Yash’s $5,000 Bribe Puts F.A.P. on the Block

Yash Patel named Barrett Pfeiffer, Drew Campbell and Melody Morris for eviction after winning Week 10 Head of Household on Big Brother 28. Live feeds returned about 5:20 p.m. PT on Friday, Sept. 11, with those three nominees locked in. A $5,000 deal from Week 7 still bars him from putting up Dee Valladares or Rick Devens unless Saturday’s veto leaves him no other spare.

That is the whole board. The last three members of F.A.P. sit on the block, Taylor Brown is the only legal replacement, and the two Survivor players he paid to protect already talked Friday night about taking him out on Thursday, Sept. 17, when he cannot play Head of Household.

Yash Put the Last F.A.P. Members on the Block

Seven people are left in a house that started with 17. Yash, a 24-year-old finance analyst from Monroe Township, New Jersey, won the Week 10 HOH competition on Thursday night after Angela Murray went to jury, and he told Taylor before the comp that he planned to take it. His intended target, per his HOH file, is Drew.

F.A.P., short for For the American People, was Barrett, Drew, Melody Morris and Mallory Aurichio. Mallory left in 11th place. The three who remain are all nominated. Barrett and Devens are the have-nots.

Yash was still selling Barrett a cover story on Friday afternoon, saying he could not name Devens because of a verbal agreement. The noms themselves give the real terms away. Dee is sitting, Devens is sitting, and the three people who are not in that pair and are not Taylor are on the block.

WEEK 10 BOARD

If those noms hold through the Block Buster, the eviction vote sits with Dee, Devens and Taylor. Yash votes only to break a tie, and the three nominees do not vote.

The Handshake That Cost Five Thousand Dollars

Dee, the 29-year-old Miami entrepreneur and Survivor 45 winner, pulled the BB Bribe out of the Time Capsule. CBS’s Week 6 episode log states that Devens won the Diamond Power of Veto in that room and that Dee earned the BB Bribe. The power was $5,000, offered to one houseguest for a move that helped her game, and the other person could refuse.

Yash refused the first version in Week 6, when Dee asked him to keep her and Angela safe for $5,000, then asked again for herself alone. He took the second version in Week 7, on Dee’s own HOH. She kept him off her block. He agreed that on his next HOH he would not nominate Dee, Angela or Devens. She tied the money to a threat to backdoor him if he said no.

THE BRIBE CALENDAR

1. Week 4: Dee wins the BB Bribe in the Time Capsule, a $5,000 offer she can spend through the end of the season.
2. Week 6: She offers Yash the money to keep her and Angela off his block. He says no, then says no again when she drops Angela from the ask.
3. Week 7: On her HOH, she offers the same $5,000 so he cannot put the three veterans up the next time he wins. He takes it. She leaves him off the block. Mallory goes up after LaTrice Verrett uses the veto.
4. Week 9: Angela is evicted, 3-2. Devens, Taylor and Yash vote her out; Drew and Melody vote for Dee. The deal still covers Dee and Devens.
5. Week 10: Yash wins HOH. His file says he cannot nominate Dee or Devens, and that the bribe lifts only if they are the only remaining options for a replacement nominee.

He has been lying about the width of that deal for weeks, telling the house it only covered Dee, then confirming the full three-person lock to Taylor in private. By Friday, Barrett, Drew and Melody had caught up. Completing this HOH is supposed to burn the obligation off, so a future Yash HOH would have a free board. He has to get through the veto first.

Taylor Is the Only Name He Can Add

This season’s format names three nominees each week. Six people play veto: the HOH, the nominees, and random draws. The winner may take one nominee off. If that happens, the HOH names a replacement. The Power of Veto winner is also immune from being named as that replacement.

Strip the board to those rules and the spare list is short. Yash cannot sit on the block. Barrett, Drew and Melody already do. Dee and Devens are under contract. That leaves Taylor, the 27-year-old school counselor from Deerfield Beach, Florida, who has been his closest ally since the newbies’ ceasefire cracked.

He told Taylor the truth about the bribe when he would not tell the others. She helped him write the story he would sell Barrett and Melody, including a handshake line for why Devens was safe. If a nominee wins veto and takes themselves down, production math does not let him touch Dee or Devens while Taylor is still a legal name. He would have to put her up.

That is the joke inside the $5,000. The money bought the veterans a week off the block. It also made his only friend in the leftover newbie pile into a human spare tire.

Saturday’s Veto Is the Only Way the Deal Breaks

Julie Chen Moonves hosts the series, and she billed Saturday’s veto, Sept. 12, as Pressure Cooker, the endurance hold that used to be an HOH. Feed notes later said the teaser footage looked like houseguests holding long poles, a cousin of the original box-and-button version rather than the same set. Jennifer Vasquez won the Big Brother 6 HOH edition that lasted 13 hours 53 minutes. This one is veto, on a seven-person week, with a double eviction behind it.

Yash already has three veto wins (Weeks 6, 8 and 9) plus the two HOHs. Taylor’s sole veto was in Week 4. Endurance is not the comp that has paid her. The forks still all run through her, because of the immunity rule on the veto holder.

THREE WAYS SATURDAY CAN GO

• A nominee wins and uses it: Barrett, Drew or Melody takes themselves off. Taylor is still a legal spare, so the bribe holds and Yash has to name her.
• Taylor wins and uses it on a nominee: She is immune as veto holder. The only names left are Dee and Devens, so the bribe lifts and Yash has to put a veteran up.
• Nobody uses it, or Yash wins and pockets it: Barrett, Drew and Melody stay put. Dee and Devens stay off. The $5,000 week is paid in full.

Dee or Devens could win it and spend it on a nominee to force Taylor up. That is the veterans’ cleanest way to hunt his ally without touching the contract. The louder read on the house is that they will let F.A.P. sit, take the easy eviction, and wait for Thursday.

Dee and Devens Already Picked Him for Thursday

Friday was not a spa day. Dee had just lost Angela, the Big Brother 26 real estate agent who came in with her as one of the three reality veterans, on a 3-2 jury vote. She cried in the backyard. Drew tried to tell her Angela would be proud of the friendship when the footage airs. Devens, 42, the communications director from Macon who played Survivor: Edge of Extinction and Survivor 50 with her, said he had not seen that side of Dee on Survivor. They both laughed when she admitted she did not think she would be crying if he had been the one to go.

Later on the feeds he laid out the math she wanted to hear. With Angela gone, the two of them would be a third of the house. Yash cannot play in the next HOH. One of them can win it.

And with Drew or Barrett out, we are definitely winning. It would be best to take Yash out.

Dee Valladares, live feeds, Friday night

Devens told her that was the person he missed, and that they could talk about it next week. So the “relaxing week” is a holding pattern. He spent $5,000 to keep them off his slate, then won the HOH he had been dodging, then did the eviction work that shrinks F.A.P. for them. When this HOH ends he is sitting in the yard with no comp in front of him, and they have already named the chair.

Mallory said after her own eviction that taking the $5,000 to leave the veterans off the block would cost him the win, because he had talked about cutting them and then took money not to. The house does not need her interview to see the same shape. He cannot put them up this week. He is about to knock out one of the people who might have voted with him. Taylor is one veto from the block if a nominee wins, and one veto from watching a veteran sit if she wins it herself and uses it.

A Double Eviction Turns Seven Into Five

Julie confirmed on the Sept. 10 live show that Thursday is a two-hour double eviction. Two people leave. The house goes from seven to five. The public prize on the other side of that cut is $750,000, with $50,000 more for America’s Favorite Houseguest, in a building CBS still lists as 112 cameras and 113 microphones.

THE CUT ON SEPT. 17

• First eviction: One of Barrett, Drew, Melody, or a replacement nominee, after veto, the ceremony, and the Block Buster.
• Outgoing HOH: Yash cannot play the next Head of Household.
• Second eviction: A new HOH, new noms, a veto, and another vote, all in the same live show.
• Jury so far: LaTrice Verrett first, Angela Murray second, with five jury seats still to fill before the Oct. 1 finale.

If the veto stays in the box, F.A.P. takes the first hit and walks into the live double with two of its three names already burned. Dee and Devens then play HOH against Taylor, Yash, and whoever survived the first vote. That is the board he bought with $5,000: two veterans who want him gone, an ally who is also his only spare, and a Thursday night that does not let him compete.

The Pressure Cooker veto on Sept. 12 is the last tool that can rewrite the slate before that show. If it does not move, the names on the block on Friday night are the names that start Thursday. One of them leaves, and then the house plays another full week in an hour.