The finale of Big Brother 19 is just one week away and in this episode someone gets evicted in fifth place and someone secures their spot in the Final 3. If you’ve been watching this season, you know by now that Paul always gets exactly what he wants…except when it comes to comic book covers. That’s the one aspect of the game where Paul is the big loser.

We start things off with Alex and Kevin on the block. Alex fake-cries to Josh in order to manipulate his emotions. Josh tries to plant seeds with Alex that maybe he’s going to target someone else. If you got déjà vu from watching this scene it’s probably because this is the same move he made with Jessica the last time he was HoH.

Josh is emotional, so Paul and Christmas try to convince him to play the game, with Christmas threatening to murder families if anyone betrays her team. Josh asks Christmas if she’ll take him to Final 2 and she gives him a non-answer. She doesn’t want to have to choose between her guys, even though she thinks she’d beat Josh.

Alex talks to Paul, explaining that she was pretending to cry. She also warns Paul that she thinks Josh is trying to backdoor him. He laughs it off, even though she’s accidentally stumbled onto the truth. Paul immediately runs back to Josh and Christmas to tell them that Alex was faking her tears to manipulate Josh. People compare Paul’s game to Derrick, but he’s much more of an Andy Herren-style rat floater.

It’s the BB Comics individual Power of Veto competition where the HGs ride a zipline to see comic book covers and then put them in the correct order. Due to her injury, Christmas can’t compete.

Paul doesn’t like that he’s called the Potty Mouth and Josh is confused that he’s the Meatball, because Cody and Mark are the meatballs. Alex prayed that she or Paul win so they can go to the Final 2 together. Paul battles Kevin, Josh and Alex, but comes out on top, winning the Power of Veto.

It’s worth noting that he has followed the exact same trajectory as Nicole Franzel in the BB Comics PoV. For both of them, they finished in second place during their first seasons, but won it in their second seasons.

Next, it’s finally time for Paul to drop the hammer and explain to Alex that he’s not using the Power of Veto on her and she’s going to be evicted. He isn’t completely honest with her, claiming that the others wouldn’t vote for him in the end if he does it. He says that he wants to win and he won’t beat her, so he has to do this.

Alex isn’t happy because she’s thrown competitions for him and trusted him completely, and now she feels stupid for trusting him. She’s feeling very betrayed and says she never would have gone against their friendship.

Afterwards, Paul cries because he feels bad, but he has to choose himself since no one else would choose him. That part is a lie, because every one of these people helped him.

At the Power of Veto ceremony, Alex begs him to use it while Kevin tells him to do whatever he wants. Paul does NOT use the Power of Veto. He’s says he’s sorry that he let Alex down this week.

Alex finally realizes that blindly trusting Paul all season ruined her game and Jason’s game. He just used them to get ahead, and then stabbed them in the backs. We viewers saw this coming all season, of course, but these knuckleheads seemed to have no clue what Paul’s real plan was all along.

It’s time for the Final 5 Eviction. Kevin says he wants to keep fighting. Alex starts crying in her speech and says she’s struggled since the first night. She apologizes to Jason’s family for failing him and begs to win America’s Favorite Player.

Christmas votes to evict Alex. Paul votes to evict Kevin. It’s another tie, just like with Jason last week. Josh votes to evict Alex, which means Alex is evicted 2-1!

Josh is very emotional and calls Alex one of the strongest competitors, crying yet again. Alex literally walks out like a boss, drinking a can of Coke.

Alex wanted to choke Paul when he didn’t use the PoV and says he played a very shady game. (Oh, big news! Tear out the front page!)

She wishes she won the Final 7 PoV and used it to save Jason instead of letting Paul win it.

It’s time for the HoH completion. The gang will be playing “What the Bleep,” the quiz about things said inside the house with key words bleeped out. It’s also the same Final 4 HoH competition that Paul won last year.

Once again, Paul dominates the competition. He gets all five questions correct, and is the only one who answers correctly for three of those questions. He easily wins and becomes the new HoH.

Julie Chen doesn’t even have to ask the last two questions because it’s a total runaway.

That’s kind of a perfect metaphor for the season, actually.

This means that Paul is guaranteed a spot in the Final 3 without ever being on the block.

There are only three episodes left of ‘Big Brother 19.’ The show airs tonight and Friday, and the two-hour finale is airs next Wednesday.

Until then, head over to BuddyTV to read spoilers and play fun ‘Big Brother 19’ games and quizzes!

(Photos: CBS)