Big Brother 19’s Summer of Temptation

By starrymag | July 12, 2017

By: Ashlee Dell’Arciprete

It’s another summer, another eventful season of “Big Brother.” “Big Brother: Season 19” began on Wednesday, June 28th in a special 2-hour season premiere and oh, was it amazing. When the season kicked off we met all the houseguests, at the time that is. The houseguests come from all over the country. There’s Ramses, the cosplaying Superfan. Megan, the dog walker who was also an interrogator with the armed forces. Jillian, who took a trip with her family to have weight loss surgery in Tijuana of all places. And there’s also a fitness superstar whose actual name is Christmas and whenever her name is called, jingle bells play. Jokes about Christmas, the holiday, can be made all summer. My favorite part of the clips in the beginning showing the houseguests finding their keys was how staged most of them looked, but it’s always fun hearing their journey to the BB house. Let’s just say the cast this year is very interesting. Like last year, the season premiere was two hours long and from the get go this year, was teased as “The Summer of Temptation” and Julie Chen wasn’t playing around.

 

Here are some highlights from the first week and what to look forward to in one big season of “Big Brother.”

 

“The Summer of Temptation” so far:

 

Each season of “Big Brother” in recent years has a theme to keep the season interesting. The themes of the season usually also coincide with twists and competitions that will occur through the duration of the season. To compare to other seasons, BB18 had a “Summer Vacation” theme, with the house designed around traveling different parts of the world. Not only did the house have a theme, but many of the twists also surrounded the theme like last year’s BB Roadkill competition and the Round Trip ticket twist. The competitions also followed suit in that one competition where they had to remember the departures list on the wall.

 

The summer of temptation is upon us and it should be no surprise that this theme follows with prior seasons. This year’s “Big Brother” house also plays into this season’s theme of temptation. The walls in the living room have the words “money” and “power” plastered on them. The have-not room even does as well. Houseguest this year have to sleep on uncomfortable spikes when they are chosen as have-nots, BUT they can get out of it by pulling a key. If they pull the wrong one; however, they must remain a have-not for three more weeks! We’re guessing there’s no possible way to making sleeping in that room comfortable.

 

So far, some of the houseguests have been teased with a lot of temptation. In the premiere episode, the houseguests were told they could choose to win money, but that it would cause a temptation to be released into the house. When you have a house filled with seventeen people, you’ll definitely have at least one person give in to win the money. This season, that was Kevin. And what did that do? It brought PAUL back into the Big Brother house. Yes, friendship Paul.

 

Host Julie Chen revealed that not only did this bring Paul back into the game, but it brought him back to replace one of the houseguests and send someone packing. Paul is then presented with a box of friendship bracelets and tasked with choosing eight houseguests who will be saved from this twist. In the competition, Cameron (the science guy wanted) to play it safe to keep himself from being a target. That, unfortunately, did not work out in his favor though. Cameron was evicted on the first day without ever even sleeping in the house so that BB18 runner-up Paul could have a place in the game. Ouch.

 

Cody won the Head of Household (“HOH”) competition and basically said he only aligns with the good looking girls of the house or “the babes.” He also wants the others out, which is a bit misogynistic and wrong. So far, Paul has been back to his usual friendship-loving self. A ton of houseguests crowded around him like puppies with hopes of forming an alliance with him to get far in the game. Cody wasn’t having any of that. Paul thought he and Cody had formed an alliance, but the joke was on him. Cody was HOH last week and when Megan went home he had to name a replacement. He chose Paul, making it clear they aren’t on the same side. That didn’t happen either though because, in honor of the summer of temptation, Paul received a special pass from America that made him ineligible to be nominated for the next three evictions in a HUGE twist.

 

On the rocks already is Josh. He was one of the first people to come up to Paul and gave him the “I’m your biggest fan” spiels, only for Paul to turn around and not give him a bracelet. Later in the week, Josh began freaking out about being away from his family. Christmas came to his bed to console him and he was surprised at how nice she was. Josh has a long way to go before seeing his family if he wants to go far in the game though.

 

Another big surprise was the Megan situation. Megan goes by the title dog walker, but she is also a former interrogator in the military. Megan was put on the block because of Cody, but for the majority of the week the house was on her side. That was until while outside Megan was sitting with Jessica and thought she overheard Jessica call Alex “Panda.” Unfortunately, she was misheard, but Megan told Alex what she heard and the obvious racism that words has, given Alex is Asian. The problem was that while Megan thought Jessica said “Panda,” she actually said “Pow-Pow,” the nickname given to Paola from BB17 because she thought they looked alike. Jessica blew up at Megan when the information came back to her and soon after the entire house was against Megan for thinking she made it up because she was in danger of going home. Megan went into the diary room shortly after and never returned. We later found out she self-evicted as she had flashbacks and symptoms of PTSD when she felt attacked by Jessica and the rest of the house. We hope Megan is okay!

 

Bonus: The Live Feeds are also back up. Once again the live feeds are run through CBS’s new OTT service, CBS All-Access which make it much cheaper than the price they were before. And from experience, the feeds are super fun while also being mildly creepy. If you’re new to “Big Brother” or thinking about trying the feeds, you could always try it for free with a 1-week free trial.

 

Early Predictions

 

We’re going to go out on a limb and predict who we think are the front-runners of the season. First, we have Ramses. We know he’s a BB Superfan so he definitely knows his stuff about the game and from the first week alone has already racked up a great social game. Although after his performance in the physical competitions, he’ll need to play harder. We’ll keep our eyes on him. Then, there’s Kevin. Kevin is the token “oldie” this season from Boston. From the start, he has also played a great social game and has tried to be friends with everyone. He knows nothing about past seasons though, which would probably hurt him in the mental competitions. When Paul came back in the house with Nicole, Kevin had to ask around to find out who they were! Given past seasons, the ones who hadn’t watched the show prior to being selected but were friends with everyone have been known to go far. So, the odds may be in Kevin’s favor. Paul and Cody also seem like they are running either side of the house right now so we’ll see how that goes.

 

Final thoughts

 

I’ll admit it, I was a little upset to find out we have to wait yet another year for a BB All-Stars season, but as the weeks went on I couldn’t wait to watch more. The houseguests seem fun and not afraid of making big moves early on. Pro-Tip: when asked which former players you think played the game best, don’t say you’re a superfan if you only mention people from the last two seasons. Do you know who Dan is? Or Boogie? Or literally anyone but Victor? It seems as though the houseguests will either suck up to Paul to get on the good graces of the dude who almost won last season or want Paul out and will team up with Cody. It’s always hard making predictions, especially in the “Big Brother” house, but it’s clear that this will be one wild and crazy season and we can’t wait to watch more!