Heading into the 35th episode of “Big Brother 26,” new Head of Household Makensy Manbeck had just nominated Kimo Apaka and Rubina Bernabe for eviction. But with the Power of Veto competition still on the line, there was a chance that one of the nominees would win and Makensy would have to replace them with either Cam Sullivan-Brown or Chelsie Baham. After the Veto meeting, the players voted live to send someone else to the jury house. So how did it all play out during Thursday’s two-hour episode?
Below, read our minute-by-minute “Big Brother” Season 26, Episode 35 recap/live blog to find out what happened on October 3 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT. Then be sure to sound off in the comments section about your favorite “BB26” houseguests on CBS‘s reality TV show, who annoys you the most and who you think will ultimately join the “Big Brother” winners list. As always, Julie Chen Moonves hosts the series.
Don’t forget to watch Gold Derby’s exclusive video interviews with all of the eliminated players so far: Matt Hardeman, Lisa Weintraub, Kenney Kelley, Cedric Hodges, Brooklyn Rivera, Tucker Des Lauriers, Joseph Rodriguez, Quinn Martin, T’kor Clottey, Leah Peters and Angela Murray.
8:00 p.m. – “Previously on ‘Big Brother’!” In the 34th episode, viewers saw all of the secret moments that happened during the live double eviction. Later, the eligible contestants competed in the HOH competition to assemble a 30-piece tiny puzzle using tweezers, with Makensy pulling out yet another victory. She had no trouble at all deciding which two players to nominate for eviction: Kimo and Rubina. That’s because Makensy had a three-person alliance with Cam and Chelsie, and she had no interest in betraying either of them at this stage of the game. But enough about last time — let’s find out who wins the Veto and who goes home!
8:05 p.m. – At the time of nominations, Makensy’s target was Kimo because she felt like he is the least likely to take her to the end of the game if he had the power. Ideally she wanted to go to the end with Chelsie, but was close with Cam as well. Cam and Chelsie understood that Kimo is the bigger threat at the end because of how good of a social player he is so it seemed as though Makensy’s target would remain the target… for now.
8:07 p.m. – With both of them on the block, Rubina and Kimo knew that one of them would have to win the veto in order to have a hope of keeping them both in the house. Rubina thought there was also a possibility that if Makensy wins the veto that they can convince her to use it in order to get the bigger threat, Chelsie, on the block and going home through the back door.
8:09 p.m. – Still feeling like Rubina is a pawn, Makensy floated to Chelsie the idea that if they win the veto they could regain Rubina’s trust by taking her off and putting Cam up in order to make it seem like they’re all for the girls alliance. This idea, even as an idea, was a red flag to Chelsie and made her think that Rubina has the ability to get in Makensy’s ear, making her possibly more dangerous to her and Cam than originally thought. Chelsie didn’t want to tell Cam exactly what Makensy said so instead she tried to emphasize to him that Rubina is working hard at getting in Makensy’s head and so they both should try really hard to win the veto.
8:17 p.m. – For this week’s veto comp, the final five played in the iconic “BB Comics” challenge where they flew around the backyard to correctly place comic book covers for each of the houseguests. In his run, Kimo got stuck on the misplaced comics of T’Kor and Matt, delaying his finish time. Makensy’s run seemed smoother because she only hit her button once, but she decided to take each comic one by one to determine the differences first and then re-ordered them on the board later. Cam had many more failed attempts at correct answers than either of them, struggling both to get the order correct and notice the right details in each. Rubina fared even worse, seemingly swapping out covers randomly without much thought at all. Chelsie moved quickly through the challenge, but it took a while for her realize that she had the wrong cover on display for Brooklyn.
8:38 p.m. – The top three finishers were Kimo, Chelsie and Makensy. In third place was Kimo with 30:27 and the winner was Makensy with 13:51.
8:42 p.m. – Seeing the times of the finishes, Makensy was already upset that Cam didn’t do better for their alliance, but then she lost all patience when Cam confessed that he was so frustrated in the challenge that he stopped to take breaks. Later when she got to discuss with Chelsie, they were both equally upset that he couldn’t finish it in 30 minutes and they were beginning to feel like his strategy to just coast through the game was forcing them to get all the blood on their hands so that he comes out squeaky clean. At this point, they were starting to wonder if he throws comps intentionally to make them look bad as threats and him better.
8:50 p.m. – Eventually Chelsie confronted Cam about the possibility that he’s throwing comps, but he openly admitted that he just sucks at all of them. She told him to get it together because Makensy is pissed enough to consider nominating him, but he thinks she’s just getting paranoid. Later he went to Makensy to express him embarrassment at doing so poorly in the comp, and while Makensy laughed it off she didn’t necessarily believe that he didn’t throw it.
9:00 p.m. – At the veto meeting, Makensy decided to forego taking Rubina down to put Cam up and instead decided to “look out for” herself by not using the power at all.
9:09 p.m. – In the jury house, Quinn was surprised to see T’Kor follow him out of the game because he thought that she was set up to win. At this point, T’Kor felt like Chelsie was playing the best game, and then a week later was happy to see that Leah was joining her. And then based on Leah’s exit, it wasn’t a total surprise that Angela was the next to go in the double eviction. As they watched the week back, the jurors were impressed by Makensy’s dominance in the comps. But then when Chelsie won the next HOH, her profile was raised once again and she also seemed like a strong enough competitor to be the winner.