There is a reality TV lesson that was reinforced during the second week of Big Brother 20: Never solely depend on your first-week alliance! Competitive shows change week-to-week and the balance of power shifts on a dime. While the starting week helps to make early connections, the second week is where those foundations are put to the test. Swaggy C learned the hard way that he couldn’t depend on his week one allies, and unfortunately for him, his eviction led to the second blindside of the summer.
Swaggy’s eviction can be traced back to the strongest houseguest currently in the house: Tyler. Based on all his moves, Tyler is arguably playing the best game right now. He’s a physical competitor who has already won Head of Household (HOH) and Power of Veto (POV), and he’s a strategic mastermind who successfully manipulated the house to get Swaggy out. Tyler is controlling the game, and he deserves all the credit he’s earned for flipping Kaitlyn to his side and winning the Power App from the BB App Store. The first two weeks were in motion because of the path he set with his alliances.
On the other hand, Tyler also made A LOT of bad moves. Just like Swaggy in the first week, Tyler painted a huge target on himself by coming strong out of the gate with his physical and social game. And while that strategy worked well for Paul in Big Brother 19, Tyler isn’t as lucky because his houseguests, like Rockstar and Rachel, already noticed he’s the one pulling the strings. After the puppet-master moves he made on Kaitlyn to get Swaggy nominated, Tyler NEEDS to play a low-key game in the third week. People already mentioned his threat status, and if he doesn’t take a step back, he’s going to get evicted pre-jury or at the jury foreperson spot.
Let’s take a moment to talk about Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn… is not going to win Big Brother 20. The “life coach” created amazing television in her two/three short weeks in the house so far – the clips were some of the most captivating we’ve seen in a while. However, her erratic behavior eliminated any shot she had at winning the prize. She turned on her FOUTTE alliance by backstabbing Steve and Swaggy, so no one trusts her at all to follow through with a plan. And, she’s tried to use emotional blackmail on Faysal and Tyler to get attention. No one can look at Kaitlyn without thinking about voting her out.
By now, the news of Kaitlyn’s (recent) ex-boyfriend has spread across entertainment pages like Bustle and US Weekly. She threw away her five-year relationship for the chance at simple attention from the boys in the house, even going so far as telling Tyler to sleep with her. Kaitlyn let the pressure of the game get to her head; she needs to take a step back, breathe, and get a clear head for what she actually wants. Unfortunately, it’s already too-little-too-late to win – even her closest allies in Tyler, Faysal, Haleigh, and Rockstar would vote her out at this point. She should strive for second place.
In the case of the other houseguests, Angela and Kaycee are non-entities. Rachel being revealed as the least trending houseguest was surprising, especially when you consider Angela did nothing since her challenge battle in the first round. Hopefully, their gameplay is only to bide time until the second phase – they haven’t done anything to warrant staying. Even floaters like Sam and JC did pretty well in the second week; Sam made emotional connections with the houseguests, and JC executed a similar game style to Big Brother 15 winner Andy by becoming the funnel of house information. JC should keep playing exactly how he is now – that’s a winning strategy.
Bayleigh needs to use Swaggy’s eviction as a means to turn her game around. She fell into the trap of a showmance and now needs to build new connections since her partner is gone. If she tells everyone there are no hard feelings, she has a chance to stay longer. Winston, on the other hand, is a mess. He’s paranoid and he doesn’t understand the game going on around him. While Brett is equally as bro-tastic, he at least has a better sense of the moves he needs to make. Winston cemented the disappointment that fans had of him going into Big Brother 20.
The challenges and special powers for the second week kept up with the positive theme from the first week. I enjoyed the dating app POV challenge as it continued the trend of utilizing past houseguests in creative ways. Plus, some of the dating profile one-liners were so fun and cheeky! Rachel’s yell punishment offered a good chance to see her personality more – she had a good time whenever the yeller appeared. Rachel actually enjoyed being included in this twist, and we had fun along with her.
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I’m going to miss Swaggy C. His gameplay was sloppy, he came on too strong in the first week with challenge wins/game mentality, and he didn’t have a good intuition of the house dynamics to strategize. However, he was one of the few houseguests who wanted to go after the big threats. If he had simply not pushed to win big in the first week, and not spend so much time with Bayleigh in bed having a showmance, he might’ve stayed. Tyler saw him as the biggest threat to him, and because of noticing his style in the first week, Swaggy’s game imploded too fast.
The second week of Big Brother 20 was the dramatic strategy-heavy round that all Big Brother fans love to have. Once Kaitlyn won HOH, the consensus appeared to be that an entertaining (and messy) week was going to happen – and it sure did. The houseguests delivered on another blindside to keep the momentum strong. And now that Scottie won HOH after he just went against his alliance too, does that mean we’re in for another action-packed week again? We can only hope.
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