Jesse

**Jesse** (69jesse69) placed 6th in Season 7 & 8th in Big Brother Season 1.

Starting slowly on Papukeni, Jesse would find himself in a growth arc throughout the season into that of a frontrunner. Well allied and in a fairly middle position, Jesse would be able to ride much of the premerge out undetected as a threat while gaining social capital. He was even able to secure an Extra Vote on Papukeni. On Nu Papunkeni, Jesse also established crucial bonds with Brian and Leo, allowing him an in with the OG Bati Tribe at the merge. He was then able to pick his allegiance, initially set to be against the OG Yalo with Brian, but after pitching the idea of blindsiding him, was subtly convinced by Sage to push the plan up a round when Sage was very aggressive about planting seeds amongst the Tribe. This move would see Jesse’s threat level slowly exposed, as he took all of the heat for the coordination of this move and much of the tribe recognized him as a social threat with influence among the tribe. However, Jesse was able to further insulate himself when he co-founded the “Smoke Sesh” alliance with Sage and Nikki; these three players were able to have ears on the entire tribe due to their various relationships, dictating the course of several rounds. Jesse was aware of Sage’s threat level, but had high confidence that he was actually calling those shots and that Sage was mooching off of his own moves, meaning he could leave Sage until the Final 4 as a threat. In reality, Sage was a very subtle manipulator, and had the ears and trust of many players in the tribe, making him a much deadlier threat than Jesse anticipated. When Roci used her Safety Without Power successfully, Jesse was just as pressed as Sage that Nikki had to have “obviously” told her, helping Sage secure the votes to blindside Nikki and setting a butterfly effect into motion that would ruin his game. At the following Tribal Council, Jesse also wasted his Extra Vote when he wanted to be half safe and half petty to put an extra vote on Roci, who he was informed had been shopping his name around. This was not his initial plan, however; he was quite annoyed with Roci, as he and Dylan had extended an olive branch to her to survive the vote and blindside Sage by taking out Kiri, as the duo had begun to want to attempt to take power from Sage. The following round, Jesse was feeling quite comfortable that he would survive, get Sage’s idol out of the way, and successfully flip the tribe with Dylan in the coming rounds. Unfortunately, Sage decided to make a move on him first when catching wind that the last round Jesse had attempted to go rogue and even threw Sage’s name out to people before. This caused him to play an idol on himself and round up the numbers to blindside Jesse himself. Catching wind his name was out mere hours before Tribal, Jesse surprisingly seemed to phone in his game, stating to his confessional “wake me up when I care.” His wake up call indeed came fast, with a 3-1 vote sending him to the Jury, but not before he bitterly called out to the Tribe that Sage was running the game. He is remembered for his pleasant attitude and confessionals, as well as his small growth arc in the game, going from someone a bit more reserved to having large strategic agency in the game.

Beginning the game ready to play, Jesse quickly went to work attempting to form a Survivor Alumni Alliance. He would find himself unknowingly in hot water when a large portion of the house wanted to evict him or Harry due to a perceived “vets alliance;” he was able to slightly save face when he exposed Harry making alliances to others, ready to throw Harry UTB for not responding to him. This would help solidify his relationship with Marek, who promised him safety in Week 2. Despite this, he saw himself up on the block as a pawn when Marek’s preferred pawn would win the veto. In Week 3, Jesse would choose not to use the veto on his ally Jaime to build trust with HOH James, a choice that would get his ally evicted. After the Week 4 eviction, Jesse was falsely accused of evicting Brayden which caused much tension between Jesse and Marek, before Marek eventually came clean to Brayden. In Week 6, Jesse would essentially be in control of who went home, confessionaling early he wanted to evict Robbie even before the veto was used. However, a last minute lie by Ryan saw Jesse switch his vote (and by proxy give up his power of deciding the evictee) and cause a tie, leading to Josh going home instead. Jesse was unbothered by this, feeling he was protected regardless and spinning strategic reasons for the tie when the initial reason stated was simply to “keep a 100% voting record.” Luckily for Jesse, the house could not see the confessionals though and he was able to maintain his position in the game and convince them there was more purpose behind the flip. In Week 7, Jesse would pay the price for not making the move when he had the chance. Marek would win a clutch HOH, with Jesse and Hao excitedly confessionaling how they were in an amazing spot playing the middle. However, at the veto competition, it was clear Robbie, Ryan, and Leon had a tight final three when not even attempting to hide them blatantly targeting Jesse and Brayden just to throw the rest of the comp to Ryan. This would piss Jesse off, tipping him off that he made a bad call on top of Robbie telling him when Jesse was worried about an LOS that “Marek just needs to nominate Jesse or Brayden.” Jesse would create a new alliance with Marek’s side of the house to expose the other three, but it was too late. After their veto and LOS plan came through, Jesse would hit the block with Hao for being the only two people not \*truly\* with the other three in the week prior. Jesse would confront Ryan’s alliance yet again, which only further drove a wedge in his chances of staying against someone perceived as a goat. When Leon would tell him of his fate, Jesse gave one last impassioned plea to stay that Hao was better at competitions than he was and that they could not rule out Hao as a goat/nonfactor as they wanted to. This would unfortunately not work, and he would be evicted in a 3 - 2 vote after failing to flip one of the “Passing to Jesse” alliance. On his way out of the house, he would leave final words that greatly irked this alliance and worried them for the future of their games.