After an emotional hour during which Kyle Capener was evicted after his plan to play a racially-motivated game was revealed, Big Brother 24 ended with the beginning of the week 9 Head of Household (HOH) competition, and the live feeds revealed that Michael Bruner was the winner. In week 8, HOH Matt “Turner” Turner had planned to backdoor Michael from the game, using Michael’s allies, Taylor Hale and Brittany Hoopes as pawns. However, Michael won the Power of Veto, and planned to use it to save Brittany from the chopping block to keep them both safe.
In order to save Taylor as well, Michael decided that it was time to disclose that Kyle had mentioned that he feared a Cookout 2.0 was forming in the house and that he had implied that the white players should stick together. The Big Brother 23 Cookout was an all-Black alliance that made it to the Final 6, with the common goal of crowning the first Black winner of the game. Kyle’s concerns were baseless, and the house decided that, because of this mistake, he would be nominated and evicted from the game. After that, Michael had to win the HOH in order to keep himself safe this week because he is one of the main targets of the other side of the house because of his extraordinary competition win record.
The live feeds have now revealed that Michael is the new HOH. During the competition, the houseguests had to build a Zingbot puzzle. This is Michael’s third Big Brother HOH win. Combined with his five veto wins, Michael now has eight wins this season and is just one win away from tying Janelle Pierzina’s single-season record of nine wins, which she has held for 16 years. In 2006, during Big Brother 7, the first all-stars season, Janelle won four HOH competitions and five vetoes, and became the “Veto Queen.” As a superfan, Michael has expressed that he is a huge fan of Janelle, and Janelle has been rooting for him on Twitter as well.
As HOH, Michael nominated Alyssa Snider and Terrance Higgins for eviction. Michael has not worked with either of these players throughout his game, so it made sense that he would nominate them. However, Turner and Monte Taylor are also backdoor options for him if either Alyssa or Terrance is saved by the Power of Veto. Monte and Terrance have expressed that they are upset that Michael waited a few weeks to expose Kyle’s plan, and they feel that he did it for his game and not because he cared about taking a stand against racism. This is a crucial week for all the houseguests, especially since, unbeknownst to them, on Thursday, there will be another double eviction.
Michael has established himself as a new Big Brother legend, but he and his allies will have to keep winning competitions in order to stay safe from this point on in the game. The double eviction could be especially dangerous for him this week. However, Michael has been playing a strategic game and winning competitions regularly, so he will most likely continue to dominate the game.
Big Brother airs Sundays and Wednesdays at 8 p.m. EDT and Thursdays at 9 p.m. EDT on CBS.