Big Brother recap: The premiere, part II
- TV Show
With the exception of the contestants vaguely getting to know each other, Tuesday’s Big Brother premiere was largely about one thing: establishing a “Camp Director,” a person with “unprecedented power” to change the game. After a close vote, it was Southern boy Jackson who came out on top, securing the position that could either put a target on his back or give him a leg up in the game. Immediately, it became clear that Camp Director would be a thankless task. He was charged with picking four people to “banish” to a competition, with only three of those four returning to the house. High stakes right off the bat.
The second part of the premiere picks up right after the competition, with everyone except Jackson still covered in slime. That means everyone immediately tries to make their case for why they shouldn’t be banished. Jessica talks about being loyal to him, Cliff uses that dumb Texas schtick. Everyone has an angle…except Kemi. She says she’s not about to go scratching his back, begging him to be safe, when he hasn’t done anything for her. I love that attitude—Jackson is all “ugh, I hate this responsibility” but the reality is that he loves the attention—but it does come back to bite him.
Jackson ponders his decision for a while, especially wondering if he should banish David, who also stepped up to be Camp Director. He even talks to David about it, trying to be “honest” in the hopes of keeping a potential relationship intact. He basically tells David that he’ll banish him so that he can win the competition. Unsurprisingly, David isn’t too convinced by the argument…because it’s a dumb argument.
Nonetheless, after hemming and hawing and talking about what a tough decision this is, Jackson does the predictable, putting up the oldest member of the house in Cliff, the two black contestants in David and Kemi, and then Jessica. Jackson is that typical Big Brother player who thinks he’s like eight steps ahead of everyone, but is really just tied to his predictable gut instinct. He won’t last, trust me on this. He’s feigning depth where there is none.
Anyways, those four end up banished into the “woods,” where they must navigate their way back to the BB house in complete darkness. They go through all sorts of false entrances; there’s one that’s House Bee Bee, and is filled with honey; another is House B-Ball, and contains an air horn and flying balls. Much to the surprise of the house, Cliff is the first one back, his strategy of sticking to the outside of the woods paying off. Then Kemi finds her way back, and it’s down to Jessica and David.
Look, Big Brother didn’t play up the David drama for nothing. Jessica gets back in third place, and that means David is out of the house…”for now,” as Julie Chen says. Now I have to spend this entire season hoping for him to come back and annihilate Jackson’s game.
With David gone, it’s on to the first Head of Household competition. Before that can even happen, Jack and Jackson are working on their numbers. They form a Power 6 alliance with Isabella, Christie, Tommy, and Holly, promising to make it through this competition and come out of eviction unscathed. Everyone seems to assume Jack is going to kill the competition, which involves holding on to a cylinder that’s dangling in the air for as long as you can because he has muscles, but as any Survivor fan knows it’s always the smaller bodies that win these types of competitions.
Sure enough, after the big boys drop out, Christie snags the win for her secret alliance. There’s strategy here already: Ovi drops out early so that he’s not on “anyone’s radar,” and Jackson tries to seem random in how he’s choosing the pairings for the competition so that he doesn’t draw more attention to himself as the Camp Director. (Side note: the pairings made no difference at all, as this was a singles competition, so Jackson’s strategy means absolutely nothing. The pairs were meaningless!).
So that’s where we’re at heading into Sunday. More people are covered in slime, Christie is the H.O.H, and the Power 6 is feeling confident. That usually means something fun is about to go down.
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