Who’s in Power on ‘Big Brother 25’?

For weeks now, viewers of Big Brother 25 have been screaming at their TVs, begging someone in the house to wake up from the fog of Cirie’s mist and take a shot at the majority alliance/sturdy power structure controlling the vote (and the nominations, and the social strategy) in the house this season. After spending 14 hours in the pressure cooker only to have his HOH plans for the week effectively nullified by the surprise use of America’s vote power, Cameron has once again ascended to power as head of household—and it looks like he doesn’t plan on making the same mistake twice.

Though Sunday night’s live episode may only go as far as the nomination ceremony, the Big Brother live feeds have already delivered the week’s six nominees, veto participants, and veto winner. Here’s all the gameplay you need to know about during this special “Humiliverse” week on Big Brother.

This article contains live feed spoilers for season 25 of Big Brother.

Cameron avoids déjà vu with nominations

In the wake of a live head of household competition, the week kicked off with the rest of the house making no attempt to hide their lack of enthusiasm regarding the new HOH: Cameron. The self-appointed “space cowboy” saw his closest ally, Red, hit the road courtesy of an 8-2 vote in which Cameron and Bowie Jane were the only holdouts. Cameron has also unknowingly made no shortage of enemies in the house between off-color comments about Riley and America, and a superiority complex few of his fellow houseguests appreciate. But even if they couldn’t quite fake their enthusiasm when he won HOH, Cirie’s camp (consisting of Izzy and Jared, Felicia and Mecole, and Matt) had nonetheless already put pieces in place in the eventuality of a worst-case scenario Cameron HOH win.

At first, it looked like Cameron was planning on rerunning his previous pressure cooker HOH nominations, and putting besties Blue and Jag back on the block together. But after teasing a multi-faceted plan to confidant Jared and promising Jag safety in a one-on-one conversation, Cameron took the first true major shot of the season, nominating Izzy and Felicia for eviction. As he explains to Jared (not knowing, of course, that Jared is Cirie’s son and will run any and all intel back to her), Cameron’s plan for the week is to get rid of Izzy, and hopes that even if veto is won and she comes down, he might be able to get rid of another juicy target—maybe someone like Cirie.

What Cameron doesn’t know is that Izzy has the numbers to stay in a vast majority of cases. Knowing that there was a very real possibility Cameron could win HOH, Cirie and her closest allies Izzy and Jared resolved to let their former ally Felicia take the fall for Red’s eviction, and their plan went off without a hitch. Though Cirie’s side of the house wasn’t happy to see Izzy hit the block, they could rest easy knowing that, if the nominations remain the same come Thursday, they have the votes to keep her, and instead send Felicia packing before jury.

A buddy games-infused veto

Nominations are only half the story, though, and with Cameron having told Jared that his mom may be a backdoor target should Felicia or Izzy come down, the majority alliance’s plan heading into the veto competition was to have one of their comp beats—like Jared or Matt—win the competition, keep nominations the same by not using the veto, and then send Felicia home, as they’d laid out as a break-glass-in-case-of-Cam-HOH plan. Once again, the veto draw panned out in Cirie’s favor: in addition to Cameron, Izzy, and Felicia, Jared and Matt were both picked to play in the veto, alongside Jag.

As teased by July during the Thursday night eviction episode, this week’s veto competition is hosted by none other than former soap star and hunky reality TV host Josh Duhamel, who’s appearing on Big Brother to promote his new series, Buddy Games. Though we won’t see the competition until Wednesday night, we know from houseguest chatter on the live feeds that it was another BB classic: the white elephant prize-swap competition, wherein every eliminated player takes a prize and has the option to keep it or steal someone else’s prize.

Though he didn’t initially have the veto as his elimination prize, this week’s POV ended up landing in Jared’s hands—the second time this season he’s won a competition by not winning the competition. The actual winner of the power to Veto was Matt, who gave it to Jared in the hopes of taking Jared’s prize, which was described to the houseguests (according to Matt) as the opportunity to spend time with Josh Duhamel himself. Hilariously, it turns out that “time with Josh Duhamel” meant a punishment where Matt has to carry around a cardboard cutout of the actor all week, a tragic misunderstanding has already yielded some great content.

The veto ceremony won’t take place until Monday, but considering Cam told Jared to his face that he plans on putting Cirie up should someone come down, it’s safe to say that unless Cirie’s side can think of and suggest a new target to Cameron, the power of veto won’t be used this week. Izzy herself even mentioned to Cirie that if she had won veto, she wouldn’t have used it on herself because she knows Cirie is such a significant possibility for a backdoor—as of right now, all signs point to Felicia and Izzy sitting in the hot seat on Thursday night.

A humili-tastic week in the Big Brother house

Though these are all the key strategy points we’ve gotten from the houseguests so far, there’s still one element of week six worth mentioning: the Humiliverse twist. All season long, different Big Brother universes have been shaking up the game, and this week, the Humiliverse was responsible for not only that fart-heavy HOH competition, but also making the entire house (bar Cameron) have-nots. In addition to cold showers, sleeping in the have-not room, and eating slop for the week, the Humiliverse has also introduced a punishment where every time a houseguest uses the bathroom, they’re scored on a scale from one to 10, and the result is announced to the entire house.

So far, these Humiliverse twists have been more of the entertainment variety than the game-significant kind, but there’s still one major question mark this week, and that’s the Jury twist Julie teased during her sign-off in this past Thursday’s eviction episode. Until this Thursday, though, it’s unlikely that even knowledge of live feed spoilers will help in that regard. For now, the only thing fans can do is expect the unexpected.

(featured image: Paramount+)