I mean there's two things about this. The first is that Luke wasn't coddled but was a plant to begin with. And they've tried to shoehorn him in to the show at a pivotal moment and basically given him godmode because he has an advantage over both the oldfish and the newfish.
The second is that its kind of expected that production will fuck up some stuff and screw around with the rules a bit, but at the end of the show if the winner is wildly unfair it just betrays the audience's trust in the show. Like a lot of the experience is wacky and enjoyable even if the show got cancelled now, but if they fuck with stuff too much people will not be as emotionally invested in the outcome of future seasons - that would basically mean production could shoot themselves in the foot hardcore if they fuck up stuff too much.
The same sort of thing happened in season 1. It was pretty clear that production kept Josie (the most worthless contestant ever) around because she was printing money so they had to at least give Letty a consolation prize because she deserved it. If production hadn't done that people would've been a bit pissed off and they may just not bother watching future seasons because of it.
TLDR: Production have to tread carefully, because people (the audience) are now emotionally invested after watching this shit for 4 weeks straight. If they fuck it up too much then they will betray viewer's trust and they might not bother watching future seasons.
