Big Brother 19: Week 1 Recap (19x01-03)

Disclaimer: This post covers the first three episodes of Big Brother 19 after the jump! Everything down below are my personal opinions. I am in no way affiliated with any corporation, especially CBS and Big Brother (and Alex, Cody, Jessica, Josh and Mark). Thank you to CBS for the images.

Girl, look. I know it's more "proper" to be calm and subjective as a blogger but this season of Big Brother is only three episodes in and it's a hot white ass catastrophe that I am LIVING for. It hasn't even been a full week and there's already been meltdowns, screaming matches, racism accusations, three showmances, someone leaving over stress and it's bananas. As with the Bachelor franchise, I haven't been a fan of this show since it's inception (1924) but last summer I came upon it and it blew me away how addictive it was to watch a bunch of people snake each other, fight for no reason, turn on people and just act a complete fool for a chance at money and I became quickly addicted. There's just something about good old fashioned hate watching that makes this one of the most addictive things on summer television. Hosted by Julie Chen, a bunch of strangers share a house for thirteen weeks and battle it out in a bunch of competitions that will eventually result in a winner of a money prize. It's basically the Real World/Disney Channel Games on crack. 

On Wednesday, we were introduced to the sixteen competing cast members for the season. There's Alex, a gamer. Garbage. You'll see why. Cameron, a microbiologist who enjoys yelling at cameras, while not looking in the lenses. Christmas, a super fit...well, fitness person. She just says she has a million followers on Instagram for being fit. Cody, another super fit...veteran, I think, but who cares? You can almost smell the misogyny and dude bro tendencies through the television set. If Alex is garbage he is bottom of the barrel T-R-A-S-H. Bitch made from head to toe. BITCH. MADE. Dominique, a Shonda Rhimes character with crazy eyes when they give her screen time. Elena, radio personality who bribes people using cheese sandwiches. Jason, a rodeo clown that...I'm not...I don't care. Jessica, a fart of a human being occupying space at the bottom of the barrel with Cody. Jillian also exists. Josh is Cuban. I only emphasize that because that's basically all he talks about. On the inside, he gives me Carlito from season three of X Factor (if you watched that season you know why) and on the outside, he gives me Jozea from last season. The only difference is instead of claiming he's the heart and joy of the house, he thinks everyone hates him (and then gives EVERYONE a reason to hate his dumb ass). Kevin, the token old guy who looks like the mold for a DC villain. Mark, who also kind of reminds me of Corey from last year (with the same IQ). Matt, who looks like a 50 year old that looks good for his age (although, honestly, he looks good for any age). Megan...too soon. Raven just has an accent. That's all I care to know about her. Ramses...Ramses just looks like he eats a bite of crack EVERY TIME he's about to leave his room. Like he'll just do random kicks in the air, jump up and down, and it's not cute. He really, really thinks it's cute but it's not. 

This season has been dubbed "the season to temptation" because throughout the season the contestants will be offered temptations/bribes, the downside is that for ever temptation the contestants accept, there will be a consequence for them or the rest of the house. During the first competition, whichever contestant (sitting in a bunch of private things in the air) pushes a button will be given a bunch of money but there is a consequence for the rest of the house. Kevin, the joker, pushes the button and the big twist is that a former fan-favorite contestant shows up. The even BIGGER twist is that he's not just playing with them now, he's replacing one of them. Bitch, the biggest twist of them all was PAUL (runner up from last season) being the contestant. Who's favorite was he? Who's mans is this? I only settled for Paul because I didn't want that snake who looked like she got sick every week and just drank a bottle of Benadryl to win (which she did). But apparently everybody loved him. 

Julie gives Paul eight friendship bracelets (because "friendship" was his catch phrase) to hand out to eight people to guarantee he wasn't replacing them. One by one, each of the contestants are meant to go into a room with him and bride (tempt) him to give them a bracelet. Some of these bribes included Elena giving him a cheese sandwich, Cameron and Raven pledging him loyalty, Josh telling him what a good competitor he is and Cody blinking. Paul may have been a fan favorite last year, but he wasn't a favorite of Cody's. So Cody goes into the room and apparently his strategy was to just swallow his spit because that's about all he did to get a bracelet from him. Shockingly, he doesn't get a bracelet and, also shockingly, he's extremely pissed off. He claims that this proves to him that Paul was as much of a loser that he thought he was...even though he didn't do ANYTHING to persuade him to give him one of the bracelets, because he didn't like him for absolutely no reason. It was puzzling to watch his logic. Kevin, Raven, Dominique, Mark, Elena, Jessica, Ramses and Jason get the eight friendship bracelets, effectively saving them from getting replaced by Paul. 

TEMPTED BY THE FRUIT
The remaining contestants compete in a competition that involve them hanging to a rope while standing on a trapeze bar. The person able to stay on the longest saves themselves from going on the block (which makes them candidates for evictions from the house), and the remain seven have to pick an apple from a bunch of "serpents" sitting in the grass. 4 apples are safe, the other 3 will put them on the block. Christmas, Jillian and Cameron end up on the block. The three of them vote on whether they will compete in another competition to see who gets kicked out, or a traditional eviction ceremony (where the remaining house guests vote on who gets evicted). They end up doing a tradition eviction ceremony, and like most of the people watching, they wanted Cameron gone. I can't blame them, because there's only so much unnecessarily screaming into a camera that I can take (and Paul has that covered for us). 

HOH COMPETITION
The OG snake returns to host the first Head of Household (HOH) competition. The HOH typically selects the people who go up on the block and get the big room upstairs. Big Brother has taken "forbidden fruit" to a whole new level, once again using apples as the prop for another game. The group is separated into four teams. One by one, they race across a bunch of tangled up vines. The first two groups to make it across, grab an apple, go back cross and hit a button get to continue to the next round. The temptation is a golden apple, that will allow whoever grabs it to be safe from being nominated. But the rest of his or her team will not be eligible to continue with the game. Now, here's where the funniest shit I've seen in a while comes into play. For whatever reason, Josh thinks there's a target on his back. He thinks that everyone hates him and that he's a target, which results in him taking the golden apple immediately and disqualifying the rest of his team. The rest of his team is understandably pissed, except Kevin. Seeing Kevin offer excuses for Josh is HILARIOUS, because another consequence of pushing the temptation button was that he was going to have to throw this competition anyways. Josh diverted attention away from him, and basically drove ALL of the attention on him. For some reason, he starts yelling at Megan. He calls her a bully and a snake, which is HILARIOUS, because he's doing it MOMENTS after he snaked his own team. I'll go more into detail with this later because it's some quality trash television. The blue team and the pink team win the competition, advancing to the next round where they have to balance a bunch of apples on a tree. Only one person from each team can participate, which ends up being Paul and Cody. Unfortunately for America, Cody wins the competition and just sets up a chain of misfortune that spreads throughout the entire house. 

Cody is a tumor. Cody is the gum on the bottom of your high school desk. Cody is the crusty shit in your eye that keeps drying back up and confusing you. Cody killed Laura Palmer and Jason Blossom. Cody shot Mr Burns. I don't think I can put into words how much disgust there is in the purest part of my heart for this man. On one hand he's trash, but on the other hand this is excellent TV that CBS is gracing us all with. After he wins HOH, Cody says (verbatim) that he wants to divide the house. He immediately starts to build the YWGS (The Young White Guy Society) with him, Mark and Matt, basically America's nightmare. Slowly it becomes more than that, lending itself to Dominique, Jessica, Raven, ....all of the basic people in the house. Maybe I'm just mad because Cody would HATE me if I was competing with them this season. I would definitely be one of the "outsiders" that he was so keen on destroying but I'm also probably mad because Cody is just a horrible person. Paul is minding his own business, fixing his beard, while Cody is DRAGGING him to Mark (who, I'm assuming, was just picturing strawberries and rainbows the entire conversation). He also completely shuts down Megan, when she's just trying to secure her safety in the competition. Without absolutely no basis to judge her, he decides she's not worthy of his pity (because he hates people who are "selfish" and who "beg"). I'm not exactly sure how trying to secure her safety by pledging allegiance to him is selfish, seeing as the entire point of the game (and any game) is to win. His logic has no base. He's just such a scumbag, giving me Pauline vibes. If Jessica, or whatever her name is, is going to get involved with him then she better watch her back. 

EVERYBODY HATES MEG
Megan has been sitting around, minding her cotton candy haired business and her world just begins crumbling around her. First and foremost, Josh comes clean the fuck out of nowhere and starts yelling at her. He calls her a snake and tells her that she's doing a disgusting job of playing the game. Not only does he do that, he confronts her again (in front of everybody this time) and does the exact same thing. He doesn't give any examples of anything she's done, he just yells at her and makes her feel like absolute garbage. He apologizes later, blaming it on the fact that he misses his family (which he seems to be blaming for every unnecessary, dumb decision he's been making so far). Then she has the conversation with Cody, which results in her being put on the block. Then in one of the most confusing things I've seen on the show, Raven begins to urge Jessica to go over and talk to Cody, but she refuses because he's talking to "Pao Pao." Keep in mind, I only started watching the show last season. So in my mind, this is absolutely racist and I want her off the show. But Pao Pao was a contestant from a few years ago. She's also Asian, shares some of her physical traits, and Paul says that they're just alike. So instead if it being incredibly racist, it's only kind of racist. Megan fucks her game up by telling Alex that Jessica called her Panda, because that's what she heard her call her, which is much more insulting. Jessica gets word of this and tells Alex that Megan is lying and just calling her a racist to call her a racist and mess things up for her. Yes, Megan was wrong about her specifically saying "Panda," but what this butter sock doesn't mention is that she indeed did call her another name that started with a P.

Alex storms in to confront Megan, thinking Jessica didn't say ANYTHING, and calls her out for trying to make Jessica look like a racist. This whole thing could have been avoided by someone coming forward, who heard, and telling Alex that Jessica said "Pao Pao," which could have been mistaken for Panda. In my opinion, the two people in the wrong in this situation are Alex and Jessica. Alex should not have made a huge scene with Megan, instead pulling her aside and having a conversation with her like an actual person would do in the real world not some bitch off the street with no class. Jessica is correct, that she didn't call Alex Panda, but what she cleverly seemed to leave out was that she did call her a name that could be argued to be offensive. Why didn't she admit to calling her Pao Pao? Because she knew was wrong for doing it and wanted to save her ass. When Alex gets eliminated I hope she sees what a complete ass she made of herself and issues some kind of apology to Megan. Megan absolutely loses it. After being targeted repeatedly, she locks herself in the diary room and officially leaves the competition. It was all just really rough to watch and unlike Jillian and Cody, I'm wishing the best for Megan. My only thing is, Megan claimed to be a super fan so how did she not recognize the name Pao Pao?

The rest of the episode is just pure idiotic nonsense that I lived for. Cody is such a dick. Instead of worrying about her mental state, he just proclaims how happy he is that he was able to get her out this easily and how much he loves this amount of power. America, this is what happens when you give white men ridiculous amounts of power (even though I'm aware what a low amount of power this is in the real world, it makes for a good metaphor). Jillian is a completely lump of nothing, not worried about Megan (her supposed alliance mate) and just mad that Megan was a bigger target and could have survived. That, folks, is what you call a snake. The five people chosen to be have nots are Josh, Jillian, Megan (before she left), Paul and Ramses. The have nots are given a temptation. There are two boxes in the room. One box will get them out of sleeping in the room and the other box gets them an extra week. Paul gives into the temptation and finds his way out of the have nots room. Paul is also voted to be the first contestant to enter the Den of Temptation. He's offered a pendant that allows him the escape elimination for three weeks, in exchange for a random other contestant being in danger for the next three weeks. Alex and Cody bond over being libertarian flower children and Cody respects Alex doing well in the first competition so he tells her that he wants to do whatever he can to work with her. He asks her about her intentions if she becomes HOH, and this complete moron tells him that she wants to break up the alliance Cody his building. I know you think you're being strong and asserting your dominance, but how dumb do you have be to tell the HOH you're gunning for him and your team when he's trying to work with you? Unsurprisingly, he tosses her up on the block and hopefully the VETO keeps these two in place because I don't care for either of them.  

EPISODE 1 GRADE: B+
EPISODE 2 GRADE: A-
EPISODE 3 GRADE: A-

Stray notes:
-My episode grade traits, for reality television, in the most basic terms include: trashiness, fights, how interesting it was, how much I screamed at the television. When I'm reviewing these types of shows, whatever gets the most reaction out of me will probably result in higher grades. These three episodes have been PACKED.
-I really, really am sick of Julie saying "twist". Girl, if it's a twist we'll know it. The fun of having a twist is not knowing a twist is coming. Take a shot every time she says it.
-Cody: "I'm just trying to find people I relate to." and then they cut to every other white guy in the house. The BB producers are shady and I love it.  "Next step is the babes."
-After all this drama, these white bitches are STILL calling Alex "Pao Pao." I officially don't fuck with Raven.
-Dominique is playing an excellent game so far. She's on the winning side right now and keeping an extremely low profile in the house. She's playing it really smart.
-Cody is doing well so far, but aside from being a dick, he needs to chill out with winning all the competitions. If at some point one of the "outsiders" end up being HOH, he's going to be the first person in mind for the block. 

-Mark left a terrible taste in my mouth. Josh might be annoying, but I understood how frustrated he was leaving his family. He was complaining about this and Mark had enough. He told him to suck it up, because he doesn't have parents to go home to. As someone who unfortunately lost their parents, should he feel good about seeing someone cherish their parents for everything they're worth? Don't tell Josh how to feel about his family. Mind your own business and focus on something that will help your game out, bro.
-The three showmances right now are Cody/Jessica, Matt/Raven and Mark/Elena
-The three showmances I don't give a fuck about right now are Cody/Jessica, Matt/Raven and Mark/Elena

-Kevin's 'The Temptations' reference.

-Everyone thinks Josh got the temptation from the den because he looks like a "smug bastard." Yikes. Cody, that's just Josh.