Matt Liguori ranks the houseguests each week with his own guest for RHAP’s Big Brother Power Rankings. This week Matt is joined by Alex Willett.
Notes:
- Power Rankings will contain information from the live feeds. If you are only watching Big Brother 19 episodes and consider information from the feeds to be spoilers, come back after watching the episode on Wednesday night (or Thursday night, if you want to play it extra safe).
- If reading on a cell phone, rotate your device horizontally to read the rankings side-by-side. However, this may not work for some devices with smaller screens.
RHAP Big Brother Power Rankings: Week 8
Finally, we’re opening the gates to the jury house. Two people will take the drive over to jury this week, with a double eviction on the horizon. There’s potential for the gameplay to open up drastically, with the house’s biggest target on track to go. Will Paul be able to maintain control or will his game end within an hour Thursday night? Remains to be seen.
To kick the jury phase off, I brought in a guest who played in a season without a jury, Big Brother: Over The Top Ball Smasher Alex Willett! Follow Alex (@alexshay1) and myself (@mattliguori) on Twitter, tweet us what you think, and leave a comment down below!
Last week, we lost our final pre-jury player, Jessica Graf. (Well, we kind of lost her, since Jess still seems to be participating in the season through Twitter.)
Jessica
Jessica was undeniably a polarizing player in the house. Fans either really loved her or totally couldn’t stand her. I’ve kept it no secret that I’m a fan, but I’m more than willing to admit that her gameplay was disappointing.
Jess had a lot of potential and I think we started to see that when Cody was out of the house and Jess was playing solo. Once Jody was reunited and the duo secluded themselves for each of the following weeks, there was no hope left for them to make anything happen. Having a game advantage and an HoH should usually help a player advance his or her game, but all it did here was evict Ramses and push her eviction off by 7 more days. Overall, I loved what Jess brought to the season, even if it wasn’t in the gameplay department, and I really hope they bring her back.
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Matt
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Alex
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1. Paul 
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This week, a large part of the Big Brother community got hit with the realization that Paul is going to win this game. The last remaining player who is not/has not been working with Paul is about to go out the door. Every single remaining houseguest has an alliance with Paul, and although some have compared notes… and although it’s become a topic of conversation that Paul is playing an amazing game, only one player, Mark (Elena to a lesser extent), has expressed a desire to take him out. Paul has set up future targets each week so far, and this week has been no different. Kevin has become the new name floated out as a big threat.
Nobody’s stopping Paul, and while the season may be suffering for it, you have to give him credit. As much as these players aren’t the brightest bulbs Big Brother has seen (not even close), Paul’s manipulated them all to remain in the best position possible.
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1. Paul
Alright, alright! I know everyone is beyond frustrated with Paul, but how can he not be ranked first for this week!? He is absolutely the ONLY one playing right now- and by playing, I mean intelligently playing. As stifling as he has made this season, the way he sets up a new enemy in the house on a weekly basis is masterful. He has been giving me major Derrick vibes- but with one major difference: Derrick never got personal when shifting the target on people. If Paul could learn to strategically target people without being malicious, his game would shine. (Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case this season).
Regardless, Paul is running the show and has given us one giant alliance of sheep that would all roll over and die for him. It’s not enjoyable to watch but I have to give him major props for how easily he controls the house dynamic.
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2. Matt 
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I may be the only person high on Matt’s game this season. Everybody wants to take the idiotic things Matt says to heart, but I still believe Matt knows exactly what he’s doing and is saying all the right things to make everyone think he’s a weak-minded player (and it’s working). Despite all the “We don’t like Matt and Raven, we have to get rid of them” talk, it’s always followed up by “but not yet, we still need them as numbers”.
Matt won the veto this week and didn’t use it on himself, yet he’s still the safest of the three nominees going into eviction night. He’s reading the house very well and isn’t rocking the boat. Every time you think he’s making a dumb decision, think about what would happen if he went the opposite route. For example, if Matt didn’t use the veto on Jason this week, his entire alliance is pissed at him for being selfish and he emerges as a new top target. So what’s the problem here!?
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2. Jason
Oh, Whistlenut. Let’s all take it back a minute and remember how we completely wrote Jason off during the preseason judgment time. At least if you didn’t, I know I sure did. I was completely expecting him to pull a BB18 James Huling-esque game and joke around the whole season. While he might be riding with the house right now, the reason I have Jason ranked so high is that I believe he’s in a great spot. I’m not hearing people mention his name when paranoia sets in the house! He’s covered by Alex, tight with Kevin and is constantly brought up as being a part of Paul’s ideal final six. Alex will always be a meat shield over him, and because she constantly talks down to him, (which is beyond annoying), he’s not thought of as being remotely strategic.
I truly believe that if Alex gets booted out of the house soon, Jason could potentially make some big moves. He has shown to naturally have a GREAT read on the house in the past…but Alex has him trapped in a box he can’t escape from. In a season that feels irredeemable, there’s a small glimmer of hope with our resident cowboy. Also, can we talk about how brilliantly he’s been advertising himself in the house? He literally only wears Whistlenut shirts. He’s been giving me major Mike Boogie vibes. (Throwback to BB7 with Boogie’s “Dolce” shirts).
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3. Jason Same
While this wasn’t necessarily a bad week for Jason, he and Alex still aren’t playing for themselves; they’re playing for Paul. Jason has some good skills in this game. He’s able to sell his BSing in any conversation. He’ll agree with everything you say and mean absolutely none of it. He gets you feeling comfortable and gets you to open up, and then runs all of the information he’s gathered over to his allies.
So while Jason may still be in an okay spot because he’s not anybody’s top target, he isn’t building up much of a case to present to a jury of why he deserves to win. He has likability on his side and that’ll be huge if he makes it to the final two, but if he’s next to somebody who played a much better game, it won’t matter. He’s more of a survivor and less of a fighter. The final stage of the game requires a level of fight and a strong desire to push forward (think Kevin Martin in BBCAN5) that I’m not sure Jason has inside of him.
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3. Alex
Alex is a tough one to discuss. There’s no doubt she handled her week 2 HOH well because it’s positioned her nicely in the house to be Paul’s true Final 2. (At least, that’s what it’s seeming like. With Paul, though, do you truly ever know?) She has a fantastic social game, is competitive in challenges and I don’t think she would be sent home if on the block unless the houseguests all grew a few brain cells and realized she’s also a threat to the endgame. For as solid of a game as she’s playing, I think Alex’s biggest flaw will be her lack of jury management.
As we all saw with her treatment of Jessica, she embraces being as petty as possible and doesn’t hold back once a houseguest is evicted. I wouldn’t be surprised if she takes some digs at Cody this week, (assuming he is the one to leave). I’m not sure if she struggles with keeping emotional outbursts in check or if she simply thinks she’s “making good TV for America,” but I can easily see her eviction messages leaving a bitter taste in the jury’s mouth and being her downfall. She also is one of the key people who is stifling gameplay this season. Anytime one of the “minions” brings up an original thought, she shuts it down immediately. Please leave, Alex.
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4. Josh 1
The meatball’s stock continues to rise this week. Brent might’ve been onto something when he said Josh has an above 0% chance to win the game. It was hard to see that being the case when Josh was running around the house antagonizing people with pots and pans, but with production halting that daily performance, there may be a little more hope for his chances.
When you think about it, how many players that are going to make jury actively dislike him? 2? Mark and Cody? Cody may never vote for Josh, but Mark comes around on him every time Josh flips the switch back to being nice. We’ll see, but he isn’t anybody’s target anytime soon, so for now, Josh is cruising on by. I know he won’t, but he needs to keep his mouth closed and stop antagonizing the people he doesn’t like. It’s time for jury management, and if this all continues after Mark and Elena are gone, he’ll quickly run out of votes.
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4. Josh
Josh has been one of my favorites from the very beginning. (Cue everyone gasping and immediately disliking me for saying this). I do acknowledge that he has been a bit of bully this season– but so have many, many other people. I think Josh is great entertainment in a season that has zero strategy and only drama. The thing I like most about Josh is how much he loves this game. Is the meatball shtick getting old? Yes. Is Josh one of Paul’s minions? Yes. Is Josh now the token person to bring to the end of the game because everyone believes they can beat him? You bet.
Josh has great odds of going deep into this game now and if he controls his emotional outbursts, wins some comps and cranks it up at the end, there’s still potential for him. I hold onto the tiniest glimmer of hope that he’ll win another random HOH and go rogue on Paul. A girl can dream.
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5. Christmas 2
It’s extremely hard to rank Christmas. One minute you can sit back and reflect on how she’s still in a good position, and the next minute she’s blowing up at somebody for something stupid that had nothing to do with her. While she stirs the pot plenty, the house is so focused on the Paul’s and Cody’s, Kevin’s, Mark’s, Elena’s, etc., that Christmas has found herself in a comfortable position where she would have to make some drastic move or blow up on Paul for the house to consider taking her out. On any other season with average or above players, the way Christmas plays the game would’ve had her out the door already. She’s burning bridges and leaving a bitter taste in the mouth of her opponents, and that’s obviously not a good way to send people into the jury house. See how she talked to Cody this week? And he’s only the first one to go to jury! This won’t end well, Willett? (Get it? Will it… Willett… Alex….. sorry.)
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5. Christmas
I want to like Christmas so badly as a game player. I used to think she had all the potential in the world but the longer she stays in the house, the more I realize she doesn’t do much except argue just to hear herself speak and roll around in the house on her scooter. I truly would LOVE to see Christmas back again in a competitive environment. However, I think she is someone that seems much more well suited for Survivor and I’d love to see her tackle that game once she is fully healed instead of BB again. Back to the rankings though! Christmas is starting to get on people’s nerves but
Back to the rankings, though! Christmas is starting to get on people’s nerves but there are much bigger targets in the house than she is. She’s a part of Paul’s dream final 6 and I feel pretty confident Paul would love to drag her to the end since she won’t be able to compete in the final HOH challenges. There’s no denying the girl is tough but she hasn’t contributed much this season. She’s safe and floating along to see another week.
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6. Kevin 
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Damn, what a fall. I wish I could say Kevin didn’t do this to himself, but he did. All along, I’ve been worried about the way Kevin’s been playing. In the early game, he worked his way into a good spot. He secured a close alliance with Paul while forming a larger group around that with Alex and Jason, as well as Matt and Raven to an extent. But the danger of his gameplay style combined with his inexperience is all coming together and he has nowhere to hide. His attempt at making something happen with Cody totally backfired, and it’s put a nice big target on Kevin’s back.
Luckily for him, everybody’s agreed that although Kevin’s sketchy, they can’t take him out so soon, meaning he has time to pull things back together if he plays his cards right. It’ll help his case once Cody is out of the house because right now Kevin gets in trouble anytime they’re in the same room, and the house is not big enough for Kevin to avoid Cody every second of the day.
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6. Elena
Elena has been through so many hills and valleys the past week! It seems like one day she’s safe and the next day, she’s teetering on the edge of getting evicted. She’s extremely fortunate that her ex-showmance/kind of showmance/what are they really partner Mark has won multiple competitions in a row and befriended Cody again because he has officially replaced her as next in line on the chopping block. I think Elena is an enjoyable person to be around but I do not think she brings even a slight competitive edge to this game. If she ever gains power, I see her being easily tricked by Paul into doing whatever he wants…unfortunately. (Please prove me wrong, Elena!)
I’ve ranked her sixth because she’s now above Mark, Matt and even Kevin on Paul’s hit list. Also, just to prove how much power Paul truly has in the game…Elena “stole” the 5k from Alex in the Veto comp, upset the HOH and still moved up on Paul’s list of people he wants to keep in the game. Pretty crazy.
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7. Alex 1
I’ve mentioned before that I think Alex will(ett) likely be targeted sometime soon. With a double eviction coming, that could be even sooner than expected. This double eviction is coming off of an HoH where Elena and Mark are walking away not feeling even a little good about Alex. Despite her generally poor social game, she’s the closest ally Paul has and taking her out is a great way to chip away at Paul’s game without taking the actual shot and risking Paul sicking his remaining minions on you.
On top of all of that, Alex is about to have a guy evicted who has had no intentions of taking her out of the game. Since week 2, Cody has expressed the respect he has for Alex as a competitor. He’s always had a soft spot for her. But Alex is gonna Alex, and she’s letting Cody walk out the door, leaving Elena in the house to take a shot at her.
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7. Kevin
Kevin has stumbled a lot this week. His willingness to have a social game with Cody might be his downfall. He was my pick to win this whole game, but unfortunately, it seems that Paul is setting him up to be one of the big targets after Mark eventually leaves. Alex has been onto Kevin for a while now but he has still flown under the radar because Paul has been adamant on protecting him. A flip was switched this week with our resident puppet master Paul, though, and Kevin has been a constant subject of conversation. Now that Paul is allowing conversation about Kevin, the house is talking about him and it seems to be spreading like wildfire. The seed has been planted that he’s sketchy and we’ll have to see if Kevin’s sly ways and strong social game will be enough to flip the current house perception of him.
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8. Elena Same
You know that game where someone puts their forehead on a baseball bat, spins around 30 times and then tries to walk in a straight line? That’s been Elena, these past few weeks. And the rest of the houseguests are watching, pointing fingers at her, and laughing. She’s not spinning by choice; it’s Paul and his allies that have Elena going in circles. Every time Elena gets up and tries to move forward, someone sends her right back to the bat to do some more spinning and she just hasn’t been able to see straight.
It seems like Elena’s just waiting for her turn to come up to be sent packing, but with Paul’s control over more than half the house and with no HoH wins to push her game forward, she hasn’t moved anywhere. Elena or Mark need this double eviction HoH badly, or one of them will be following Cody to the jury house on Thursday night.
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8. Raven
Where do I begin? In an effort to stay positive, I want to thank Raven for uniting all of the Big Brother fans! It’s not often fans can all come together to share the same opinion on something. Raven really hasn’t done anything this season yet. I understand the mentality of “sleeping until jury” but…it is now jury. Do something. Raven still has strategically contributed nothing to the game and tends to just repeat what Paul says. She is the true definition of one of Paul’s sheep. Actually, dogs would probably be the better example. Woof, woof… (you know what comes next).
I ranked her as number 8 because I’m seeing more and more houseguests bring her up as being difficult to live with. Sure, there are people who are bigger threats than her that will go first. However, once Cody and Mark are gone, you bet she’s next on the hit list to help maintain the house’s sanity. She has done pretty well at mental challenges, though, so to stay in the game, she’ll need to win one of those and shift the momentum back her way.
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9. Raven 3
I can’t take it anymore. I cannot continue listening to Raven for another second. And I don’t even live with her! I don’t know how these houseguests are getting through it, but props to them. Bring back the solitary confinement punishment, Big Brother, we all need a break. And Raven probably needs something new to complain about.
Things have cooled down on the “Let’s get out Matt and Raven” front, with Mark winning competitions week after week and reminding Paul’s crew that Mark and Elena have to go first. Regardless, Raven’s stock is still very very low and it kills me to see her rise in my rankings, but I can’t control Cody and Mark’s games going down the drain. We can only hope she finds her way onto the block again sometime soon and is sent home before we get too deep into the endgame.
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9. Matt
Matt and Raven are almost interchangeable. (Both bring nothing to the table, both are annoying to the other houseguests, both don’t have interesting gameplay…) The reason Matt is ranked below Raven is that he is ultimately seen as a bigger physical threat. That’s it. I really don’t have any other thoughts on Matt other than he’ll either go home after Mark because that’s what Paul wants done at the moment or he’ll somehow accidentally win this whole game without trying. Can we quickly talk about how he used his own veto on Jason and stayed on the block? Who does that?! * Insert Britney Haynes grimacing gif here.*
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10. Mark 1
Three straight weeks of winning competitions, Mark has cemented himself as a comp beast who the house agrees needs to go. Mark’s only hope left in this game is Jason, whom he still maintains a solid enough relationship with. It’s hard to see a case where Jason puts his neck on the line to save Mark, but that’s all Mark has left at this point. It’s hard to string together two consecutive days where nobody in the house is yelling at Mark about one thing or another: Pillows, beds, food consumption, butt tanning… he can do nothing right.
Mark is the only one talking about making a big move if he wins this next HoH. Elena sounds like she’s in too, but we know for sure Mark is ready to strike. There’s no hope left for Mark to reintegrate himself, given many in the house (Alex, Josh, and Christmas) reallyyyy don’t like him. Without a string of HoH/PoV wins between himself and Elena, it seems like Mark’s time in this game is going to come to an end pretty soon.
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10. Mark
I’ve come to really like Mark a lot this week. In Twitter lingo, he has become WOKE to Paul and his antics. Mark is someone who has always walked a fine line of Paul’s side vs Cody’s side and ultimately, this will be his downfall. He absolutely needs to win the double eviction HoH, put up Paul and Alex and shake up the house to extend his stay in the game. If he doesn’t manage to do that, (or to convince Elena to do that if she wins), he’s a dead man walking and his time in the crazy house will be ending soon.
I wish Mark had focused on positioning himself better in the house the past couple of weeks rather than pining after Elena. This is why I can’t stand showmances in the Big Brother house! For the most part, they rarely better your game. PS: Mark, she’s just not that into you, unfortunately.
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11. Cody 1
Not much left to say here. Cody’s had weeks to try to pull something together. He was given a second chance at the game and immediately resorted to his original strategy of spending all of his time locked away with Jessica. Now that Jessica’s gone, Cody’s shown a little bit of interest in extending the length of his remaining time in the house. Is it going to work? Not even a little, but I’m happy to see him trying.
Nobody’s ever accused Cody of being a strategist. His plan was to get Alex to nominate Raven instead of him and evict Matt this week. Meanwhile, the guy with the veto (Matt) is on the block and Cody made no effort to get him to use it on himself, which seems like the obvious way to keep yourself safe (as nobody would’ve replaced Matt on the block). He’s drawing dead. The house will not rest until Cody is once again removed from the playing field, and this Thursday seems like the day he will leave for good.
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11. Cody
Cody has become one of my favorite characters in the Big Brother house. We truly have never seen someone like him before and he’s been fascinating to observe. His game is beyond repair at this point, which is why he’s at the bottom of my list, but I’m going to give him major props for at least trying to save himself. (Why couldn’t you have played like this earlier in the game?!) This week on the feeds, he gave a valiant effort at campaigning. Ironically enough, it was really the ONLY campaigning we’ve seen this entire season.
You can tell he truly loves this show and wanted to give it a last ditch effort instead of rolling over to die. I respect that. There are too many people on this show who admit defeat and hand over the game to someone else. If you’re lucky enough to make in in the house, FIGHT to stay there! Thank you, Cody, for being refreshing with your gameplay this week and for giving the fans a tiny glimpse of the game we all love so much.
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Matt’s Power Rankings by Week
