BB28 Why ___ Lost Week 1
Big Brother 28’s first eviction shakes up the house as alliances scramble and early game plans collide. Hosts David Bloomberg and Chappell dive into a recap of the opening week, breaking down why Ashley got sent packing and what it means for the rest of the players. As the newcomers and returning icons compete for control, unease grows over shifting alliances and unpredictable twists.
This episode unpacks the entire week, with attention to the HoH win by Dee, the resulting nominations, and the tribal feel as Ashley, Taylor, and Yash become central to eviction talk. David and Chappell examine Ashley’s struggle to find solid ground, missing early alliance opportunities and mishandling last-minute advice. From missed social connections to panicked campaigning, her gameplay gets dissected by both hosts, who connect the dots between casual socializing and the need for active alliance-building. Other moments include Jason’s risky play and emotional bragging, Dee’s subtle Survivor experience deceiving the house, and the fallout from Ashley revealing alliance names at the wrong time. The hosts touch on how Julie Chen Moonves’ outside commentary on strategy lands with a thud and bring the focus back to how quickly the game moves even in the first days.
David highlights Ashley’s failure to secure alliances early, leaving her as an easy replacement nominee and with nobody ready to vouch for her.
Chappell points out the dangers of spilling secrets and how Ashley’s attempt to “save herself” only made her a target after trying too hard, too late.
Strategic discussion centers on Jason’s emotional gameplay and lack of secrecy, painting him as a possible next target.
Observations about Dee’s gameplay include using her Survivor reputation and underestimating by newbies like Yash and Taylor.
The episode closes with predictions about upcoming HOH nominations and debates over whether Taylor, Jason, or Yash might find themselves in trouble.
Power in the house continues to shift between icons and first-timers, while alliances are still shaky. Will the next HOH target a big player, or will more easy numbers go? Listen in for the full breakdown and a look at what’s next on Big Brother 28.
00:00 Big Brother 28 First Eviction
05:04 Rules Used for Evaluating Ashley
12:21 Dee Valladares Underestimated by Houseguests
17:21 Julie Chen vs. Rick Devens
29:12 Ashley Trail’s Fatal Game Mistakes
36:52 Alliance Advice Backfires on Ashley
43:34 Ashley Trail’s Social Game Downfall
55:15 Ashley Not Seen as a Threat
59:41 Lessons from Ashley Trail’s Exit
01:03:40 Key Takeaways and Podcast Wrap-Up
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[00:00:00] Meditieren, Yoga, Joggen, nichts entspannt mich. Echt? Mich entspannt meine Steuer total. Steuer? Wie Finanzamt? Die Steuererklärung? Ja, ich hab ganz locker über 1000 Euro Zugriff bekommen. Hast du geheime Connections oder Excel-Superkräfte? Nö, nur die Wieso-Steuer-App. Wow! Und das ist einfach? Klar, die macht fast alles automatisch. Ich fühl mich plötzlich so... entspannt! Hol dir dein Geld zurück. Abgabefrist 31. Juli. Was?! Schaffst du ganz entspannt mit Wieso-Steuer? Ach, ach ja.
[00:00:30] You played yourself and got voted out. This is why blank lost. And this is why blank lost. Oh baby, this is why blank lost. Welcome back to Why Blank Lost for the first eviction of Big Brother 28.
[00:00:56] I'm David Bloomberg and with me is my co-host for his first official discussion of why someone lost Big Brother, Chappell. Hey! Thank you so much for having me, David. David, thank you to all of David's adoring fans for putting up with me this season. I saw a lot of positive feedback. A lot of people very sad to see that Ovi was gone and hopeful that he would pop up in this season. Uh, but uh, alas, no Ovi on the season and no Ovi on YX loss. It'll be me for the time being trying to hold it down for him.
[00:01:25] Uh, and uh, hopefully talking through these rules with you, David. Yes, yes. You know, it occurs to me the last podcast I did with Ovi was Why Ashley Won. And the first podcast to actually discuss Big Brother 28, not the preseason, is Why Ashley Lost with you. It's like, it's like this perfect changing of the guard. We love symmetry. Okay, you know, uh, Final Destination said that, uh, one Ashley had to lose, had to be the first boot.
[00:01:55] Last year, it did look like Ashley took a shower too long and was going to be on the way out. I don't know which rule that falls under, but this time around no shower, no shower gate, but yes, and Ashley nonetheless. Yes. Yes. Now, speaking of the preseason podcast where we, you know, talked about who we thought would, would go. And, and that, you know, that was your first real appearance here. Uh, I was so close to getting my prediction, right.
[00:02:25] Of who would be first out with, with, with Yash winning blockbuster. It would have been Taylor all the way till late Tuesday. Mm hmm. But how all that changed will be part of our discussion, a large part. Uh, however, in another area of our predictions, uh, we way overestimated Ashley's ability to follow the rules
[00:02:53] because we gave her a five out of 10. Mm hmm. You know, to me, that bar is kind of low five halfway. It's not, you know, it's not crazy, but we definitely gave her too much. Just, you know, I, and I, and it's crazy. Cause we talked about Ashley. She was the first person we talked about that day. And I was kind of using her as a baseline because she sounded like she was very knowledgeable about the game.
[00:03:17] So if they were more knowledgeable or if they had like other aspects that I thought they had that she didn't have, I put them higher. And then if they were not as knowledgeable as she seemed, I put them lower. Now, as far as the people I put lower than her, I stand by a few of my choices for sure. But, but, but Ashley going out first was a surprise to me for sure.
[00:03:39] I think there was a moment where I even thought that I might be right about the first book because I'm pretty sure I picked Melody and the way she was playing and really pushing Mallory away earlier in the week. They were talking about her being replaced. And I was like, here it is. I'm going to be right. First time out the gate. Yeah. But no, it was a crazy week. It didn't start off that way. But by the time Waffle Wednesdays showed up, there was no, I had no clue who was going home. And I don't think anybody did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:04:08] It was, you know, call. She was right there with you. They, they had that melody at the top, you know, before she had even been nominated. She was the most likely on there. So people lost some money on that one. But yeah, it was, it was an interesting situation with the way we handled our predictions.
[00:04:30] And I think the issue is, you know, we talked about this in the preseason podcast was the attempt to not get fooled again by people saying that they had more experience than they did. And I think at least I did get fooled again, not only by Ashley, but I think by others. So I think, like you said, the ones below her may still be below her because, okay, we thought they had less experience and they had even less than we thought they did.
[00:05:00] And so, yeah, we'll see that as the season goes on.
[00:05:33] Right. Right. Well, for anyone who is new to this podcast and has made it five minutes in, still not quite knowing what we're doing here, we will today and indeed all season long compare how each evicted house guest, obviously Ashley today, played in light of the set of guiding rules that I originally wrote way back in 2004 and have modified ever since.
[00:06:01] We will analyze her actions using what we saw on TV, live feeds, interviews and other information. And if you want to look at those, the most recent published version, two years old, is posted at robhaswebsite.com slash big brother rules. And then at the end, we will also do spoiler free predictions. And what I mean by spoiler free is we put these down either in our heads or literally on the computer or if you really want to go old school on paper.
[00:06:30] We put these down before the feeds come back on with the HOH. So we have no idea when we make these. Obviously, as we sit here now, we have a lot more information. And so but we're not going to release that information because we know that there are people who don't do the live feeds, but do listen to and watch this podcast. Yeah, makes sense.
[00:07:00] And I will say this, that my prediction isn't so much what I thought was going to happen. It was more like what I wanted to happen. You know, awesome. That often is the case, especially since we've got 16 people. So before we get into the comparison to the rules, we usually have some other things to discuss about the week in general. And this first week is certainly no exception.
[00:07:26] We can start with my winner pick, Jason, because I'm trying to figure out how to use that big brother time machine to go back. Or I predicted he'd win and tell myself, don't do it. You do not want to do that. This is giving me flashbacks to last season when I predicted Keanu would win and immediately knew I was wrong. It's bad. Yeah.
[00:07:55] Ovi tried to warn you last season and I definitely tried to warn you this time around. I was like, I think you're a little too high on Jason because what I thought was his showmanship would be his downfall. He's a drag queen. He's very expressive. He's a big personality. And I thought, is he going to be able to come in and play like a cerebral measured game where he is keeping a lot to himself and playing, you know, and doing things in a covert way?
[00:08:20] Or is he going to cry to Angela, wink at the camera, make a face and then go tell people that he did it when you didn't have to tell people? That's where we that's where we lost Jason this week. I mean, it's to the point where much like last season, I am actively rooting for my winner pick to lose. Is he is he at the bottom of your power rankings right now, Jason? You think, all right.
[00:08:47] I mean, I don't really do, you know, rankings, you know, you know, like like Steven said, you know, rankings. Yeah, arbitrary, reductive, you know. But yes. So maybe he's he's down there anyway. Yeah. I mean. What he did. Icky. Icky is all heck. I did a video on it for YouTube and TikTok. Within the boundaries of the game. Absolutely.
[00:09:15] Doesn't mean people have to like it. And like you said. The worst part was he told people he bragged to people about this. Which I he couldn't keep it to himself. No. And and they, you know, the show for those for people who don't watch the live feeds. It wasn't only to Angela. So there are some people who are like, well, I don't like Angela anyway.
[00:09:43] OK, but he did it to Devon's to. Mm hmm. With using his daughter's birthday. His daughter's birthday. Shout out to Rockstar. Yeah. You know, using that for emotional manipulation and also told people about that. So it was just bad, bad all around. Yeah. I'm an OG Big Brother fan from, you know, the Dr. Will days as well.
[00:10:12] And so I am fine with a little emotional manipulation. That's fine. Like you said, within the bounds of the game. But you lose me when the conversation should be with us at home. Right. You should be winking at us. You should be in the diary with us telling us how evil you are. The things that you're doing is as backhanded and underhanded, all this other stuff. And then you should shut your mouth inside the house and they should never know. They should get out of the house thinking you're one way and then finding out afterwards. Oh, my God.
[00:10:40] You said all these awful things about me, but there's nothing I can do because I already voted for you. No, he went and gave everybody the ammunition to take him out. So between his desire to go after the veterans and also his desire to go after the veterans and to tell people he's going after the veterans. Yeah. Jason was not the best winner pick. No, no, no. I just thought, you know, he had said some of the right things about, oh, I know I messed up on All Stars. I overdid it. I'm going to bring that in.
[00:11:09] And he's a big brother and Survivor super fan. And I thought he'd get in with the vets. And instead, I just totally underestimated the screen time jealousy aspect of things. Right. I would love to hear his exit press when when the time comes. Right. Like, so let's say he makes the merge of the merge, the jury. Let's say he makes the jury. We probably won't ever know. But I really would love to know, like, hey, is that something that is really a driving force for you?
[00:11:36] Even if he said it in the art, it would be nice for him to just be like, hey, I should have been an icon, too. You know, and then I would understand. OK, cool. I get why you have a vendetta. What I don't get is why you're telling people about your vendetta. You know what I'm saying? That's the part. You just got to be quiet. You don't have to tell everybody what's every your every thought. Yeah. Yeah. I really think he would have been better off not having safety this week.
[00:12:01] I think that I think he might have been a bit more discerning in how he acted, like being completely safe, knowing nobody could touch him this week. I think just gave him more, you know, more excitement of doing these things and not worrying about it. No, that's a really good point for especially for Jason specifically, because I believe Chuck was safe this week as well. And he didn't do anything. He didn't do literally. He kept forgetting he was there.
[00:12:31] I can't. I always forget about Chuck on the cast. I just want him to do something. But yeah, I think had he not been safe, you know, man, it would have he could have done a little something. But that that safety gave him a little too much freedom. And you see what happens when you have too much freedom. Yeah. Well, moving on from Jason.
[00:12:55] Another topic I wanted to mention was the way several new players thought D was some sort of big brother idiot who didn't understand the game. And they were going to teach her as if they had any knowledge. Yash was prime among them. But Taylor was right there, too. Now, we did hear less about it as the days went on, I think. But Yash never did get it out of his head.
[00:13:21] And, you know, this idea that she was clueless and he was going to set her straight. I swear I heard him talking about it on as late as like Wednesday. And that attitude was one reason I was rooting for him to be gone. Now, admittedly, she did play it up at the beginning. And I think she was smart to do so. But come on. She not only won Survivor. She is considered by many to be the best new era winner. Not that Yash or Taylor would know that.
[00:13:52] But Yash and Taylor are not exactly big brother experts themselves. So the idea that they would somehow have done more research on the game than D is just ridiculous and egotistical. You couldn't tell me that Yash had ever seen a season of big brother based on his, you know, his preseason press. When we when we talked about it, I was like, this man does not know what he's talking about. He's just there. And I stand by that. I don't think he knows what he's talking about.
[00:14:20] But to go to D and really just buy this idea that she doesn't know what's going on. It's just it's very naive. You know, it comes from somebody who does not realize that you should be suspicious of all these people. And, you know, again, if he wants to come on the show and get some screen time, some TV time, be influenced, whatever the case may be. That's cool. Do your thing. But if you're going to do a little research, it'll tell you that, you know, you got you can't trust everybody in this house and that some people are going to backstab you.
[00:14:46] And not only did he get backstabbed by D, you got go like just like completely like snowed by her the entire week. Yeah. As far as her level of preparation for this. D did not come here to lose. You know, she's so if she even if she had never seen big brother prior to this year, the moment they gave her a call and said she could come on. You definitely know that she took a crash course in big brother. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And she had some friends, including one who works for RHAP helping her.
[00:15:14] And so, yeah, I did not know, by the way, that Yash was an influencer as well as a financial analyst or whatever. You know, I don't know how much of an influencer he is. I, you know, I saw Rob's video. I had no idea. I saw it on its own popping up all over the place. And I was like, what is Rob doing? What is this day in the life? He's he's jumping around. He's putting clothes on.
[00:15:43] He's going to a job. What is it? So it wasn't until I think maybe as recent as yesterday that I finally saw them side by side with Yash's video. And I was like, oh, that gives it a lot more context now. You know, I just totally missed that. It's an incredible video. And like you said, I don't really know how much of an influencer Yash is, but there's got to be a tiny part of all these people who go on TV to think, you know, like I'm going to build a following,
[00:16:11] especially if you're making, you know, cool reels and dancing around and stuff like that. I'm sure he's looking for that kind of stuff. And he'll definitely get it if he sticks around longer. But the way he played this week, I don't know how long Yash is for this game. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently someone said and I again, I did not research this. Someone said Lyric has like 300,000 followers or something like that. She was on American Idol and Katy Perry just like violently shook her. And so I'm sure that she's been, you know, trying to push her music and stuff like that.
[00:16:40] So, you know, and I don't judge if you want to be on TV to push an agenda, go for it. But at least, you know, kind of brush up on the show. So you don't go out looking foolish. That isn't what she's pushing right now. I'll tell you that. Showmance on day two is crazy. Yes. Well, showmance on day two, beginning of a show bed, but absolutely making out in one of these beds behind me here.
[00:17:10] That yeah. On day two. Yes. That absolutely crazy. Not to mention, I know how excited you were to maybe excited. It's the wrong word there. How thrilled you were to see them on the storage room countertop there, you know. When I saw it, I said, oh, slop content. Can't wait. And here I bring it up instead. All right.
[00:17:38] Well, before we get to our next semi-regular segment, do you have anything or anyone else you want to discuss? No, I think we're going in the same place on your regular segment. So I definitely want to hear what you have to say. All right. And it is time for this season's first edition of Julie Chen Moonves is wrong about blank. And holy cow, did Julie outdo herself to start the season? She really wanted to make sure we had content here.
[00:18:07] She was so wrong that she repeated her wrongness in multiple interviews and showed it in other ways as well. Now, the main area I want to focus on is the way she full-on attacked Rick Devins. She said she wasn't happy to find out a couple more survivor players would be coming on the show. But when she researched them, she felt better about it.
[00:18:30] But then Devins supposedly proved he doesn't understand Big Brother by telling Angela about the Red Corner Alliance. Now, I did a whole video about this on TikTok and YouTube where I went over the pros and cons of Devins telling her. So without rehashing all of that, I concluded that because it was specifically Angela, he did the right thing by looping her in. But he did it the wrong way by not talking to Dee first as his closest ally and indeed the HOH.
[00:19:01] Even if someone disagrees with me, it is not a cut and dried situation. But to Julie, who of course is a master of strategic knowledge for Big Brother, it was. She told Mike Bloom, I was like, you lost me, buddy. And Dee, she gets it. When Rick told her in the storage room, she was like, no, no, no, no, no. Why did you do that? I thought, ooh, she gets it. Rick doesn't get it. Devins does not get it.
[00:19:28] And then, of course, she said similar things, echoing almost the exact same stuff to Dalton Ross and Sharon Tharp. So Julie picked one thing that was probably the only scene she saw from the episode. And with all of her vast strategic insight, she decided Devins was wrong, as if she has any clue how to play Big Brother. And it's not just that he was wrong. She insulted someone who actually knows what he's doing.
[00:19:58] And most fans who watch live feeds believe as of that moment, he had put himself into possibly the best position of all the players. Yeah. David, this is a personal vendetta that Julie has against Rick Devins. Have you heard about the origin story of this? Because I think I have some tea for you. Oh, yeah. I have seen all of the tweets. He was not nice.
[00:20:27] But if you have them handy, by all means, let us know. Yeah. He was doing his tweeting is about 2022. I think it was. That's probably around the same though. The time when Julie got holy, you know, those of us are old enough to remember, you know, pre-COVID. Julie was just Julie Chen and she wasn't talking about God all that time. Right. But after she came back, Julie, she didn't moon vest for whatever reason. And, you know, I have no idea why she would have suddenly added her husband's last name.
[00:20:57] Yeah. And then become a very devout Christian publicly, you know, like not to say that she wasn't before. I don't know her life, but she's definitely like a Southern Baptist on Big Brother. And so, yeah, around this time, Rick was making some tweets about her talking about the interviewer being like, did you see what happened on the live feeds? And Julie said, I don't watch that trash. God will take care of it. You know, or Julie Chen moon vest. I am not obsessed with the live feeds. So I haven't seen everything that people are talking about.
[00:21:26] But then also her, let's try not to judge. Please leave it to the judging to the real judge, father God. And that was Rick Devins making fun of Julie. And I have to believe that she has seen it. And in my mind, David, when Rick Devins gets voted out of this game or whenever his exit interview will be, he sits out on that stage. Julie Chen is going to read these tweets back there. Like he's like, she read those Aaron Greece quotes in BB 15. They're like, now you remember saying that I blank, blank and blank, because that's the
[00:21:56] only reason why I think she should have this most smoke for Rick Devins. Rick Devins, they did nothing to nobody. You know what I'm saying? So for Julie just to decide that he's not a good Big Brother player. I was like, OK, it's only week one, three days in. You're like, yeah, he don't get it. OK, sure, Julie. Right. And there were other tweets that I saw, too, where he was making fun of her and making fun of Big Brother. And so I mean, normally I would think Julie probably doesn't pay attention to that.
[00:22:24] But I will tell you, she has on Instagram. You cannot tag her because I was going to tag her in some of the videos saying what she did wrong. And no, you cannot you cannot tag Julie on Instagram. So she doesn't want to know. So the funny thing is, I think to Devins, even if he remembers that stuff to him, it
[00:22:52] was just fun and games, you know, and he was blissfully ignorant of her going around to every media outlet she could find except R.J. And talking badly of him. And he goes in there and accidentally pokes the bear by showing up at the first vote in his survivor attire where he was just making a joke. And she was not happy about that. Accidentally.
[00:23:19] Now, look, I love Rick Devins, but a part of me does think that that survivor attire is definitely, you know, he's made fun of Big Brother before. I think that's him firmly planting his flag on what side of the fence he's on. Yes, he is playing Big Brother, but he is a survivor player playing Big Brother. He's not a Big Brother player as far as he's concerned, probably. And so I thought it was an interesting choice. And I know Julie wanted to say something so bad. The chin bop was malfunctioning a little bit, but she hates Rick Devins.
[00:23:49] And it's clear. So in Julie's interviews that I already mentioned, and even the one with R.H.A.P., Julie said plenty of other wrong things, too. Now, some I addressed in videos, some on Blue Sky. I don't want to take up too much time on here by going over every detail. Suffice it to say that, no, Julie, the premier ratings were not the highest they've been in five years because you prayed for it.
[00:24:14] Rather, it's more likely because of those survivor players you were complaining about. And by the way, if your prayers, Julie, did have that kind of power, you should use it for things that matter, like world peace or feeding the poor or protecting women from their abusive male bosses. I don't know, something like that. She can pray for all those things. Listen, I pray for a lot of things, but also I sprinkle Big Brother in there every now and for a good season.
[00:24:43] Yeah, let's pray for some drama, pray for a house meeting, you know, something like that. Pray for some good punishments. You could throw all that in the mix. Now, I also want to add that someone needs to do a better job of keeping Julie informed about what's going on because she admitted she didn't know a couple of things like that. Howie was going to be on the show and she clearly didn't know that Rachel had been
[00:25:13] quote unquote saved via time travel on Unlocked last week, which all just goes back to how ridiculous it is for her of all people to not even pay attention, but then criticize Devin's strategy. Right. Yeah. Julie is kind of clueless, but that's kind of why we love her. It's a part of the meme at this point. You know, we know Jeff is hands on and everything, everything that happens in Survivor. And Julie is the polar opposite.
[00:25:39] She shows up, what, twice a week, does her job and he goes home and doesn't think about Big Brother again until it turns back on. At least that's how that's how it comes off, Julie. So you're listening. Absolutely. Tap back in. You know, absolutely. As I'll have a video coming out almost in sync with, you know, maybe a little after this podcast comes out that talks about those things in more detail. And exactly that, because there are people on there. There are people I know this will surprise you.
[00:26:05] There are people on social media who are wrong and they will jump on me and say, no, she's involved in all the production meetings and she's heavily. No, she's not. And also, you know, following up on what Julie does do, even though we aren't to the rules discussion part of the podcast yet, where we'll talk about what Ashley did wrong. Now, Julie, she didn't lose because she needed to give a better final speech. It was unanimous.
[00:26:35] 14 votes against her. There was nothing she could have said to flip half the house in that moment. Yeah. But, you know, I'll give Julie some credit. Ashley, you should have tried something. Like, could you have done better after you could have a bare minimum is do a better speech. That's all Julie saw. She was there for that. You know, it's not like she watched anything prior to that. So this was what she was working with. And then Julie's limited knowledge of what was going on. Even Julie came up with Ashley.
[00:27:03] At least try to get these people to save you. So, you know, she's not right that that could have saved her. But she was her instincts are correct. She should have done better. Yeah. Yeah. Just not at that point. You know, Julie always harps on the things that don't matter. Like, why are people like last year? Why are people not using the two minutes that I give them to strategize after the blockbuster? You know, they don't matter. I do want to thank Sarah Cupcakes, who was the first person to alert me to some of the things
[00:27:31] Julie said for this segment and several others also sent it to me afterwards. So, you know, keep the Julie content coming here. We love it. All right. With that, let's just let's move on to who we're here to talk about. Because on Tuesday, it was very clear that Ashley was completely safe. By Wednesday, that had completely flipped.
[00:28:00] Ashley said, I'm here to play. But was she? Ashley said in one interview, I would hope to think that first week you don't do completely anything wrong if you're voted out. It's like, yeah, Ashley, that's not how it works. In fact, it's usually the exact opposite. And the person who's voted out first does indeed do things completely wrong. The question we have today is whether that describes Ashley. Well, actually, that's the question.
[00:28:29] But we have the answers because at RJP, we know Big Brother and we know why Ashley lost. The first and most important rule is to scheme and plot. But Ashley. Didn't. She said in the pregame that she wanted to get into a super strong alliance, but I'm not really sure when or how she believed that would happen. The answer for her was never. Indeed, D said one of the main reasons Ashley was nominated was, quote, she's not even well-grouped in any group.
[00:28:59] And that was as a replacement nominee almost a week into the game, not just like an initial nominee a couple days in. This was a common theme we heard from others. Melody said with Ashley, I don't know where she is. I'm not sure if she's a number for me. Fellow nominee Taylor told us Ashley wasn't really establishing game relationships, which I have to admit I found rather amusing because it's also a pretty decent description of Taylor herself,
[00:29:25] who was not out there ensuring her own safety the last couple of days, pretty much at all. She she was saved through no effort of her own. But it's still accurate. And sometimes we see in others what we don't see in ourselves, which is clearly what happened with Taylor. Yeah, you're right. Ashley is the replacement. And she was given she was given a pass.
[00:29:53] So these criteria for picking up initial nominations was one person from each of those teams in the H.O.H. competition actually wasn't even on a team. So she wasn't even eligible at that point. So she's like, oh, cool. I got days off. She ain't do nothing with that time to do anything with that time. So when D has to make another nomination, she's not D had already established a bond with Barrett. Hey, Ashley, it'd be nice if, you know, you had also established a bond with D at that point.
[00:30:19] But because you had the same type of bond, but yeah, not not the same type of bond. I'm not even quite sure what the bond is between D and Barrett is, but it's something. But yeah, Ashley, you had all week and you didn't do that. And then when D had to make a decision, it wasn't like Ashley was the only option. You know, there were other ways to do this. But because she hadn't had like that relationship with Ashley, she wasn't willing to go to bat for her.
[00:30:46] She wasn't willing to make excuses or kind of finagle away because D had already proven that she's OK with going back on her word. She said she wasn't gonna put up anybody from her team. And then she immediately put up Yash. So she's willing to do that. You know, maybe you can convince her to put somebody else up because you didn't scheme and plot with her. She had no reason to work with you. And so you were just an easy, easy person to put on the block. You never want to be that. Yeah.
[00:31:10] I mean, even Julie recognized it or the assistant who types up her cue cards because she said to Ashley after she was evicted, you were social, but you didn't seem to have a group you were aligned with in the game. And Ashley responded that there were people she wanted to work with, but she felt like she was begging and they were very noncommittal. And then Ashley talked a little bit in her interviews about this, telling Mike Bloom, I had my very first game talk on day two with D. It was pre-nominations.
[00:31:37] And she immediately was like, oh, well, I hear your name being thrown out. And I'm like, whoa, that means game talk has already begun. Maybe instead of doing a little 5 p.m. day two game talk, I should have done this day one. I'm behind on the ball. You don't realize how fast the game is moving in Big Brother. So honestly, yes. Like I should have skipped the, hey, what's your family's family home dog's name? What's your favorite color? And just go to tell me, do you want to work with me? Now, maybe she shouldn't have done it quite that bluntly.
[00:32:07] But yes, the game does move that quickly. This is why rule one specifically says from the very beginning, you have to start making alliances and cementing relationships. It can be difficult to know whom you can trust after just a couple days or even hours sometimes. But if you don't start fast, you'll be watching from the comfort of your own living room like the rest of us. Players need to make those connections and alliances early.
[00:32:31] You will need to have allies to make sure you aren't nominated and evicted as an easy target who nobody will care about. Over the years, we have seen several alliances born simply because people happen to be together at the same time. Sometimes this will lead seemingly random groups becoming very tight because people are in the right place at the right time. But the key is to find some way to create alliances that will keep you around until you can figure out your full strategy later.
[00:33:03] She was not able to find a number one, you know, like it's hard. Like her she said her her goal was to be a part of a big alliance. She couldn't find an alliance of two. You know, she she never found somebody who would just go to bat for her. And so although, you know, we kind of bounce back and forth all week about whether it be Ashley Taylor or Josh, it it wasn't because Ashley had anybody really sticking up for her. And she that's what you need. You need alliances. And she just she just didn't make any.
[00:33:30] Yeah, she even said, you know, to Dalton Ross, I'm not sure I had a biggest ally in the house. Like I truly felt like I was in the cafeteria at lunch looking around with my sandwich in hand being like, should I go to the bathroom? And this. You need someone to defend you. And and like you said, she had nobody. Once her name came up, no one said, no, let's not do that. I need her around.
[00:33:57] A few people were like, eh, we like her. But that's that's not enough to keep her. And it's really sad to to kind of be in a in a house trapped in there for, you know, however many days and not find your group. You know, there was a moment where it looked like Angela could kind of squint and see a future for Ashley. But, you know, for her to be in there so long and not ever socially integrate. I think it's OK that she's going home this week because it's these clearly aren't her people. Yeah.
[00:34:27] Yeah. So, yeah, it's I think that, you know, my quote from the rule pretty much said, oh, these are why you need somebody. Mm hmm. But before leaving this rule, I do want to say it's funny going through the interviews because sometimes you can tell the order they were done just by the way a person responds.
[00:34:49] So Ross must have been first because Ashley was telling him she tried too hard to look for an alliance and said maybe instead of even trying to play any game, maybe I should have just played it even chiller and just not even tried to gauge anybody on like, who are you with? So she came out of the game with completely the wrong lesson. Absolutely the opposite.
[00:35:15] Until Mike Bloom and then Taryn and Rob and probably others corrected her by giving her the actual information of what happened. And then she started to realize, which takes us to rule two. Which tells players not to scheme and plot too much and to keep your scheming secret. Let me repeat that for a moment. Keep your scheming secret.
[00:35:42] Now, Ashley didn't do any scheming like 98 percent of the time she was there. And then she did it all at once the wrong way by spilling everything to exactly the wrong people. She tried to go use the information that she had people who finally were vouching for her. Half the house is like, hey, we'll bring in Ashley. That'll you know, we'll probably get rid of Taylor or Yash, but we'll bring her into the alliance. We got her.
[00:36:12] They pull her in. And as a group, they tell her, hey, we got you. You know, no worries. And her, I guess the way she interpreted what they were saying was, OK, now that you're safe, you need to go and bring other people in to the alliance structure. So she goes and she starts blabbing and just starts running her mouth. If she had done nothing, she'd been fine. But because she did something and it really alerted the rest of the house that the house was basically splitting.
[00:36:41] It talked like the the alliance between the vets and, you know, the red corner. They were coming together and they were going to bring her in other wing. And so she went and told all the people who were not involved in that. I think she was trying to make some allies there. But when she told Melody, that was the biggest mistake because Melody is a self-interested player and she was not going down like that.
[00:37:05] I did like how Haley, I think it was, who kind of scolded her like, hey, shut up, stop talking. But it sounds harsh, but it's really what somebody needed to tell Ashley about a few hours prior to her actually getting to Haley. Yeah, I do want to clarify for those people who only watch the episodes.
[00:37:25] There were a few important things missing, some of which you just discussed, namely that she believed she was doing what those who said they would save her wanted her to do on on the episodes. They did not show D, Drew and Barrett going over with her. Some of the things to say and some of who to say it to. And so, yeah, off she went.
[00:37:48] And she even told Mike Bloom, the whole reason I started actually doing that scheming and that whole shebang of trying to put the house against each other is because they did simply give me that advice. I took their advice to go and say all of those things. I would never have played that hard necessarily. And so I hate that they got spooked and it kind of got back. Maybe I just didn't do it the way fully that they wanted me to, but I definitely did it because they did tell me to. And.
[00:38:18] Yeah, you know, they told her. Maybe not exactly the way she went about. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:38:27] Like she is supposed to be going around and like she she has the numbers and I think they're giving her a bone here where they can say, OK, you can go to you can go to your number, whoever you like on that side and kind of, you know, bring them in in a way where, you know, just to make yourself, you know, not so much of like a pariah over there. You know, she's got they giving her things that she can work with to kind of throw that side off. But she's talking about like, hey, they came and told me this.
[00:38:56] And by telling me that these people came and told you it's like when they pry, you say, well, who told you that? Well, somebody did. Now you have to air out those people. And she was willing to air them out because she just wasn't locked in on the strategy. Now, that also might be a problem of that alliance as well, because you waiting until this day to tell Ashley, you don't know how Ashley plays the game. You know, we even saw Rick Devens had a rough start. Right. He's he's like, am I liability? You know, and that was days ago.
[00:39:22] You getting Ashley today and trying to get her to play, you know, this next level of big brother that y'all have started to play. It was not going to work, you know, and so it was it was bad on both sides. But because Ashley is the one who lost, it was definitely worse on her. Yeah. And, you know, the sequence of events, we saw some of it. You know, Melody heard she got spooked. She ran around, went to Drew and Barrett. They got spooked and the spooking just continued all the way, all the way to the top.
[00:39:50] And, you know, they were worried if they because of things they had said, if they stuck together and voted out Taylor, the lines would be drawn in positions exposed. And, you know, of course, they can't have that. So the decision was made to just cut Ashley and be done with it. And again, that part goes to what we discussed in rule one. She wasn't tight with anyone. Nobody was in her corner defending her. It was like, oh, well, OK, I guess we just lose her then. And that's it.
[00:40:20] Yeah. And she didn't make herself look super attractive to be brought over, you know. And, you know, I think Ashley had immunity because she won a challenge. You would think you could be like, I'm good at challenges. Keep me, you know. But that wasn't even enough. So she waited too long to get in good with this alliance. And then when she did, she kind of just tanked whatever situation they had going on. Those people will live to fight another day. Ashley will not. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:40:49] So the question, the main question I would say for this rule is whether doing what the alliance who promised to save her said to do is scheming and plotting too much. The answer, of course, is yes. Rob pointed out in the live feed update, she's responsible for her own game. You know, sure. She thought she was doing something that would keep her safe based on advice from others. But she needed to evaluate it and think about it on her own. Morgan from last season put it well on Blue Sky saying,
[00:41:17] people can give you advice, but at the end of the day, you still have a choice whether to act on it. Ashley chose to follow that advice and go to work. But she also chose to reveal the sides of the house, including the names of the very alliance that was trying to protect her. That part was entirely her decision. And it ended up blowing up her game. It doesn't really make sense to expect the crossovers to take responsibility for the fallout when doing so would completely tank their own games. Yeah. She needed allies.
[00:41:48] She didn't have them. And then when the ship started to sink, she was on a boat by herself. Yeah. Now, I will say, in her RHAP interview, Ashley did say maybe she should have second guessed the advice she got. And yeah, as we were just talking about, she definitely should have. But as Morgan said, it goes beyond just following the advice to how it was done because she came at it from the wrong viewpoint.
[00:42:15] She approached it as wanting to ensure Melody and others were on the right side of the vote. That should not have been her concern. Right. She told Mike Bloom, I was just putting myself in someone else's shoes. If somebody came up to me and they said, wow, it looks like five of these people are voting to keep Ashley. I don't want to be outside of that, especially because Melody really explained to me that she didn't want to be on the outside. Nobody wants to be.
[00:42:41] So I thought it was just going to be a perfect little bit of convincing that they needed to just nudge and be like, OK, this is the group's decision. But. The problem is, Ashley. Had no read on where everyone stood in the house, who was with who, how people would react. So she didn't know what impact coming at it this way would have.
[00:43:06] She's going out of her way to throw a life life raft to people who are about to vote her out. She's trying to bring Melody in on a vote. But you shouldn't have to bring Melody in on the vote because Melody, if your relationship at that point isn't good enough for Melody to already be voting with you or, you know, against Taylor at the very least, then you've already lost her. Why are you trying to make sure that she's on the right side of the vote? She didn't care about what was about to happen to you. So, yeah, yeah. Like I put myself in her shoes. Put yourself in your shoes.
[00:43:35] You're about to go home. Right. And then going back to the Haley scolding, she told Mike Bloom, I just felt it kind of felt a little bit shocked because Haley didn't like that. I was telling. I keep mispronouncing. I can see it. OK. Kamu's name. But I don't know. Maybe it looks too much like Shamu. And so I think Kamu, you know, when I. It's to me, it's Keanu. That's what I have to struggle not to say is Keanu.
[00:44:04] Because, you know, we did that all last year. And now that. Yeah. It throws me off, too. Yeah. So I didn't like that. I was telling Kamu that she was in to to keep me. But that was a little bit confusing to me because, I mean, she said herself she was going to keep me. And also all the other people that said they were going to keep me said, yeah, and Kamu's in. So I thought I was free of speaking. OK, just because someone tells you information doesn't mean it's OK to pass that along to everybody else.
[00:44:34] Secrets are kind of a thing in Big Brother. Yeah. And again, you waited till Wednesday to start this, you know, these shenanigans. If you was going to start passing secrets around, you could have done that from the beginning. But you are now trying to play a week's worth of Big Brother in one day. And so, yeah, these sides are established. These friendships are established. And you're just trying to find a place where you can get in. You should not be worried about what everybody else got going on because you just need people to vote for you or to vote to keep you. I guess I should say. Right, right. Yeah.
[00:45:05] All right. Well, before leaving this rule, I do want to mention one thing I found funny, which is that D was part of this, you know, part of the group that was telling her information after getting mad at Devin's for giving away information to Angela a few days earlier. And of course, that was the specific thing that Julie decided meant she was good and he was bad. But here D was with others, again, giving away information that could have come back to bite them.
[00:45:33] This was far worse than Devin's telling Angela. Yes. But does D have any incriminating tweets about Julie Chen? I would say the answer is probably not. All right. So, well, there you go. Julie won, David zero. All right. Well, we can move on to the third rule, which talks about the need to be flexible. So, Chappelle, is there any way you can think of that Ashley would have been considered flexible in this game?
[00:46:03] I don't even I don't know what you could describe her gameplay as. I mean, because most. Yeah. Like because I wouldn't call her rigid, you know, it's like she was just there. Um, I think if anything, she didn't she didn't have any direction at all, you know. And so was she willing to go with the plan? Sure. They told her come with the plan. You know, we say if you're flexible means you got to pivot. And she did. They said, hey, you're with us now. She said, OK, cool. But she just wasn't good at that part.
[00:46:31] So maybe there you could squint and see flexibility. I don't know, David. What about you? No, I think you have to at least do something. Do something to create an option for doing other things. You got to be active for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. All right. Well, that one was quick. So the fourth rule says players should not let their emotions control them. We've talked about how she avoided alliance talk early and then was basically just looking for a home before she then went about things in completely the wrong way.
[00:47:00] Do you think her emotions were involved in any of this? She talked about like being at the lunchroom looking for a table. Oh, this is going to sound I'm going to sound sad when I say it. But I do think her emotions probably came into play because imagine that for days you're looking for your group. You're looking for your group. And then finally, these people come and they, you know, extend the olive branch. They say, you can be a part of our group. And then you're so excited because now you finally get to play big brother. And then you go and run your mouth because you just can't contain yourself.
[00:47:29] So maybe she got a little too wrapped up in that incitement of finally being a part of a group to where she started playing a little reckless. I think that, you know, had they just had they not told her right. Had they not told her anything and they just voted to keep her. I think she'd have been better off. But because they they told her, I think that empowered her enough. You know, it hyped her up. She got a little confidence about herself and then she started to play the game. And that's where it all went downhill. So maybe maybe so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:47:59] I hadn't thought about it that way, but I absolutely agree. Yeah. Because I was like, it doesn't have to necessarily be a negative emotion. You know what I'm saying? Like the negative emotion is probably how she felt all week. But that that that euphoric emotion of like, OK, now I'm in the game. I think we've seen plenty of first boots flame out because they're just happy to be there. Yes. Yes. All right. Well, the fifth rule says to pretend to be nice and play the social game. And it's interesting because I heard a number of people saying Ashley had a bad social game.
[00:48:29] Number of people on the outside. And that's why she ended up in this position. I think we need to look at it more closely rather than saying it so generally, because I do think, despite some of what we've already said socially, I think she was fine. Like right at the start of the game, we heard that Barrett liked Ashley and they even quickly got a showman's name on social media, Batchley. That was clearly moving too fast.
[00:48:55] But we didn't see the couple of days after that on live feeds and something happened such that they never truly came together. Maybe the reason they didn't get together is named D. But even so, Barrett did make some comments like saying she was the funniest person there. And we saw others having plenty of what seemed like enjoyable interactions with her.
[00:49:20] However, there's being social and then there is social game using that to work other people. She clearly succeeded in pretending to be nice or really just being nice. She wasn't pretending, but she was unable to convert that into any game cred because of things that we discussed in the first rule. Right. It's still as old as time, you know, likable people tend to go far in Big Brother because
[00:49:49] you don't give them they don't give you a reason to vote them out. That's why you have to pretend to be nice at the very least, because if you're not likable, at least fake it. And so for her, she didn't have to fake it, but she never like translated the social part to the game. It was just being social. And sometimes that's not enough. Doing nothing is not enough to get you through Big Brother like it used to be. You know, I think we come from an era where you could just like Robby's asleep half the game and wake up and then start to play. Sure. Because you don't piss anybody off.
[00:50:18] Nobody has any reason to target you. You don't win anything. You don't lose anything. But nowadays you got to be able to win. We need you to be able to win competitions and show yourself to be useful to the Alliance. And I think that her social socially she was fine, but they couldn't find a utility for her. And so that's why it was so easy to cast her away. Yeah, I will say I was looking back at the rules. Like I said, they're a few years old. And that is one thing that I need to change in them is it still says go to sleep, you know, for part of it. And it's like, nope, nope, not anymore.
[00:50:48] Need to change that. You need to wake up. Yeah. You know, in the preseason, so many people were saying, you know, we shouldn't win the first HOH. We shouldn't win the first HOH. But look what the first HOH did for D. She was able to establish a big alliance, you know, and make a basically pretty much run the decision making this week. And, you know, had she not won it, there's no world. There's a world where she ends up on the block. And, you know, so I was like, look at Ashley. She did not win the first HOH and she had no power because of it. And she was at the mercy of all these other people.
[00:51:16] So, yeah, I think the game has evolved a little bit. And people got to realize that the new era of Big Brother is you have to show yourself to be a player. Yeah. Yeah. One thing we didn't talk about, actually, I thought about this earlier and then forgot, was all the new players kind of got screwed when it came to the HOH thing. You know, we did. We knew that they were going to give the icons safety.
[00:51:42] But to say only one of those three can win HOH, that's taking it a bit too far, in my opinion. Yeah. Well, I'm two minds because we've seen, I think the problem, the reason why I'm not as annoyed is because, yes, it's too far. But we've seen more egregious things in Big Brother so many times. It just kind of feels like par for the course. I think Survivor is not an expected, unexpected game, or at least historically it's not. Now, I'd argue that maybe it is.
[00:52:10] But, you know, that's why when those twists come out, we're so like just shocked and appalled by how you could affect the game like this. Big Brother been doing this since the beginning of time. You know, every chance they get to save a returnee, they're going to do it. Whether it's a friendship bracelet or some type of power or whatever the case may be, they're going to find a way to make sure that they didn't bring back these people just for them to go straight home. You know, they're banking on them bringing TV to the game. And so they need to save them.
[00:52:40] So although it was annoying and I would have hated it if I was in the house, like you can't blame Big Brother for being Big Brother. Yes, yes, exactly. And that's why sometimes people who watch Why Blank Lost or listen to for Survivor and Big Brother, and they'll see how upset I get at Survivor twists. And then it comes to Big Brother and I'm just like, eh, wait a minute. You're like two different people. I'm like, no, I'm the same person. It's two different shows.
[00:53:10] We've been doing twists since season four. You know, matter of fact, people have come into the game knowing each other since season four. You know, like it's not that's not new, you know, so for people to come in with, you know, experience or all this other stuff that is par for the course. Right. Right. I do want to getting back to Ashley. Sorry for the brief tangent there. But I do want to mention that some players thought there was no way Ashley could be as clueless as she was.
[00:53:40] And she had to be some sort of brainiac playing it down. As a matter of fact, Taylor said some things that she should not have said as a school counselor, saying things about Ashley in a way that also insulted children. I suspect if her bosses heard about that, she will probably get a talking to when she gets back to work.
[00:54:04] Not nearly as bad as like Adam, you know, back in his day, even before he was running the drug ring. But, you know, still something that something she should not have. That's season nine. Adam, I should mention. No, I get the wrong Adam in trouble here. But anyway, when she was talking about this, you know, as time went on, we heard fewer of those conspiracy theories,
[00:54:32] probably because they realized nobody could keep it up for this long. But I do wonder if in some ways the belief that she was hiding something and being fake may have made others more hesitant to want to align with her. Yeah. And that just goes to show you she wasn't presenting herself as somebody to work with, you know, because they should not be questioning your motives. Or if they are, somebody should be vouching for you throughout this week. Angela has questioned Drew. She's like, I don't trust him. Something about him. I don't trust him.
[00:54:59] But he's had Devin to come in and say, no, he's good. He's had Dee to come in and say, no, he's good. He's had Barrett to come in and say, no, he's good. And that keeps Angela from, you know, from completely going off the rails when it comes to him. So nobody is going to go in and be like, no, Ashley's not playing dumb. She is. No, Ashley, she's not a secret maniac. She's just, you know, she's not able to find her group. Nobody was willing to go to bat for her in that way.
[00:55:24] And, you know, so if she was playing it down, that does put a target on her back because people are like, oh, she's hiding something. She's being cagey. She's not talking to me. She's not opening up. She's not sharing any strategy. She can't tell me who she's aligned with. She doesn't want to align with me. Or at least she's not presenting herself like someone else. Yeah, so it just goes to show you that she just wasn't being active enough. Yep. Yep. All right. Well, the sixth rule says not to be too much of a threat. And I think Ashley did a great job here.
[00:55:51] In fact, she was so not a threat that the main reason people wanted to keep her around was that she wasn't a threat. Until the other things we've already discussed happened. Yeah. David, I just she's I don't know. I don't know if anybody can follow this rule better. Yeah. Yeah. Except that she wasn't doing it on purpose. She wasn't a threat because she was just not at all. I mean, a threat. Yeah. Right.
[00:56:22] I guess that's not, you know, it doesn't say don't be too much of a threat on purpose. It's implied, you know, but yeah. But yeah, she definitely. You know, like you talked about, you know, that very first that very first comp, she just she couldn't find Enzo's picture. She couldn't find the right tube, whatever she was looking for there, you know. And so and she just blew it off like she wasn't even upset.
[00:56:49] Like, I think a lot of the people that are very competitive and they would have been mad at themselves. And she was just like, oh, ha. Yeah. And it shows you I don't want to align with you. She she she gave up. So if I'm building my team of people who I think can win HOHs and vetoes, why would I choose Ashley? Like you do, you got to win something and be able to be like, look, I was I'm valuable. And she couldn't do that. But it's just so she's such not a threat. She's just like not. So, you know, get on her. She followed the rules. You did it to the T.
[00:57:22] All right. Well, the seventh rule says to trust almost nobody. And considering what happened to Ashley when she trusted those who told her to go out and talk to others, this is clearly a situation where there was an impact. As this rule says, you should assume that you're almost always being lied to and therefore do whatever is necessary to protect yourself. Now, the problem is they weren't lying to her in this case. And I'm not sure what else she could have done aside from just. Not listening or. I guess.
[00:57:53] Handling herself better because she was in the spot. She was in the spot where she needed friends. And saviors suddenly appeared out of nowhere. So she jumped at it. It's not like she was going to flip on them, especially since none of them were nominees. You know, like telling Melody, ooh, these people say this and they're coming for you. Let's go after them. Well, all of them were safe. It doesn't matter. What she should have done, though, was something we already discussed. Think things through.
[00:58:22] Figure out why they told her to do that. What is the best way to do it and how it would help her. Yeah. And maybe don't do this alone. You know, she kind of had like a campaign around the house to kind of just be like, hey, these these people got my bag. These people got my bag. These people got my bag. And so the people were finding out after the fact. They're like, wait, what? She's doing what? You know, you finally got an alliance. You know, use a buddy system.
[00:58:48] Maybe have them come with you to talk about just just to kind of chaperone. You know, they don't have to join the conversation. But, you know, if you maybe you you and Drew go in there and you go and talk to Melody and because Drew is good with Melody, you know. So maybe you do something like that. But she just. Yeah, she's running her mouth. I just felt like the controller wasn't like plugged in, you know, it's like she was doing the thing.
[00:59:14] And like, like she was just on like autopilot and it was too late to stop her. Yeah. Now, do I think Drew should have also realized, oh, maybe I should be there if she talks to Melody? Yes. But Drew wasn't the one who had his life on the line here in the game. Exactly. That's what I said. You could throw the fault at her alliance or the people who wanted to save her for sure. But they're still in the game. So when we look at who has to take accountability for this, it is the person who made the mistake.
[00:59:42] And it was definitely Ashley, you know, and even if Ashley like Ashley didn't have anybody vouching for her at all. Like it's like the other side didn't find any use for her either. So she was just she was lucky that these people gave her bad advice because that was the only that was the only saving grace that she had was that they decided to come to her because they didn't even have to. Yeah. All right. Well, it is about time to wrap things up. So what are your final thoughts about Ashley?
[01:00:10] I believe that she is a fan. Like, I believe it. And so and because of that, I do feel bad that she went, you know, kind of had a bad experience. But I think she is a cautionary tale. I think we've seen a lot of flame outs on Big Brother who come in. They play too hard, too fast. And, you know, the super fan that is just so excited to be there that they just start nominating everybody and talking and running their mouth and all that kind of stuff and trying to run the house. We've seen it.
[01:00:39] We don't often see the person who just comes in and just allows the house to just leave them in the dust, you know. And so I think for future players, you got to know that you have to be active. Don't come in saying I'm not I'm going to throw the first HOA. Try try to win. Try to make yourself valuable as a as an alliance person, because to me, that's Ashley's biggest fault is that she didn't have any friends. She had friends, but she didn't have any allies.
[01:01:06] And to me, that the all the rest of the rules just fell in line. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in our preview podcast, I said Ashley's strategy is rather generic. Rely on her social ability, win comps and have a super strong alliance. That doesn't really tell us much. Ashley is also one of the almost half the cast who says they're going to play dumb. So that was a quote from me. Well, she didn't need to play.
[01:01:31] She definitely didn't need didn't win comps and she hadn't thought through how to have a super strong alliance. Plus, her social ability just meant people found her fun, not fun enough to keep around. Now, you said she was a fan. I'm not entirely sure how she has watched Big Brother since she was a little girl, even the live feeds, as she said, but didn't know she had to get allies right away.
[01:01:58] So my suspicion is she. Perhaps greatly overstated her following a live feeds and was just a casual viewer. And understanding the speed of the early game and how to handle it is something that people don't realize just from casually watching the episodes. By the time she realized that alliances were forming, she wasn't in one and more importantly, didn't know how to get in one.
[01:02:27] She needed to be talking about working with people. But I really think the idea of approaching a conversation like that just scared her a little bit. And since she wasn't one of the initial nominees at the moment, it wasn't that big a deal until Mallory won the veto and people started talking about, hey, what about that fourth group that wasn't nominated? And so, yeah, Dee used her quote unquote logic of Ashley being in that group. But Dee could have found other logic.
[01:02:56] You said it earlier. There would have been other ways she could have gone if she actually wanted to keep Ashley around or if others in the alliance found her too valuable to risk. But she was just out there as a low hanging fruit. The original intent wasn't to evict her. And if a few of them had their absolute choice, they would have kept her. But all choices come with pros and cons.
[01:03:19] After she misunderstood and or mishandled the instruction she was given, or even if she followed them to the letter, but there was still blowback. The cons of keeping her outweighed the pros. Literally, the only pro was they could keep her as a number. But what good is a number if she's also trying to help people on the other side? Better to just go along with that other side to hide their true allegiance for the time being and drop Ashley, which basically impacted nobody.
[01:03:49] And I know that sounds harsh, but it's also unfortunately true. Ashley didn't make any allies to back her or stand up for her. She was an extra game piece that didn't fit anywhere on the board. So it didn't matter if she was taken away. And that is why Ashley lost. Wow. Tough, tough L for Ashley. We win some last season. We lose some this season. Yes. Yes. All right.
[01:04:15] Well, everyone, be sure you stay tuned for our predictions in a moment, which are, as I mentioned, spoiler free. But first, a few other pieces of information. I want to mention that the rules we were referencing here are similar to not identical to, but similar to the survivor rules. And those come in a shorter and much more colorful version as a poster. You can go to Rob has a website dot com slash wax lost feed, scroll down to the poster and click on it. They also come in poster on a t-shirt form. Whoops. There we go.
[01:04:44] And you keep scrolling and you get the shirt I'm wearing now, which is the checklist form, which is the closest, again, to the Big Brother, but not quite identical. We we we don't have Big Brother versions. I know I keep saying this. We need to work on it. It's one of those things of all the things going on that we need to do. Now, since Big Brother is a 24 seven game, make sure you follow us on social media to get all our full thoughts throughout the week.
[01:05:13] I have mentioned I post videos every day on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram where I am at David Bloomberg TV. I've been making about three videos per day with fun stuff from the show and the live feeds and my thoughts on what's happening. And you can find all of my various accounts at link free slash David Bloomberg, including my blue sky where both of us make our social media homes. And we encourage everyone else to do likewise for your Big Brother discussions. There are so many Big Brother update accounts have moved there. It is a fun community.
[01:05:43] It is a better place overall. Even Rob said he is primary there for Big Brother now, and it is officially endorsed by Rick Devin's mother in law as well. I am Chappelle's kickback on blue sky. I'm recap kickback on blue sky as well. Go follow that. And David is at David Bloomberg. You can find me also on all social media platforms at recap kickback where I'm talking about all my good stuff and podcasting about Big Brother on the slop behind the paywall here on RHAP.
[01:06:12] And every other week on BB unlocked. David, the slop was fun this week, but I feel like I just have the based on what we know. I think that the slop is about to get even sloppier. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Based on, you know, without spoiling anything, based on what has already happened in the day, you know, since the eviction. Yeah. Slop is slopping. Yeah. I cannot wait.
[01:06:43] So, yeah, we'll do some predictions here after we finish, right? Yeah. Well, let's do the predictions now. So, as I said, you know, just making sure people know this. We write these up for the HOH comp. So, you know, what I just mentioned about the live eats, none of that's going to enter into this. You don't have to worry about us spoiling it for you.
[01:07:03] It seems likely to me that someone in the Red Cross, which is the combination of the Red Corner and the Crossroads, will win HOH. Since, you know, I mean, they've been working together, whether or not they were aware of it. If that happens, I think Taylor is an easy pawn nomination because she was already there and none of those people cared if she went.
[01:07:32] And Yash was the target for a large chunk of the week. I think they'll nominate him again, too. And then the big question for me is if they target Jason. I think they will. He has been too messy. And, you know, we talked about it earlier. All that information got back to them. Now, maybe they will surprise me and be bold enough to put Rome and Lyric on the block together.
[01:07:56] But considering how much they went out of their way to hide the sides and everything, I doubt it. I don't think they're going to make it that obvious. I think if you do nominate Jason, you have to try to take him out. Presuming, of course, he doesn't win veto or blockbuster. And maybe this is just hopeful. But I think they'll succeed.
[01:08:26] Okay. Interesting. So I'm of two minds because Jason is going to bring us good TV. I'm not sure that people like Yash are going to bring us good TV. Even Chuck, respectfully. You know, I don't think. Even Chuck? Really? You don't think Chuck can live up to what Jason gives us? Even Chuck. I think. Wow. I just don't think that they could give me the energy that Jason did.
[01:08:55] So I don't know if I'm rooting against Jason this week just yet. But my prediction is that they are going to come for him. I think that Angela, she has the ammunition that she needs. I think that this is a tale as old as time, right? You get caught up in the Big Brother house and the exact wrong person wins HOH. I think Angela is going to win HOH. And her decision is going to be very easy because three of these people were already on the block. That's the craziest part about Ashley going home is that the original three nominations are still there.
[01:09:23] You can still put up Mallory. You can still put up Taylor. You could still put up Yash and not get any additional blood on your hand, right? It was like they already went up once. But, you know, I don't think anybody would like super like push back against it too much. None of them three are just like super ingrained in anything. And then you have this nice juicy backdoor target in Jason because I don't think you want to give him a chance to play the veto and the blockbuster.
[01:09:52] So I think that they're going to come for Jason. But I think. I think you I think Taylor is going to leave the house. Hmm. OK, I feel like that blockbuster is going to save Yash. And I think that, you know, or something like that. Like, I just I just I don't feel like Yash. That's that's going to be a saving grace. We saw it with Kelly. We saw it with Keanu. I think it's back to stay. OK. All right.
[01:10:18] Well, as we wrap up, I want to encourage people to check out the R.J.P. patron program at Rob has a website dot com slash patron. In addition to the Facebook groups and discord, Rob has several, I don't know, three, four patron only podcasts for Big Brother, including the one you already mentioned, the slop. So make sure that's the only way you get that extra dose of Chappelle is by becoming a patron. Yeah. And I'm unhinged back there, too. So it's not just like it's just not another Big Brother podcast. I'm saying some wild stuff and I'm standing on it.
[01:10:48] Please don't join the patron just to snitch on me. OK, but you can help support shows like ours and everything on this network by becoming a patron. Rob has a website dot com slash patron. And make sure you're subscribed to all of the R.J.P. podcasts that we know big brother dot com just right below us there. You can select your podcast service of choice and you'll find content like us and other Big Brother podcasts and daily live feed updates and more. You can get it all right there if you're not already subscribed. We want to thank Scott St.
[01:11:17] Pierre, just Sterling and the whole R.H.P. and reality TV wrap ups behind the scenes team for all the work they do editing and posting everything else. And thank you, Chappelle. We've lost him. We're almost at the end that we've lost him here. But yeah, thank you for a great episode to start off the season.
[01:11:45] We you know, when you say you don't have a lot to work with with someone we didn't in the case of of Ashley. But sometimes we don't have a lot to work with. That's well, you have to talk about not having a lot to work with. So, you know, thank you very much. Like I said, for a great episode here. Yeah, no, this is a this is a blast. My first one officially just me and you. And yeah, I'm very excited to make more predictions and see why all these people are.
[01:12:12] See how many rules they break, because I had some bold predictions and I just want to see if they, you know, if they come to fruition. All right. Well, we will see everyone in a week. And of course, you can find us on social media in the meantime. Till then. Bye. Bye.



