Merry Big Brother Reindeer Games! The holiday Big Brother spinoff just premiered, bringing with it a WHOLE new set of rules but the same old Big Brother fun. So let’s recap the first episode, cause we’re really speeding things up — someone already went ho-ho-home!
Now the only thing we knew about Reindeer Games going in was which players were returning — we’ve got Britney Haynes, Cody Calafiore, Nicole Franzel, Frankie Grande, Taylor Hale, Cameron Hardin, Josh Martinez, Xavier Prather and Danielle Reyes all looking to win themselves 100 grand.
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But luckily enough, Santa broke it down for us almost right away. Well, most of it. He might be on my naughty list this year. In the six episodes of Reindeer Games, there won’t be any nominations, house-voted evictions or live anything, but what there will be is a Santa’s Showdown every episode to determine who gets eliminated. It’s a comp-heavy game for sure, but strategy still matters, because Santa teased things are gonna change every day, meaning sometimes they’ll compete as individuals, duos or teams. Cue the scheming.
And cue the first Naughty and Nice Challenge, hosted by none other than Season 11 winner Jordan Lloyd! This will be the first competition of every day and this time around promised an advantage in the Jingle Bell Brawl to whoever could guess the title of a famous Christmas song based on clues they were presented.
While Britney gets an advantage, she also has to hand out a disadvantage for one player she decides to put on the naughty list, which could make her enemies faster than she’d hoped. Ultimately she chooses Cody for the disadvantage, it’s a popular decision in the house because of how much of a comp beast he is.
But it really doesn’t seem to matter, Britney’s advantage and Cody’s disadvantage are pretty meh at the Jingle Bell Brawl, which has players racing to fill up other players’ mailboxes with letters to Santa before delivering their own. Cody gets an extra letter, Britney gets one less, but once things get going, I truly don’t think it mattered much. Especially with Cameron becoming like the USPS over in his mailbox.
Ultimately, it’s Frankie who clears his mailbox first, winning the Jingle Bell Brawl and saving himself from elimination for the day. He also gets to choose which two players will go head to head in the all-important Santa’s Showdown, which will send one of them home.
Cameron’s an obvious choice based on how much people targeted him in the Brawl, and while Taylor tries to argue for Cody to go in, Frankie’s not gonna do that, they’re bros! Xavier will have to do instead, and it’s time for Santa’s Showdown.
The two seemed pretty evenly matched with this elaborate Christmas sweater puzzle for a while, but Xavier eventually pulled ahead, sending Cameron packing with nothing more than a year-long subscription to the Jelly of the Month Club – Clark Griswold would be proud.
With our first player having been ejected from the lodge, lines in the snow have been drawn. But who is next to get a lump of coal in their stocking? We’ll be recapping Big Brother Reindeer Games in its entirety.
