So we made it. Big Brother 16 is underway with our first 8 housemates safely locked away and under constant surveillance. But first, let me take a selfie…
I never knew the Chenbot was capable of such emotion revealing facial expressions. Julie Chen opened the evening’s proceedings inside the house wearing a sexy red dress like she was Liz fucking Hurley in Bedazzled; less Big Brother appropriate and more dinner date/sex night with Les Moonves. I guess she had plans after the show. Go get ’em Julie!
I always struggle with Big Brother premiere episodes because the whole housemates receiving their keys segment is so obviously set-up it is cringe-inducing to watch. “I’m going on Big Brother?! No way! That’s why this camera crew are filming me? I would have never of guessed!” Although Big Brother has never been a show that treats it’s audience with any sort of intelligence, that’s why they feel the need to have the housemates re-explain every single detail over and over again to the point of nausea.
THE FIRST EIGHT
Paola aka Pow Pow is a DJ from New York who clearly has the spirit of GinaMarie possessing her. You can so tell those two are besties; from the in-your-face New York attitude to the obvious stalker vibes she is sending the way of Cody California. She says she is planning to manipulate all the guys, even the ugly ones, so at least she’s into equal rights. After hearing Paola’s voice all episode, did anyone else start hearing Jenny Slate as Pretty Liz from Kroll Show?
I think Pow Pow has the ability to come across really obnoxious but she managed to just about contain herself on the first night. Yes, she was excitable, but that is acceptable somewhat when you first enter the house. She spear-headed the all girl alliance, El Cuatro, which sounds like some sort of Mexican luchador, and she already sunk her claws into Cody, day-dreaming of licking his sunscreen covered abs during the HoH competition – hasn’t anyone ever told her do not get sunscreen in your mouth?
Groundskeeper Donny, the soft spoken, bearded Southern gent. Donny described his typical day as waking up at 6am and eating a Pop Tart, heading to work for 8 and half hours, coming home and sleeping. Any man that eats Pop Tarts for breakfast is my kinda guy.
Donny is one of the more switched on players when it comes to the game of Big Brother, that’s why I hate that the producers feel the need to give him the country bumpkin background music during his segments. Why not give him a pair of dungarees and a fucking banjo while you’re at it? You might as well go the whole hog. Despite the show trying to portray him as Cletus from The Simpsons, Donny actually had a successful night, coming across as friendly and approachable, and finding himself in a couple of alliances off the bat.
Given the USA’s success so far in the 2014 World Cup, it is appropriate that former professional football player (I refuse to call it soccer, come on guys!) Cody is part of the BB16 cast. I’m not sure what league Cody played in, the Shirtless Football Association by the looks of it, or maybe his team just had severe budget cuts and couldn’t afford kits. I imagine this guy will spend the majority of the summer topless, turning him into Big Brother’s version of Ryan Gosling.
All joking aside, Cody is clearly a good-looking dude, so why wouldn’t he show off that body? Especially in the game of Big Brother where you have crazies like Pow Pow who I’m sure would sell out her all-girls alliance in a heartbeat just for one quick lick of Cody’s abs. Cody had a good showing in this first episode, he put in a decent performance in the HoH comp, and came across generally likable and easy-going. And he wasn’t wearing a shirt, did I mention that?
Next up is Frankie, oh wait a minute, I’m sorry…
There we go. I forgot which Grande was on the show for a second. Seriously, it took less than 10 seconds for Frankie’s first mention of his half-sister Ariana Grande, and the references just kept on coming, CBS even forked out the money to play one of her songs, I’m guessing it cost a lot more than “Default Country Bumpkin Music #1”. Frankie also described himself as the Queen of YouTube, err, once again…
I don’t want to feel the abuse of 16 million Ariana Grande fans though, so I best say something positive about Frankie sooner rather than later. In fact, Frankie actually impressed me on his first night, I’m not sure winning the first HoH this season was the wisest move, but he proved he can hang in the competitions, and seems to have people on his side. How he handles the power this week will be very telling how the future of his game pans out.
Amber is billed as this year’s athletic chick and says that she tells guys that they shouldn’t worry about her dad with a gun, they should worry about her. I think if the housemates should be worried about anyone with a gun this season it should be Derrick.
I thought Amber did pretty good on her first night, especially for someone that isn’t very familiar with the show. I reckon she will be the comp goddess of the season if her performance in the opening HoH comp was anything to go by, she kicked ass, although she needs to learn how to convincingly throw a challenge. I called her having the hots for Devin too, unfortunately for her, or maybe fortunately, Devin seems to have the hots for Joey…I didn’t call that!
That’s why they didn’t give Donny dungarees, they already gave them to Nicole, the blond country chick from Michigan. Nicole says that she is quirky and kind of has an accent, there is no “kind of” about it Nicole, you for sure have an accent. Nicole sort of reminds me of someone…
Credit to earthdog on Survivor Sucks.
Scarily similar! Nicole was one of the housemates I was most unsure of pre-season, I felt like she had the ability to become the new Jordan, but could just as easily be stand-offish and catty. Judging on one episode it seems she is more the ditzy Jordan type, and that could work out well for her in the long run.
Devin, the former professional baseball player and single-dad, who looks like The Rock and smiles like fucking Jack Nicholson. Seriously. That smile is creepy. I wouldn’t trust this guy as far as I could throw Dwayne Johnson.
Devin to me came across as slightly slimey and too quick to form alliances. Creating the big 8 person alliance made sense based on the likelihood of another 8 people coming into the house, but the side-alliance with Donny merely hours into the game seemed very phoney. And he better keep his hands off my girl Joey!
Last but certainly not least is my pre-season fave Joey, the blue haired make-up artist from Seattle. Joey said she is on the look out for any hot liberal men in the house, will probably end up hooking up with Caleb now she’s said that.
Credit to PassThePaxil on Survivor Sucks.
Joey had a good showing on her first night, bonding over hair dye with Frankie, the current HoH, and becoming part of the El Cuatro girl alliance, which in her pre-season interviews Joey said she was looking for. If she can keep up her fun attitude she could go far, but I sense a little naïveté with Joey, and once this game really gets going it could put her positive outlook on life to the test.
THE ALLIANCES
The Crazy 8s.
It’s only night one and already there are more alliances than even Brian Hart can keep up with. Sure it made sense for this first group of 8 to solidify an alliance, because it was quite clear there would be at least another 8 housemates joining them, but any of them thinking this is anything more than a loosely thrown together security blanket is kidding themselves. Plus Frankie nick-named this alliance The Crazy 8s, I’m guessing he hasn’t seen Breaking Bad, because [spoiler alert ] that is some bad foreboding for their lives in this game.
An alliance this big will never work, I give it two weeks tops before it crumbles apart. First night alliances are doomed to fail because it is near impossible to pledge your allegiance to somebody you hardly know and could possibly want to kill come week two.
Double Ds.
Smaller alliances, particularly those with just two people fair much better in the game of Big Brother, from Danielle and Jason, to Dick and Daniele, to Dan and Memphis. So although I don’t really trust Devin’s intentions, I think his secret alliance with Donny could prove successful in the short term, until one of them screws things up, and I’m betting on that being Devin. They are calling themselves the Double Ds, no not those kind of Double Ds unfortunately…
The third alliance of the night had a feminine touch.
El Cuatro.
Pow Pow took the initiative to approach Amber, Joey and Nicole and form an all girl alliance, naming them El Cuatro, despite Nicole having no clue what it meant. The idea of an all girl alliance in theory is exciting, myself and many fans of Big Brother have been begging to see a successful girl alliance for years, however, forming this clique on night one doesn’t fill me with hope. As Rob Cesternino has pointed out on his podcast, having a number in your alliance name isn’t the smartest idea as it becomes too exclusive, it means coming up with another alliance name if they were to add more members, and alliances with sub-alliances can often become too complicated and quickly disintegrate.
THE TWISTS
I was on on board with the two Head of Households twist, it should hopefully force a change in game-play and perhaps get rid of the stupid “vote with the house” mantra that often dominates the early portion of the game. The Battle of the Block competition between the dueling HoHs sounds intriguing and could potentially lead to some great moments throughout the season.
What I’m not on board with is Team America. Each year CBS pump up the amount of viewer involvement with the show, and that’s fine, Big Brother is an interactive show around the world. But the Team America twist, where the viewers get to choose three housemates to be in a “Team America” alliance sounds like a terrible decision that will lead to an excessive amount of manipulation.
Now, fair enough, we don’t yet know the full details of the Team America twist, but the way it has been explained so far sounds like it is a new version of the America’s Player twist, but instead of America controlling just one housemate, they will be controlling an entire alliance. If this means that America can decide who the alliance nominates and/or evicts each week then I fear we are in for the most rigged season since Big Brother 8.
That’s night one down. And we get to do it all over again tonight when we meet the other 8 lunatics willing to put their lives in the hands of the Big Brother gods.
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