Big Brother 21 Season Finale Recap: Jackson Wins $500K, But Pays Huge Price

Well, that was one of the strangest Big Brother finale nights I can recall. We will break things down from the beginning of the episode until the very unique ending that saw Jackson Michie win via a 6-3 jury vote. However, it was what happened in the final segment before Julie Chen revealed the winner that has BB fans talking.

Holly Beats Nicole in Part 2 of the Final HOH Competition

As we mentioned last week, it was going to be an extreme uphill battle for Nicole to escape this final eviction no matter what type of competitions were being played. In this comp, Nicole and Holly had to postmark the days that certain events in the house occurred while climbing up a rock wall. A nice mix of physical and memory, but it was Holly who was exactly four minutes faster than Nicole. It was at this point that America’s Favorite Houseguest knew it would take a miracle to make it to the final two chairs.

Michie Defeats Holly in Part 3 of the Final HOH Competition

At this point, the powerful showmance basically battled it out just to add to another win to his or her resume. Yes, there were talks of Holly very faintly considering taking Nicole if she won, but it still would have taken a miracle for that to happen. This was a classic BB memory game/trivia to determine the final HOH, with quirky appearances from the first eight jury members. The sole difference in this competition was Holly misreading one of the questions, which was the only incorrect answer during the whole competition. This locked in Michie with a spot in the Final Two and at least $50,000.

Michie Evicts Nicole, Takes Holly to Final Two

The least shocking thing that has happened all season. Michie has been saying for weeks that his ultimate and only goal this season was to take his girlfriend to the Final Two. He put matters into his own hands and made that a reality. Nicole becomes the ninth and final member of the jury.

The Jury Puts the Final Two in the Hot Seat

This is where things began to get juicy. As always, the nine jurors had the chance to pick Holly and Michie’s brains about who should win the $500,000. After the questions that varied from manipulation, personal moves, and other strategy, Michie’s body language began to change. You could sense that he may have ruffled too many feathers. Definitely got the vibe that there were going to be at least some bitter jurors, which was Jackson’s only hurdle at this point.

Pre-Jury Shares Their Thoughts on the Season

The segment that changed the whole vibe of the night from many angles. While the nine jurors were still sequestered in the jury house and left out of the outside world, the first five evicted houseguests got to go home and watch the remainder of the season play out just like the rest of us. One of the questions brought up during this segment was regarding Jackson’s selection back on Day 1, when he was voted “Camp Director.” With this power, he had to nominate four houseguests for banishment, which would ultimately put one of those players’ game lives in jeopardy. His choices ended up being David, Jessica, Kemi, and Cliff. The pre-jury and Julie then brought up that some may have viewed this decision as racist, since three of his choices were minorities and Cliff was the oldest one in the house.

Here is where I’m at with this situation: There is no doubt that Jackson has said some hurtful things about various houseguests, especially David and Kemi. But I do not see his decision as Camp Director having any correlation with targeting the minority houseguests. As Michie said, David was one of the others who insisted on being Camp Director as well, so Michie in a way was going against him. Without getting into it too much, I will #StickToGameplay and just say that it was an interesting decision by CBS to include this topic immediately before revealing the winner of the entire season.

Let’s rewind to week 7 when Jack got voted out and became juror #1. You could tell that the producers gave him somewhat of a heads up before his eviction and he was able to eloquently respond to Julie’s questions about his racial insensitivity. Michie was the other nominee that night. Was he not given the same heads up in case he was evicted instead? Or did he just forget about that? A lot will come out in the media about his side of things (hopefully) so I would say that the drama of this season isn’t exactly finished.

Michie Defeats Holly Via A 6-3 Jury Vote, Wins Big Brother 21

Voted for Jackson: Jack, Nick, Christie, Tommy, Analyse, Cliff

Voted for Holly: Nicole, Kat, Jessica

I tweeted this during the show, but Michie was absolutely deserving of this victory. He won ELEVEN competitions, which was very impressive. But his biggest social move came at Final Five, when he convinced Cliff and Nicole to keep Holly and vote out Tommy by creating a huge lie about Tommy’s plans. Glad to see Tommy viewed that as a pure game move and gave him his vote. But immediately after Michie got accused of racist actions/words, you could tell he was a bit shook. We have never seen a winner walk out of the house after 99 days and look that pissed. This showed that in the grand scheme of things, half a million dollars means nothing when you’re comparing it to your values as a person, and it was nice to see that Michie knew what was more important. He deserved to win, but paid the price for some of his words said earlier in the game. A very unique situation with not many winners involved. But we are talking about Michie the player here, and he 100% deserves this victory.

So, that’s it for our Big Brother coverage this season. Big thanks to everyone for following along. Overall, I wouldn’t even consider putting it on my Mt. Rushmore of seasons, but there have definitely been worse. We know that BB22 has officially been renewed, so hopefully we are back in June breaking down a fresh season. As a side note, I thought yesterday’s Survivor premiere was awesome. Tommy will be coming out with weekly recaps of that, so be sure to lock in for what should be a great season.