So the Threeakshow is dead. Although I’d never heard the name of the alliance until recently, Tim, Cassandra, and Joel have been working together for a very long time. These are three very different people whose circumstances have brought them together, and over the course of time, they’ve become really close. They’ve also truly become a force to be reckoned with. Once Jared was evicted, I thought these three would take it right to the end. Super strong bond? Check. Three-quarter chance to win HoH? Check.  Unfortunately, this is where the alliance started to fall apart. They lost the HoH competition to Kelsey and then Tim outed the alliance (scratch my earlier prediction – THIS is where the alliance began to fall apart). It was then that paranoia began to settle in during the Veto competition, leading Tim to dig in his heels and pull off the win for himself rather than helping Joel to win it for all of them.

And thus, the alliance has died. Tim has declared that he’s on his own now and that he doesn’t need an alliance. He wants to win on his own now, the lone wolf. He and Cassandra don’t believe that Joel really was working in the best interests of the Threeakshow alliance. And Joel feels down and lost and alone. He feels completely responsible for what happened this week, and he’s kind of right. I mean, he had this giant plan to convince Kelsey and the brothers that he was on their side, and it worked, but how hard would it have been to tell his actual alliance what he was doing? Then they wouldn’t have doubted him, and the three of them could have possibly made it to the end together. Unfortunately, that’s not how things worked out, and now Joel is feeling guilty and sorry for himself. Nick tries to reassure him that he and his brother and Kelsey have his back and that they’ll vote for him to stay, but it doesn’t cheer him up because he’s not upset about the possibility of going home. He’s upset because he thinks he’s to blame for Cassandra’s position, and for that reason, he goes to Kelsey and Cassandra to suggest he self-evict so that Cassandra can have the chance to go further.

Joel is an extremely nice guy, and this makes me feel for him even more. That he would voluntarily give up his dream and the possibility of $100, 000 is so selfless, and it just shows what a great guy he really is. Kelsey immediately talks him out of it though, because she can’t have Cassandra staying over Joel. That won’t go along with her plan. Cassandra also tries to make him feel better, but she knows that she needs to do what she can to move forward in this game, and that includes throwing Joel under the bus if necessary. She goes to Tim for help in finding a way to stay in the game, but he refuses to help her. All he can suggest is that she appeals to the brothers’ egos.

Meanwhile, in another bedroom, Nick warns Phil to lay off the flirting with Kelsey because it could hurt their game. At the moment, they think that Joel thinks they’d take him to the end of the game, but Phil’s flirting with Kelsey could jeopardize that. I’m not sure why Nick is so concerned with how Joel feels right now, since Joel is the one on the block, but he does sort of have a point: perspective is a big thing, and Phil flirting with Kelsey could have consequences if they make it to the end with someone other than Kelsey. Sometimes determining the winner comes down to just one vote, and the last thing they need is for Jared to vote against them because Phil couldn’t control himself.

It seems like a relatively straightforward suggestion. Knock off the flirting so that they can increase their chances of winning. It seems pretty logical. Money is more important than the girl. Phil immediately gets defensive though. He even accuses Nick of being jealous of him because he and Kelsey get along so well. And once again, we see that, even though Phil is the older brother, Nick is clearly the one with the brains and the likability to win this game. Phil, once again, comes off as arrogant and childish, lashing out at his brother because he’s being told to do something he doesn’t want to do. This is one of those moments when I really wish they’d split these two brothers up so that we could see who would come out on top. My guess – Nick would wipe the floor with his brother.

Cassandra goes to work on Kelsey next, trying to plant seeds of doubt about Joel. I’m not sure if she’s just that good or if Kelsey is just that gullible. She goes on about how she doesn’t know if Joel’s self-evict plea was real. After all, he’s an actor. How can they be sure that any of what he’s done this season has been real? She also points out that everyone loves him, so it could be very difficult to win against him. Kelsey tells some of this stuff to the brothers, and immediately, they point out the fact that she’s totally being played by Cassandra. Kelsey insists that she knows when Cassandra is playing her, and this is not one of those times. This time, she’s being legit (she’s not). I mean, there’s a little bit of truth to what she says about everyone loving Joel, but would loving him be enough to crown him the winner? I doubt it, and I’m pretty sure Cassandra knows this. The brothers know this too. They tell Kelsey, right to her face, that she could beat Joel, but she couldn’t beat Cassandra. This, of course, doesn’t sit well with Kelsey.

Cass goes to the brothers next, and while she looks like she might be making a little progress with Nick, Phil just straight up tells her he will be voting to evict her. So she’s got a little more work to do. She proceeds to throw Joel under the bus, telling everyone that he’s made deals with everyone in the house, and then Kelsey pipes up too, reminding him that he’d told her to put up Cassandra and the brothers when she’d become HoH. He denies it completely, but we know it’s true—there was a flash back to prove it. So at the moment, it seems to be boys vs girls, with Tim off on his own somewhere, staying out of the fight as he’d said he would. At this point, it’s really a toss-up as to who will be the one to go to jury.

Speaking of the jury, we join Mitch, Maddy and Raul in the jury house, and when Jared comes walking through the door, everyone greets him with open arms. When Nikki walks in though, it’s very clear that Maddy is not happy that she’s there. Maddy states that it’s because Jared and Raul are close, as are Nikki and Mitch, which would make her the fifth wheel. And one could argue that this is true. Personally though, I think she just doesn’t like other girls. She’s been the only girl in the house all week, and now she’s got to share the boys with another woman. She strikes me as someone who feels threatened by other women, and I find that kind of sad. Rather than embracing girl power, she would hack away at it just to win the attention of all the boys. I’m so glad we won’t have to see her for much longer.

The other thing we learn is that apparently we, the audience, will become the ninth juror. We’ll apparently be able to submit questions for the house guests, and then I guess we’ll somehow be able to vote for the winner of this season! I’m not really sure how this is going to work, and I couldn’t find anything about it yet on the website, but I’m excited to see how we’ll be able to impact the show one last time.

Back in the house, it’s eviction time. Cass promises she’ll throw the HoH challenge if they let her stay, which I think is brilliant campaigning. She knows this show. Joel, on the other hand, proceeds to call out Kelsey and the brothers for their game. They’ve made several deals with others that they’ve gone back on, just like everyone else in the house has done. He’s tired of the brothers spouting off about how they’re playing the game with integrity and condemning everyone else for their immoral games when they’re just as immoral.  This, of course, doesn’t sit well with the brothers. I’m not sure if they’d already decided who they were going to vote for, but if they hadn’t before they definitely have now. Joel seems to have thrown himself under the bus, so it’s not surprising when they vote him out, two to nothing.

Before we head off, we get to see the beginning of the next HoH challenge, titled Earn Your Slot. The slot machine will spin and land on up to six different people. The person who rings in first with the correct answer of which veto was being played based on the house guests shown on the slot machine will win a point. If they’re wrong, their opponents will have a chance to steal the point. We only get two questions in (Tim wins both) before we hit the end of the show, so we’ll have to wait until Sunday to find out who won.

I’ve loved this season of Big Brother so far, but the fact that we never get to find out who’s made HoH on Thursday really annoys me. I understand that when they’re playing a long game, we can’t always find out who won right away, but for short games like this? There’s no reason why we shouldn’t know who won this challenge tonight. It’s clear they’re trying to draw things out, but there’s really no need. There’s enough drama in the house to make this show interesting. They don’t need to draw the challenge out and make us wait.

So far, it looks like Tim could win this challenge, which would be amazing. But, with the final four, it doesn’t really matter so much who wins HoH. It’s the Veto competition that really matters this round, because the winner of that comp will be the only person who gets to vote. The other two will go up on the block if they weren’t there already. This is where the show gets really interesting and unpredictable, because it’s two on two and a 50/50 chance that each of their alliances will be broken next Wednesday. I think that if Cass or Tim wins the Veto, the brothers will be heading out to the jury house, and if Team Kelsey wins, Tim can say goodbye to the money. I can’t wait to find out what’s going to happen on Sunday. What do you think will happen? Who do you want to win it all? Let me know  and we’ll see you next time!

– This article and other Big Brother-related stuff by the estimable Rebecca Griffin