Big Brother All-Stars Recap Season 22, Episode 25: Triple Eviction

It was a first for “Big Brother” and the secret — such as it was — was totally blown due to a stupid production oversight.

How frustrated did Julie Chen have to be when she was teasing the audience all night that she wasn’t going to tell the Houseguests that tonight’s two-hour show was a live triple eviction only to have the secret spoiled by the giant letters “TRIPLE EVICTION” scrolling behind her while talking to them.

The moment went down awkwardly for fans at home, as they only got a glimpse of the screen the Houseguests were looking at, but their shocked faces, exclamations about a triple eviction and later comments confirmed that “Big Brother” basically blew their own surprise.

Expect the inept?

That did mean, though, that the stage was set for an incredible night and one that would finally see the dominant alliance have to do something about one another. We’re still kind of blown away that the strongest players in the house decided to never target one another, instead picking off all the weaker players.

Still, to its credit, The Committee stands as one of the most dominant forces in all of reality television. If you throw Enzo into the mix, as he became a strong ally with most of them, it may well be the most dominant.

But dominant alliances that control the vote week after week and pick off the weaker players one by one doesn’t necessarily make for riveting television. We knew this whole game was a mess when two of the three powers introduced this season weren’t even used.

Something needs to be done to stop this kind of gameplay if “Big Brother” wants to keep ratings strong as it’s hard to sit through nearly two months of inevitable, predictable gameplay week after week after week.

Sure, the underdogs could have shaken things up by winning something, but it’s not their fault the biggest physical threats (and Nicole F) all decided to band together and run the game. It is, however, their fault they didn’t see it and at least try to do something about it by coming together themselves.

Never in power, though, it wouldn’t have ultimately made much difference. At least “Survivor” forces things to mix up in the early game by dividing the Castaways into tribes and even swapping those up from time to time.

Swaps came about in the first place to avoid tribal dominance and the exact kind of systematic picking off post-merge that we’ve been witnessing all summer long. In other words, Jeff Probst and company saw a problem and at least tried to do something about it. Julie Chen and her cohorts need to do the same here.

The first objective of the night was to close the events of last week, which saw David and Kevin the obvious an inevitable nominees. Cody was in power and after Kevin sparred with him, he wanted Kevin out of the house.

Honestly, there’s not much to say here, because despite some scrambling by both Kevin and David, it didn’t really matter.

That said, it was Kevin who went first, setting the stage for David to stand alone in this house against The Committee (+Enzo). Could he make a difference for his game?

He could not. The first Head of Household competition of the night, which had to do with remembering details of Dr. Will’s visits — and can we say what a waste of Dr. Will this week has been with only two short appearances?!?

In fact, David got knocked out in the first round of this question-and-answer competition, which ultimately went to Memphis, giving him his third HOH win of the season. It was also terrible news for David, as Memphis has been gunning for him since Week 2, as he reminded everyone tonight.

Memphis doesn’t think David should have been in the house at all. He made that abundantly clear by again targeting him, though it’s a little puzzling as to why he put Nicole up against him as she is a former winner and could be considered by some a better candidate to go out the door now that the chance is there.

The Veto competition was a puzzle assembly and we know there was no one more excited about playing in it than Christmas. It looked like she and David were battling it out in this one, meaning he had yet another chance to change his fate, but Christmas pulled out the win and (shocker) opted to leave the nominations the same.

Despite all her fears, Nicole survived the Block in this round, and the final person not a part of The Committee (+Enzo) was eliminated as David head to the Jury House. It was not, however, a unanimous vote as Nicole barely escaped elimination, getting votes from both Christmas and Tyler.

It’s a shame production blew the secret, as the Houseguests were feeling fairly convinced that a suspected third eviction might happen over the next couple of days, but no one thought they would do all three during a live show. How wrong they were!

For this round, the production team reused both setups for the HOH and POV competitions, though they did tweak the rules for the Veto, which made the double-extended balance beams make more sense as they were a bigger part of the challenge.

For this second round of trivia, which had to do with events throughout the season, it was Tyler who emerged victorious, picking up his second HOH of the season — and first since Week 3.

Tyler has not been in a clear or solid alliance with anyone in weeks, aside from The Committee, so it wasn’t immediately clear what he might do. One thing we felt confident about, though, was that this was the moment Enzo would prove stronger than the alliance.

And he did, not even hitting the Block. The Committee crumbled and as we predicted, the two members of it the most on the outs with the the guys (+ Christmas) found themselves facing one another.

For the second time on the night, Nicole found herself on the Block, but this time she was squaring off against her one-time close ally, Dani. Dani had done a lot in recent weeks to damage both of their games with all of her lies and pot-stirring, and Nicole didn’t do much to help herself by going along with it.

This Veto competition came down to Dani, with Tyler holding a one-piece lead over her in running back and forth across balance beams to reassemble the same puzzle they assembled in the last round. And he keeps it, securing total power for this final round of the night.

As such, there was no way he was going to do change his nominations, though he did offer up an explanation. Dani has been planting seeds against him and Nicole didn’t tell him.

Honestly, these are both pretty legitimate reasons, though it was still pretty savage how he lied to her and assured her she was safe before nominating her and then keeping her on the Block. Shots fired!

As for the vote, once again Nicole came out of it alive, and this time totally unscathed as Dani got all of the votes. At this point, these are all good players, so finally they have to look at real threats to their games, and Dani is a much bigger one.

To her credit, they even started talking about what an incredible player and what a legend she was as she walked out of the house.

From here, it’s back to a normal rotation, though we didn’t even see the first hint as to the next HOH competition. With only six people left in the house, everyone will play in the Veto and everyone will start turning on one another, so this will be the week that might expose the pecking order.

It’s worth pointing out that once David was eliminated, every single one of the Top 7 (The Committee +Enzo) are players who finished in the Top 3 in previous seasons. In other words, this is an elite group of players competing at the top of their game, as their season-long dominance showed.

The fallout and infighting should be epic, which means that hopefully this season will finally get unpredictable and exciting again.

Cody Calafiore has been running this show since the beginning. He has a Final 2 with both Enzo and Nicole, and both are solid options for him to win against. His has been a dominant season, and his allegiances seem to be the strongest of those left in the house. Grade: A+

Enzo Palumbo survived The Committee and now he’s in a great position to maintain power and influence through the end of this game. His alliance is solid with Cody and he’s in good with so many other players, he’s in a great position almost no matter who winds up in power. Grade: A

Nicole Franzel finds herself in an interesting position. Having won nothing, she’s absolutely no threat to anyone. And as a former winner, who is going to award her to top prize again? We’ve reached the game where the end is in sight, and she may be a viable option to take to finale night as both of those factors make whoever is next to her a better choice to win. Not that she couldn’t still pull it out as making it that far with no resume as a former winner is still rather impressive Grade: C+

Memphis Garrett is a bit of a lone wolf, and with the alliance effectively over, he may find himself in trouble as he hasn’t solidified any real numbers around to protect him when he’s vulnerable. He’s also won more HOH comps than anyone, so when they get a chance, he’s worth taking a shot at. Grade: C-

Tyler Crispen is perhaps a little too good at this game, and no one seems to really be working closely with him. His direct targeting of Dani and Nicole was indicative of where his head is at, but he’s going to need to start strategizing and socializing a lot more to shore up his relationships as Cody and Enzo and others are ready to clip him as the huge threat he is, and they’ve got numbers he doesn’t. Grade: D+

Christmas Abbot may be the most loyal player in the game, but no one seems to legitimately want to take her to Final 2. And with Cody and Enzo both aware of her weird “Wise Guys” Final 3 with Memphis (and Enzo), they’re looking to knock her out of the game. She seems to be the main target for most of the people in the house right now, though a lot can change as people come down from the chaos of that two-hour triple-eviction experience and start talking again. Grade: D

Daniele Briones fell victim to her own plotting and scheming, which was a little too aggressive and a little too early in a game that didn’t really need to be played beyond the alliance until right now. If she was going to play that hard, then she needed to make big moves and shake up the house, like keeping Ian over Tyler, rather than shake things up and do nothing but get noticed. Grade: F

David Alexander was living on borrowed time, but he got to make it to the jury and he did redeem himself for his season, though he also played a disappointingly sloppy and terrible season overall. He did try and make a big game move when Dani was in power, but she effectively destroyed him with the stray Ian vote frame job. Grade: F

Kevin Campbell just never got it together. In fact, none of the underdogs did, which was in large part a result of Dani’s meddling and stirring, so she was very effective in keeping the non-alliance folks in the house pitted against one another. She just didn’t see she was on the bottom, while Kevin didn’t even seem to try to make inroads with the people who held the power week in and week out. Grade: F

• “Eviction night. Don’t give a four-minute speech like Da’Vonne.” –Kevin (to David)
• “I would have never gone for the 10 G’s and I’m HOH.” –Cody (to David)
• “Quite frankly I’m embarrassed by my actions because that’s not me. You were actually making valid points, and maybe that’s what bothered me.” –Kevin (to Cody)
• “I think we’re about to speed up.” –Cody (after Dr. Will tells them to plan 3 steps ahead)
• “Three moves could mean it’s three people that’s going. It could be a triple eviction.” –David (to Enzo)
• “Three steps. Triple eviction. That’s the only thing that would make sense.” –Memphis
• “I want to shock them. I want to say buckle up before I turn the keys.” –Tyler (wanting to target Dani and Nicole)
• “If you stab me, I”ll kill you.” –Dani (to Tyler)
• “I am absolutely coming after Dani. She’s at the top of my target list, so I’m lying to her right now. So I’m just hoping I can make it out of here alive.” –Tyler
• “Let’s hug at finale night, let’s have happy hugs.” — Kevin (no hugs after eviction)
• “How come you didn’t hug anyone?” –Julie
• “‘Cause it’s all fake, Julie. You know it’s all fake stuff, oh my god. I just didn’t want to have those fake hugs.” –Kevin
• “I’m awkward, Julie. I have difficulty communicating my thoughts in a way that doesn’t come across as strange.” –Kevin
• “I just wanted to represent my community as much as possible. Thank you so much for showing those conversations.” –Kevin (about his non-game conversations)
• “I don’t know if we were supposed to see that Triple Eviction thing or whatever, but please keep me.” –Nicole (save-me speech during second eviction)
• “Rookie wants to stay, rookie wants to play. There’s another eviction coming tonight, I can help you out. Let’s play.” –David (save-me speech during second eviction)
• “Appreciate that. I’ve only been waiting since Week 2 to get him out.” –Memphis (after David’s eviction)
• “There’s no way they’re going to do a triple live.” –Memphis (except they will and did)
• “I see the chess being played, I just never had the power to play against it.” –David (after eviction)
• “I put you guys on the block because I felt like, Dani, you were planting a lot of seeds around the house about me and Nicole, you weren’t relaying those messages to me. And with that, I’m not going to use the Power of Veto.” –Tyler
• “Goodness, I’ve had the floor all night and I don’t know what to say.” –Nicole (on the Block)
• “I happily, finally vote to evict Dani.” –Christmas
• “Well I guess it’s gonna be personal.” –Christmas (after Dani refused to hug her)
• “Guess it is!” –Dani
• “She’s like the best player that I’ve ever played against in my life.” –Tyler (about Dani)
• “She’s a legend.” –Enzo

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