Even for an episode of Big Brother 16 that means nothing because of the Rewind Button, this one still feels light on content. There’s the very long Power of Veto competition (with a result that negates any possible drama) and a silly Team America mission. This entire week is filler and it only serves to pad the stats of the season, from Frankie’s win total to Victoria’s nominations to the bank accounts of Frankie and Derrick.
There’s a lot of pointless game talk and strategizing in this episode, and a segment highlighting just how stupid Victoria is, as if we didn’t already know. There’s also some blatant timeline manipulation by the editors to make us think the Team America mission was more successful than it actually was. Do they not understand that the live feeds exist?
Victoria the Joke
Victoria claims she played a great social game and she’s a competition princess. The editors flash back to how annoying and useless she’s been all season. She thinks she and Derrick have played a great game together, saying that he’s the Robin to her Batman. There have been a lot of dumb things said in the history of this show, but that is, by far, the dumbest. I’m embarrassed to be the same species as her. Whoever cast Victoria on this season deserves to be fired immediately.
Victoria isn’t Batman. Derrick is Batman. Cody is Robin. Victoria isn’t even Batgirl, she’s Harriet Cooper, the old lady living at Wayne Manor who has absolutely no idea what Bruce and Dick are up to.
Moo Points
There’s a lot of game talk about whether Caleb and Frankie would take a shot at Cody to keep Victoria and whether Derrick and Cody should try to backdoor Caleb this week. These are all moo points because, like a cow’s opinion, they don’t matter (thanks for that one, Joey Tribiani). It’s frustrating that there’s actually game talk this week, but it’s all for nothing.
They also speculate about the button, with Cody deciding that it means they will be forced to kill and eat each other. Yes, because Big Brother 16 is now Last Cannibal Standing. Cody and Caleb then do some ninja moves on the button. It’s at this point that I consider changing the channel to Utopia.
The Power of Veto Competition
It’s the face-morphing competition where the HGs must individually figure out which three faces are morphed together. There are six pictures, and whoever gets them all in the fastest time wins. They spend a whole lot of time showing us every HG going through all six photos.
Cody: 12:14
Caleb: 8:39
Victoria: 17:18
Frankie: 5:54
Derrick: 6:17
Frankie wins the Power of Veto! He gloats about how the boys should’ve backdoored him last week because now he’s going to be impossible to get out since he’s so good at winning competitions. He’s very smug and obnoxious, which we’ve come to expect.
Derrick is right in pointing out that this was an unnecessary win that just put Frankie in more danger for the final weeks. He also wins major points with me for mocking how he needs to suck up to Frankie even more, but he’s secretly plotting Frankie’s eminent demise. I’m happy that Derrick isn’t even pretending that Team America matters like he did with Donny.
The Team America Mouse Hunt
Speaking of Team America, the mission this week is to wear down the competition by convincing the other HGs that there’s a mouse in the house and keep them up all night trying to catch it.
We see Derrick and Frankie in the kitchen and the show says it’s 1am when they spot the mouse. This is just a blatant lie. They didn’t really “see” the mouse until just after 3am and they only looked for it for about two hours (taking a half hour break to play pool). But the edit is trying to make it look like everyone stayed up for five straight hours hunting the mouse. This did NOT happen.
The show declares this mission a success. It was not a success. It failed. But clearly the producers wanted to give Frankie and Derrick an extra $5,000 for doing nothing. This is fraud.
I’d also like to point out that the cleaning montage and getting the Team America mission happened on Friday night, but the mission didn’t happen until Saturday night. So the editors are lying a whole lot in this episode.
The Power of Veto Ceremony
Frankie delivers a monologue in the HoH room about how he’s won nine competitions and he’s so amazing and the best player ever and how he carried all of the boys to the end by himself, with one hand tied behind his back, uphill, in the snow, while being chased by rabid wolves. Did you know that the Great Wall of China and Frankie’s ego are the only man-made objects visible from space?
Like always Frankie talks about making a big move, and then doesn’t. He doesn’t use the Power of Veto. He gives a speech about having all the power and a heavy heart because he can’t protect all of the people that he loves.
Victoria still thinks she might stay, Caleb wishes that Frankie backdoored the button and Derrick is the only person smart enough to know that the button could flip the game and make things less predictable than the others believe it will be.
Tomorrow on Big Brother 16: The Rewind begins, the HGs play with a dog, Dan Gheesling returns and we see the jury house. The week of nonstop filler continues!
(Image courtesy of CBS)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
