By: Matthew Lutey
From a new alliance forming to blindsides to fights; it was an eventful week inside the “Big Brother” house.
Houseguest Ameerah Jones was blindsided Thursday night on the CBS reality show after she was evicted by a vote of 7-4. Ameerah thought she had the votes to stay over fellow nominee Terrance Higgins, but was unaware of a new alliance that formed over the weekend called “The Leftovers.”
The objective of “Big Brother” is to be the last houseguest remaining, which results in a $750,000 prize. Houseguests are cut off from the outside world, followed by cameras and vie for power to be the Head of Household and nominate two players they would like to see eliminated. A weekly vote is conducted to evict one of the nominated houseguests.
The Leftovers name derives from seven houseguests – Brittany Hoopes, Kyle Capener, Joseph Abdin, Michael Bruner, Monte Taylor, Taylor Hale and Matthew Turner (who goes by Turner) – feeling they were on the outs in terms of who was in control of key decisions in the game.
Its origin started with Kyle, Joseph, Monte and Turner becoming wary of an all-girls alliance, and realizing that the decision to vote Boca Raton resident Joe “Pooch” Pucciarelli out last week may have furthered that alliance. Those four named themselves “The Pound” in honor of Pooch, and correctly identified Ameerah as the person that led the charge against Pooch.
The alliance expanded to bring in Brittany, Michael and Taylor. While Taylor and Brittany are girls, they were never fully included in the girls alliance.
Taylor also has been treated poorly by several houseguests, and that culminated on Wednesday’s episode. Houseguest Nicole Layog was sad and isolated herself in one of the bedrooms. Taylor came in and told her that if she needs to leave the game for her own well-being that there is no shame in doing so. Nicole twisted that into believing Taylor wanted her to quit and was being passive aggressive with her.
Daniel Durston, who is Nicole’s closest ally, took it a step further by yelling at Taylor in front of most of the house. Taylor was confused about why she was being yelled at and thought Daniel might be joking. Daniel started by saying “you need to stop,” and Taylor responded “with the Lays?” since she was holding a bag of Lays potato chips.
Taylor eventually realized Daniel was serious, and it resulted in a tough-to-watch scene in which Taylor was blamed for another houseguest quitting earlier in the game.
“It seems like every time I try to connect with somebody, I’m just hurting them,” Taylor said through tears in the diary room.
Thankfully for Taylor, when she was brought into The Leftovers alliance, she gained some advocates who wanted to put an end to her being isolated.
“I feel like you’ve been treated so poorly, by so many people in this house, and I’m honestly sick of it,” Kyle told Taylor as The Leftovers were forming.