Big Brother Eviction Recap: Did Season 26 Lose One of Its Scene Stealers?

In the end, Big Brother hardly even needed to recruit a mischief-making A.I. Instigator. As long as Angela and Tucker are in the house, Season 26 has all the pandemonium it needs.

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The Utah-based real estate agent and New York-based marketing exec have turned this Big Brother cycle into one of the most entertaining ever: Whether it’s Angela’s tearful paranoia at the wheel (“Your performances were great… for a low-budget movie .”) or Tucker’s penchant for making so-bold-they-might-be-insane game moves, these two immediately dethroned Ainsley as the season’s most unpredictable player… so it’s a shame we faced the possibility of losing one of them during Thursday’s eviction episode.

Following this week’s Power of Veto meeting, Tucker and Angela both sat on the nomination block alongside lone wolf Makensy — an interesting turn of events, considering Tucker and Angela’s Sixth Avenue ally T’kor reigned as this week’s Head of Household. But Angela’s constant mistrust of those around her, paired with Tucker’s love of confrontation, put them both in the line of fire this time around.

Initially, it seemed the house was leaning toward evicting Angela if the opportunity presented itself, post-A.I. Arena. But Chelsie, who has been on the outs with Tucker for a couple of weeks now, suspected the votes might be there to get him out, should he still be on the block after the A.I. Arena competition. She floated that idea to ally Cam, who supported Tucker’s eviction in theory, but worried he and Chelsie might end up on the wrong side of the house’s vote for a second time if the other players ultimately ousted Angela. So, Chelsie spoke to some of the other voting houseguests — Quinn, Leah and potentially Makensy among them — and many of them seemed to like the idea of taking a shot at Tucker if they got the chance.

And get the chance, they did. Though Tucker went into Thursday’s episode undefeated in A.I. Arena competitions that he’s played in, it was Makensy who pulled out the victory this time, as she was first to decipher a numerical password presented by pieces of an oversized puzzle. That left Angela and Tucker at risk for eviction, and moments before the voting began, everyone except the two nominees gathered in one of the bedrooms, seemingly coming to an 11th-hour consensus about who to boot. But when the voting actually got underway, it was closer than you might have anticipated: Tucker indeed got evicted, but by a vote of 5-3, with Kimo, Rubina and Joseph all opting to keep him. (After that last-minute whisper session in the bedroom, I thought for sure Rubina would be Tucker’s only vote, and maybe not even her.)

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Tucker, who has never taken the BB happenings especially personally, got warm hugs from his fellow players, and he planted a goodbye kiss on Rubina that a circa-2005 Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams would really have appreciated. Then, in his post-game interview, Tucker reiterated that Big Brother is just a game, and he wasn’t feeling betrayed by any of the five who voted against him — though he did think that Makensy might vote to keep him, even though he wouldn’t have kept her around if the roles were reversed. And no, Tucker’s lackluster performance in this particular A.I. Arena competition wasn’t a result of him throwing the game; he really did misunderstand the way those giant puzzle pieces were supposed to fit together, and ultimately started constructing the puzzle backwards.

There’s a solid silver lining here for Tucker, though: For his commendable efforts as the A.I. Instigator, America has awarded him $20,000 — the highest amount he could have won for that task. I’ll go out on a limb here and predict he’ll pocket even more cash as America’s Favorite Player on the season finale… but first , there’s a lot of game left to be played, and the Head of Household title is back up for grabs.

Were you sad to see Tucker go, BB fans? Who would you like to see win HOH next? Drop a comment below!

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