Big Brother 15, Ep. 2 Recap: "Can I Blow Your Nose For You?"

With these houseguests, it's safe to say this won't be 'Virgin Airlines'
Image via BuddyTV

Welcome to my recap of the second episode of Big Brother 15! When we left off, hormones were flaring, some guy looked like Taylor Lautner, and Weird Al Yankovic's long lost son was the Head of Household!

The second episode of the 15th season started up with all the houseguests sitting around the living room, still in shock about Julie revealing this season's big twist. That twist of course being that 'Murica will get to vote for an MVP who could anonymously put a third person up for eviction. The players were scandalized, debating how it affects the game and who it screws and who it benefits the most. Jeremy and Judd had the best theory that it benefits the ladies because... America loves women? Except for women of course. They don't like women. Jessie and Kaitlin made that very clear in the season premiere. And if there's one voting base that loves Big Brother and will go online and out of their way to vote for something trivial on a reality show, it's straight men. As a straight man, I could totally vouch for this. But alas, I'm Canadian and they won't let me vote.

Speaking of the ladies, we cut to the bathroom where Alyssa, Kaitlin and Jessie were talking about the eligible gentlemen in the house. Because women be gossipin. As 'three single ladies' they debated who each one of them was into and developed code names for all these prospective gentlemen. Aaryn, the cute blonde Texas girl (which is what the BB narrator called her off the top of the show. Yikes), well she likes David who they gave the codename, 'Ken'. As a person actually named Ken, I'm not thrilled to be associated with the surfer/lifeguard who likes to feel himself up and should maybe cut it out with the old school Justin Bieber hair. Instead of a Ken, he seems like more of a Trey or how about 'Puka Shell'? Because you know he totally has several puka shell necklaces. Jessie likes Nick, who they're refering to as Manhattan. No wait, they changed it to 'Big' because he's from The Big Apple. Or maybe it's a Sex & The City reference that I clearly don't, nor want to understand. Kaitlin likes Jeremy, who they're refering to as 'The Sailor.' He works on a boat so that's something. They clearly missed a CBS tie-in opportunity to call him The Barnacle and then have him appear on 'How I Met Your Mother' alongside Barney 'Barnacle' Stinson. The one thing Kaitlin can't stand about Jeremy however is that it always sounds like he's stuffed up when he talks. And according to her, sometimes she just wants to grab a tissue and say 'Can I blow your nose for you?' Which is what every guy longs to hear from a beautiful woman.

It was then time for McCrae to show off his HoH room, which was odd because we didn't get to see any personal photos or hear him read a letter. I was really hoping for photos to see a family shot featuring BB14 winner Ian and Weird Al Yankovic. At the very least, a receipt from a cloning facility with Weird Al and Ian's signatures on it? McCrae told all his fellow houseguests that he wouldn't get HoH-itis and a big head, which elicited a response from Kaitlin about being like Rachel and saying 'Floaters grab a life vest.' With Elissa sitting a couple seats next to her no less. She even made McCrae say it! Seriously, how does she or nobody else in the house not realize that's her sister? They look and sound alike. Oh hey, a few segments later Aaryn and Judd alerted the house to Elissa '100%' being Rachel's sister. Kaitlin calls herself a 'wench' for dissing Rachel right next to Elissa. I would probably go with the word 'hero'.

With an overwhelming 16 people in the house, I'm still trying to put names to faces and figure out who these aspiring famewhores are. But inside the house, more alliances are being formed. And Jeremy aka The Sailor aka Jacob the Werewolf aka Taylor Lautner aka Stuffy is at the forefront of this, forming his third alliance, as he joins forces with Nick aka Big, McCrae, Howard and Spencer. This bro-lliance is named "The Moving Company", because they're going to move people out of the house you see. Or maybe because Howard and Spencer are two really big dudes who could probably move heavy furniture with ease. Also joining forces were Puka Shell and the Texas Girl. While laying on the hammock, which I hope they replaced after Ian wore out the hinges on it last year with his OCD swinging, the two blondes revealed they were crushing on each other. Puka told Texas, 'I'm totally felling you." That guy has a real way with words. Also, Puka told the Diary room that he was in the house to form a showmance and not even to really play the game. And on top of that, when Aaryn told Puka about Elissa being Rachel's sister, he didn't know who that was! He does realize he's on Big Brother and not The Bachelor: Puka Shell Edition, right?

In addition to those alliances/love connections, Jessie revealed to Amanda that she feels like Bella Swan because she's a 12-year old girl. She is in love with Nick who is like Edward except not dark and brooding and totally into Hardcore Parkour, as well as Jeremy who is of course Taylor Lautner. For as boy crazy as Jessie seems, she at least gets points for not wanting to blow Jeremy's nose for him.

What would a Sunday night episode of Big Brother be without a Have Not Competition? This one was titled 'Cooler & The Gang'... what a timely musical act pun! What about something more modern like, 'Cooler Moe Dee' or 'Coolerio's Fantastic Voyage'? The goal of this one was to float down a lazy river in an inner-tube, grab a can of pop -- oh sorry, Soda for all you Americans -- then bring it back to your teammates and stack it on a board that was being held up by said teammates. The red team, consisting of Howard, Andy, Helen, Judd and Elissa, basically lost this one right off the bat when Howard started floating in the wrong direction. Then as he jumped in the water to grab some soda from the underwater cooler, he forgot to hold his breath. This should tell you something about the intelligence of these houseguests, when their main challenge in a competition is forgetting when to breathe. Howard's dismal performance was followed up by Judd falling out of his inner-tube and basically looking like a fish flopping around after it's pulled out of the water and dropped into a canoe. The red team then went on to drop their cans off their platform, having to restart and no doubt about it, they lost. Even the yellow team dropped their cans, but there was no out-sucking the red team on this one. Speaking of big cans, Aaryn used this competition to check out a shirtless Puka and all his rippling muscles, which he had no doubt admired himself multiple times earlier that hour alone.

The 'worst have-not room' in BB history was revealed to the have-nots and I rolled my eyes because I feel like they say that every year. Like how every rose ceremony on The Bachelor is the biggest one yet. But this one was pretty bad, admittedly. I don't even know if you could call it a room. It's the inside of an airplane cabin, with no beds... just chairs. And they don't even recline! And of course because hormones are flaring in that house like it's a high school dance, Amanda had to make a crack about joining the mile high club in there. There's no doubt in my mind that this is happening at some point.

It came time to debate which houseguests McCrae should nominate for eviction. Kaitlin and Amanda wanted Candice to leave because she was the one to blame for the yellow team dropping their cans of soda. Amanda then made her way up to the HoH room to try and convince McCrae that Jessie should go because she, 'has a way better ass than her." And because she's "annoying" and "prissy." If those aren't good reasons to end somebody's dream of being on Big Brother, then I don't know what is. Later on with McCrae in his HoH room, Elissa came up and finally revealed the world's worst kept secret to him. Elissa didn't receive a negative reaction to this as maybe she was expecting, because McCrae is a 'Big Brother superfan' and thinks it's awesome. I mean, I like Big Brother as much as the next guy, but you need to reevaluate your life decisions when you become sort of starstruck by a reality show competitor's lesser known sister. Aaryn visited McCrae and told him that she wanted Elissa out because how dare she has the "audacity" to be related to somebody and have the houseguests be too dense to figure it out? I don't know, it didn't seem like a very well thought out plan. But then again, this is from the girl who likes Puka Shell and who the producers called 'The Texas Girl' at the beginning of the episode, so what should we expect?

Before making his nominations, McCrae and Manhattan/Big discussed who should go up. Big wanted to put up two girls because it's what worked best for 'The Moving Company.' And when you have a great alliance name like that, you don't screw with that magic. In the end, McCrae put up Jessie and Candice for eviction. He told Jessie it was because she's socially savvy and has a good chance to win the game. Not because he really hates Twilight or anything. His reasoning for putting up Candice was because she's strong and he expects her to kick ass in veto. Though if she can't hold a board with pop/soda cans level, then I'm not so sure about that.

What say you, readers? What do you think of McCrae's nominations? Who do you think will win the MVP and who should they put up? Leave your comments below and follow me on Twitter (@KenBeckett) to have some fun discussing this game!

Big Brother 15, Ep. 1 Recap: "Pizza Boy's Delivering, Baby"

Season 15, sponsored by The Rolling Stones?
Image via CBS

Hello first time readers of this little corner of the interweb of mine! To pull a Troy McClure, some of you may recognize me from such blogs that cover hockey and the Toronto Maple Leafs. But I'm also a big television and movies fan, so I thought it would be fun to track my thoughts about it all on this blog. For those of you who follow me on Twitter (@KenBeckett) just for hockey news, I may still be tweeting about toothless people, but now it could also include those on reality shows and not just hockey players.

Chief amongst my pop culture obsessions is a summertime favourite of mine, Big Brother! And it's back! A full month early! As a Canadian Big Brother fan (hello 'Muricans), it's been like a second Christmas what with the first season of BB Canada earlier this year and now an earlier premiere date for the US version of our favourite, totally not rigged reality show. Some say it's a guilty pleasure of theirs, but for me, I don't even feel guilty about it. I just outright, thoroughly enjoy this sometimes pretty cheesy show. I even auditioned for the first season of BB Canada! (Producers, call me for season 2!) I'll try and recap every episode and as quickly as I can, but it airs three nights a week in the summer. So we'll if that promise holds up as well as Julie Chen has over these last 14 years. Has she discovered the fountain of youth? Or is she actually a robot who undergoes regular cosmetic maintenance like so many of us have assumed?

Speaking of the Chenbot, she opened up the show lurking inside the empty BB house and telling us that everything would be super sized this season. It would last for three months, there would be more houseguests than ever before, there would be twists inside AND outside the house! There was a fancy new outdoor design, which looked like the outside of the BB Canada house. Even Julie's hair looked big tonight! Perhaps the biggest news of all however was that this season would be the first since BB12 in 2010 to feature an all original cast. Even the first season of BB Canada rehashed old players like Dan Gheesling and had cameos from Rachel, Janelle and Ian.

Before the new houseguests got to enter the house, we were treated to a video package of all 16 players finding their key totally by surprise and not pre-scripted at all. During this package, there was some hardcore parkour from Nick, a lifeguard who likes to feel himself up at the beach (David), a public speaking teacher (Andy) who teaches people how to lie (you're doing it wrong?), and Rachel Reilly's sister (Elissa) who has a dream board. Because you know, it worked out so well for BB14's Ashley. There was a player who I thought CBS forgot to put a space in between her names (GinaMarie), and a former political adviser (Helen) who has run campaigns. Hopefully it wasn't Mitt Romney's. Amongst some pretty generic others of course.

This was followed up by all the houseguests entering the house for the first time and claiming their beds. And in a poor bit of planning, there were only 12 beds for 16 contestants. What a crazy mistake! There was some getting to know each other and players revealing who they have crushes on. Judd likes GinaMarie. GinaMarie likes Howard. Jessie likes Jeremy because she thinks he looks like the wolf from Twilight. Amanda likes Nick. Kaitlin likes Andy because he has a sweet kitty t-shirt and she wanted to get into a 'Gaymance" this season. Jeremy (The Twilight wolf/Taylor Lautner look-alike) likes Kaitlin because he 'felt little rainbows and doves' flying out from his heart when she looks at him. McCrae the Pizza Delivery Guy who is a cross between BB14 winner Ian and Weird Al Yankovic likes Howard. McCrae isn't gay, but if he was, he 'would tear him (Howard) apart.' David likes Aryssa. And of course, Joanie loves Chachi. Never forget.

Right away there were two, three-person alliances formed in the moustache room which featured a cameo from BB Canada's Marcia the Moose! She's clearly forgotten to wax since even she had grown a moustache. The first three-person secret alliance consists of Jeremy, Spencer and Howard. Then in a playing the game way too hard too fast possibility, Jeremy (the Taylor Lautner look-alike) also joined forces with David & Jessie, the good-looking person's alliance and with two guys because Jessie wants to fulfill every stereotype of women not being able to get along with each other. Elissa had tried to form an all-girl's alliance earlier but Jessie and Kaitlin put the kibosh on that because... I don't know... women be crazy?

With all the houseguests gathered around the TV, Julie continued the mantra that everything is bigger this season, revealing that there would not be two nominees each week for eviction this season, but three! Then with Elissa looking on, the Chenbot said there would be another twist that she couldn't reveal, but to quote Rachel, 'Floaters grab your life vests!' Awkwaaaaaard...

The first Head of Household competition was an endurance competition in which the players had to hold on to a popsicle while a giant tongue pounded them. I have a feeling this was not the first time that's happened to a few of them. This competition looked a lot like the first endurance comp in the BB Canada house when the players wore all plaid and had to hang on to trees.

Get it? Because all Canadians wear plaid and are grunge rockers! Or lumberjacks.
Image via RealityNation

Judd, Howard and Candice were the first three to drop, doing so intentionally because they didn't want to win this early in the game. Because you know, it worked against BB12's Hayden and BB Canada winner Jillian so much. While the first to be eliminated trio were sitting around, Candice noticed that Elissa looked an awful lot like Rachel. Earlier in the episode, Judd the good old boy from Tennessee had thought she looked familiar too and this solved it. So much for wanting to keep being related to Rachel a secret. Something I'd try and keep a secret my entire life if I were related to her as well. Aaryn, the psych major from Texas, was the last girl remaining, dropping at the 3 hour and 2 minute mark. This left four guys on the popsicles (David the Surfer Guy, Taylor Lautner, Nick aka Spiderman aka Mr. Hardcore Parkour, and McCrae, the Pizza Delivery Boy). Julie tried to lure two of them down, showing two lunchboxes. One of which featured a never-not pass which meant you couldn't be a have not all season. That would be enough to get me down. David the Surfer/Lifeguard was the first to jump off, but *sad trombone*, his lunchbox only contained a sandwich on white bread. And he totally needs whole wheat so he can maintain that buff body that he likes to feel up! Taylor Lautner was the next to jump off, thus claiming the never not pass so he could continue to eat good food and maintain his resemblance to a teen heartthrob/werewolf.

In the end, it was McCrae who beat out Nick to become the first Head of Household of Big Brother 15, only after assuring the Spiderman wannabe that he would be safe. Following the competition, Julie revealed to all the houseguests that the HoH would decide the first two nominees, but that America would vote for an MVP and that person would decide who would be the third person to go up on the block... and would get to do so anonymously!

And that's where we left off, with McCrae the pizza delivery boy at the top of the food chain but with no nominations made until Sunday's episode. My first impressions are that I'm very happy we get a longer season and that there are all original houseguests. I don't love that the viewers will in a roundabout way have a say in who gets put on the block and goes home. It didn't work so well for the first season of Big Brother when viewers decided who went home. And in a surprising twist, Rachel's sister Elissa didn't annoy me all that much!

What say you, readers? What did you think of the first episode? Who was your favourite houseguest? And who do you think McCrae will put on the block. I think there will be a lot of pressure to put GinaMarie up because she's loud and abrasive and a lot of the houseguests don't like her that much.

Thanks for reading and be sure to follow me on Twitter (@KenBeckett) for all my thoughts and blogs on Big Brother 15 this summer!

Big Brother 15 Recap Coming Soon!

Is that Mitchell from Modern Family in the argyle tank top?
Image via CBS

Welcome fellow Big Brother fans/people who are secretly ashamed to love this show as much as they do! We're just over an hour away from the season premiere of the 15th season of Big Brother! I'll be your guide on this crazy 100-day journey this summer, posting my thoughts on Twitter and of course here on this blog on this new, mega-sized season!

I hope to have a recap posted pretty quickly after the season premiere, so be sure to check in sometime between 9-10pm EDT when it should be up. Or you can follow me on Twitter (@KenBeckett) and I'll certainly tweet out the link on there! Find out what I thought of the show, who were my favourite houseguests and just how much Rachel Reilly's sister annoys me!

Enjoy the show folks, and hopefully you'll enjoy my recaps at least 68% as much you did the season premiere.