The crochet business also calls Leah ‘calculative’ and Angela ‘passionate, yet indecisive.’

Big Brother’s house is open once more! Every week, Parade.com’s Mike Bloom will be bringing you interviews with this season’s houseguests as they get evicted from the game.

A good social game is much like a well-made garment. Relationships must be woven, stitch-by-stitch, with tireless effort. Then, over time, a small scrap turns into a full piece, a colorful and sturdy result made with care and a countless amount of handiwork. It only makes sense, then, that T’kor Clottey had constructed one of the strongest games through over two months of Big Brother 26. But on the way out into the backyard last week, a strand metaphorically snagged. As a result, her game completely unraveled. After her main alliance evaded the boot for the past few weeks, there was nowhere left for T’kor to hide. Her first nomination ended up being her last, as the idea of one of the biggest threats on the block was too appetizing to resist.

Early on, T’kor was the calm water surrounding the turbulent rapids of the game around her. She had developed the “Visionaries” alliance with outsiders Kimo Apaka and Quinn Martin. Though the latter of whom was not so much an outsider, as he informed the other two about the secret “Pentagon” alliance that was controlling the game behind the scenes. The revelation did not leave T’kor and Kimo feeling good about their endgame prospects. And so, when Quinn nominated fellow Pentagon member Cedric Hodges as a pawn, they made their move. The two flipped the game completely, protecting Rubina Bernabe and shattering the Pentagon in Cedric’s eviction.

Unfortunately, T’kor was soon to get a taste of her own medicine. Winning HoH two weeks later, she took up her ally Tucker Des Lauriers’ offer, putting him up as a pawn. But Tucker’s hot streak of competition wins suddenly ran cold, as he faced the eviction vote for the first time. The remnants of the Pentagon decided to get revenge, booting Tucker in yet another house flip. The trio of T’kor, Kimo, and Rubina were now firmly in everyone’s sights, as at least one member was put up every week after that. Yet T’kor’s social standing had them avoiding eviction, banking on her relationships with Quinn and Chelsie Baham. The biggest wildcards left were Leah Peters and Angela Murray, and it just so happens they both held unilateral power this past week.

T’kor’s worst-case scenario began to unfold when Leah won HoH, nominating Rubina and Kimo. And things turned as sickening as pizza and ice cream diet when Angela won the veto. She chose to use it on Kimo, wanting to make up for voting to evict him twice. And Leah followed it up by putting up T’kor, guaranteeing a trio member would finally go. No matter the strength of T’kor’s relationships, her reputation up that point preceded her. With less than a month to the end, she was considered too big of a threat to keep in the game. And so the most social player of the season was left to walk out of the house by herself, the second member of the jury.

Now on her way to the jury house, T’kor talks with Parade.com about whether she has any regrets from her time in “Jankie World,” how she would have balanced her relationships with the trio and Chelsie in the endgame, and her rapid-fire thoughts on the remaining houseguests.

How surprised were you by the trio being targeted this week? In retrospect, do you feel there’s anything you could have done to avoid getting nominated for the first, and last, time?
Hey, Mike Bloom! To answer your question, I was not surprised the minute that Leah won that the trio would be targeted. As I knew the week before and the week before that, and probably weeks before that, that the trio–me, Kimo, and Rubina–was a point of interest in the house. Specifically with Leah and her associates, Quinn and Joseph. And so I wasn’t surprised at all. In terms of what I could have done to avoid nomination, getting evicted, etc, that’s a question to still to be determined. I know that a lot of people in the goodbye messages kind of worded it in terms of me being a threat. And there was a lot of statements in terms of me having one of the better social games in the house. And so, yeah, I don’t necessarily have a full answer to that question. But I think that perception is everything in this house. And so definitely, if there was one thing I could have tried to do was to do an even better job earlier on in the game to dissuade those perceptions.

During your HoH reign, you end up putting up your Sixth Avenue ally in Tucker, and he gets evicted in the process. How do you look back on your decisions during that week, considering a member of the trio was nominated every week after that?
Mmhmm, yes. I do think that the trio and our group, whether Tucker was hit or not, would have been a target regardless. I don’t think that had anything to do with the fact that Tucker got sent home, or that I ended up putting him up. I obviously didn’t want Tucker to go home. But the reason he went up was because I needed him to win the veto and or the AI Arena. And unfortunately, he wasn’t able to pull through. And so I wish he was able to pull through and bring in that win so that another person could have went home that week. But ultimately, I do believe that everything happens for a reason. And I know now that Tucker is gone, now that there’s one member of the trio [gone], I’m hoping that Rubina and Kimo don’t continue to get so easily targeted, and people can now start coming for what I perceive as bigger threats.

Talk to me about your relationship with Chelsie. How would your endgame have looked between her and the trio?
Chelsie is someone that I value just as much as Kimo and Rubina in this game. She also, along with Kimo and Rubina, had my back since the very beginning. And so ideally, what I would have loved in any alternative scenario is seeing any one of them win definitely would have brought a lot of joy to my heart. But there was also the bigger purpose of wanting to see women at the end for me, and the dream that, in an alternative scenario, we could have seen three women of color at the end, I think that would have won my heart. Being raised in an all-female household, I’m constantly rooting for women in every place that I walk into. And so I think that Chelsie was honestly an addition that people didn’t necessarily know that she was part of, but I valued her just as much as I valued Kimo and Rubina in this game.

Finally, give us your rapid-fire thoughts on each of the remaining houseguests. Starting with Angela.
[Pause.] Passionate, yet indecisive.
Cam.
Easily likable.
Chelsie.
[Pause.] Motivating and inspirational.
Kimo.
[Pause.] A kind and moving soul.
Leah.
Calculative.
Makensy.
[Pause.] Fun and interesting.
And finally, Rubina.
[Pause.] A big sister.