It's been a rocky week in the Big Brother 24 house, and one bit of drama that may have gotten lost in the shuffle is the showmance status of Kyle Capener and Alyssa Snider. Kyle, a 29-year-old TikTok star from Utah, entered the game reluctant to entertain any showmance possibilities. However, his resolve progressively weakened by continuous overt advances from Alyssa, a 24-year-old marketing representative from Florida.
Kyle and Alyssa eventually solidified their relationship, even going so far as to profess their love to one another and agree to be exclusive with each other. However, there was constant tension between the pair due to Kyle's dishonesty to Alyssa about his status in the game. Kyle was secretly in a power alliance called The Leftovers and wavered between targeting Alyssa and protecting her, all while keeping her in the dark. Kyle eventually divulged the alliance to Alyssa, who was expectedly hurt by the deception. Then, controversy erupted when Kyle's suspicions about an all-POC alliance led to tense and emotional confrontations, with Kyle ultimately acknowledging the biases that contributed to his racist notions about the status of the game and apologizing to those he hurt. Among many other ramifications, the exposure of Kyle's actions were the final straw for Alyssa, who broke up with him.
The edited version of the events in Thursday's eviction episode depicted Alyssa and Kyle's relationship coming to an amicable end amidst Kyle's more pressing priorities of making amends with the Black players in the game. That was far from the end of the story. The episode didn't have time to adequately portray what followed and likely wanted to neatly wrap up the season-long narrative between Kyle and Alyssa, but Kyle and Alyssa's showmance did not come to an end after the breakup conversation. Instead, following an emotional day, Kyle and Alyssa rekindled their romance mere hours after breaking up. Kyle was initially resistant and advised Alyssa that they needed to take time apart and reflect, but Alyssa gradually began cuddling with Kyle. The two once again professed their love and engaged in a series of brief romantic rendezvous, leaving the status of the relationship very much in the air by the time Kyle was evicted from the game.
Though the episode featured a quick breakup segment, it makes sense that it didn't acknowledge the complicated relationship drama. The majority of the runtime was spent on the larger fallout of Kyle's actions, including Kyle's apology conversations, his eviction from the game, and impactful reflections and acts of forgiveness from Monte Taylor, Taylor Hale, and Terrance Higgins, the Black houseguests who were hurt by Kyle's actions. The episode's runtime priorities were, for better or worse, to craft a palatable conclusion to a fraught situation by emphasizing Kyle's growth narrative with regard to race, which, by necessity, comprised the majority of the episode.
The show's misleading portrayal of Kyle and Alyssa's breakup is relatively minor in the scope of the things and is one of the least egregious omissions the show has made recently, unlike the omission of Kyle admitting during the house meeting that race was a contributing factor to his plans. Big Brother had to carefully choose which moments to use to craft an acceptable narrative for the mainstream viewing audience. Some of their editing choices are more understandable than others, but despite the show's depiction of Kyle and Alyssa's breakup, their love story is likely far from finished.
Big Brother airs Sundays and Wednesdays at 8 p.m. EDT and Thursdays at 9 p.m. EDT on CBS.