Category: reality tv

Caleb attempted to throw the battle of the block by sitting down and pouting in Big Brother 16 Episode 22, but that ended up backfiring when Frankie won all by himself, saving them and leaving Donny and Zach in danger.

So then we get to listen to Zach yell for a while until Derrick asks him to be growed up and go behind closed doors. Then Frankie’s new plan kicks into gear. He tells them he’s related to Ariana Grande, who maybe a couple of people in there have heard of. I’m not sure I understand the point of telling everybody he’s been lying and does not need the money, but apparently he just thinks his game is a lost cause otherwise. Whatever the case with Frankie’s strategy, Zach continues to spiral more out of control.

Derrick intends to honor his final two deal with Cody, but just in case, he makes a deal with Victoria as well.

Christine chooses Derrick at random to play in the power of veto competition, Zach chooses Caleb, and Donny picks Nicole. Otev returns with the addition of a waterslide, and Gilbert Gottfried finally found someone else to hire him. Donny is the first one eliminated. Nicole is next. Christine is third. Then Derrick. Caleb may be safe regardless of the outcome, but he doesn’t care enough to let Zach win without a fight. Regardless, Zach wins the power of veto.

Now that they are both safe, Zach and Frankie kiss and make up, but not for real, allegedly. Then Zach starts talking to Victoria, who finds the whole big house alliance (the one that has been controlling the house for 7 weeks straight) to be a surprise. Now she feels betrayed by the person she trusted most, Derrick. Zach realizes he just stuck his foot in his mouth. Again. Then he goes to Derrick and blames Nicole, and Derrick in turn lies and pretends there is no alliance. So let’s have another house meeting with more shouting.

Team America’s mission is to convince someone to go on the block as a pawn and then vote them out. With Donny on the block, they are not going to try.

Christine’s been pretty much useless this whole season, having talked tough against her own alliance but never having any power or influence to do anything she wanted. Now that Nicole’s backdoor plan blew up, the alliance tells her that she was Nicole’s target after Frankie. I’m not sure she has much choice. She can’t really go against her own alliance just to save someone who she can’t seem to trust any longer anyway.

Zach removes himself from the block at the veto ceremony. In his place, Christine nominates Nicole.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Big Brother 16 Episode 23, which airs Thursday at 9/8c on CBS.

Anyone who has watched The Amazing Race is used to football overruns, but this is ridiculous. The golf overrun was a full two hours, by far the worst of its kind I have ever seen on this network. Is it too much to ask to either be competent with scheduling or preempt the show and put it on a local affiliate rather than a Criminal Minds rerun?

During double eviction night in Big Brother 16 Episode 20, Jocasta and Hayden were both eliminated. As boring as it was predictable.

Nicole plays dumb. She didn’t even want Zach to go at all. No, it’s Christine and Frankie who are to blame. As they battle each other to prove who is wrong, Derrick just sits there enjoying the chaos that he had a heavy hand in, yet as usual nobody points a finger his way.

The HOH competition requires them to read an eye chart and then answer with one or two. Nicole beats Cody in the first bracket. Victoria eliminates Derrick. Christine beats Donny. Zach quickly answers without reading and is correct, eliminating Frankie. Nicole beats Victoria to become the first HOH, and Zach randomly answers again but this time is incorrect, making Christine the second HOH.

There are still a couple of pawns left, but they’re quickly running out of them. They want to put up one each and then one actual target. Then Frankie comes in the room, says he’ll flip, and wants Zach, Caleb, Cody, and Derrick nominated. Christine would prefer if he stopped talking right now.

Zach goes to Nicole alone without involving Christine like Frankie did, and he tells her about The Detonators. Derrick suggests that somebody should volunteer to go on the block against Frankie, and before he finishes talking, Zach agrees. Seeing as Zach thinks she’s a fruit loop dingus, Caleb volunteers instead, which makes her more comfortable with this plan.

Christine’s Nominations
Donny & Zach

Nicole’s Nominations
Caleb & Frankie

As the ceremony ends, Zach departs swearing at Christine and Frankie.

The battle of the block is a game of football using a pair of chains on a board to try to land the ball in a series of goals. Frankie suspects that Caleb is going to throw it and confronts him as the challenge is about to begin. The end result is that Caleb’s not going to throw it… he’s not even going to bother to play at all. It’s not entirely possible for Frankie to win this on his own, but it is a tall order. After a rough beginning, he starts to make things interesting. He’s getting the hang of this while the other two struggle to communicate. Frankie takes the lead when he hits 6 out of 10. After he finds out that Frankie’s ahead, Zach asks to do it on his own, but he can’t.

Frankie single handedly wins the battle of the block. Perhaps Caleb’s tantrum was not the right way to go after all because, although he did not help Frankie, he could not hinder him either. Love him or hate him, that was pretty impressive. Afterward, he yells the words Ariana and Grande. I wonder if anybody was paying attention to that. Apparently, this is his plan to save himself for the future. He will reveal his secret.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Big Brother 16 Episode 22, which airs Wednesday at 8/7c on CBS.

Nicole’s plan to backdoor Frankie failed in Big Brother 16 Episode 19, leaving Zach and Jocasta on the block.

Jocasta and Zach both assume they are safe. Zach seems to be the bigger threat, though Jocasta could easily be a vote for the people in the house who have not done anything all season.

Derrick wants to make sure that Frankie, who’s in two of his twelve alliances, is still good with him now that he’s no longer in danger this week. He lets him know that Zach is the target, and then Caleb is let in on it as well. Caleb’s argument is that Zach is a number, in spite of his mouth. With that comment, the dominoes start to fall in Zach’s favor, as Frankie and Christine learn more of the story behind what happened this week.

The double HOH twist is dead. For the next hour anyway because it is double eviction night. Might as well just kill it off for good. We’re far enough through the season. Kill Team America while you’re at it.

Votes
Donny: Zach
Caleb: Jocasta
Christine: Jocasta
Derrick: Jocasta
Cody: Jocasta
Hayden: Zach
Frankie: Jocasta
Victoria: Jocasta

By a vote of 6-3 Jocasta has been evicted from the Big Brother house. The interesting part of this vote for me is that Victoria seems to be in the loop as the other three are blindsided. Either that or she just got lucky. Julie tells Jocasta maybe we’ll see her again with a chance to get back in the game.

The HOH competition is series of more/less/exactly questions based on events from the season so far. Caleb, Christine, and Zach are the only ones to survive the first question. Zach is eliminated on the second question. Both Caleb and Christine gets the third question right. Caleb wins HOH.

Nominations
Hayden & Donny

Caleb does not mince words that there is a line drawn in the sand.

Zach, Victoria, and Christine join the HOH and the two nominees in the power of veto competition. Predictably, this competition has them running back and forth across the yard and searching for something. Zach scores the first rubber duckie with Donny behind him. Then they score a second each. Caleb manages to catch them both. Then Donny grabs his third duck to win the power of veto.

Donny removes himself from the block. The replacement nominee is obviously Nicole.

They sure played themselves out of this game last week, although really this has been building for some time since the Bomb Squad/Detonators have completely controlled every single eviction from the beginning.

In their speeches, Hayden and Nicole try to point fingers at Frankie and Christine, but nobody is listening. Of course, the irony of this is that Hayden and Nicole planned to go after Frankie and Christine next but were merely struck first.

Votes
Cody: Nicole
Christine: Hayden
Derrick: Hayden
Donny: Nicole
Frankie: Hayden
Zach: Hayden
Victoria: Hayden

By a vote of 5-2, Hayden has been evicted from the Big Brother house. I’m not sure it really matters which of them goes since the end result is that the showmance is broken up.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Big Brother 16 Episode 21, which airs Sunday at 8/7c on CBS.

After the pointlessly manufactured cliffhanger from Thursday, Nicole and Donny won HOH in Big Brother 16 Episode 18. They nominated Jocasta & Zach and Caleb & Victoria, and somehow Caleb and Victoria won, keeping Nicole in power.

Since they managed to save themselves from the block, Caleb and Victoria are chained together for 48 hours during which she shaves his head.

Nicole has proposed an alliance with Derrick, Hayden, and Cody. Derrick’s on whatever side survives the week. Christine wants her to put one of them up, and she makes up a story about how Zach said Hayden and Victoria have been making out. Their reaction: Frankie needs to go home. Wait. What did he do?

Nicole selects Caleb at random to play in the veto competition. Zach chooses Christine. Jocasta picks Victoria. Zach is happy to be competing against a bunch of losers.

The veto competition requires them to rearrange comic book covers in the same order as the one on the window they zoom by when they are pretending to be super heroes. There are near multiples of each of the covers with only slight differences. Typically useless Victoria runs out of time and is unable to finish in 35 minutes. Then Zach flips out and starts throwing things before finally realizing he has the order of two of them in reverse.

Nicole – 12:25
Caleb – 15:48
Victoria – 35:00
Jocasta – 14:39
Christine – 11:50
Zach – 26:17

Christine has won the golden power of veto. She may supposedly be in multiple alliances, but it’s hard to tell who she’s loyal to, if anybody. One thing is clear is that she is not loyal to Zach.

If Christine uses the veto, Nicole plans to nominate Frankie instead. Christine realizes this is too risky and does not use it. Now Zach is the target, and his alliance is not as loyal to him as he thinks.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Big Brother 16 Episode 20, which airs Thursday at 9/8c on CBS.

After Amber got bounced out of the house in Big Brother 16 Episode 17, nothing else happened because incompetent planning failed to allow another couple of true/false questions (or even a chalkboard tie breaker).

And the next question is indeed a tiebreaker. They could not have done this during the commercial break at the end of last week’s show? Everybody goes over the correct answer, some ridiculously over, but Nicole and Donny do the least worst and are HOH. For the first time this season, the power has shifted away from the dominant alliance.

Jocasta returns to her over the top crying, and who’s there to comfort her? Derrick. This guy’s playing this game pretty smoothly.

Donny points out that there are three people who have never been nominated: his two fellow Team America members Frankie and Derrick plus Zach.

Zach pretty quickly volunteers to go on the block. He calls this reverse psychology. Nicole has no interest in nominating him. Rather, her goal is to backdoor Frankie, and Derrick tells her he would fully support that. Though he won’t nominate Frankie himself, Donny would support this plan as well.

Caleb knows he’s probably a target since he was the first person to nominate Donny, but he just wants to be put on the block with somebody not useless like Victoria.

They have not been talking much, but when they do, they seem to have settled on one strong guy and one throw away pawn each.

Nicole’s Nominations
Jocasta & Zach

Donny’s Nominations
Caleb & Victoria

Zach and Jocasta are comfortable working with each other. They know that Caleb and Victoria won’t be able to communicate. Caleb knows it, too.

In the battle of the block, they must create a path of dominoes to get to the end of the course. Among them will be three punishment dominoes that the winners must do. The pickier they are about the punishments, the longer the path to get to the end. Surprisingly, Victoria does not seem completely inept for a change. Zach & Jocasta are the first to push over their dominoes, but their chain falls apart at the end. Caleb & Victoria go next, and they win. Their punishments will be slop for two weeks, shaved head (Caleb I assume), and they will be chained together for 48 hours while wearing fig leaf bathing suits.

Despite Nicole’s stupid nominations (Victoria and Jocasta made more sense), the end result is that she remains in power and can now try to carry out her actual plans.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Big Brother 16 Episode 19, which airs Wednesday at 8/7c on CBS.

Hayden won the power of veto in Big Brother 16 Episode 16 and removed Victoria from the block, allowing The Detonators (minus Christine) to get their way and nominate Amber against the ever invisible Jocasta.

Frankie tries to deflect blame for Amber’s nomination to Caleb, who happily accepts it, completely clueless that she is the actual target. Eventually, he realizes he’s an idiot and tells her that her entire alliance wanted her nominated. Then he warns Frankie that he’ll play on his own if they don’t save her. Like Devin?

As for Amber, she’s so over Caleb, not that she ever was not, and now she wants to get rid of him rather than Zach. Supposedly. Christine relays this information to Frankie, who feels it’s great news. This should put the nail in Amber’s coffin with Caleb.

Team America’s next mission is to vote against the majority of the house and then accuse two other people of doing that. This could easily blow up on them, though it seems pretty obvious that Amber is going home. The other complication is that Donny protests the concept of not being himself.

Votes
Hayden: Amber
Victoria: Amber
Donny: Amber (Team America fails)
Derrick: Amber
Zach: Amber
Caleb: Amber
Christine: Amber
Cody: Amber
Nicole: Amber

By a vote of 9-0, Amber has been evicted from the Big Brother house. Even America couldn’t toss any votes her way. Despite the landslide, I can’t really pinpoint anything she necessarily did wrong. Being nicer to creepy Caleb may have helped. Perhaps the biggest flaw is the same one all these chicks fell into. They are letting the men run the house.

The HOH competition will be based on videos of them throughout the season. Lame questions will be asked like the color outfit someone was wearing. Everybody gets the first question correct. Jocasta is eliminated on the second question. Everybody gets the third question correct. And the fourth question. And fifth. Victoria, Christine, and Derrick are eliminated on the sixth question. Everybody gets the next question right. And the next three after that. Cody is eliminated on the next question. Everybody gets the next question correct.

So now would be as good a time as any to end the show, right? Yeah, it’s not like a simple true/false competition could not have been planned to fit into an appropriate amount of time. This is stupid.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Big Brother 16 Episode 18, which airs Sunday at 8/7c on CBS.

Christine & Nicole won the battle of the block following their nomination in Big Brother 16 Episode 15, leaving Jocasta & Victoria in danger.

Not content with merely having nominated them, Zach must now pick on the have nots who just saved themselves, taunting them with his food or at least their lack of it. Frankie still wants to work with him, but regardless he would like to use him because America’s stupid voting comes first.

Nicole has concerns that her showmance of sorts Hayden may be getting closer to Victoria. Then there’s Caleb and Amber. He seems to be taking the hint from her being harsh to him that she is not interested, though I have some question about how long he will be able to take that hint.

Like Frankie, Derrick receives news from home. His grandfather died.

Frankie chooses Donny at random to play in the veto. Victoria chooses Hayden (houseguest’s choice). Jocasta picks Christine, who whines about her alliance and wants to blow up their plans to backdoor Amber.

Their challenge is to ride horses and in between hop off at random intervals for less than 30 seconds at a time to be able to stack 50 gold bars. Donny doesn’t seem to care. Jocasta loses focus and is off for more than 30 seconds, but she chooses to go on slop rather than give up. Christine takes the lead. Eventually, she hits the buzzer. Oh wait, she’s not finished yet. While she’s in the process of realizing this, Hayden wins the power of veto.

Hayden really doesn’t care if they want to get rid of Amber. He’s completely fine with saving an ally, Victoria, and letting the house do what they will. Caleb does not want to get rid of her, but he’s fine with nominating her as well. If he pretends to be the only person who can save her (though technically he’s not pretending since in his own warped mind he believes it), perhaps then she will want to be with him. Yeah, no.

At the veto ceremony, Hayden removes Victoria from the block. In her place, Amber is nominated as planned. Now it’s time for Zach to run his mouth… on Caleb’s behalf. She just smiles at him. Team America fails miserably again.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Big Brother 16 Episode 17, which airs Thursday at 9/8c on CBS.

Caleb won the power of veto competition but took the quick cash instead, allowing Victoria to save herself in Big Brother 16 Episode 13. That leaves Brittany on the block against Donny, and I can’t imagine any amount of editing making it look like there’s a chance Donny will go home.

Donny is comforted by the fact that Derrick is telling him he’s safe. He knows that there are people controlling Cody’s decisions. It could be Derrick.

Frankie gets some very rare news from the outside world. The only other time I remember this happening was September 11 when they told the houseguests about the attack but only because Monica’s cousin worked at the towers. His grandfather died. Whatever their differences or game they are playing, the house comes together to support him.

The have nots have already been determined. The four laziest players in the game based on the activity trackers they are wearing are have nots: Nicole, Caleb, Christine, and Derrick.

Unlike Caleb, Hayden actually has a chance, and he finally gets a kiss from Nicole.

Votes
Jocasta: Brittany
Nicole: Brittany
Hayden: Brittany
Amber: Brittany
Derrick: Brittany
Caleb: Brittany
Christine: Brittany
Victoria: Brittany
Zach: Brittany
Frankie: Brittany

By a vote of 10-0, Brittany has been evicted from the Big Brother house. So concludes a rather meh week. At least she went out on a high note with that goal kicking penalty, but Brittany played a horrible game very early and was never able to regain any footing.

The HOH competition will involve country songs describing the competitions they have had this season. Christine eliminates Hayden and picks Donny and Jocasta to face off. Donny wins and chooses Frankie and Caleb. Frankie wins and selects Amber and Victoria. Amber wins and chooses Donny and Derrick. Derrick wins and chooses Zach and Nicole, and he’s the first to be smart enough to select who hasn’t gone yet rather than letting his targets be known to everyone. Zach wins and pits Amber against Christine. Christine wins and chooses Frankie and Derrick. Derrick hands it to Frankie. Zach beats Christine to become the other HOH. Once again, the Bomb Squad or whatever it’s called now reigns supreme.

Derrick says he wants Frankie to see a picture of his grandfather, and some things are bigger than the game. To whatever extent that may or may not be true, he’s just made a very low risk move that still gives him a heavy hand in the nominations while not getting any blood on his hands.

Team America’s next task is to get two people to have an argument at one of the ceremonies.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Big Brother 16 Episode 15, which airs Sunday at 8/7c on CBS.