BB28Sep 5, 8:28 PM

Evening Update: Yash Has the Veto

Saturday evening Yash Patel won BB Comics. Barrett picked him. Devens says he lost by 26 seconds. Yash is taking the W in silence. Three Icons still sit. Ceremony is next.

Saturday evening in the house. This morning's note left you with a key on Barrett Pfeiffer's neck, three Icons on the block, and a veto that was still a Saturday appointment. The appointment is over. Yash Patel won BB Comics, and he is wearing it.

Board first, once: Week 9, Barrett is HOH, Yash holds the veto, the nominees are still Angela Murray, Dee Valladares, and Rick Devens. Eight remain. Jury has started. Dee and Melody Morris are have-nots. It is a three-nominee week and the Blockbuster is not over. The ceremony has not happened.

What you carried in

You do not need the overnight rebuilt. Four sentences will do. Barrett nominated all three Icons. Last night Devens bet Barrett would not want the veto used, because then Yash goes up. Devens has now watched Yash win it. The bet is about to get graded.

The long quiet and the short answer

The wait was the usual liturgy. At 10:44 the backyard sat in silence, houseguests waiting on a veto that had not been played yet. At 11:15 the feeds went to animals and stayed there through the afternoon. You did not watch BB Comics. Nobody outside the wall did. You know the name because Julie already said it and the house came back talking about their own comics.

At 6:09 the screen said BIG BROTHER. At 6:12 the feeds returned. At 6:13 you had the only fact that matters: Yash won the veto. By 6:14 he was wearing it, Taylor Brown was shouting out Tom the comics artist, and the feeds blinked out again like they were embarrassed to have shown you something.

One more provable thing: Barrett's houseguest pick was Yash. Barrett pulled the player who now wears the medallion.

Twenty seconds, or twenty-six

The margin exists in two clocks and you are not going to pick between them.

At 6:18 Devens is in the hammock with Drew Campbell, allowing that Barrett must be feeling good about that houseguest pick. At 6:19 he puts a number on it: Yash got him by 26 seconds. All because Barrett's chip comes out of the box every week — Devens's math, Devens's bitterness, both understandable.

At 6:28 Barrett asks Melody what she thinks of the outcome. Melody says it could have been worse. Barrett says it was 20 seconds away from being worse. Then the question the whole evening hangs on: no chance Yash uses it, right?

Twenty-six by Devens's watch, twenty by Barrett's. The house cannot agree on the size of the near-miss, only that it happened.

Yash, meanwhile, is doing the smart thing, which is nothing. At 6:30 he tells Taylor he cut himself on the ladder — metal, heavy — and Taylor tells him the Icons are scared. Yash: I am not rocking the boat, I am chilling. At 6:31: I am taking the W in silence. A man holding the only piece of power that can change the board, and his entire strategy is to make no sound while holding it.

At 6:32 Barrett and Melody keep autopsying. Devens was 20 seconds away. Drew was pissed. Barrett almost picked Drew this morning and did not. Melody thought Angela was picking Drew. Melody says picking Taylor was her own fighting chance. At 6:40 Drew arrives in the HOH with the report: Devens is crushed.

The fallout, kept short

The second movement is HOH-room arithmetic, and you are not rebuilding Friday to hold it up.

At 6:27 Barrett and Drew are in the Diary Room and Drew asks the quiet part: a survivor goes this week? At 6:35 Barrett floats getting the newbies in a room to make a deal for the double — and asks whether there is no more DPOV. That is Barrett wondering out loud, not an inventory. You do not confirm who owns anything.

At 6:36 Melody and Barrett work the bribe and the believability problem. Melody says Dee told her about her power during Yash's HOH. At 6:37 Melody would be down for a newbie alliance to take the Icons out first — make Yash promise not to win HOH until two Icons are gone. Barrett says it would make him feel better. At 6:39: if Dee leaves, is she the mothership of the deal, and does the deal go with her? Melody's answer is the honest one: is Yash telling the truth? Who knows. Barrett will talk to Yash. Also at 6:39, a house note: stop the 5k jokes around Yash, he does not like them. The versions of that deal already conflict in Friday's note; tonight adds questions, not answers.

Drew, at 6:44, tries to clean it up: the Icons were going to put Melody up this week, he would have taken her down, the alliance would have broken up anyway. To Barrett: "You did it before me."

The other side of the wall

At 6:46 Devens tells Dee it is one of them that goes this week. They clap hands. Good ride. Dee: if it is me, I will be there for you in jury. That is the whole Icons response — no scramble, just math and a handshake.

Angela tells Taylor at 6:53 that Yash is mad but did not tell the truth, and that her downfall is she cannot lie — a little lie like the vote, sure, but not the big ones. At 7:08 Taylor recaps an earlier talk on the hammock: Yash asked what everyone would do next, and Devens said put Barrett up. Taylor's recap, so labeled. At 8:05 Angela is alone on the balcony, crying, missing her family, married 35 years. Texture. You note it and let it be.

The ceremony is next. Three Icons still sit. Nothing has been used, nothing has been said into a microphone, and the Blockbuster is still the shape of the week. Yash has the medallion and the silence. Barrett has the question he already asked once tonight.