As the houseguests continue through week 2 of Big Brother‘s 25th season, Hisam Goueli has emerged as a major competition threat. But — unfortunately for the 45-year-old geriatric physician from Seattle, Washington — his carnival game prowess may come back to haunt him on his quest for the $750,000 grand prize.
Heads up: This article contains spoilers for Big Brother 25 past Sunday, August 13’s episode.
Redditor NikiNL took to the platform to share a statistic they generated regarding competition wins leading to evictions. They revealed that four of six players throughout the U.S. version of the franchise’s history who earned Power of Veto (PoV), Head of Household (HoH), and then Power of Veto again consecutively, were evicted the next week.
In Hisam’s case, he’s triumphed in the last three major competitions. He won the season’s first Veto competition in week 1. Then, he took over Reilly Smedley’s spot as Head of Household last Thursday night. And although episode-only Big Brother fans haven’t seen it play out yet, the live feeds have confirmed that Hisam also came out on top of week 2’s Power of Veto competition.
The threepeat is extremely impressive, especially this early into the game when there are so many players left. Bolstering his resume even more, Hisam also placed second in his portion of the day 1 competition that left four contestants on the block.
He was also the runner-up in the first Head of Household game behind Reilly.
Will Hisam suffer the same fate as four previous U.S.-based houseguests?
But, as NikiNL illuminated, the PoV-HoH-PoV run hasn’t boded well for most of the contestants who’ve achieved the feat as they were sent packing during the next round of play. Just referring to the statistic, there’s a 66.67% chance Hisam’s heading home in week 3.
So, let’s run through the houseguests (remember, this is just pertaining to Big Brother’s U.S. version).
First, Frankie Grande — who made an appearance during the opening episode to kickstart this season’s “Big Brother Multiverse” theme — won the Power of Veto during Big Brother 16’s 10th week. It was his second Veto win of the season. Then, Frankie became week 11’s most powerful player as he was victorious in the Head of Household comp while also nabbing the Veto. But, because of the “Rewind” twist, no one went home during Frankie’s final-5 reign.
He was then sent off to the jury the next week as part of Caleb Reynolds’ time as HoH.
Three seasons later, Big Brother 19’s rodeo clown Jason Dent’s game ended in a similar fashion (minus the “Rewind” twist). He won week 8’s Power of Veto. Unlike Frankie, Jason was nominated ahead of the Veto competition. Jason pulled himself off the block which led to the end of Mark Jansen’s game. Then, week 9 featured Jason capturing both powers and Matt Clines’ demise. But, Jason followed him out the door at the final 7 courtesy of Christmas Abbott’s HoH reign.
Four more seasons would pass before Frankie and Jason received company. Big Brother 23’s Christian Birkenberger was sent home before the jury after winning week 3’s Veto and dominating week 4. Christian didn’t use the Veto to save anyone, and Whitney Williams was given her walking papers during his time sleeping in the room on the second floor.
Christian went out in week 5 at the hands of Derek Xiao’s Head of Household tenure.
Last season, Michael Bruner became a statistic after securing week 8’s PoV and week 9’s HoH and PoV. After Kyle Capener and Terrance Higgins made their way into the jury, Michael followed them via Matt Turner booting him through the back door.
Now, it’s worth it to note that two houseguests have gotten the threepeat while surviving eviction the following week. Shane Meaney held the PoV in week 2 and was the HoH with the PoV in week 3, but he lasted all the way until the final 4. And then in Big Brother 20, Kaycee Clark took week 10’s PoV before grabbing total power the next week. Kaycee not only kept her game alive after the PoV-HoH-PoV run, but she also won the entire season.
So, how will Hisam’s game unfold?
There are typically two schools of thought when it comes to dealing with competition threats in a reality competition show. Either players want them out as quickly as possible or they’ll keep them around as a threat that absorbs a lot of attention. Considering it’s so early in the season, and Hisam seemingly has a lot of allies in “The Professor,” I’d bet Hisam sticks around past week 3.