dee: “I was f—ing around, yeah.”

What she likes about the Crossovers, she says, is that none of them ever needed managing.

Dee: “Everyone in the Crossovers — none of us are needy, which is so important… When Lala and Haley got close to Angela, they were the ones fighting for her. We’re not needy like that. Go do your thing. Go hang out. We’ll catch up. We don’t need that constant reassurance.”

Drew remembers where it started, and he remembers it as a room rather than a meeting: the bathtub, day two or three, him and Dee and Devens and Angela sitting around doing something he can no longer name.

Drew: “We were all really excited. And I was like, dude, this is crazy. I was like, this feels legit. And it was, like, day two or three.”

He then wonders whether the bathroom night was actually during Devens’ Head of Household. Dee corrects him: that one was later, when the Tool Shed came together. “Wait, oh my God, yes — that was two weeks in.”

The bowing came out of that second night, and neither of them can settle who started it.

Drew: “You and me went down and we’re like, let’s start bowing. You and me are so stupid.”
Dee: “We did do it first.”
Drew: “And everyone actually did it. Why did everyone do it? Because we’re idiots.”

And the part Dee finds funniest — Haley, Chuk and Kamu bowed along with everyone else, with no idea who they were bowing for. All three went pre-jury. They found out about the Crossovers at home.

Drew: “And they blew the f— up after. They were like, what?”
Dee: “Nah, my loyalty was always with the Crossovers.”

Drew says the same about himself, then lands on the one that still bothers him: the guy the group spent all season worrying about turned out not to be the problem, and the one nobody worried about was.

They run the counterfactual on a Crossovers final five and agree it would have been ugly. Drew thinks a Devens Head of Household in that world puts up him and Barrett, or maybe him and Angela. Dee disagrees about who Devens was closer to.

Dee: “I think he was closer to Barrett.”
Drew: “No, I feel like they would be able to sit and talk longer. Because Barrett’s just older… he knows a lot more movies. I think they’re more similar.”

Which brings Drew round to Devens’ nomination speech yesterday — the one that put Drew on the block and somehow left him with nothing to say back. “His speech was funny. He beat me. I didn’t know what to say… It was just, like, all compliments.” Dee offers a couple more compliments for the pile — “your hair, and you’re younger” — then tags them herself: “This is me lashing out.”

They end up back where the morning started, on the thing neither of them can see coming.

Dee: “Devens would have to get called in, right?”
Drew: “Probably — or someone’s like, whoa, somebody’s here. Would it be the Pharaoh? Would it be the fan? You know, it could be. I don’t know.”