Reality TV Thoughts

Returning players, past players’ siblings, a day one eviction, two battle backs, glorious downfalls, brutal betrayals, iconic personalities, plenty of showmances, ugly fights, social media drama, icky comments, and a nailbiter winner reveal. Big Brother 18 is a season that has it all. Despite having a little bit of everything, Big Brother 18 has never been a particularly revered as one of the top tier seasons of Big Brother. Now that a decade has passed since #BB18 premiered, how well does it hold up and can it compete with the best Big Brother has to offer?

Premiere Night: A Jam-Packed Start

The premiere is largely in-line with the average modern Big Brother season. We get introduced to the twelve brand-new houseguests through the obligatory staged introduction videos. I mean, I really don’t get the point of those. No one actually believes that these people are only finding out they’re going to be on Big Brother when there’s a giant camera in front of them. The two standouts of the new houseguests are obviously Paulie Calafiore and Tiffany Rousso, the siblings of BB16 runner-up Cody and BB17 3rd Placer Vanessa respectively. Once the houseguests enter the house, we get setup to potential showmances, as usual. Paul also begins making a name for himself here, getting described by everyone, including himself, as loud and obnoxious. His brashness and long beard make him one of the clear standouts. Bronte also gets a fair bit of focus, mainly due to her child-like voice and mentioning to the audience that she’s a mathematician at every possible opportunity.

Of course, no modern Big Brother season would ever only have twelve houseguests, so Julie introduces the first of many twists of the summer, the four stowaways. Nicole Franzel is the first one to pop out of the luggage, receiving mixed reactions. Funnily enough, we get a lot of setup for Nicole’s future relationships right off the bat. Firstly, Natalie is excited to see Nicole, thinking she’s really sweet. Sad considering how her game ends. Paulie is apprehensive, knowing Cody evicted Nicole in BB16, but she ends up being be one of his closest allies. And then Michelle says she often gets told she looks like Nicole, but they’re completely different. Great setup for what would turn into the funniest rivalry of the season.

James is introduced next, with Bridgette saying he’ll be a lot of fun. A lackluster entrance for a lackluster performance. Da’Vonne pops out next, the earliest evicted houseguest to ever be brought back until BB22. Her relationship with James is reintroduced and Paul says she’ll be lucky to make it two weeks in this time. Da’Vonne was such a pleasant surprise to be brought back, someone who provided top tier entertainment in her short BB17 run. And she gave us the second most iconic Big Brother GIF, only beaten by Elissa’s laughing GIF. Frank is the final returning houseguest, ditching his long hair and coming in with a plan to be a social player this time around. He comes in with a lot of potential and I’m sure he won’t end up disappointing people.

Jozea leads the charge on targeting the vets right off the bat. He, Paul, and Victor are the most vocal advocates against the vets and agree they all need to go. This is something that will surely happen and not completely blow up in their faces. The vets know they need to work together for the time being, while Paulie is freaking out and decides to reveal to everyone that he is Cody’s brother. Tiffany, in contrast, stays quiet, but Da’Vonne instantly knows she’s Vanessa’s sister anyways. Fortunately for Tiffany, Da’Vonne decides to keep that information to herself, for now.

Julie then announces the second twist of the night: that the houseguests will be playing in teams of four and that they need to start getting ready for their first competition right now. The teams are determined via schoolyard pick, with the vets getting the first picks. The teams are Frank, Michelle, Paulie, and Bridgette on Category 4, Nicole, Corey, Tiffany, and Glenn on the Freakazoids, James, Natalie, Victor, and Bronte on Team Unicorn, and Da’Vonne, Paul, Zakiyah, and Jozea on Big Sister.

With the teams decided, the first competition is on. Each team must stay on a slippery rocket for as long as possible. Each team receives a different punishment or prize depending on how they place, but the most important one is the prize for first place. The first place team arrives at Safetyville, earning them safety for the next two evictions, one of which will happen that day. Team Unicorn wins thanks to Victor, meaning all of them will be able to survive week one unscathed.

After a short inteval, Julie announces the second competion, “Hit the Road,” which will be played in three rounds, with two teams earning safety in the first two rounds and the last team competing against each other to not be evicted on day 1. The three surviving members of the losing team will then decide amongst themselves which one of them should the first head of household. The Day 1 eviction obviously blows, but the HOH coming from the losing team is interesting. The fact its decided by the team instead of a competition adds another layer to it. The first round is a pyramid puzzle-building team challenge. Category 4 and Big Sister both drop their entire puzzle multiple times, with Da’Vonne and Paul beefing over their team strategy. In the diary room, Da’Vonne says that Paul is way too aggressive, but that she needs to play nice. The Freakozoids are one block away from winning for like half an hour only to end up losing their entire stack. Category 4 wins the first round, saving them from the Night 1 eviction. In the interval between rounds one and two, the Corey and Nicole relationship begins, with Corey comforting her over their loss. The start of the most strategically successful showmance of the season. The second round is a sandcastle puzzle building challenge. On Big Sister, Paul and Da’Vonne’s rivalry continues, while on the Freakazoids, Glenn notices a piece in the foundation is wrong but no one listens to him until its too late. Big Sister manages to pull it out and Da’Vonne has an emotional moment in the diary room after just having been so close to getting evicted. Paul says that even though they won, Da’Vonne is still on his radar. The premiere episode ends with Nicole, Corey, Tiffany, and Glenn’s games in jeopardy.

Premiere Night 2: Losing a Twelve vs Four Fight

The second night of premiere week starts with the Freakazoids all being dejected about being in danger. Glenn is fed up with his team, but is now happy he gets to play for himself in the final round… which will surely work out for him. Nicole tells us this is the most stressed she’s been in either of her seasons. Tiffany takes it the worst, feeling like she’s disappointing her sister, who was such a good player in comparison to her. She feels so much pressure on her and needs to tell someone about her ‘secret.’ Da’Vonne comforts her and takes this as an opportunity to get a newbie on the vets side. She gets Tiffany to admit she’s Vanessa’s sister and tells Tiffany to give it all she’s got. Paul tries to get the Freakazoids to target the vets when one of them gets HOH, but Corey is not sure that’s what he wants to do. With 3/4 of the Freakazoids working with the vets at this point, it becomes pretty clear the plot to target the vets is going to completely fall apart. Nicole tells us she is going to take a more proactive approach to the game this time and advocates to Corey to let her become the HOH. She does this by convincing him being the first HOH would put a huge target on his back and that she would be helping him by taking the HOH. A great play that seemingly gets Corey on board and is the start of Nicole’s underrated and strong gameplay this season.

For the final round, the Freakazoids must line up coconuts on a wobbly island to spell out SOS. The last one to do so is eliminated. The four of them are neck-and-neck most of the challenge and the newbies are cheering for everyone except Nicole. Frank at this point feels its obvious the newbies are trying to target the vets. They’re not even being slick about it! Nicole finishes the challenge first, followed by Tiffany. Glenn and Corey are the last two, with Glenn putting up a surprisingly strong fight. The two complete the challenge in a photo finish. After a replay, it is confirmed that Glenn finished last and is the first houseguest evicted. Corey came shockingly close to losing here, but at the end, the person most expected to be a first boot did end up being the first boot.

The remaining three Freakazoids huddle around to decide who should be HOH. Tiffany and Corey both don’t want it, while Nicole has to pretend she doesn’t as well. After making a deal that the two of them won’t target her when the teams are split up, Nicole becomes the first HOH of the summer. Paul is pissed, his plan to target the vets immediately down the toilet. However, the vets are ecstatic, knowing that with Nicole as HOH, they’re safe as well.

Once the houseguests are back inside the house, Corey is cornered by Paul on why he gave up the HOH power to Nicole, while Paulie forms a bond with Nicole and James. All the while, as if the newbies’ plan to target the vets isn’t already in shambles, Victor pushes it off a cliff by for some reason telling Nicole his entire plan. He tells her about the newbies targeting the vets and how Jozea is the leader of that. Nicole is flabbergasted at why he did this, accidentally giving her an easy nomination. What was his thought process? Did he think by saying this, she would turn against the vets and work with people eager to evict her? In this one moment, it becomes pretty apparent that Victor is not a good player and, in retrospect, why he ends up getting evicted three times.

The string of terrible gameplay continues with Jozea talking strategy with Da’Vonne on the hammock. He’s telling her about how the vets are all on his pecking order, with Nicole at the top of his list. Da’Vonne doesn’t need to worry, though, because she’ll be the last one left. Da’Vonne rightfully mocks him in the diary room and, of course, immediately tells all of this to Nicole. Nicole is now set on targeting Jozea, but she needs a pawn sitting next to him…

Nicole tells Corey that she wants to nominate Jozea and Paulie, with Paulie as a pawn to make sure Jozea loses the veto. The vets and Paulie talk in the HOH room, where Nicole tells Paulie about the plan. He is obviously apprehensive about it, but ends up agreeing, as we learn after the nomination ceremony. At said nomination ceremony, Jozea and Paulie are indeed nominated. Jozea ends up calling Nicole a snake in the diary room, something that may not have been true at that point, but certainly is by the end of the season. Jozea’s prophecy. Before moving on to the rest of week one, I need to talk about how bad of a move it was to nominate Paulie as a pawn. I mean, you couldn’t just nominate Paul or something to guarantee someone targeting the vets goes home? It works out, obviously, but this is one of the few qualms that I have with Nicole’s game.

Glenn Garcia: Predictable First Boot, Unpredictable Drama Stirrer

Glenn being the first boot was not unexpected in the slightest. A preseason poll by Morty’s TV had 25% of people predicting he’d be the first boot. Obviously, given he’s a day one boot, there isn’t much to say about his time in the house. He seemed to be aligned with the newbies to target the vets, but not much else is known. What there is a lot to be said about is his secret Twitter account. This happened after the season was over, but the #Glennexposedparty was such a glorious disaster. It was like this season’s final gift. For a short TLDR, Glenn created a fan account of himself where he made a bunch of weird comments about Natalie and other female houseguests. It’s a fun rabbit hole to explore if you’re ever bored.

Week 1: The MESSiah

Much like every other modern BB season, BB18’s first week sees a large, oversized alliance coalesce around the current HOH. This alliance is the 8-Pack, an alliance consisting of the four vets and then newbie allies in Corey, Michelle, Tiffany, and Zakiyah. Much like every other alliance of that size, this alliance does not last long, with cracks forming before the first week is even over.

The first day of feeds starts off after the winner of the brand new Roadkill Competition and 3rd Nominee have been decided. While it is unclear at first who won the Roadkill Comp, we do quickly learn that Paul is the third nominee. It seems the effort to target the vets has really not worked out at all. Speculation is rampant on who the Roadkill winner is, with Corey claiming people think he won it and Jozea being adamant that Michelle is the Roadkill winner. As becomes precedent for the rest of the week, Jozea is confidently wrong. It’s obvious that Jozea and pretty much everyone else on the anti-vet side of the house are recruits, which leads to some hilariously wrong takes and errors. The veto competition happens on the first day of feeds, with Paul winning it.

After Paul’s win, it becomes clear that most of the house is sick of Jozea and can’t wait to blindside him at the end of the week. Jozea and his side of the house are completely aloof to this, even by the end of the week. Frank confirms that he is the Roadkill winner to Corey, someone who Jozea never once theorized won and thought was with the newbies. Jozea takes the spot as the most delusional and hated houseguest of the week, but that doesn’t mean that his two main men, Paul and Victor, are any less hated. The 8-Pack are eyeing up Victor as a target for the next week and see Paul as his right-hand man. Paul is the only one to put in some good work this week, slowly building a relationship with Nicole as the other two implode. But even then, he considers not using the veto on himself for some reason, having to be convinced by Nicole to play it. Once he does play it with, Bridgette is the replacement nominee, funnily enough put up by her future ride or die partner, Frank. She’s never seriously considered for eviction, though.

In one of the many examples of blatant sexism and misogyny this season, Jozea’s trio believes that James is somehow the mastermind of the vets and Nicole isn’t a serious threat. Being underestimated becomes a key part of Nicole’s strategy later on, but is so frustrating to see these men not even considering that a woman could actually be a threat. I mean, the most James does this week is annoy people with unfunny pranks such as leaving cracker crumbs over people’s beds and wasting food for no reason.

Throughout the rest of the week, Jozea’s delusions continue. He believes that all of the vets minus Nicole are on his side somehow. He’s hosting house meetings where he lays out his entire strategy to everyone and makes it clear who his targets are. He talks about his mastermind strategy to Paulie while having a toothbrush in between his ear. He talks about how if he wins HOH, he’ll follow the warrior code and let everyone else decide who the nominees should be. The absolute disaster-class from Jozea distracts us from how poorly his allies are playing this as well. Firstly, the all-women Spy Girls alliance (Natalie, Bronte, Bridgette) are with Jozea, even as Bridgette slowly forms a bond with Frank. Of these three, Bronte is by far the worst player. She makes it very clear to the other side of the house that she’s against them and can’t even hide her disdain for her. Even as Jozea’s trio blatantly disrespect her (the backyard pool scene), she is still happily on their side. Victor is just as confidently incorrect as Jozea is the first week, believing he has people like Zakiyah and Da’Vonne on his side all week. Even as Natalie begins to suspect a Jozea blindside, he refuses to listen, another example of how little he thinks of the women. He’s also hotheaded, with Paulie taking notes of this and wanting to trick him into swinging on him. Side note, Paulie was always built for The Challenge.

The 8-Pack, despite being the dominant alliance at this point, cannot even hold it together for one week. Rivalries are beginning to form between the group. Surprisingly, it’s not between Michelle and Nicole, with their rivalry starting much later, but instead all revolves around Tiffany. Frank and Tiffany get into multiple arguments, with Tiffany crying and venting to other 8-pack members about it. They all start losing trust in her. The men of the 8-Pack discuss the pecking order, with James critically saying he can get Natalie to flip. Natalie is easily the only good player of that side of the house, at this point at least, with her being fed up with Jozea’s trio and wanting to branch out. In the end, she still votes to evict Paulie, though. It doesn’t matter, as Jozea is evicted in a 7-4-0 vote. The first of many great downfalls this season.

Jozea Flores: Delusional

Jozea stayed in the house the perfect amount of time. Despite only lasting one week (technically two) in the Big Brother house, he stayed the perfect amount of time to simultaneously become an iconic personality and not overstay his welcome. If he stayed even a week longer, he would become very grating very quickly. We were lucky that he did not win the battle back and become an overbearing personality on a comeback. Now that ten years have passed, we can look at him as an iconic week one boot instead of as one of the most annoying houseguests of all time.

Week 2: Unrootable Underdog

Victor and Frank are proof that all it takes to become a fan favorite in the eyes of the American public is to be an underdog. It doesn’t matter how badly you treat others, or why you are in the poor position you find yourself in, but only that you are in that poor position. Week 2 of BB18 starts off as a simple Victor boot but devolves into the destruction of the Eight-Pack by the end of the week.

Paulie emerges victorious in a team-based HOH competition, keeping his team of Category 4 safe. James threw the competition to ensure that Victor and Bronte would be on the chopping block, a noble sacrifice and definitely the last competition he will throw. With Paulie’s victory, the Victor eviction is in full motion, even as Victor proposes an all-guys alliance to save himself. Interestingly enough, gender wars are a major theme this week, as the men are worried about the 6-8, soon to be 5-8, deficit they find themselves in.

Paulie and his allies decide that the best path is to backdoor Victor, with Bronte as the backup target in case something goes wrong. With that plan in place, Bronte and Paul are nominated as pawns. The roadkill competition throws a small wrench in Paulie’s plans with Victor winning. Luckily for them, Victor is not the best Big Brother player, telling Paulie and Nicole he won the roadkill competition, which spreads to the entire house in a matter of hours. Why would you ever tell two people you’re not aligned with about your secret power?! Victor decides to nominate Tiffany with his power, which sends her into a descent of paranoia and ultimately leads to the Eight-Pack’s self implosion. Victor unintentionally almost saves himself through his choice. Almost.

Paulie wins the Power of Veto, and with it, predictably takes Paul off the block to backdoor Victor. Now that the nominees are set, though, the real fun begins. During the POV competition, Tiffany’s paranoia got to her, so despite being safe, she tries her hardest to win. This rubs Da’vonne the wrong way, as she could have completely ruined the Victor backdoor if she won. Da’vonne and Zakiyah agree that Tiffany must go soon. Not before Frank, though, as he has already rubbed almost every woman in the house the wrong way. He has called Zakiyah and Da’vonne sl*ts and made comments about Zakiyah’s teeth, for example. Beyond just being creepy, he’s also being sneaky, making deals with practically everyone, even those outside his alliance. He even exposed the Eight-Pack to Paulie, something Da’vonne and Zakiyah were particularly pissed about. In the span of two weeks, Frank has squandered his power, straight down to the bottom like he was during BB14. Plans are being made to blindside Frank the next week, with the Eight-Pack minus Corey all being on board to evict him. In one of his first red flag moments, Paulie questions if the women are simply saying Frank makes them uncomfortable for strategy purposes. He is so blinded by gender wars he can’t take people’s genuine concerns seriously.

Where is Victor in all of this? Well he’s not really campaigning, thinking he has six votes against Tiffany and that she’ll be the one leaving. Most of the talk about Victor comes from Natalie, who claims he’s mean to her and that she can’t wait to vote him out. He comes off as sort of a jerk, calling Natalie immature for her age and cuddling with her while telling her he doesn’t want a showmance. If it weren’t for the battle backs, he would be a forgotten, early boot by now. Luckily for him, he’ll get two more lives after this.

Week 3: Bridgette’s Frank’s HOH Reign

In one of the worst case scenarios for everyone hoping to evict Frank, Bridgette becomes the third HOH. Oh, excuse me, Frank actually becomes the third HOH. Not only are Bridgette and Frank both on Category 4, meaning Frank is now safe, but Frank had been buddying up to Bridgette and it’s about to pay off big time. Frank essentially hijacks Bridgette’s HOH reign, controlling her nominations to target his mortal enemy, Tiffany, and then winning the roadkill comp to have total control over the nominations. To make things even better for Frank, Bridgette wins the veto, meaning the pariah duo has complete control over the week. All of that just for one of Bridgette’s closest allies ends up getting evicted anyways…

With all of the power this week, Frank displays his worst behavior. He has a creepy tendency to slap women’s butts to display affection, which he claims he does to his mother and grandmother. He does this to Zakiyah and Da’vonne specifically, while also demeaning them with insults and telling them to shut their mouths. Da’vonne eventually has enough and yells at Frank to stop doing that. Frank later does a half-assed apology which Da’vonne is forced to accept for the sake of her game. Despite production’s tendency to protect their golden boys by any means possible, they surprisingly show this moment on the show. What a sad downfall for Frank. But not surprising, given production shielded him in the BB14 edit despite feed watchers from that time saying all he did was trash talk everyone else with Boogie and that’s why he was such an underdog. Goes to show anyone can be made likable simply by the virtue of being an underdog, no matter how horrible they are. Only now that he is no longer an underdog does the casual audience finally see his true colors.

As for the game, Bridgette Frank nominates Tiffany and Paul for eviction, with Tiffany as the target and Paul as a pawn yet again. With his roadkill power, Frank nominates Bronte, still wanting to save face with the Eight Pack. Funnily enough, in the diary room after the roadkill nomination, Bridgette says whoever put Bronte up better watch their back. In a fun, memory-based veto competition, Bridgette wins and injures her ankle. Bridgette contemplates using the veto to save Bronte, but Natalie convinces her out of it because she fears she will be the replacement nominee. They are confident that Tiffany is going home regardless, so Bronte is willing to stay on the block for Natalie.

The Spy Girls were correct in their assumption. For most of the week, Tiffany is indeed going home. Da’vonne starts working with Tiffany to target Frank next week and wants to keep her, but no one else is really on board. In fact, it only seems to put a target on her back, as Nicole and Corey lose trust in her and she becomes a potential target. Even after talks of potentially flipping, the likes of Paulie and James feel that Tiffany is a bigger threat than Bronte and that she needs to go. A shift happens the night before the eviction, as the conversation becomes less about Tiffany vs Bronte and more about how to spite Frank the most. Michelle, Paulie, and Nicole want to keep Tiffany to both frazzle Frank and have her go after him while he’ll still have tunnel vision on targeting Tiffany. James, Corey, and Zakiyah are all brought in on the plan, deciding to split the vote 5-4 to confuse Frank. So, come eviction night, Bronte is evicted in a 5-4 vote, leaving Bridgette and Frank blindsided right before the infamous booth comp.

Bronte D’Acquisto: The Mathematician

After being casually cruel but with a sweet nasally voice for the first two weeks of BB18, Bronte became way more chill in her last week in the house. She mainly just hung around all of the girls and tried to unite them together. During her last week, she even revealed the most groundbreaking secret of the season to Bridgette and Natalie, telling them she’s a mathematician! She seemed to be on an upward trajectory, not really being on anyone’s immediate hitlist if she had survived against Tiffany. Unfortunately for her, Frank’s awfulness squashed her chances. Make sure to never ask her what 9×9 equals!

Week 4: The Unlikeliest of Duos

In the crapshoot booth competition, the house majority comes in with a clear plan to evict Frank, so his Category 4 teammates Paulie and Michelle have agreed to throw the competition. However, when most of the house is eliminated after merely three questions, Paulie, Frank, and Nicole are the only ones left. Not wanting to risk a Frank HOH win, Paulie ditches the original plan and wins the competition, earning him his second HOH reign. Unfortunately, the downside of this is that both Frank and Bridgette are now safe as members of Category 4. Still, with an easy target in Tiffany, this should be an easy week…

All hell breaks loose after the HOH competition. The last minute flip to save Tiffany combined with Frank being safe for another week leads to complete chaos. At the core of this chaos are Frank, Tiffany, and Da’vonne. Frank and Bridgette are pissed about the flip and Frank is going all around the house trying to figure out who did it. On the other side of the house, Da’vonne and Paulie have buyer’s remorse, wishing they had just evicted Tiffany like originally planned. Both are worried that Tiffany will run to Frank and Bridgette now, even after they saved her. Tiffany, even after being saved, feels more isolated than ever. She has lost all trust in Da’vonne and all of the 8-pack members, even mentioning self-evicting. This feeling of isolation is enough for her to make a deal with the devil, initiating an alliance with Frank. She exposes the last minute flip to him and says that it was Da’vonne who flipped the votes. This culminates in Tiffany melting down to Da’vonne and Zakiyah, saying they’ve both treated her horribly and have hid everything from her the entire game. Da’vonne attempts to bring the conversation back to the game but Tiffany continues venting. Once Nicole and Corey come in, Tiffany becomes upset with them too and confronts Corey about him calling her a crybaby who wouldn’t leave him alone. This is true, but the two of them deny it and try to pin it on Frank, and Nicole gets strangely offended on Corey’s behalf.

As for the HOH himself, Paulie decides pretty quickly to target Tiffany and use Natalie as a pawn. Throughout the week, he continually compares her to Vanessa as justification for targeting her. After the nomination ceremony, Tiffany tells Frank about how Nicole is “the fakest of them all” and that she wants to target Corey if she wins the roadkill. Frank relays this to Bridgette and the two agree to nominate Corey if they win. Once the competition arrives, Tiffany indeed wins it and nominates Corey as planned. Funnily enough, Corey is absolutely positive that Tiffany could not have won the roadkill comp.

Corey wins the veto competition, which he was initially going to throw to Paul, but changed his mind after seeing how slow Paul was. With their initial target safe, Tiffany and Frank go all in on targeting Da’vonne. Tiffany tells Corey and Paul that she was the roadkill winner and tries exposing Da’vonne for playing everyone since day 2. Paul plays double agent and relays this information back to Paulie, alongside the information that Frank called Paulie untrustworthy. Paulie, Paul, and Zakiyah then expose Frank to Da’vonne. Although Frank and Tiffany are still the biggest targets in the house, all of this information Frank has given to Paulie and Corey about Da’vonne have put her on their hitlist.

After the veto ceremony, in which Corey saves himself and Da’vonne goes up in his place, things mostly mellow out. There are rumblings to flip the vote on Da’vonne, mainly from Frank, who is relentless in getting her out. He is actually convinced for most of the week that the numbers are on his side. However, no one besides Frank and Bridgette are ever dead set on the plan. When Frank isn’t trying to flip the vote on Da’vonne, he’s trash talking everyone else with Bridgette, reminiscent of his trash talking with Boogie on BB14. Something important for week five comes from Nicole, who is playing all sides this week. At the beginning of the week, Nicole throws Da’vonne under the bus to Frank, saying Da’vonne made her think Frank would nominate her if he won the roadkill comp. The day before the eviction, she has a conversation with Da’vonne about fixing their relationship only to throw her under the bus again to Frank immediately after that conversation. She tells Frank she’ll join him on the flip if they have the numbers and then pulls out after a conversation with James. This will come to a head during the week 5 endurance comp. As for the eviction, Tiffany is evicted unaminously.

Tiffany Rousso: Stuck in a Shadow

Tiffany unfortunately never had a chance in the game. Coming off of BB17, where her sister Vanessa played one of the most ruthless and manipulative games ever seen, no one was ever going to let Tiffany get far. It’s jarring to compare how the two siblings of previous players were treated on this season. Tiffany dealt with the baggage and aftermath of her sister’s game and was often treated horribly for it, while Paulie never really had to deal with any of that. Of course you must fact in that at this point in BB history, Vanessa was one of the most ruthless players ever while Cody was still seen as a meathead who made a horrible game-losing move out of loyalty. However, I can’t help but think though that even if Paulie played after Cody’s perfect BB22 game, he still wouldn’t have to deal with even a fraction of what Tiffany dealt with. Tiffany’s not blameless, as she still made plenty of errors and didn’t do herself any favors with her constant paranoia, but there is no way around it that she was unfairly treated because of her sister.

Week 5: No More Teams!

It’s time for a game refresh! Victor won the Battle-Back competition and is now back in the game. Alongside Victor’s return, a secret room is ready to be found. Now that we are a week away from the jury stage, for real this time, the teams twist and the BB Roadkill Competition are both officially over. To commemorate all of these changes, the first endurance HOH challenge of the season is underway! Before the challenge can begin though, a messy move leads to a confrontation in the middle of the HOH competition…

The 8-Pack alliance is completely over at this point. However, Nicole still wants to keep all of the ex 8-Pack members on her side. So in the midst of the public rivalry between Frank and Da’vonne, she is shamelessly trying to play both of them. She is not careful, though, so after having a conversation with Da’vonne about wanting Frank out even if someone reenters the house, she goes to Frank and repeats this to him.

Back to the regularly scheduled HOH competition. In one of the longest endurance competitions of Big Brother US history, players slowly trickle out until the final 3 are Bridgette, Da’vonne, and James. Frank, already eliminated and with nothing left to lose, tells Da’vonne that he heard she wanted him out before Victor. He tells Da’vonne he’ll tell her who it was in exchange for information. He whispers Nicole’s name to her and she confronts her while still in the competition. Nicole denies this, but the trust is already lost. After this, Bridgette and Da’vonne agree to throw the competition to James, both thinking that the deal they made with him will keep them safe.

After the competition, Nicole has completely given up on working with Frank, now fully on board with sending him packing. So, Nicole, alongside most of the house, tell James that Bridgette and Frank are both competition beasts and they need to go on the block together. This puts James in a bit of a pickle, as at this point, his showmance with Natalie is fully underway. The two spend hours upon hours together in the HOH room, and she is obviously close to Bridgette. This plus the deal with Bridgette make James hesitant to put her on the block. At the end, he relents, nominating Frank and Bridgette for eviction.

The rest of the week is mundane in terms of strategy. Frank is still trying everything to get Da’vonne backdoored, but he has little success. Even Paulie starts sleeping whenever Frank is in the room just to avoid talking to him. His last hope is to win the veto, but Michelle ends up winning it instead, her first and only competition win of the season. Michelle’s win does lead to some fun drama though, also bringing some of the season’s ugliness to light.

Before the veto competition, Natalie talked with James about how the other girls bully Bridgette and tells him to talk to her, which he does. After this conversation with James, Bridgette tells Natalie about how Michelle is jealous of her and that there was a rumor she stuck her tongue out to Nicole behind her back. Right before the veto meeting, Bridgette attempts to hash things out with Michelle in the bathroom area. During this conversation, Michelle accuses Bridgette of saying something about her eyebrows, which she denies. It is also during this confrontation that Michelle admits she’s jealous of how close Bridgette is with Frank, which could be the cause of their rivalry. This argument is also where the iconic Michelle and Bridgette quotes, “I am nice to you… sometimes,” and “What the hell Michelle?” come from. Despite the unintentional hilarity of those quotes, this conversation overall unveils the very unfair treatment of Bridgette this season. Most of the girls have talked badly about her behind her back. They justify it by saying it’s because she’s “male-centered” or a lackey for Frank, but that doesn’t excuse the horrible things they said about her or unnecessarily cruel things like dumping her cookies. And the truth is, they are only pushing her to close herself off with Frank and indulge in his constant trash talking and nastiness even more.

The poor treatment of Bridgette doesn’t only come from the women. Paul rightfully hates Frank for slapping the women’s butts without their consent and talking about people’s weights, but he hates Bridgette almost just as much. In fact, he says he’ll make her life a living hell after Frank leaves and make sure she’s in jury all alone. Just another example of the cruel treatment of Bridgette. Back to Frank, he’s dead in the water after the veto is used, and he knows it. Even after Paul finds the secret room and unleashes the round trip ticket, Frank still doesn’t have much hope. He tries his best though, calling a house meeting that goes nowhere and getting in an altercation with Paul. Everyone is set on evicting him anyways. In the end, he is evicted unanimously and has the one-way ticket, becoming the final pre-juror of BB18

Frank Eudy: Hero to Zero

The first returning player to be evicted, Frank has shown himself to be a horrible Big Brother player. He’s played terribly from both the bottom and the top. On BB14, you can argue that he was only targeted initially because he was on Mike Boogie’s team. On BB18 though, he has no one to blame but himself. He squandered his power position in the span of two weeks simply by being a crappy person. Despite ending his BB18 run in the same underdog position as BB14, he leaves with his ugly side exposed to the casual audience and way less fans. Although I have been largely negative on Frank, I do want to at least commend him for sticking up for Bridgette and not throwing her under the bus to stay in the game. Even if he’s not the best person inside the Big Brother house, at least he is loyal.

Conclusion: A Cast of Characters

In the first five weeks of BB18, all sixteen of the houseguests have put on a show, one way or another. We have seen plenty of drama, even if it’s ugly drama, which is the #1 thing you want from a Big Brother season. With Jozea, Tiffany, and Frank, undoubtedly three of the biggest characters and villains so far gone, though, there are spaces to fill. Which new villains will rise, then fall? Can Da’vonne escape the target she has on her back? What new alliances will form with the 8-Pack dismantled? These are all questions you likely know the answer to, but we’ll explore and discuss them nonetheless on part 2 of the BB18 retrospective!