‘Big Brother 18’ live feed spoilers: Preparing for eviction; Natalie’s overall game

Tonight’s “Big Brother” eviction show is right around the corner, and based on the course of things at present in the house, it feels fairly predictable what we are going to see unfold. All signs at present are pointing towards Natalie going home, and with Nicole and Corey being the controlling votes, that is not going to change.

Last night, we did see Natalie talk to James about targeting Corey and Nicole, while Nicole stressed to him in turn how grateful she was to him for keeping Corey in the house. Despite what Natalie has said we do see James wanting to stick with NiCorey until we get around to at least the final four, mostly because he has a closer bond with them than Paul and Victor.

In looking at Natalie’s game this season as a whole, she was probably better than we thought she would be preseason, where she seemed like someone who would either go early or be a complete Victoria clone. That didn’t happen. We do think she has some game skill, but she was probably best during the Spy Girls era and before the whole thing with James even happened. There she was fairly well-positioned and not distracted by anything other than the game.

Natalie had two problems that really sunk her game more than anything else over the past few weeks:

1. Too much pandering to America – She and James got caught in the whole America’s Sweethearts narrative, and we feel like one of the reasons they ultimately went against Paul and Victor was because that is what they felt viewers would want them to do. James has been in the game, and he should have been aware that the show could do some sort of returning juror given the number of days left. They became so caught up in their relationship and being “nice” that they lost touch on the game.

2. Too many personal moves – Natalie has put almost all the blame on James for keeping Corey over Victor; while she did want Corey out that week, she had originally used a lot of her power in the game to get Paul and Victor on the block. The move felt personal because of inappropriate comments Paul made about her, as she and James never really sat down and figured out precisely what the path to the end would be.

It looks like there’s an endurance competition coming tonight, and we’ll be back later at this link to focus more on that. Meanwhile, sign up over here to score some other TV news on everything we cover, sent right to you via our official CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CBS.)