Big Brother 26, Week 9 Review- A Very Jankie Week

Even during a week that felt intended to be slower, the houseguests decided to keep the fun rolling. Trapped outside the house, the eight remaining players suffered through a week of pizza, ice cream, dance parties, and more in the hopes of surviving another seven days. With a revenge arc in place and the power structure set to shift once more Week 9 offered us more than we thought we'd get amid another mediocre twist. 

Welcome to Jankie World

With Ainsley announcing her brief hiatus from the house, her junior counterpart took over the game for the week. Jankie might've made eight mortal enemies this week by trapping them in the backyard for a week of sing-alongs, pizza, ice cream, and dance parties. By the end of the week, the viewers were just as excited for this week to be over as the houseguests. Everyone in the backyard looked miserable. The edits for all three episodes during the week only added to it. Each episode had a compilation of everyone hating Jankie. I hate him too. I'm all for making the houseguests miserable, but this felt like overkill. I will admit that it does beat Dyre Fest during BB24. At least we could watch this week and feel miserable rather than miss everything because of wall yellers. Still, this wasn't a fun week to watch, and I feel bad for the eight people who had to live through it.

Why So Chel-ous? (I'm Sorry)

It might've been the delirium of Jankie World. It might've also been Chelsie being completely jealous. Either way, Chelsie came out of Jankie Week looking like a jealous whiner after everything that happened with the positioning of the cots. It's another in a long line of moments when Chelsie has let her crush on Cam take over, but this was a far more public moment. I'd bet that Chelsie's target has only grown after how she acted while outside. Meanwhile, Cam and MJ were caught in the middle of a weird situation. Even if Cam does feel more attracted to MJ, I don't think he is doing anything malicious to make Chelsie feel bad. He's a guy who is just trying to exist. 

Leah's HOH Week

The Queen of Jankie World had an interesting week because this really should've gone a different way. When Leah was announced as the winner of the HOH Competition, everyone on the interest seemed very excited. When she nominated Kimo and Rubina instead of Chelsie and T'kor, everyone was a little less stoked. She eventually earned some brownie points by replacing Kimo on the block with T'kor, though her options were slim after she made a deal with Angela and Cam during the endurance competition. Honestly, it's hard to judge Leah's week after such a mess of a twist. She succeeded in getting one of the biggest targets in the house out of the game, even if she didn't mean to.

Eviction Thoughts

This is the second time this season when I felt the person being evicted was leaving too soon. The first time was Tucker, who was, ironically, evicted during T'kor's HOH reign. It wasn't long ago that we were talking about T'kor potentially winning this season. Instead, her inability to play selfishly might've been her downfall. T'kor, Rubina, and Kimo were an obvious trio that felt like a threat to the rest of the house. After a lot of waffling and putting it off, they were under fire this week with the numbers dwindling. T'kor was seen as the brains of the operation, with Rubina and Kimo playing along in hopes of floating to the end with her. The head of the dragon was chopped off, with the house realizing that she was clearly the larger threat to their endgames. As a person, I really liked T'kor. She was such a nice person to watch in the house as she interacted with everyone. She rarely had a negative thing to say about anyone else, and she forged a genuine relationship with her compadres in the trio. I would love to see her come back and play another season. 

Week 10 Preview (WITH HOH SPOILERS)

We saw the beginning of the HOH Competition on the show Thursday night. The houseguests had one hour to build stack as many "candy" pieces as they could and the person with the most pieces stacked when they buzzed in would be the winner. When the feeds returned last night, MJ and Leah were celebrating the former's win in the camera, meaning MJ will be in charge for the next week. She told Leah that Kimo is her target but has been telling everyone else that she wants Angela gone. Should one of them win the veto, marking the tenth straight week the veto has been used, then Rubina feels like the obvious choice, as of right now. 

There are two more interesting wrinkles for this week. First, Zingbot will make his return this week, likely for the veto competition on Saturday, meaning we'll see him on the show on Wednesday night. Second, it's Double Eviction Week, so we're getting twice the fun in one night of Big Brother. If they fumble the bag and don't get Angela out during MJ's HOH, this would be the perfect chance to get her out of the game. She's starting to build a decent resume, with a pair of HOH wins and a veto win this week. Without a week to campaign for herself, get Angela out now. If you don't, she's only going to keep building up her resume.