Big Brother 20 recap: Haleigh and Scottie fight for their last chance to stay in the game

You wouldn’t be too off-path if you thought tonight’s Big Brother was a rerun given all the repetitive events that happened. Scottie and Haleigh are on the block AGAIN. JC is trying to plot his way through the house AGAIN. Tyler and Angela are in denial about their showmance AGAIN. But as we’re three weeks away from the grand finale, just as many new details are starting to emerge and tough choices are coming closer.

In the aftermath of his nominations, Tyler is hoping that whoever stays between Scottie and Haleigh won’t go after him. His plan is to play nice and keep them calm ahead of the veto. While annoyed to be on the block for the 86th time this season, Haleigh asserts in the diary room that she’s managed to adapt to every shakeup and blind-side thrown at her. Scottie is confident he’s the pawn this week since Tyler told him so (because his word has been golden for your game so far), but says the veto is still a must-win. The two nominees muse in the bedroom about their lack of luck. Though both own their reputations as “f—-ups”, Haleigh fills Scottie in on the Level Six dance party from a couple weeks back and says one of them has to win veto to keep the heat on the dominant alliance.

Haleigh meets with Tyler to figure out who his target is this week. Tyler proves to be both truthful and evasive at the same time, saying he doesn’t decide who the targets are and that while Scottie and he are still “tight,” he put him up for eviction because that’s what the house wanted. JC is next to meet with Tyler and, between talking down to him and legitimately believing he’s in Level Six (again, he’s not), says that Scottie is loyal to no one, easily forgetting that he spent most of the last episode trying to get Angela and Kaycee on the block. Tyler is again evasive and tells the diary room that he’s finally wising up to JC’s strategy. “There’s only one winner in Big Brother and if he’s gonna be using his tricks on me, I’m not gonna get there,” he says, again proving to be a better judge of the game than anyone else left in the house. In addition to being a mopey welder, Sam is also a terrible hairdresser (licensed in two states!) as we see her turn Tyler’s powerful mane from a curly mass into a Bret Michaels-like disaster straight out of a community theater production of Rock of Ages. Tyler, the house, and probably the viewing public are freaked out at this sight as he says he looks like if “Joe Dirt and Kid Rock had a baby.”

Tyler’s new look hasn’t turned off Angela as the two continue their undercover showmance, even though the rest of the house seems to be interrupting their personal time. To make the most of their constant interruptions, the twosome turn it into a competition with its own complex point system. One point for everytime a houseguest tries to catch them in the act, two points if they actually ask if they’re in a showmance. One showmance that seems to be no more is Fessy and Haleigh, as Haleigh takes it upon herself to apologize to Kaycee for Fessy’s behavior in his final week in the house. She tells the diary room that while she still likes him as a person, she has to cut ties with him in the game. Kaycee is genuinely receptive to Haleigh’s overture, saying that building a friendship with her is good for her game should Haleigh win HoH next week. Kaycee then meets with JC and Brett and declares that someone from Level Six has to win the veto to make sure Scottie goes home again. She figures it’s too risky to keep him around since he has reason to put anyone left in the house up for eviction should he win HoH. JC, who just to remind you has won 0 competitions, promptly gets a stress headache at all this talk of winning.

Tyler, Haleigh, Scottie, Kaycee, Sam, and JC are the players in this week’s veto competition, “Control Your Emojis.” Each player will have to crawl under a text message bar to grab emoji balls and walk them across a see-saw to a “message” platform at the end of their see-saw. The first person with all their emojis on their platform and buzzes in the fastest wins the veto. It’s immediately clear this competition requires a lot of agility on the see-saws, as even one fallen emoji means they’ll have to start all over. Kaycee’s athletic prowess again proves to be a winning quality as she scores her second-straight veto and third altogether. With Level Six’s intention to keep nominations the same, this is the worst-case scenario again for Scottie and Haleigh. After the competition, Haleigh again tries to figure out if she’s Tyler’s target this week and again is given the runaround. “Tyler lives in a bush and all he does is just beat around it,” Haleigh frustratingly tells the diary room in maybe the most dead-on thing she’s said all season. “He’ll never look you straight in your face or tell you anything of content; he’ll just mumble his words so that they sound a little like an idea or a thought, but nothing too concrete.” It may have taken her almost 75% of her time in the house to figure Tyler out, but it seems like she finally has him pegged.

Ahead of the veto meeting, Scottie brings up an interesting fact to Haleigh: If they’re evicted one-two this week and next, they and their Hive-mates Faysal, Rockstar, and Bayleigh will control the majority of the jury votes. Scottie thinks aloud about potential jury outcomes before just blurting out to Haleigh that Tyler told him he’s the pawn this week and she’s the target. She’s annoyed and again tearful that Tyler couldn’t man up and tell her this to her face, but what she doesn’t know is that this is again Tyler trying to mist the both of them into believing the opposite of their actual fates. Kaycee, queen of jury management, calms Haleigh’s worries down and tells her that she’s in the clear this week as far as she knows. When the veto meeting arrives, Kaycee chooses not to use the veto, explaining that while she loves both Haleigh and Scottie, she simply can’t use it. This means Scottie or Haleigh will go home tomorrow night. Both have cheated death in the game more than once, but one’s luck will run out for good.