Big Brother 26 was a roller coaster of a season that had some truly incredible moments, but it also had some huge fails that let down its fans. Hosted by Julie Chen Moonves, Big Brother 26 featured 16 brand-new houseguests competing for the $750,000 grand prize. In the end, Chelsie Baham was unanimously voted the winner, while Makensy Manbeck was the runner-up and took home the $75,000 second place prize. In addition, Tucker Des Lauriers won the fan-voted America’s Favorite Houseguest $50,000 prize.
Big Brother 26 introduced some awesome twists, including the BB AI Arena competition, which required the Head of Household (HOH) to nominate three houseguests for eviction instead of the usual two. The three houseguests remaining on the chopping block battled it out live on eviction night to determine the final two nominees. In addition, the America’s Veto twist gave fans the power to choose the replacement nominee after winner Makensy used it. They chose Quinn Martin. Both of these twists breathed new life into Big Brother after 25 seasons. However, there were also some major fails during Big Brother 26.
The BB Mascot Twist Fell Flat
Chelsie Baham & Cedric Hodges Were Never In Danger
During the two-night Big Brother 26 premiere, Chelsie and Cedric came in last in competitions, and they were downgraded to BB Mascots. For the first week of Big Brother 26, they were ineligible to compete in the HOH and Power of Veto competitions, but they could still be nominated and evicted. They also weren’t allowed to vote. In addition, they had to wear giant microchip costumes during the competitions, and cheer on their fellow houseguests.
This twist seemed disastrous for Chelsie and Cedric’s games because they would’ve been easy targets for the first HOH in the first week of the game before the houseguests really knew each other. However, the first HOH, Angela Murray, immediately told them that they had nothing to worry about because they weren’t her targets. The BB Mascot twist quickly became nothing more than annoyance for Chelsie and Cedric, as it really didn’t affect their games negatively. This twist would’ve been better later in the game when having power stripped away is much more of a danger.
Quinn Martin Spoiled The Deepfake HOH Twist
Quinn Shouldn’t Have Told Everyone About His Power
Quinn won the Deepfake HOH upgrade power during week 1, which allowed him to secretly take over an HOH reign by using a deepfake avatar of the actual HOH to make his nominations. However, he wasn’t required to keep it a secret, so he immediately told Angela, who he didn’t know was someone who couldn’t be trusted. He also told Kimo Apaka, who eventually spilled the beans to Tucker Des Lauriers, Quinn’s rival, who exposed him.
By the time Quinn decided to use the Deepfake HOH power to take over Angela’s second HOH reign, everyone knew that it was him. He even ended up consulting with Angela about the nominees, and eventually having a house meeting because of Tucker, in which Quinn admitted to everyone that he had the power. This caused distrust among him and the houseguests he hadn’t told about the power directly.
The Deepfake HOH could’ve benefited Quinn much more if he’d used it to make some bigger moves, and possibly framed someone else for it. He didn’t know the houseguests well enough yet to trust them with his Deepfake HOH upgrade power secret. Next time, Big Brother should require the winner of an HOH power to keep it a secret.
When fans voted Tucker as the BB AI Instigator, they expected him to wreak havoc throughout the house. However, Tucker didn’t really take advantage of being given the ability to use avatars of his fellow houseguests to cause chaos. On the show, he was shown using Quinn’s avatar to out his own showmance with Rubina Bernabe, so that they didn’t have to hide it anymore. However, this backfired when Rubina was very upset about it, rather than relieved.
Tucker also used the BB AI Instigator power by having Rubina’s avatar call Angela the best “butt roller” in the house after the houseguests had danced together. He also made Kimo’s avatar say that Leah Peters received all the tea from the boys, and that knowledge is power. This was meant to cast suspicion that Angela was the BB AI Instigator, and also to target Leah. Tucker also used his own avatar to warn the houseguests that Quinn and Chelsie weren’t trustworthy, and that T’kor Clottey was his new target because she nominated him for eviction.
Tucker’s BB AI Instigator messages were very bizarre, and they didn’t really do much to help his game. He could’ve used the power to call out some alliances or give the houseguests important information, but, instead, his messages seemed like a waste. Fans still awarded him the highest amount of prize money for his efforts, which was $20,000, but this twist mostly just fell flat.
One of the biggest Big Brother 26 fails was the much-anticipated OTEV competition. Every season, fans look forward to the classic Power of Veto competition, but this year something unprecedented happened: it only lasted for one round. All of the players got the first question wrong except for Makensy, which meant that they were all eliminated, and she won.
The first OTEV competition request was especially challenging, as it was a bit of a trick question. OTEV asked the houseguests to bring him the card with the name of the first evicted player who didn’t participate in the first HOH competition. Every houseguest thought that the answer wasTucker because he and Makensy weren’t chosen to play on a team in the first round of that competition. However, that round counted as gameplay, so Tucker couldn’t be the right answer. Instead, Makensy correctly answered evicted houseguest Cedric, who was a BB Mascot, and ineligible to play.
The Big Brother 26 OTEV competition was a big letdown because it ended after just one round. In the future, Big Brother should make sure that the first one or two OTEV questions aren’t too difficult to ensure that the competition lasts more than one round. The challenge of finding the answer and then climbing up the slope would still make the competition exciting, even if the questions were a bit easier.
Jankie World Slowed Down Big Brother 26
The Jankie Veto Went To Waste
During the Jankie World twist, the Big Brother 26 backyard was transformed into Jankie World, a never-ending carnival during which the houseguests were only allowed to eat pizza and ice cream, and had to sing and dance at the command of Jankie, an AI entity, who Kimo described as a “toddler from hell.”
While the Jankie World twist seemed fun and challenging for the houseguests at first, it eventually became tedious and taxing. The Big Brother 26 houseguests were worn down both emotionally and physically by the end of it, and didn’t seem to be enjoying themselves. It also made the live feeds and the CBS episodes boring and hard to watch for fans.
In addition, the Jankie Veto, which was won by HOH Leah, could only be used if she won a carnival game by knocking down milk bottles with a ball. She failed to do it, so the second veto of the week disappointingly went to waste. It shouldn’t have had that stipulation attached to it.
In addition, because all of the Big Brother 26 houseguests were trapped in the backyard together, secret game talk became very difficult. This slowed down the game because the houseguests couldn’t strategize with their allies in front of their rivals’ faces. If Big Brother ever decides to do a Jankie World-like twist again, in which the houseguests are confined to a smaller space together, perhaps adding partitions to create separate areas could make it more conducive to them actually playing Big Brother.
Big Brother 26 was a spectacular season that ended with one of the best winners in the show’s history, Chelsie. However, there were some missteps along the way. Hopefully, Big Brother will learn from these mistakes, so that Big Brother 27 will be the best season yet.
