Tears and tension as the Crown alliance is broken on BBCAN11. Plus: the new HOH!

Big Brother Canada 11 episode 17 picked up after the veto meeting, which resulted in a lot of tears and some full-out sobbing.

Much of the sobbing was by Hope, knowing the Crown alliance was about to be broken and he’d be split up from his bestie-for-life Jonathan.

Anika also did some hard sobs, but Daniel pep-talked the two of them enough to bring them back to sniffles.

Claudia wondered why there hadn’t been tears all around when she went on the block, and we had a couple more spats between her and Ty.

She announced that it was time to break things off with him, and she kind of did that, but the language was vague and he pretty much said their issues were her fault. They “hugged it out” afterwards.

If we had feeds, we’d know if she’d been sleeping up there all week and if she’d moved out or not, but we don’t.

There was a segment with Daniel getting up at 4:50 a.m. one morning to try to figure out whichever clues had been found in the books in the library/pool room.

One had a sort of diagram and Daniel comically went around with décor items to see if there was—I don’t know, a secret latch or something? He went into the fireplace and under the table, but found nothing.

They ran several segments with this week’s vote talks and waffling.

We’d seen some of those on the Dailies, including all the women meeting to discuss the situation. They made it seem as though they might be ready to work together, but we know from the Dailies that Anika and Kuzie are loyal to the Crown, and that Santina’s determined to break up the Claudia/Renee/Shanaya trio.

Despite them all not working together formally, it’s still pretty impressive and unusual to have six women versus three men at this point.

The votes were split as today’s Digital Daily indicated they would be, with Claudia, Renee, Shanaya voting to evict Hope; and Anika, Daniel, Kuzie voting to evict Jonathan.

They should have had swing vote Santina vote last to extend the suspense, but they didn’t. She voted to evict Jonathan, so he went out 4-3.

It was an emotional eviction for all, since Jonathan is genuinely one of the nicest people to ever play this game, and I think it’s fair to say all of them like him a lot. But Big Brother isn’t a nice game, and nice guys rarely finish last.

Jonathan told Arisa he thought Kuzie would win the season, and later in his extended interview, he left his Wendy’s points to Hope.

The HOH competition plays out live

In a first this season, and a rarity in any recent Canada season, the HOH comp was completed on the show. It was detail questions about the Circle K convenience store/snack room, and included not just the price tags that showed up this week, but also questions about the featured snacks displayed all along.

It was played in pairs, with the winner of each round selecting the next pair, knockout style. Results were as follows:

• Claudia vs Anika (selected by random draw) – Claudia advanced
• Santina vs Hope – Hope advanced
• Renee vs Claudia – Claudia advanced
• Hope vs Kuzie – Kuzie advanced
• Shanaya vs Claudia – Claudia advanced
• Daniel vs Kuzie – Kuzie advanced
• Kuzie vs Claudia – Kuzie won her second HOH of the season

Then we found out that comp had played out in its entirety because Tuesday’s show will be a busy one.

Arisa told us, but not them, that Tuesday’s show will include a Fatal Feast that one person won’t survive. So another eviction already, and they’ll probably do a full week’s cycle of play between now and then, unless they switch it up somehow with the Fatal Feast replacing the veto.

We’ll find out, either on the Digital Dailies before then—if they don’t pause them again—or on the show itself.

You can get the links and information for how and where to watch Digital Dailies, as well as the episodes and extras, at Hamsterwatch.com. I’m also keeping my usual Power Status section up to date there, along with tracking comp wins, nominations, advantages/punishments, and prize winnings. If any of that or these recaps have been useful for you, feel free to buy me a cup of coffee via Ko-fi, and thank you!