After the Time Laser twist in the last season of Big Brother, a new reality TV show called “Big Brother Reindeer Games” emerged. This spin-off brings back nine former Houseguests for another round of epic competitions who will compete against each other in exciting challenges.
However, our regular Julie Chen Moonves is not hosting this show and is being replaced by Jordan Lloyd, Derek Xiao, and Tiffany Mitchell as “Santa’s Elves.” So what happened in the first episode of the show and who went home first? Find out in the minute by minute Recap below:
9:00 p.m. – Here! We! Go! The special night started with a reading by BB fan Santa Claus where he admitted to re-opening the multiverse to have the all-stars come back to compete. Fittingly, Taylor was the first to enter the house, making a quick comeback after becoming the first Black woman to win the show and the first player to ever win and be named America’s Favorite Player in the same season. She was joined in succession by Cody, Britney, Xavier, Danielle, Frankie, Nicole, Josh, and last, but not least Cameron.
9:13 p.m. – Santa’s first bit of news for the nine houseguests was clarity that each day he’d be eliminating the poorest performing one until only four of them remained to compete for the $100,000 cash prize at the end of the games. He also noted that their strategy will be important because the rules each day will be different, meaning sometimes they’ll compete as individuals, duos, or teams.
9:20 p.m. – The first bit of strategy we got a glimpse of was Danielle and Britney swapping a quick whisper about the need to get the “alpha males” and “comp beasts” out as soon as possible. Frankie approached Cody for strategy as well, offering to share info. Cody was excited to have Frankie on his side because he refers to him as “hands down” the best competitor to ever play the game. Because they had “drama” outside of the house, Britney and Nicole touched base to clear the air about some things that Britney said online when Nicole was in the house on “All Stars.” Britney apologized and took accountability for her actions which helped mend the fence of their broken friendship. Elsewhere, Josh and Taylor brought together the first large alliance of the game in a foursome with Xavier and Danielle, but Danielle saw them all as threats that she’d only work with as long as it benefits her own game.
9:31 p.m. – The first elf ambassador to enter the house was Jordan to inform them of their first competition, a Naughty and Nice challenge where they must solve a riddle to get DJ Scroogey to perform at the Lodge. To solve the riddle they’d have to race around the house looking for clues in wrapped gifts, but each player would only get one official guess at the correct answer. The first player to solve the riddle earns the yet-to-be-revealed Naughty and Nice power.
9:35 p.m. – The first box was a little electric house that lit up, but made no sound. The second box had a golden hand with one finger pointed up. Xavier didn’t want to wait for the third clue so he rang the bell to log his guess of “Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer.” Josh then went with his guess of “Feliz Navidad.” The others waited for the third clue, an oversized toy spinner.
9:37 p.m. – Both Taylor and Cody were comfortable not logging a guess, more concerned that the Naughty and Nice power might not be good enough to win anyway. In a corner, Danielle and Britney worked together to figure out the song title. Danielle went with “Old Saint Nick.” Britney thought she knew the song, but wasn’t sure of the title, logging “Up on the House Top” as her official guess. Both Nicole and Frankie logged the same guess but after Britney. In the end, Britney was correct and because she put her guess through first she earned the Naughty and Nice power.
9:39 p.m. – After DJ Scroogey’s performance, Jordan revealed that Britney earned an advantage at the next challenge, the Jingle Bell Brawl. The “naughty” aspect was to give someone else a disadvantage in the same challenge. Britney was not happy with what the power was because an advantage was not enough of a gain from her perspective — she had been hoping for safety from the first elimination.
9:47 p.m. – In the time Britney had to determine who to give the disadvantage, she got together with Nicole they agreed that the women should stick together and specifically Cody and Frankie are too close to leave the game together. Danielle joined in to suggest that Cameron and Xavier are also threats. During meetings with each player in the house, Britney noted that Cameron looks tired, she remembers Josh doing a lot of physical stuff on his social media, told Cody that she’ll be going with the consensus, got nothing of substance from Xavier, was shocked when Frankie told her that Xavier won his season, and heard from Taylor that Cody is the biggest threat.
9:51 p.m. – After much deliberation, Britney announced to the house that she was giving the Naughty stocking disadvantage to Cody.
9:57 p.m. – Jordan returned to host the Jingle Bell Brawl and let the players know that the winner will earn “safety for the day” and the responsibility of “playing a crucial role in deciding who will go home.”
10:01 p.m. – For this competition, Santa wanted the players to fix a backup at the post office by delivering letters back and forth across a thin balance beam and depositing them in the mailboxes of other players. The letters deposited in a mailbox must be returned by that player, meaning the more that are placed on another player the more they have to take back. The winner would be the first player to deliver all their letters and re-deliver all the letters given to them.
10:05 p.m. – Frankie announced his strategy he was going to put one letter in everyone’s mailbox to protect himself from being targeted by anyone else. Taylor’s approach was more strategic, knowing that she’d need to load up the box of the people she didn’t want to win. Nicole noticed right away that Cody was putting a lot of his mail in her box and so she retaliated by putting her letters in his box. Jordan noted from the sidelines that a lot of people were targeting Cameron as well.
10:11 p.m. – Once Cameron’s box filled up, Britney decided that the next best option for her was to go to Cody’s box because she already given him the disadvantage anyway. Taylor joined Britney in that effort, hoping that whoever wins will see Cameron and Cody as the easiest targets. Cody was alarmed that Taylor was targeting him because she had not been on his radar yet.
10:15 p.m. – Taylor and Frankie were the first players to realize that their mailboxes were close to empty. When Frankie became the first player to only have one letter left, both Xavier and Danielle started targeting him with their deliveries. Still, Frankie was able to clear out his mailbox first and became the winner of the challenge. With his win, Frankie earned the power to send two players to the Santa’s Showdown challenge where they’d go head-to-head with one earning their safety and the other losing and being sent home immediately.
10:20 p.m. – Cody was the first person that Frankie shared congratulations with, solidifying their alliance by assuring them that he’d be safe. When Nicole walked in, Frankie offered an alliance between Cody, himself, and Nicole. Cody told him that Frankie needs to put strong people up because they need to get them out before they start winning challenges.
10:26 p.m. – Frankie knew that his position of choosing two people meant that he needed to do his best to make sure that the person who remained in the game wasn’t going to be too mad at him. Frankie told Danielle that targeting Cameron was the best idea and offered the names of Cody, Xavier, and Josh as the three people most likely to beat him in the showdown. While Frankie talked to Nicole, Xavier mentioned to Danielle, Taylor, and Josh that he thinks only he and Taylor put letters in his box and that would make them vulnerable.
10:30 p.m. – Later, Frankie told Cameron that he wanted “hard competitors in the end” and that they’d be able to help each other get to the end. By the way, Frankie was talking, Cameron could tell that he was leaning toward putting him in the showdown. Xavier also didn’t feel assured that Frankie wouldn’t put him in the challenge despite offering him the chance to work together. When Taylor pitched that Frankie put Cody in the showdown and attempted to protect Xavier from going down, Frankie understood that other alliances were going around the house. Frankie clued Cody in on the fact that Taylor was throwing his name under the bus.
10:33 p.m. – When called to the living room by the jingle bells, Frankie announced that the two players to face off in Santa’s Showdown would be Cameron and Xavier. He explained that his decision was based on Cameron receiving the most letters and Xavier putting letters in his box.
10:42 p.m. – In Santa’s Showdown, Cameron and Xavier had to race to complete a 57-piece puzzle in the shape of a sweater. Instead of starting on the borders like a normal puzzle, Cameron’s strategy was to build the reindeer’s face in the center of the sweater first. Xavier did that as well, but then focused his attention on the sleeves so that he’d be left with the middle of the sweater. From the sidelines, Britney was hoping that Cameron would win because he was on an island in the game and she could scoop him up as an ally fairly easily. Taylor was rooting for Xavier to win because she was already aligned with him and saw him as her “weapon” to knock out the other big competitors.
10:52 p.m. – Xavier looked like he was nearly finished with the puzzle, but he quickly realized that he must be missing a piece because the ones he thought he had left weren’t connecting in the right way. Luckily he found the missing piece and was able to complete the sweater when Cameron was only about 80% done with his. Xavier’s win meant that Cameron was the first player to be eliminated, but as a consolation, he got to pick a gift from under Santa’s tree. Cameron chose a small gold box and opened it to earn a year’s subscription to Jelly.
Reflecting on the Santa’s Showdown, everyone realized that it was an intense competition that none of them wanted to go down for. Frankie’s plan to get Cameron out worked and on the surface, Xavier agreed with the decision as one he would have made as well. At this point, the lines were drawn between Taylor and Cody with both of them knowing who they’d need to target if they were the next to earn power in the game.
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