Another week, another disappointment.
Enzo got the ball rolling by winning a ball-rolling Head of Household competition that was rather mundane and boring and nominated two players America actually liked, Kaysar and Kevin. Kaysar was still reeling from losing Janelle, his half-duo partner (and America was still in mourning for Janelle). So we already knew it was going to be a long week.
It wasn’t just that Enzo didn’t do anything with being Head of Household this week besides voting out Kaysar, the player America probably wanted to stay most of all. The most frustrating thing is it really showed no vision for Enzo. He wasn’t really being manipulated. He wasn’t really being controlled by group think.
He just wasn’t really thinking at all.
He mentioned a few times he wanted to make some “big moves.” And he did say that Kaysar hadn’t talked to him about game play, which made him suspicious. But as the week went on, he noted that Ian was a previous winner who was far more dangerous to him. He openly grew nervous about other players in the game, such as the pot-stirring Dani. So, it seemed Enzo would indeed be willing to think about nominating others and doing something.
But alas. No. Enzo was reduced to playing the all-too-common Big Brother excuse card of “It’s too early!” or “Too many people in the house want it!” and Kaysar was unanimously voted out when he couldn’t muster enough votes.
America’s only hope was that Kaysar would win the Power of Veto challenge, which featured players being strung up in the backyard and pulled in various directions like marionettes. As I mentioned while live tweeting, the tone of this comp was all wrong. They were throwing paint at the contestants: fine, that’s a typical Big Brother thing, but adding a creepy voice? What were they going for? Last year the competitions all had a fantastic theme. There was creativity, a cohesive theme, and style. This year, they seemed designed to simply put the housemates into a hastily thrown together competition in the backyard.
Instead of All Star competitions, we are getting competitions that lack style, creativity, and planning. All the cleverness of last year is gone.
And then there’s Christmas. She offered herself up as a pawn just to be sure Kaysar went home. Apparently because Kaysar was that much of a threat and because she has a mini side deal with Ian and was nervous he might go home?
Ian did tell Kaysar that while he couldn’t vote for him that he should “blow the house up,” and Kaysar obliged. He mentioned all the alliances in the house in his goodbye speech, and of course those in charge looked irritated and petty because they are new schoolers and truly aren’t happy being called out for having alliances and doing nothing.
When talking to Julie Chen, Kaysar did say his meaningful conversations about religion, society, and a broken America were intentional. “Big Brother was a call to duty. I’m a father now. We have to take a stand…someone has to… [talk about the issues]. This has been an incredible journey for me.”
Kaysar’s best moments this summer haven’t been his much-discussed alliance with Janelle, but his deep conversations with Da’Vonne about his Islam faith and her struggle to get others to understand Breonna Taylor and what it means to the African American community. If anyone hasn’t seen these simple but honest moments of Americans simply talking, you can find them online. Kaysar admitted to Chen that he didn’t even want to come back for the chance to win money but to have some of these political conversations. And America sighed. Because in many ways, Kaysar was too good for the Big Brother house.
And just when you thought it couldn’t get worse? BB22 reminds us it’s 2020. A live HoH quick ring-in puzzle competition lets Christmas defeat Da’Vonne to win HoH. It’s like CBS wants those in power to stay in power. Why? They swung the odds by having whoever wins each round pick the next players. Obviously, America is only rooting for a few outsiders. So mathematically, the main alliance is going to win, because every time one of those players wins they can keep choosing to have the outsider players face off against each other. Starting at Week One, the Powers that Be at CBS have purposely done everything possible to help make each week’s show worse. From casting to competitions, if I had to grade this season’s actual production, CBS would get an F. Poor decision after poor decision.
Will Christmas go against her alliance? Of course not.
Will a new “basement” room that is being opened up this week change the game? Probably not. (But we can hope).
This Big Brother game needs more than a “new” room to upend this boring alliance from staying in control and actually doing anything worth watching. And with a lack of creativity from production, All Stars is threatening to become one of the worst seasons in Big Brother history.
Expect the expected from 2020.
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Overall Score
