Big Brother Blowout: Season's Final Nominations Strain Alliance, Backstabbing Begins

Makensy has dominated the season with competition wins, while Chelsie has held her own in that regard, but been the clear mastermind of most of the moves (except a mid-game where her side lost power for a while). And then there's poor, sweet Cam.

Honestly, Cam's best option would be able to get rid of both Chelsie and Makensy and take Rubina to the end, because he has been so carried throughout this game, he'd lose to either one of them. Honestly, he'd probably lose to Rubina, too, because she's at least scrapped her way this far.

Nevertheless, this week's Head of Household is so important because your power can be limited if you don't also win the Power of Veto. After all, with only four players left, if the HOH doesn't win Veto, then whoever does is safe and gets to evict one of the other two with the sole vote.

At least if the HOH also wins POV then they can have some control by choosing who's on the Block and who gets that sole vote. So there's a lot of strategy and finesse to navigate this week as Head of Household.

Of course, you've gotta win it first.

As outgoing Head of Household, Makensy is in the most vulnerable position of the week. But as the season's reigning comp beast, she's also the most confident player when out of control so long as there is at least one comp between her and eviction.

All she could do was sit as host and watch to see what would happen next. To her credit, Makensy was pre-gaming this week pretty hard with her allies in the trio, Chelsie and Cam, and Rubina, reminding all of them that it's basically "three v. one" this week.

To the trio, she's making it clear that Rubina is their obvious target. On the other side, she's pretending to jump on board Rubina's all-female Final Three dreams. Honestly, Makensy is good with whatever, just so long as she's laid the groundwork for any combination of people to want to keep her around.

The competition saw players faced with a wall of "computer code" (just a random assortment of letters, numbers, and symbols) in which they had to find a two word phrase. The person who found it and buzzed in correctly as to which of three columns it was in the most across seven rounds would win.

After three rounds, it definitely wasn't looking good for Chelsie, with her zero points to Rubina's two and Cam's one. Even Makensy had to weigh in, saying in a confessional, "Chelsie, Chelsie, listen. Look. You are losing to Cam and Rubina! What are you doing? Lock the heck in!"

Even though the pep talk wasn't in person, it still somehow worked. Chelsie went on a run, winning the next three rounds to take the lead. In the final round, though, she faltered. Luckily, it wasn't Rubina winning, which would have forced a tie-breaker round, but Cam.

In the end, he and Rubina tied with two rounds each, but that still left Chelsie victorious with three rounds. As she collapsed to the ground in victory, you could already see the wheels start turning inside the player who's spent all summer trying to not get any blood directly on her own hands. Better to let others do that dirty work for her as she orchestrates from behind the curtain.

Once again, Chelsie proved what a keen mind she has for this game, performing a similar feat to what Makensy was doing by hedging all of her bets.

"They're both afraid of us being a pair, and we are. So I may consider putting you up," Chelsie told Cam. "Either way, it doesn't matter who's on the Block, it's just a placeholder."

On his way out, she slyly asked him who he'd send home this week if he were to win Veto. "I think it's smarter if we send Makensy home," he said, which was music to Chelsie's ears. He'd take out her biggest threat in this game, leaving her a cleaner path to victory (and no blood on her hands).

With Rubina she shifted tactics entirely, instead commiserating with Rubina feeling her "role" in the game has been as a "placeholder" on the Block week after week. "

"I don't want that to be your role in this game if it doesn't need to be," she told Rubina, setting up a reason for Rubina to consider keeping her around by remembering this moment of mercy, should she make it to the Final Three and win power, choosing who to sit next to in the Final Two.

When she approached Makensy about possibly sitting on the Block, Makensy was fine with it. But she quickly proved that Chelsie wasn't the only one thinking ahead.

"I'm not tripping over anything," she said, slyly adding, "My only thing is, like, if you won Veto?"

"I would use it on you. And then you would have to make the decision between Cam and Rubina," Chelsie replied, both assuaging Makensy's concerns, and again setting up someone else to take the hard shot for her.

"It kind of sounds like, given the chance, my allies would take the shot at each other," Chelsie said in a confessional, as if she hadn't massaged things to be that way on purpose.

While the Jury might respect big moves, we have a feeling Chelsie is fully prepared to defend how all those big moves were made either at her behest or through her manipulation, revealing her puppet-mastery throughout the season.

She even made one final puppet-masterful move with her nominations by putting up her two closest allies. This revealed to Rubina that she might be open to other options, while also not showing her cards to either Makensy or Cam as to who she might be more inclined to take to the end.

With this one sequence of events, Chelsie keeps all her secrets to herself, keeps her allies on an even footing with her -- which hopefully means they're still both closely aligned with her -- and keeps Rubina in her back pocket as an option, if necessary. It was all brilliantly orchestrated.

With no Wednesday episode, we already kicked off this week's Power of Veto competition, which was the dreaded "Days" competition. This one added having to wrap around a turret to peek into a view screen to see a scene, and then identify what day that moment happened.

After three strikes, you're out of the game. Once again, Cam came out strong, going six rounds before he'd even got dinged the first time. Makensy, meanwhile, got her first strike in Round 1, followed by a second in Round 5, so she was hanging on by a thread through most of this competition.

Chelsie got dinged the first time in Round 2 and again in Round 3, so the comp beasts weren't looking so great here. Rubina got her first in Round 4 before getting her second in Round 6. So when Cam got his first in Round 7, everyone else already had two of them.

From there, it was time start eliminating the competition. Rubina was first out, much to her frustration as she collapsed and called herself a "loser." It was very telling, though, that as soon as she was eliminated, Chelsie opted to check out herself.

Now that it was down to Makensy and Cam, Chelsie knew that the cleanest way for her to maybe get one of them out was for the other to take the shot. Of course, they could always opt to take out Rubina, but for clean hands, that was clearly a chance she was willing to take.

And that's where we left things, heading into the final round with Chelsie eliminated and Cam and Makensy sitting on two strikes each. Makensy would seem to have the odds, based on her competition prowess, but in watching this particular competition, both she and Cam seem to have these days down equally well, while Rubina and Chelsie were definitely struggling more.

Who will win and what will they do with the Veto? We have to wait all the way until Thursday to find out the answer to that ... and who will make up this season's Final Three. Will the trio hold strong? Or will Cam or Makensy take that shot at the other?

Chelsie Baham (27, nonprofit dir) is masterminding her endgame and is definitely the hardest working strategist of the season. If she makes it all the way to the end -- and she's certainly set herself up to get there, she's going to be very, very hard to beat. [Grade: A+]

Makensy Manbeck (22, construction pm) has made one mistake this season, and that's been to not get rid of Chelsie before this. If she can take her down before the end, she will have earned the win. If she's sitting next to her, it's gonna take one hell of a final argument. That said, other than that, she's also doing a masterful job of getting herself to the end and building a resume. [Grade: B+]

Cam Sullivan-Brown (25, physical therapist) might just be able to ride to the end, even if he does lose this final Veto competition. His ineffectiveness to this point is now a point for taking him to the end, as he's had the easiest ride of anyone this season, basically riding the coattails of the ladies above. He knows it, though, so if he does pull off a win, we definitely see him taking Makensy out, which would be his smartest move at this point. Can he pull it off? [Grade: C]

Rubina Bernabe (35, event bartender) could survive this week if the two above her take the shot at one another, but we could definitely see a scenario where she gets the boot, as she's got a better story for winning than Cam does, fighting as the underdog so long, on the Block over and over and never winning. Her fate at this point depends on what story Cam or Makensy want to paint with the jury on finale night. It's out of her hands for now. [Grade: D]

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

• "Our periods are gonna sync up, Cam." --Rubina (after Kimo's eviction)
• "We can take our faces off the wall now." --Makensy (about nominations)
• "I know. It's cold-blooded." --Chelsie
• "Being obsessed with yourself sometimes isn't bad." --Makensy (noticing her tiara during POV comp)

Big Brother wraps its season with the following new episodes:

• Thursday, 10/10 at 8 p.m. ET (elimination episode)
• Friday, 10/11 at 8 p.m. ET (season recap, final HOH starts)
• Sunday, 10/13 at 9 p.m. ET (two hour finale)