Angela Picks Another Fight, But Can She Get Matt Out in First Eviction?

Kenney, Kimo, and Matt took part in the first ever BB A.I. Arena competition as part of this season’s A.I.-themed twist. Angela was sweating bullets as it was her mission to see “Crazy-Eyes” Matt out the door.

And after her unhinged explosion on the House seen in Wednesday night’s episode, she really needed to see him gone. She unleashed venom on her own alliance — believing it to be fake — but saved most of her vitriol for Matt.

Their feud was perhaps the strangest of the season, as Angela inadvertently started it, and then Matt inadvertently continued it. It started when Angela joked he would be in a showmance for sure, which he took as a threat to his game.

Then, when he feared she would target him over it, she apologized in her Head of Household room, and he responded by telling her he was ready to get put up, because if it happened, he was confident he’d come down and then he’d just go after her.

She took that as a threat, whereas he thought he was just being kind of matter-of-fact and honest about how the game works. Then, Angela let her paranoia boil over and she unleashed hell on an unsuspecting House.

She was right about one thing, though. Matt was in the closest thing to a showmance this season has had so far as he and Makensy were at least enjoying a pretty strong flirt-mance in the opening week. It was enough that she told him Thursday she’d probably cry if he got evicted.

But did he?

Right away, the campaigning began with extremely different strategies and results. The situation was even more complex, too, as they had to campaign ahead of Thursday’s live episode without even knowing who the final two nominees would be.

Kimo went hard, but from what we saw on our televisions, the reaction he was getting from everyone was that they really believed he could battle his own way back in the A.I. Arena.

True to his character as an upfront and aggressive (a little arrogant, perhaps?) competitor, Matt put himself into overdrive and not only sought to rally the six votes needed to stay this week, but orchestrated a whole new alliance.

Matt rallied his Throwmance partners Makensy and Leah into the group and then continued recruiting by reaching out to Cedric, Cam, Chelsie, Brooklyn, and Rubina. This eight-person alliance he dubbed The Barbershop, saying they could call it BS for short.

But was it BS? In Diary Room interviews, some of its members didn’t seem quite so keen on the alliance. When it’s early, though, and someone throws an alliance at you, you don’t ignore it or you might find yourself on the outside looking in (and that’s hard to undo).

But that doesn’t mean you necessarily stand by it. Quinn pointed out when Matt approached him that on paper, Matt’s elimination is a no-brainer. He’s a big, strong guy and a huge physical threat in the game. If you get a chance to take an early shot, you do it.

But no one was happy with how Angela unloaded on him the other morning. They admitted they weren’t sure how to take her allegations of Matt threatening her in the HOH room, but no one likes a bully, and she certainly called him out publicly like one — while accusing him of being one. So emotions or game? Who do you believe?

As for Kenney, his campaign strategy was even simpler. He wasn’t going to do it.

It’s becoming a theme, as Angela’s emotional state continues to appear extremely volatile in the House. She’s easily one of the most expressive personalities the show has ever cast, but she’s also one of the most paranoid, and seemingly has one of the shortest fuses.

She looks like she’s always on the verge of a strong emotional reaction. And that’s what happened when she told Kenney in the kitchen that she was “counting on you, whether you see it or not, to kick that kid’s butt.”

“That kid,” obviously, referred to Matt. But Kenney stayed calm and collected, replying, “I don’t have the desire to do that to him.” Kenney had previously told Matt that if it came down to the two of them on the Block, he’d be pushing for Matt to stay.

The two established a tight bond early in the game, which is why Matt didn’t campaign against Kenney, either, as he was building his alliance of eight. In fact, Angela seems to be the only one with any animosity toward anyone else at this early stage in the game.

“Are you kidding me? You’re in the ‘Big Brother’ House. That disappoints me,” she told Kenney, who just shrugged it off. He’s not happy she put him in this position in the first place by nominating him. And he doesn’t even know that he was her first target, because she saw him as a threat to her game. What does he owe her again?

At the same time, superfan Quinn marveled at what he saw in the conversation. He may not love Angela’s combative approach, but he was stunned by Kenney’s response about Matt. “You’ve known him for a week! A week!?” he gaped in the Diary Room later.

After a two-pronged attack where the nominees battled for votes in the House, they battled for real in the first-ever A.I. Arena competition. It wasn’t a physical battle, with contestants instead tasked with seeing which Houseguest appeared the most times in a series of scrambled videos.

It was perhaps not the most exciting thing to watch visually, but it was remarkable that all three nominees came back (in time) with completely different guesses. We wondered what would have happened if none of them had picked the right one — maybe the one whose guess appeared the most?

Regardless, it didn’t matter as Kimo had the right guess and returned to so much raucous applause and excitement from the Houseguests that they couldn’t hear Julie Chen trying to give them time to scramble and campaign for votes.

With no one seeking private chats, it seemed like the path was set. Kenney had already expressed a willingness to fall on his sword for his “boy,” Matt. But in his Save-Me Speech, he didn’t quite do that. Instead, he suggested that he was enjoying his time and if the Houseguests wanted him to stay in their hearts, he’d be grateful.

Matt kept it classy with his own speech, going so far as to forgive Angela, while also campaigning to stay and continue to fight and play with the players in the House.

When it came down to the actual voting, it turned out The Barbershop had been built in a house of cards, as it all came crumbling down. Only Throwmance allies Makensy and Leah had Matt’s back, as Lisa also stood by him — despite not even being in The Barbershop.

Every single other member of that alliance, and the rest of the House, voted to boot Matt, much to the nervous relief of Angela. In the closing credits, we saw Makensy and Leah vowing to get rid of her, but it may not be as easy as all that.

Angela is the kind of person no one in the House is really going to be all that concerned about, even though she did win the first HOH. She’s volatile and emotionally unpredictable, yes, but they’re still not going to see her as a viable threat to win comps — and certainly not the game.

In other words, unless she really pushes it too far and drives everyone bats–t crazy, she might just linger deeper into the season. Her best move would be to lay low and hope people forget about this disastrous first week, but something tells us she won’t be capable of that.

The fallout of this first eviction will play out as a new Head of Household is crowned and it all starts over again on Big Brother, Sundays, Wednesdays and Thursdays on CBS.