By: Matthew Lutey
Real-life issues involving race played a central role this week on the CBS reality show “Big Brother.”
Kyle Capener was evicted Thursday by a vote of 5-0. He was sent home primarily for some of the sentiments he expressed to houseguests Michael Bruner and Brittany Hoopes a few weeks ago.
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.
Last season, an alliance called “The Cookout,” which consisted of all Black houseguests, were unified by the goal of a Black houseguest winning for the first time in 23 seasons.
Despite lacking evidence to suggest the same thing was happening this season, Kyle told Michael and Brittany they needed to be wary of people of color aligning together, and suggested an alliance that included the three of them, Alyssa Snider and Matthew Turner (who goes by Turner), all five of the remaining white houseguests.
After he was evicted, host Julie Chen-Moonves asked Kyle if he realized how his proposed alliance could be perceived.
“As terrible as it sounds at the time it didn’t click in my mind, and after looking back, and the multiple conversations with Michael and Brittany, and the multiple conversations this week, I now realize how terrible that was, and I should have realized it from the start, and I apologize to everyone watching and everyone in the house.”
Michael and Brittany sat on Kyle’s remarks for about two weeks. Their timing in revealing Kyle’s comments was controversial, because the decision was made in part to benefit their own positioning in the game and to get Kyle evicted, rather than concern over the comments themselves.
Michael, Kyle and Brittany were working together for most of the season as part of “The Leftovers” alliance, but it became clear after the recent split house twist that Kyle was no longer working with Michael and Brittany.
The way Michael explained his rationale for revealing Kyle’s comments is that he no longer saw a reason behind protecting him if they were no longer working together. He also correctly assumed that Kyle was involved in a plan to evict him this week.
“Up until now, Brittany and I have kind of protected Kyle in a way and given him the benefit of the doubt up until this point, and we probably shouldn’t have done that as much as we did,” Michael said in the diary room. “But now I believe Kyle has played some part in whatever Turner’s plan is this week. And I feel like it may be the time to step up and say something.”
Word about Kyle’s comments made it around to everyone left in the game, including Taylor Hale, a Black houseguest that has been aligned with Kyle most of the season.
“I always made it clear that being a Black woman in this game wouldn’t be easy, but I was willing to do it, and someone showed their true colors,” Taylor said in the diary room. “It’s a bummer to hear that Kyle was so afraid of people of color uniting against him when he had a really great alliance in front of him.”
Alyssa, who was in a romantic relationship with Kyle, told Kyle what was being said. That led to a house meeting where Kyle, Michael and Brittany were held accountable for their actions.
“If Kyle was saying these things two weeks ago, it feels a little bit hurtful to know it wasn’t shared then. That part doesn’t sit well with me,” Monte said to Brittany and Michael during the meeting.
With everything out in the open, Kyle accepted that he would be the one evicted. That also meant Turner, who won Head of Household at the start of the week, would have to name Kyle the replacement nominee at the veto ceremony.
“I’m sorry to all of you,” Kyle said during the house meeting. “I feel that I have a personal relationship with all of you outside of the game, and I appreciate your kindness and love and understanding that I am an imperfect person trying to get better and that’s what I hope to do. Turner, with the veto I respect your decision, I understand where my game is at right now. I am going home this week.”
Turner originally nominated Brittany and Taylor for eviction, but his target was Michael. Turner’s goal was to backdoor (targeting someone for eviction without giving them the chance to play in the veto competition) Michael, since he had won four veto competitions already. But Michael’s name was drawn for the veto anyway, and he dominated a slip and slide competition to tie an all-time Big Brother record for most veto wins in a season.