'Big Brother 18' Episode 7 Recap: Power of Veto Competition Shakes Things Up

Culture

This season on Big Brother 18, veterans and newbies are competing together — but the newbies continue to make classic mistakes. 

In the last episode, Victor won the Road Kill competition, which gave him the opportunity to secretly nominate a third houseguest for eviction. The key word is "secretly," but Victor didn't take the opportunity to keep his news to himself. Instead Victor told Paulie and Frank, who are secretly working to get Victor out of the house. Bad idea. Paulie and Frank immediately told the rest of their "8-Pack" alliance, and now most of the house knows who's responsible for Tiffany's nomination. 

The good news for the 8-Pack is that since the Road Kill winner is technically supposed to be a secret, Victor can still be put up as a replacement nominee if one of the current nominees is taken off the block this week. 

Victor continued to put his foot in his mouth by telling Paulie and Frank that his ally Paul doesn't trust them. That's not a good move if he's trying to ally himself with Paulie and Frank. 

Strategy

Six houseguests compete in the Power of Veto competition: the three nominees, the Head of Household and two contestants whose names are drawn randomly. If the Head of Household or one of the nominees' names is pulled, they will get to choose who they want to play. 

The two names drawn were Da'Vonne and Paul. Since Paul is on the block, he gets to pick someone else to play. 

"If I don't pick Victor, he's gonna think that something's up," Paul says. "If I do pick Victor, the entire house is going to be against me. This is a terrible spot to be in." 

Paul ended up picking Zakiyah instead of Victor. 

Power of Veto competition

This week's competition is called the Toezarks. The backyard is transformed into a strange forrest and swamp full of giant gray toes.

Here's how it works: There are big (and apparently smelly) toe statues around the backyard, and the contestants have to open up the toenails and pick out little cards with letters on them. The letter cards are each assigned a point value between zero and three. 

The contestants have to collect letter cards and bring them across the yard, organizing them into a word in under 12 minutes. When they've spelled a word they're confident in, they hit a button to lock it in. The person who spells the word with the highest point value wins the Power of Veto. If there's a tie, the person who pushed the button first wins. 

Tiffany's alliance wanted her to throw the Power of Veto competition so that they can send Victor home. Part way through the competition, Tiffany decides not to throw the competition.

Tiffany, Bronte and Paulie all spelled 10-point words. Since Paulie (the current Head of Household) hit his button before Bronte or Tiffany, he wins the Power of Veto, giving him the ability to veto one of this week's nominations and put someone else up. 

Veto Ceremony

Paulie believes Paul showed his loyalty to him by choosing Zakiyah to play in the competition instead of Victor, so he'll pull Paul off the block and replace him with Victor, the 8-Pack's original target.

Meanwhile, there's still more plotting going on, even inside the alliances. Within the 8-Pack, there is the "Fatal 5," which consists of the alliance's women. In this episode, the women of the Fatal 5 discuss potentially allying together without Tiffany. 

Paulie ends up using the Power of Veto on Paul and named Victor in his place.

"In this house, as in life, being able to forgive someone is something that can allow growth," Paulie said to his fellow houseguests. "Vic, if you could take a seat? I forgive you. You're my boy, but at the end of the day I can't forget that I was almost out of this house last week." 

The 8-Pack had decided that Victor would be this week's target for eviction, but at the end of this episode Da'Vonne reveals to viewers that she's interested in turning the tables a bit and potentially targeting Tiffany instead. As they say: "Expect the unexpected." 

The next episode will air at Thursday at 9 p.m. Eastern on CBS, when fans will learn who goes home.

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