Who Won Big Brother 26

But first, one of them would need to emerge with the final power of the week, and that would take three rounds of competition to accomplish. Once the final Head of Household is crowned, the final decision they get to make happens. Who to take to the end?

Here’s how we saw the options as they were laid out going into the finale:

Cam – For Cam to have any chance in this game, he needed first to win this final Head of Household. Then, he needed to cut Chelsie because his entire game was in her shadow. On top of that, he’d need one hell of a strong argument to overcome Makensy’s powerhouse game that helped carry him to the end. In other words, he had almost no shot in hell of winning, but he could fight his way to second.

Chelsie – If she could get to the end, by winning or getting carried, she had the easiest path to victory. Hers had been a season-long journey of manipulation and control, orchestrating the season behind the scenes when she wasn’t in power and taking power four time as Head of Household to control things directly. She manipulated Makensy to benefit her own game, utilizing the comp beast as her own lackey. She’s a great speaker, so all she needed was a chance to speak. If she did gain power, though, we wouldn’t be surprised if she cut Makensy to make her victory all the more assured.

Makensy – The smartest thing Makensy could have done would be to beast out, win the final Head of Household and then cut the head off the snake, sending Chelsie to Jury House. She could then argue she only used the mastermind to protect her (since she couldn’t win everything) as needed, and then cut her loose when she didn’t need her anymore. She could make that argument next to Chelsie, and add that element of loyalty, but it would be much harder to convince this Jury that she had more of an overall game than Chelsie did. She won her way here, she needed to win her way out with a smart eviction in the final quarter.

As we left the Houseguests in Round 1 of the final Head of Household, they were hanging on for dear life in a variation of the Wall, only this one required strength of hands, core, and legs to stay inside their harness machine while it faced the floor.

Makensy quickly started complaining that she could no longer feel her left hand, and ultimately it cost her the game, with the athlete dropping first out of the competition.

With a shot at his second overall victory, Cam was powering through as best he can. Alas, he had to settle for yet another second-place finish, as he dropped and secured Chelsie’s spot in the final round of play, which took place live on Sunday night.

That queued up the players for Round 2, which was a cheesy competition where they had to pivot poles to line up a track and remove three pieces from them. Then, arrange nine “power cords” of differing lengths to destroy Ainsley’s brain. That’s right, it’s all about destroying the season’s evil AI.

Honestly, Ainsley didn’t really do much after she turned evil. We really thought she was going to torture the Houseguests after her turn, but that’s not what happened. Hell, JANKIE was far more torturous for that week they were locked outside!

While we got some talking heads from Cam about how he needed this win to make a big move and how close it was … it wasn’t even close!

He was still spinning pillars to try and find the path while Makensy was wrapping up aligning all nine power cables. This one was a disastrous performance for the elite athlete, wrapping up a horrible season that he admitted after it was all over was very humbling for him.

Now, his fate was not in his hands. Lucky for him, his poor performances all season long, and overall ineffectiveness as a Big Brother player, make him a great candidate to carry into the Final 2 and secure that big victory.

The third and final round of the competition took place live during Sunday’s two-hour finale broadcast, with Chelsie and Makensy facing off in six rounds of question-and-answer about very specific details regarding the Jury’s time in the House.

Remarkably, they were tied going into the sixth round, having given the same answer (out of 3) in every single round, and being right every single time. In the final round, you could hear the audience gasp as they finally gave different answers.

In the end, Makensy stuck by her mantra of loyalty (that would not have been returned), staying true to her character and making the finale far more competitive for herself. By choosing to sit next to Chelsie and evict Cam, she gave herself an uphill battle to win, and not a whole lot of time to develop her strategy.

And Makensy won the Final HOH, taking her win total to 11 (or 12 if you count Parts 2 and 3 separately). Either way, it’s an incredible powerhouse run that gave her sole power to control how her game ended.

Could Cam convince her he was worth taking, when we all know he wouldn’t have taken her to the end? Can Chelsie, when we’re pretty sure she wouldn’t have taken her. Chelsie was pretty confident she could win against either of her opponents, but Makensy was definitely the tougher choice. That would come down to who could make a more compelling argument — the pastor or the athlete.

In the final reckoning, the Jury definitely seemed like they already thought Chelsie was the more deserving winner. And despite live feeders hearing Chelsie tell Makensy over and over she hadn’t even thought about what she was going to say, “your girl” was clearly lying.

She was as eloquent as expected, while coming across almost cocky in her self-assuredness. She didn’t quite own her dishonesty in the game, but absolutely took ownership of even what Makensy claimed was her biggest move (getting Leah out).

Makensy argued that it was the biggest move she’d made on her own, while Chelsie argued she’d manipulated Makensy into getting rid of someone who would have hindered her own game down the road. Both things can be true, but Chelse’s declaration basically negated Makensy’s argument.

The uphill battle was far worse than we thought for Makensy, who wasn’t quite able to articulate why she had a strong game. Chelsie drilled over and over how she broke down the game, controlled the other players, won when she “wanted to,” not because she had to.

Makensy could have argued she allowed Chelsie to feel that she was loyal and pliant because she knew she would be vulnerable when she wasn’t eligible to compete, so she needed someone who could win and would never put her up. Seeing that Chelsie wanted to play this mastermind game, she could have argued, her smartest move was to have Chelsie protect her when she couldn’t.

She could have argued that her back was against the wall most of the season, and Chelsie was only ever in danger in the middle part. She could have argued a lot of things, but even she admitted she’s not as eloquent a speaker as Chelsie.

After overcoming one challenge after another all season long to make it to the end, Makensy couldn’t overcome the one she’d made for herself — out-argue a prolific manipulator, liar, and public speaker. It couldn’t be done, and so she was done.

In a landslide unanimous victory, Chelsie took home the $750,000 prize. And then, in a franchise first, America’s Favorite Player came down to Angela, Quinn, and Tucker — and for the first time ever, a pre-jury player won.

Tucker took home that $50,000 prize, and he got the girl. It wasn’t quite a Swaggy C proposal moment, but he did offer Rubina flowers and apologize for outing their relationship as Quinn’s AI Avatar. It looks like this couple is going to give it a shot outside the House.

The same might be possible for Makensy and Matt, who agreed a “conversation” was to be had after their very flirtatious 10 days together in the House.

Speaking of Matt, he made the comment that in watching the Live Feeds, he felt maybe Angela wanted to move on from their feud, but she shut that down pretty aggressively.

“I saw on the live feeds that you were wondering if I was going to give you a hug or not,” Matt said, to which Angela shot back, “No. Not really.”

But this is also the woman who said she was just playing around when she lost her s–t over the charcuterie board, and lied at another point about hurt feelings. She also could have been being sarcastic.

While she took the hug, which was about as awkward as advertised, she then made it clear that she stands by everything she said while he was in the House. Poor Angela has yet to see how she was received outside the House. Though she was Top 3 for America’s Favorite, she was also a very, very polarizing player for some of her behavior.

Julie Chen wrapped the show with confirmation that it would be back next summer for a 27th season. We’re not sure when we’ll have another season of returning players, but they’ve definitely been building a pretty solid roster of players who would be fun to watch again these past few years.

This season alone offered some great personalities who would be fun to see again. Angela is definitely one of them, as are the other two other finalists for America’s Favorite, Quinn and Tucker. Makensy and Chelsie, obviously.

We also feel there was more interesting possibilities with Cedric, who didn’t get nearly enough time in the House, as well as T’kor’s quiet approach to the game (which had full control for a while in the middle there — if only her side had kept around someone who could win).

We’re confident that some of them will be back at some point for another shot at the grand prize. Until then, we’ll begin the speculation about some kind of mid-season run (unlikely) and await the return of Big Brother next summer.