Big Brother 24: Week 8 Recap

If we've learned anything from this season it's that there is never a dull moment. Even when you think things are going smoothly, it takes one second to change the entire trajectory of the week. This might go down as one of the most talked about weeks in the show's long history and not for the best reasons. There is a lot to unpack about one specific situation and I'll be talking a lot about it. I know that it has been talked about a lot already, but I felt this was as good a time as any to share my thoughts. This was certainly a crazy week and I'm not quite sure where we go from here. 

On the Verge of History

Before I talk about the serious stuff, I want to talk about something that I've touched on a little bit in previous weeks. Michael had been slipping a little bit when it came to veto wins after winning four of the first five this season. He hadn't won in the last two weeks and with his back against the wall, he decided now was as good a time as any to get another win. This veto win puts him in some serious company all-time. With this fifth veto win, he is now tied for the single-season record with Janelle in BB7, Dani in BB8, Paul in BB19, and Kaycee in BB20. Furthermore, this is his seventh win of the season, tying him for third in a season with Dani, Kaycee, and Vanessa in BB17, leaving just three people ahead of him, Paul and Michie in BB21 with eight each, and Janelle with nine at that moment. The question now is whether he'll be able to tie or even break Janelle's record before he is evicted from the house. I think he has a good shot since most of the houseguests can't seem to hang with him. I think Brittany is the next closest with three wins, all veto wins, and two of them were with Michael during the Festie Bestie Twist. Turner has two wins and he's the only other person with more than one win. We could be watching history being made. 

The Bombshell

The only thing anyone has been talking about this week has been the bombshell news that Michael and Brittany laid on the houseguests after Michael won the veto competition. This is a multi-faceted issue that I'm going to try and calmly discuss from a variety of different angles. I want to cover this from the perspectives of Kyle, Brittany and Michael as a duo, the rest of the house, and then the production team because they play a significant part in the narrative. 

I've hinted at this a few times recently and noted that it had really soured me toward Kyle in my ballot for America's Favorite Houseguest. For several weeks now, at least since Michael's HOH during Week 5, Kyle has been operating under the impression that the players of color in the house are working in an alliance together, citing specifically how close Monte, Taylor, and Joseph were, and had used the term "Cookout 2.0", alluding to the group from last season that successfully aligned themselves together with the purpose of crowning the first black winner in BB history, on multiple occasions to describe a group that included these three along with possibly Jasmine, Indy, and Terrance. It would be one thing if he simply thought that this was a possibility, but he took it a step further by trying to create an alliance between himself, Michael, Brittany, Turner, and Alyssa to combat this group. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine that the optics of this don't look good. He continued on this path and he was unrelenting on the topic. This is a gross oversimplification of the situation and I'll likely get into it a little bit more when looking at each angle. 

Let's start with the obvious point. Kyle was wrong for what he said, what he did, and there's no other side to that conversation. Crafting your entire game around combating an alliance of people of color that didn't exist and he had no proof that existed is blatantly racist. The race of these players is what altered his decisions. It's not acceptable and he got exactly what he deserved by being evicted this week. I'm not saying that Kyle is an inherently bad person. I think his upbringing is a large part of it. However, that doesn't excuse what he did and what he said. He'll have a few weeks in the jury house to learn from what he's done, to have these conversations with the people on the jury that don't know what is going on, and to try to become a better person. I don't think the reaction to this will be as visceral as the response to Aaryn in BB15, but people are rightfully pissed at him. 

Michael and Brittany deserve their share of the criticism as well. They sat on the knowledge that Kyle was playing his game this way and had voiced these thoughts, yet they opted to wait until the moment they were in trouble and used it as a game move. They knew that Turner was gunning for Michael before the veto and after Michael won, the narrative now needed to be taken off evicting Taylor or Monte and they unleashed this bombshell on the rest of the house. They could've mentioned it earlier but they didn't. I want to make it very clear that holding off on this information wasn't great and the houseguests grilling them for not speaking sooner was justified, but it still isn't as bad as what Kyle did.

The reactions from the rest of the houseguests were also extremely telling. If this week did one thing right, it proved that Monte and Taylor are two of the most well-spoken people in the house this season. A lot of Kyle's plan was focused on them and instead of lambasting him for everything he said, they opted to hear him out and said they were willing to support him moving forward while also feeling strongly that his being evicted was the right thing. I was especially happy with the edit of Taylor in Wednesday and Thursday's episodes. She spoke so elegantly to Michael and it was great to see. I was a little perturbed by the response of both Turner and Terrance, mostly because they continued to pitch to evict Taylor in the immediate aftermath. They didn't show it in the episodes, but they both tried to push back a little against putting Kyle up or evicting him before relenting and evicting him. 

I think ultimately the production team for the show comes out of this looking terrible. The eviction episode was largely made to look like Kyle was being forgiven and the houseguests were taking the high road without really showing it for what it really was. They cut a lot of conversations throughout the week during the Live Feeds and edited it to make Kyle look not as bad while making Michael and Brittany look like monsters for holding onto this information. They spun the narrative to make Kyle look better than the situation truly makes him look and that's something they'll have to live with. They better not run away from the backlash of it. 

Turner's HOH Week

This was not the best week for Turner. He was practically forced to evict his closest ally following the house coming back together after initially putting up Taylor and Brittany with the intent of backdooring Michael. He tried to push to evict Taylor even after the revelations of Kyle's gameplay. He ultimately failed in his initial plan to get Michael out. I get that he couldn't help what happened at the end of the day, but it isn't a great look. His second reign in the HOH room was largely secondary to the week's main story, so I don't think we need to spend much time on it. 

This Week's Eviction

I won't spend much time on this either because we knew very early in the week that Kyle was going to be out of the house. The house was unanimous in evicting him, relieving my anxiety that someone was going to seriously vote to evict Taylor. The response from the crowd was largely quiet when he came out of the house, yet it was still better than what I'd expected. He got what was coming and that's all I have to say about that. 

What Could Happen This Week (SPOILER ALERT FOR THE HOH COMPETITION WE'LL SEE ON SUNDAY)

Instead of going back and changing what I said earlier, I can proudly report that Michael is one step closer to tying Janelle's record after picking up his third HOH win and his eighth competition win of the season. I think this is excellent news for Taylor and Brittany since they are likely to be the only two guaranteed to stay off the block. I think Turner will ultimately be his target, though Monte is seriously on the hot seat. It's crazy to me that Alyssa and Terrance are still going to be safe most likely, but I think Michael going after a bigger threat would be more beneficial, especially since he won't be able to compete on Thursday night when they have another double eviction. He won't be able to compete in the Final 6 HOH. Regardless of who wins that competition, he'll still be able to compete in the veto since everyone will be playing, but it might not be the ideal situation for him. Zingbot will be making his return this week as well, so it's time for the houseguests to get roasted. I'm happy with the result of the HOH but am even more interested in Thursday's second eviction since that will be more unpredictable.