There are many ways to decide nominations on Big Brother 16. You can put up your target. You can put up a pawn and try to backdoor your target. Or you can do whatever the house wants. This week, with Derrick and Frankie in charge, we witnessed the single dumbest way to pick nominees ever.
SPOILER WARNING: This article contains Big Brother 16 spoilers.
Derrick nominated Christine and Donny.
Frankie nominated Caleb and Cody.
Well, in reality, Skittles nominated these HGs. Yes, the candy.
With Victoria and Donny downstairs on Thursday night after the HoH reveal (where Frankie got his sister’s CD and a letter telling him she’s opening at the VMAs), the six members of the Bomb Squad met to discuss the nominations. Derrick and Frankie didn’t want to make any real decisions, so they left it up to the group.
The plan was simple. The one who is going to stay HoH (Derrick) would nominate Donny and an alliance member while Frankie would nominate two other alliances members, leaving Victoria safe and a possible backdoor option. Then the HG nominated with Donny would throw the Battle of the Block competition and, as long as Donny doesn’t win the Power of Veto, he gets evicted. If he does win it, Victoria goes up and gets evicted.
The problem is that it requires someone in the Bomb Squad to throw the BotB, and when they met, none of them wanted to do it. Cody, Caleb, Christine and Zach all said they didn’t want to throw it, with Zach being the most vocal about how, if he was on the block, he might try to win it. That conversation involved a lot of silence as no one really wanted to say anything.
Finally, they decided to do a random draw. Derrick picked four different colored Skittles, assigned each of the HGs a color, put them in his hat and picked them. First came purple, meaning Christine would go up with Donny and have to throw the BotB. Then came the red and green Skittles, meaning Cody and Caleb would be nominated against them. Zach’s orange Skittle was not picked, so he’s safe.
Yes, they randomly picked Skittles and that’s how Derrick and Frankie decided their nominations. Congratulations, Bomb Squad, on being the alliance that officially jumped the shark for Big Brother.
Of course after the random draw there was a lot of resentment towards Zach, especially because everyone obviously wanted HIM to be the one to throw the Battle of the Block. Caleb was the most angry because he’s volunteered to throw competitions in the past (though not very successfully last week). He has even suggested backdooring Zach this week. When the Hitmen met, Derrick also floated the idea of backdooring Zach, though Cody suggested Frankie. Either way, if the plan works and Donny wins the PoV, Victoria won’t actually go up because Derrick knows getting rid of her is a total waste.
Perhaps the most unfortunate part of this plan is that Frankie is OK with it. He went through hell last week when he realized Caleb was going to throw the competition and it seemed to be really traumatizing for him. Now he’s doing the exact same thing to Donny and doesn’t seem to have a second thought about it.
Obviously Derrick and Frankie are in Team America with Donny, but they don’t care about that at all. He’s their target, though they’re telling him that they will backdoor Victoria. Donny is definitely too smart to believe them, but there’s not much he can do about it.
FUN FACTS
-Derrick is now the only HG who has never been nominated. If he doesn’t go up as a replacement nominee this week, he will be one of only nine HGs to last the first nine rounds of nominations without ever going on the block. The past two winners, Andy Herren and Ian Terry, are two of the others.
-In the 14 previous seasons with nominations, the last HG to be nominated has won only three times: Drew in season 5 as well as Andy and Ian in the past two seasons.
-This is Donny’s sixth nomination. There are only seven other HGs in the history of the show to be on the block that many times, including Janelle Pierzina during season 6 and Spencer Clawson last season, who holds the record with nine nominations.
-Since this will be the final Battle of the Block, Derrick, Joey and Devin are the only HGs this season to never play in a BotB competition.
-Donny, Caleb, Jocasta and Victoria played in the most BotB competitions, four each. Caleb, Jocasta and Victoria all played in three consecutive BotB competitions.
(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.
