It may be August, but for some people summer is only getting started. Big Brother officially returned on Wednesday for its 22nd season, which is also the second-ever All-Stars edition. For the first time ever, the CBS reality hit debuted with a two-hour premiere that saw the returning cast of 16 houseguests move into their new house live!
The houseguests moved into the Big Brother pad four at a time, and each group immediately was pitted against each other in the first comp of the season. In this game, the houseguests were given a question to answer by maneuvering a ball into the corresponding slot in a tilting maze, but only the first two players to answer correctly were able to move on to compete for Head of Household.
Da’Vonne Rogers (Seasons 17 and 18), Nicole Franzel (Seasons 16 and 18), Christmas Abbott (Season 19), and Dani Briones (Seasons 8 and 13) were the first four to enter, with Christmas making it to the next round. (None of the other three players were able to finish the challenge in the four-minute time limit.)
Big Brother All Stars Cast: See Which Houseguests Returned!
Next up was Tyler Crispen (Season 20), Ian Terry (Season 14), Kevin Campbell (Season 11), and Enzo Palumbo (Season 12), with Ian and Kevin moving on.
The third group of houseguests included Janelle Pierzina (Seasons 6, 7, and 14), Bayleigh Dayton (Season 20), Nicole Anthony (Season 21), and Keesha Smith (Season 10), with only Nicole advancing. (Again, none of the other three houseguests were able to complete the challenge in time.)
The final players to enter the game were Cody Calafiore (Season 16), Kaysar Ridha (Seasons 6 and 7), Memphis Garrett (Season 10), and David Alexander (Season 21), and Cody and Memphis secured the final two slots in the HOH competition.
The six eligible houseguests then faced off in an HOH comp where they had to walk across a series of small raised platforms (some of which weren’t stable) to make it to the other side of the path in the shortest amount of time. Cody beasted the competition and was crowned HOH.
The houseguests who competed in but didn’t win the HOH comp each took an envelope that they were only able to open afterwards. Inside each envelope was either a cash prize (which Christmas nabbed) or a Have Not card, making Nicole Anthony, Memphis, Ian, and Kevin the first Have Nots of Season 22.
Of course, this is not only Big Brother, but Big Brother All-Stars, so they had to take the BB motto “expect the unexpected” up a notch. Host Julie Chen Moonves ended the live episode by teasing the first big twist of Season 22: new rooms in the house will be revealed throughout the season that will change up the game. The first of these rooms is going to be The Safety Suite, and inside it will be “something every single houseguest will want,” Julie cryptically teased.
Each houseguest will get a VIP for the Safety Suite, but what exactly that means and how this new twist will work won’t be revealed until Sunday’s episode.
The second episode of Big Brother will air Sunday at 10/9c. But starting Wednesday, Aug. 12, the series will move into its regular viewing schedule, airing Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, at 8/7c. The live feeds will be available on CBS All Access starting at 2:30 a.m. ET on Thursday, Aug. 6.
Julie Chen, Big Brother