Big Brother Blowout: Eviction Blindside Leaves House Reeling, New HOH Betrayed

In a shocking twist, Angela actually voted to keep Joseph, but both Chelsie and Makensy flipped to send him out. Truthfully, they both said they were moved by Kimo's statements about representing native Hawai'ians and queer culture enough to vote to keep him.

In other words, they ever so briefly threw their games out the window to vote with their hearts. The question is if they can recover from the move, as all it did was sow further confusion and mistrust in the House.

There was far less blowback on Makensy than Chelsie, though, as MJ has been playing a very lone wolf game to this point, with no really strong, strategic alliances.

She drifts in and out of casual arrangements, and is enjoying a flirtmance with Cam, but she hasn't really been part of anything official since she and Leah formed The Throwmance with Matt (the first evictee).

Now, she and Leah seem to have swapped Matt out for Cam, as the most traditionally handsome and athletic guy left in the House. Poor Quinn (and until Thursday, Joseph). They could flirt with all their hearts at Leah, but she was far more enamored with Cam, who seems to be enjoying the attention of all the women in the House.

Of course, as we've seen, his constant flirting with Makensy -- and less constant with Leah -- has been rubbing Chelsie some kind of way for a while now, as she has her own unrequited crush going on.

This season has been all about the no-mances (outside of Tuck-bina and Matt-kensy), or whatever the term would be for having feelings for someone who has no feelings for you, but has feelings for someone else who has no feelings for them, but has feelings for someone else who has no feelings for them... and on and on and on.

Once again, Quinn's HOH was an unmitigated disaster. This season, the HOH-es keep putting up pawns they genuinely don't want to go home ... only to see those people go home. In each case, they're trying to make a safe move by not exposing other targets of theirs in the house, but it's just not working!

Quinn's second HOH saw a Final 2 for him go home in Joseph. His first saw another Final 2 in Cedric go home. Tucker was right to play balls-to-the-wall. Put it out there and let the chips fall where they may!

Honestly, this season's group of Houseguests have been underwhelming in their grasp of strategy and their willingness to really did deep and play! Maybe superfan doesn't mean what it used to, as neither Quinn nor Joseph was particularly impressive to this point.

With Ainsley ending the A.I. Arena last week, the game moves into its second half, so there's a chance of redemption for all of the players -- and the whole damned season -- if they would just show up, put in the work, and prove how badly they want this. BB even upped the prize money to $750k. You'd think someone would be willing to truly give their all for that kind of money.

Producers haven't been challenging them that much physically, though, either. This week's HOH competition was no different, with another quiz format. Houseguests were subjected to "Ding Cam" videos of various people (and monsters) showing up at their front door through the night. Questions were then asked what happened "before" and "after."

Honestly, we were giving props to the HGs for a lot of this as everyone was killing it through those seven rounds. Rubina got the second question wrong, while everyone else sailed through four rounds. Angela then dropped the next two, leaving a 6-person tie heading into the final round!

In that round, though, the HGs were definitely split, with Makensy, Kimo, Chelsie, and Cam emerging victorious ... and setting up a tie-breaker round that proved math is not the strong point of most of them.

They were tasked with determining in seconds how long a previous competition was, with Cam flat-out admitting he couldn't remember how many zeroes to carry down when multiplying 60 by itself. Chelsie was the only one who seemed to have a solid strategy.

She knew the competition went over an hour (or was pretty sure), but didn't want to go over and get disqualified. So she went with 45 minutes times 60 seconds per minute and did her math correct. In the end, she was the only one who came in under the actual number, securing her second HOH.

With Chelsie in power, she found herself having to be the grown-up in the House. In an amusing sequence, we saw Angela beg Cam to talk to Chelsie on her behalf and then agonize about talking to her herself. Meanwhile, Chelise was watching her on the HOH cameras wondering what the hold up was.

You go and talk to the HOH. That's just common sense. Angela is so in her head almost all the time and seems to be unable to overcome whatever dark thoughts or impulses lurk in there. It has dominated her entire game, while we also see her getting angry at herself for giving in to those impulses. Here she is again, waiting until Chelsie finally gave in and asked her to talk. Would she have just never done it?

The conversation turned out to be a disaster, though, as Chelsie already knew she was going to put Angela up, and Angela had to pour some more of that dry-eyes-tearless crying. Honestly, we've never seen so much as a glassy eye from her, much less a tear, and yet she appears to cry all the time. It's become quite fascinating... is it strategy or just how Angela is wired, though?

Chelsie even tried to motivate Angela by telling her Taylor was also a target the whole season, and she ultimately won. Honestly, by this stage of the game, we wouldn't be surprised if Angela didn't somehow win. It shouldn't happen, but it could.

With no more A.I. Arena, Chelsie can put Angela on the Block all she wants, but she still may not go home. This will be her fifth time up and there she still sits.

Chelsie's plan to minimize the blood on her hands sees her potentially making the exact same mistake as Quinn last week (and so many before him). She suggested Kimo as a pawn who could potentially beat Angela in the Veto.

At the same time, Leah gave her nothing in their One-on-One, while Chelsie blatantly told Cam she's worried he'd keep Leah over her. So why isn't Leah on the Block? That's right, Chelsie went with Angela and her ally, Kimo.

Stop playing from fear. You don't need Kimo to beat Angela. There will be six people playing in the Veto competition (which we learned is OTEV this week), which means there are five other people -- including you -- who can beat Angela.

Why not have two people on the Block you wouldn't mind seeing go home. Who cares if one comes down and is mad. This House has flipped more times than a load of laundry this week. Stop playing scared and start playing!

T'kor Clottey (23, crochet business) slides just ahead of Chelsie because she's playing a slightly less emotional game. We see both her and Chelsie as the strongest strategic players left in the game, really navigating a messy season with as much finesse as possible. We see T'kor as being a little more calculating and ruthless, when it comes down to it. [Grade: B-]

Chelsie Baham (27, nonprofit dir) once again gains control of her own game for at least one week by winning HOH, but she's playing it a little dangerously safe, which could cost her a potentially valuable ally. If she truly doesn't want Kimo to go, she shouldn't leave him up. He's clearly aligned closely with T'kor and Rubina ... now, if she's ready to break that group up, more props to her; we're just not sure that's her motivation here. [Grade: B-]

Cam Sullivan-Brown (25, physical therapist) is such a quiet threat, it's been remarkable to not see him play such a solid game. His flirting with Makensy and Leah, the most unaligned players in the game, is pretty strategically sound, though he's not doing quite enough to manage Chelsie's feelings about it. Solid, but a bit precarious, his position in the game. [Grade: C+]

Makensy Manbeck (22, construction pm) is a genuine competition threat and remains brilliantly unaligned at this midpoint. That's going to be very hard moving forward, but if she can start to forge some temporary alliances, she'll be able to boast one of the cleanest games of the season. She's an underestimated threat at this point. [Grade: C]

Leah Peters (26, VIP cocktail) has revealed an allegiance of sorts with Angela, and is flirting pretty hard with Cam ... and still has Quinn wrapped around her finger. Chelsie sees through it all, with those circular say-nothing comments, but the boys keep fighting to save her game ... so maybe finish off the boys? [Grade: C-]

Quinn Martin (25, nurse recruiter) had another disastrous HOH. He appears to be liked in the House, but his plans for this game and the reality of what happens are never quite the same, making him one of the messiest players we've seen in a while. If he doesn't get it together, he could go down in flames the moment his side isn't in power. For the moment, he's good. [Grade: C-]

Rubina Bernabe (35, event bartender) is slowly raising her stock in this game, the longer Tucker is gone. No one is really all that worried about her, even as she proved she could win a competition with the last A.I. Arena. She's in good with T'kor and Kimo, but both of them are bigger threats than her. [Grade: C-]

Angela Murray (50, real estate agent) might just ride the bottom of these rankings all the way to the end. She is a disastrous player, but somehow is never quite as tempting a target as who is sitting next to her. [Grade: D+]

Kimo Apaka (35, mattress sales) could be in trouble if he's still on the Block as he's a far more effective strategic and social player, who's also well-connected with numbers that could make others nervous. With a House track record of using every Veto so far, he could definitely use a save because another House trend has been voting out the bigger threat, no matter the original plan. [Grade: D]

(asides and comments -- not necessarily strategic, but entertaining and sometimes revealing)

• "I felt that the vote had a bigger purpose." --Makensy (about voting to keep Kimo)
• "I don't know what happened. I voted to keep him. I stuck to my word." --Leah (crying to Quinn about Joseph)
• "You did what you had to do … I'll get up out of it. It's just a pickle." --Cam (lying to Chelsie about vote)
• "You got Beavis & Butt-head trying to start the grill." --Chelsie (about Cam & Leah fumbling and flirting)
• "I don't want you to go home. But I also have very slim pickings." --Chelsie (to Angela)
• "Not really. Not really." --Angela
• "I have been a target since Day 1. You've been target one time and you know what that feels like. Think about it for 8 weeks consecutively!" --Angela (to Chelsie)
• "You wanna know who else played survival since Week 1? Taylor, and she won the danged thing." --Chelsie
• "If that didn't give me more of a headache, I don't know what did." --Chelsie (about talking with Angela)
• "Pawns go home!" --Kimo (after Chelsie proposes using him)
• "You don't think I would choose to keep you?" --Cam (to Chelsie)
• "Over Leah? No. And I also think you would put me on the Block before you would ever put Leah on the Block." --Chelsie

Big Brother airs Sundays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays on CBS.