On Thursday, after just 16 days into the new season of Big Brother, one contestant is already proving that brutal honesty can have serious consequences. Especially if your honesty feels more like bullying in the eyes of all your fellow houseguests.
Leading up to Thursday’s live eviction, Hisam Goueli had won the Head of Household competition and nominated previous HOH, Reilly Smedley, for eviction — as well as Cameron Hardin, who he put up as a false target of sorts.
Hisam has said a big deal about wanting to play an “honest” game. So, he didn’t mince words when he told Reilly that she was his ultimate target and that he was going to do everything in his power to get her kicked out of the house.
Currently, the house is divided into two large alliances — The Handfuls (i.e. the younger players), and The Professors (the older players). Both Cameron and Reilly are members of The Handfuls, so regardless of who goes home, The Handfuls are losing a member. But which member they lose is very important to everyone in both alliances (because obviously there are countless other machinations and schemes being formed in the background).
The only hope for Reilly seemed to be if she — or one of her allies — won the Power of Veto competition. Unfortunately, this didn’t pan out, and Hisam managed to snag that as well.
Instead of downplaying things and letting the chips fall where they may (which likely would have led to Reilly getting kicked out), he made a big show out of not using the POV, then calling Reilly out and asking everyone to help him vote her out for the good of the house.
Thursday’s episode begins with everyone reeling from Hisam’s surprisingly candid (or, as others might say, hurtful) diatribe, which left Reilly in tears. Cory Wurtenberger summed up the mood of essentially the entire house when he said, “As far as I understand, the plan is to get Reilly out of the house. But then Hisam had to go and make an ass out of himself in front of everybody. Why should I be doing that guy’s bidding? In fact, what I want to do is do exactly the opposite of what he wants.”
As the episode progressed toward the live vote, Hisam continued to rub everyone — those in his own alliance, those who have been his allies, everyone — the wrong way. And it soon became clear that, regardless of who goes home this week, Hisam has painted a huge target on his back with his lackluster social game and somewhat abrasive conversational style.
As Cirie Fields and her closest confidant Izzy Gleicher began their campaign to lull Hisam into a false sense of security in the weeks to come, it finally came time for the live vote, and it was still anyone’s guess who would be getting the boot.
At the live eviction meeting, Cameron was the first to give his speech in an effort to win support and stay in the house.
“Reilly, you are amazing and just incredible. I don’t know what else to say,” Cameron began his speech, before sharing some shoutouts to his family at home, and then getting into the bulk of his defense.
“Houseguests, it’s been an absolute honor being here with you guys. I have truly enjoyed every second of all the things we have gone through, good and bad, and just made it through, as much as we have, with love and solidarity, and I hope that we continue that trend,” Cameron shared. “I just can’t tell you how honored I am to be here with you, so thank you so much for having me.”
“Houseguests, I had such an amazing time meeting all of you. And just two weeks, we have built such an amazing family together, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I will miss you guys so much if this doesn’t go to plan,” Reilly said, awkwardly whispering that last part before laughing nervously. “I am really bad at this. Sorry, Julie. Anyways! I love you guys. You are my family. I hope that whatever happens tonight, we will all remain really good friends and this has been a blast. I love you all.”
Unfortunately for Reilly, all the uncertainty and efforts at vote flipping and debates about blindsiding Hisam didn’t amount to anything more than talk, and Reilly ended up getting evicted by a unanimous 12-0 vote.
After graciously hugging each of her fellow houseguests, Reilly exited the house and took a seat across from host Julie Chen Moonves for her exit interview.
When asked by Julie why she wasn’t able to win over any votes, Reilly explained, “I think that there is a lot of fear going on in the house right now.”
“I definitely had my core alliance that was rooting for me, but it was really hard to gather those votes because we were so divided at the beginning, that people were afraid to flip to the other side,” she said, adding that she eventually told her alliance members to not blow up their game by voting against the will of the majority. So essentially she saw the eviction coming.
What will this week of aggressive gameplay mean for Hisam next week, when he has to relinquish his title of HOH? It seems the winds of fate are not in his favor, but only time will tell.
Big Brother airs Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT and Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.
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