By: Matthew Lutey
“The Leftovers” made it another week under wraps.
The seven-person alliance on the CBS reality show “Big Brother” successfully evicted one of their targets this week after Nicole Layog was sent home by a vote of 9-1 on Thursday.
Nicole’s eviction was especially satisfying for Taylor Hale. Nicole and Daniel Durston got upset and yelled at Taylor earlier in the season because they thought she wanted Nicole to quit, when she was actually concerned for Nicole’s wellbeing. Nicole has also wanted Taylor to be evicted most of the season and was willing to be nominated next to Taylor to make that happen.
Taylor got a chance to get some things off her chest to Nicole in their final speeches before Thursday’s vote.
“Nicole, to quote a ‘Big Brother’ superfan Rihanna ‘you look so dumb right now,’ ” Taylor said.
After she was evicted, host Julie Chen-Moonves asked Nicole about her being confident that she wouldn’t go home most of the week.
“I think what it came down to was big risk, big reward in a sense. But at the same time I thought we had the numbers. I thought we had the numbers to be able to get enough people on our side to keep me safe, and to finally get Taylor out of the house. Because she had been the main target for the last however-many weeks.”
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 consists of Taylor, Brittany Hoopes, Kyle Capener, Joseph Abdin, Michael Bruner, Monte Taylor and Matthew Turner (who goes by Turner). Daniel pegged that six of the seven are working together, but thought that Kyle was on his side. That blindspot is part of the reason the events of this week played out the way they did.
Monte won Head of Household on Sunday’s episode in a shuffleboard-like competition, and nominated Alyssa Snider and Indy Santos for eviction.
Even though those were the original nominees, Nicole was perceived as a big target for The Leftovers. The only issue was the “Festie Bestie” twist in effect where houseguests have to be nominated for eviction in their bestie pair.
Nicole was paired with Taylor, and Taylor has been nominated for eviction several times already this season. The Leftovers left the possibility open of backdooring (evicting someone without them having the chance to play in the veto competition) Nicole depending on how the Power of Veto competition played out.
The duo of Kyle and Daniel won the veto. Daniel originally did not want to use the veto because he was worried that his top ally Nicole may be at risk if the nominations changed. But Monte asking him not to use the veto caused Daniel to overthink the situation. He thought Monte was worried that Taylor wouldn’t have the votes to stay over Nicole, but in reality, The Leftovers had changed course and didn’t want to use the veto for strategy purposes. Daniel decided to use the veto, and Monte named Nicole and Taylor the replacement nominees at the veto meeting.
Daniel’s decision made things easier on Kyle, because only one of them needed to decide to use the veto for it to take effect. Had Daniel stuck to his original decision, Kyle would have had to choose whether or not to leave Alyssa, someone he has grown close to despite not being in his alliance, on the block.
“I have to play dumb with Daniel,” Kyle said in the diary room. “He’s about to help me take down my showmance Alyssa. So I don’t have to worry about her on the block. And unfortunately for him, he’s about to make one of the dumbest moves in ‘Big Brother’ history and help us backdoor his best friend Nicole.”
Daniel, in a way, sealed his partner’s fate.