On Thursday night's episode of Big Brother 18 , Nicole became the first Head of Household of the season after winning the same competition that doomed her team member, Glenn, to eviction on Big Brother. After failing to win Season 16, Nicole is back in the Big Brother house as one of the returning houseguests competing in BB18, and she is determined to make it all the way. Not only is Nicole proving herself to be stronger physically, she's also working hard to perfect her social game. Nicole is here to play, even nominating a pawn in Paulie.
It seems Nicole is working the social game this season, and, so far, she's owning it. Though she began Thursday night's episode fighting for her life and at risk for eviction, Nicole ended the night with all the power as HOH, and she did that by using both her mental and athletic abilities. Going into the eviction/HOH challenge, Nicole doubled her chances at being the first HOH by making a deal with her Freakazoid teammate Corey, who said he'd make her HOH if he won the competition. Of course, she didn't need to cash in on that promise, as she ended up winning fair and square. Still, it was a good move that could also solidify an alliance with Corey and Tiffany later on in the game.
As HOH, Nicole then had to decide who she was going to nominate for eviction. Here's where it gets tricky. With all the newbies out to get her, there's really no good choice when it comes to nominating people for eviction. Either way, someone is going to stay in the house and want revenge. Sensing a turn in the tide, Victor went straight to Nicole and basically told her to nominate Jozea for eviction, saying that Jozea had been talking smack about all the returning players. To be fair, Jozea didn't help his case when he blabbed to Da'Vonne about being the "mesiah" of the newbies, and he became the first one up on the block. Now came the tricky part for Nicole: who should she nominate to ensure Jozea's eviction?
In an almost shockingly strategic and risky move, Nicole approached Paulie to be a pawn. Paulie had expressed a desire to ally himself with the returning players because of his brother, Cody, and Nicole took him up on it. She ended up putting Jozea and Paulie up for eviction in the hopes that he would beat out Jozea and live to see another day.
We'll see if Nicole's strategy actually works when someone is evicted on Sunday.
Images: Monty Brinton/CBS
