In the interest of full disclosure I am riding the spring allergy Benadryl pink elephant wave this evening so my Big Brother observations are a little less than sharp. Thankfully there weren’t too many nuances in tonight’s episode as they had to pack in both a Have Not competition and Nominations. Mostly is was 60 minutes of setting the stage for the 9 remaining weeks.

When we last left the Big Brother house they had started the first Head of Household competition of the season. But before they show us who won BB flashes back to what happened during the commercial break of the live eviction show. Not much, it turns out. The HGs were shocked that Canada got to choose the first person to be evicted and Risha made a comment that maybe being topless in the hot tub would help her chances. We know of course that it didn’t. I’m guessing BB just wanted us to hear that one comment in a twisted sense of irony.

Back to the matter at hand, playing “Wall to Wall”, where the HGs have to suspend themselves using tiny ledges in what looked like plexiglass changing stalls. Sindy With An S is desperate to win because she’s already been nominated once and doesn’t want to go there again. Classy Kevin, on the other hand thinks winning the first competition is game suicide and is just looking for an opportunity to throw it. Which he gets when BritBrit drops and starts to cry. Seizing on a chance to up his social game Kevin drops to comfort her.

Classy Kevin was allllllll over the place working on his social game this week. He was flirting with all the girls so that he could “keep them in (his) back pocket”. Then he squeezed himself between Johnny Veto & Stoner Sara to become “the meat in the queer sandwich” (Sara’s words). Then he snuck off to the food pantry to form an alliance with Wizard Chess Jordan called “The Fortress” which involved learning some sort of hand signal. Because that’s what people do on these shows. I’ll never understand it.

Speaking of alliances… The Fortress isn’t the only one in town. There’s also one going on between Wizard Chess & Quarterback Zach called “Newport”. No idea why they chose that name. Generally alliances give themselves real ego hungry names, so Newport is very left field. Speaking of ego, the Quarterback is in another alliance called “The Chop Shop” with Fun Bobby, Greg Graig, Halfpipe Willow, Daisy Duke Ashleigh & Papa Bruno. The last alliance mentioned is one that wasn’t given a name between BritBrit, Stoner Sara & Empress Naeha (who I’m tempted to start calling Boo Boo Kitty, she might be building an Empire but she’s no Cookie Lyon). By simple virtue that they are trying to have a strong female trio, actually seem to be pretty observant about the rest of the house and haven’t given themselves a handshake I’m tempted to start rooting for them.

It’s clear the dominate alliance du jour is the Chop Shop. Made even more clear while the HOH comp is going on. When the rest of the alliance drops Fun Bobby hangs on to his tiny plexiglass ledge through freezing water for over 3 hours to win the first HOH. Not wanting to get blood on his hands he plays dumb all week with the non-Choppers in the house as if he doesn’t really understand the game. The only people he talks game with are the Pork Chops the funniest of which being when Graig Greg decides to start talking strategy with Willow while sitting on ye old porcelain throne.

The HOH room is revealed (with the aforementioned throne), complete with a big bath which Peely & Daisy Duke waste no time taking a bikini bubble bath in together. Fun Bobby reads his letter from home, cracks a cold one and we get to see the newest HOH twist a tablet with Shomi preloaded so that the winner can watch TV or movies for a week. Way to cross promote Shomi guys!

Meanwhile there is still a Have Not competition to hold called “Slop Off”. A cross between a relay on a balance beam over a pool and dodgeball played heads up. Wizard Chess, Brit Brit, Godfrey & Boo Boo Kitty become Have Nots which means we finally get to see which of Dante’s rings production is unleashing on them this year. Turns out it’s more like the BB prison experience than an Inferno, a cement(ish) room with nothing but a single futon mattress per person. The added touch is a red light and siren that continue to go off but Wizard Chess quickly realizes it’s triggered by a sensor that goes off in the middle of the room so they’ll have to push everything off to the sides. We’ll see if they share that trick with future Have Nots.

The last of the big reveals this week was the nomination process. BB Canada hasn’t had the key on a string in a lazy susan nomination box like they do on the US show. Overall the production design on the Canadian show has always been stellar and very much their own thing. This year Fun Bobby goes into the vault where a huge touch screen is waiting for him to drag & drop his nominations. First he makes a shortlist (which: is this going to come back and bite us later, BB?) and then he locks in 2 nominees. In keeping up the Steampunk theme he then takes a tube out of the side of the touch screen back to the living room where he plugs it into something that turns on lightbulbs and starts gears rotating. Fancy.

Fun Bobby has nominated: Brittnee & Kevin. He says it’s nothing personal and that he just went with the first two people to drop in the competition. In his confessional we see that he really wanted to nominate Kevin because he feels he’s a big threat. If my brain were firing on all cylinders tonight I might get into the gender politics of why it is that men are targeted so early in the game and women seek out romance as protection, but you’re getting off easy this week.

This Week’s Roundup:

HOH – Bobby

Nominated – Brittnee & Kevin

Have Nots – Jordan, Brittnee, Godfrey & Naeha

Alliances –

• Jordan & Zach “Newport”
• Bobby, Zach, Graig, Willow, Ashleigh & Bruno “the Chop Shop”
• Jordan & Kevin “The Fortress”
• Brittnee, Sara & Naeha (unnamed)

 

Until next time when we see who wins Veto & what Fun Bobby will do next…