The final three houseguests in the Big Brother 18 house have been making deals and gossiping left and right.

Final 3 Houseguests: James Huling, Nicole Franzel and Paul Abrahamian

As is often the case when Big Brother gets down to the Final 3, there are all kinds of deals being made. Paul has made a Final 2 deal with James, James has made a deal with Nicole, and Nicole has made a deal with Paul. And every time one person gets called to the Diary Room, the other two houseguests conspire against them and reaffirm their deal.

This was the case throughout Thursday on the live feeds, but it's looking more and more like Paul is the safest bet for a Final 2 slot. He has been much more on top of his deals with both James and Nicole, and both seem to be more interested in taking him than the other person. Nicole actually admitted to Paul that she thought James has played a worse game than Victoria, who notoriously played a very weak game in Big Brother 16.

Of course, this could mean that Nicole is thinking she can easily beat James in the Final 2, but at the same time she has been talking much more extensively with Paul than with James this week. This suggests she's definitely considering bringing Paul to the end with her. Who would win in that scenario remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, James was feeling confident throughout the day because his talks with Paul led him to believe that they would definitely go to the end together, while he also thought Nicole didn't want to bring Paul with her to the end. As such, he assumed he was going to the Final 2 either way. Again, we'll see if this is indeed the case.

James and Nicole will face off in Part 2 of the final HOH competition today, with the winner going on to face Paul in Part 3, during Wednesday night's live finale.

Big Brother 18 airs another new episode Friday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

Tags: Big Brother Reality TV CBS