BIadez

**Days** | 84

**BIadez** was a houseguest on Big Brother 8: The Power of Two.

Despite his reputation, BIadez integrated himself well within the house. He started out with close connections to Iconic and Liam, his eventual duo partner, and then won full power on Week 1. This opened many social avenues and he quickly entered a dominant alliance called “The Undisputed Era”, consisting of himself, Liam, Turt, Luke, and Briana. This alliance won all of the pre-jury HOHs, with BIadez winning 3 and letting Nicole take over the responsibilities for safety on his 2nd win. This kept him protected until the jury stage, but his move to cut Yitzer in the DE right before that point broke up the alliance and solidified the bonds he had been building on the other side, such as with Brittnee and Nintendo. His connections with Brittnee and Iconic allowed him to quickly discover Zach’s plots against him, which exemplified BIadez being a hub of information. He was also the first to deduce all of the duos back in Week 1, showing the trust he had built with others. Now that Yitzer was gone, BIadez was positioned securely in the middle between Iconic, Brittnee, and Zach and Liam, Turt, and Briana. His goals moving forward were to secure his duo safety, eventually eliminate Zach, and keep big threats around as shields, which started with Briana. Although distancing himself from Liam’s eviction votes had helped him socially in the past, BIadez now found himself in the same boat as the two of them failed to save Briana and Turt with the momentum shifted. Liam won the next HOH, but then BIadez failed to keep his closest ally from the other side, Iconic, in the game. Despite losing allies fast, BIadez made sure he was never the top of the hit list and still had Liam with him. The following week he pulled off the best move of the season, misting Nicole and Nintendo into keeping his duo over Biggy and securing their spots in the final 6, where Liam won HOH and brought them to the final 5 in a 3 person alliance with Nintendo. Zach’s unexpected final 5 HOH win saw BIadez hit the block for the first time, but even then he survived 2-0, though admittedly through dirty means that I don’t really respect. Nevertheless, he won the final POV to bring himself and Liam to the final 3 along with Brittnee, who despised Liam. This gave him the best odds of making the final 3 and sweeping the jury votes either way, but Brittnee unexpectedly cut him and ended his journey. In the end, it’s difficult to refute that BIadez was the best player this season. Physically he won the most competitions with 2 HOHs and 6 POVs, tying a POV record. Socially he was the last houseguest nominated, was aligned with everyone at different points, and consistently had information running through him due to the trust he had established. Strategically he knew when to stick his neck out to better his position and devised plans to secure his duo as the last one standing and eventually spots in the final 3. He was beating almost, if not everyone, in a jury vote, so he clearly had the respect of the jurors as well, which was no mistake as he also devoted time to his jury management. Seeing him cut right before the final 2 was almost as shocking as him staying in the final 5, given most of the players had been scared to oppose him. However, his departure provided an intense finale with a nail-biting final vote, so I can’t complain as all 3 finalists were deserving in different ways. From a production standpoint, there were a few moments where he gave me a hard time when trying to leverage me, but realistically, many were in line with our normal banter and I was too stressed with the season and real-life to register them that way. All in all, Colby was very active, sent great Diary Rooms, and had amazing gameplay. Despite his domineering nature sometimes making the gameplay stagnant and predictable, it’s also fascinating to watch and amped up the competition. He still had his entertaining moments woven within and was arguably the face of the season.