By
Big Brother 2 I mean the second season of the US version of
Big Brother. I watched the first season and am watching
this season since my
girlfriend likes the show and it's something to talk about. I'm going to periodically add to this nodes as things happen in the show.
Changes from the first season
CBS has managed to make some improvements, not that it'll save the show from being cancelled after this season. In the original, the house was left very bare, with the idea that the houseguests would decorate. Well, they didn't, and the place was horrible looking all season long. This season CBS decorated it themselves and it's not so bad looking.
The rules regarding nominations and banishments are different. In BB1 the houseguests all voted and the two people with the most votes were nominated for banishment. Then America decided which one went. This season, there is a competition where one houseguest becomes head of household and they get to pick the two people to be nominated. The rest of the houseguests then vote on who gets banished. The HoH gets to be the tie breaker if necessary. The end of the show will be handled something like Survivor with the banished houseguests voting on the winner.
The Contestants
Autumn - Single mother from Texas who was very emotional.
Bunky - The Gay One. Technical Writer from NC who likes professional wrestling.
Hardy - Says he's a bouncer on the show, but the website lists him as an account executive. From PA.
Justin - Knife weilding bartender from NJ.
Kent - 46 year old Good ol' Boy Mortgage Broker from TN. Lists his hero as Ronald Reagan.
Krista - Southern Waitress from Opelousas, LA, who likes to eat the crawfish.
Mike - Annoying bar owner from Los Angeles. Likes rap, and unfortunately tries to do it himself.
Monica - 40 year old manager of a candy store. She also seems to work with the poor.
Nicole - Personal Chef from GA who has no interest in compromising her recent marriage.
Shannon - Realtor/Boat Captain/Sports Enthusiast from TX.
Sheryl - Interior Designer from from FL who quickly became the shortlived mother figure.
Will - Doctor from FL who plans on using his amazing intelligence to win the game.
Summary of Events
This will mostly be about who wins the HoH, who gets nominated, who gets banished and why. The show also features weekly competitions for food or other prizes but I've never found that overly interesting.
First Nominations/Banishment
Mike manages to become the first HoH. In an attempt to get rid of Nicole he nominates her and the most popular houseguest so far, Sheryl. The idea is that this forces Nicole out. After initially being upset, Nicole decides to fight back. Nicole establishes the idea of "chill town" being Mike, Shannon and Will, and convinces several other houseguests to work against them. Chilltown along with Monica vote for Nicole with the rest of the house voted Sheryl out. This came as a great surprise to Mike. One thing that really worked against Mike was that Sheryl herself was very annoyed at his strategy and basically influenced her own banishment. Will and Shannon become affectionate but quickly start to alienate themselves from the rest of the house, except for Mike.
Justin's Eviction
After the nomination, but before the banishment of Sheryl, Justin gets evicted from the house for various threats of violence. The main reason for his eviction is an episode where he held a knife to Krista's throat and asked if it was ok if he killed her. Even though they both knew it was a joke, it was too much for CBS and Justin was removed from the house. CBS later finds out Justin had a criminal record of assault.
Second Nominations/Banishment
Chill Town becomes the main target for most of the houseguests as the competition for the next HoH begins. When Krista wins there is very obvious look of dread in the faces of Chill Town. But, when Krista announces her nomination everyone is surprised that it's Kent and Autumn. Krista mainly wanted Autumn to be evicted because she was having obvious emotinal problems from being there. The rest of the house goes along with this and unaminously votes Autumn out. This set of nominations puts Krista's "loyalty" up for grabs. In fact, Chill Town incorrectly decides that they have her in their pocket.
Kent and Bunky
Bunky states that he is gay in the "diary room", but slowly revealed this to the houseguests one at a time. Early on Kent made some strong remarks to Bunky (and in the diary room) that he felt the homosexual lifestyle was deviant before he knew he was gay. Bunky finally confronted Kent, who responded by stating that he felt Bunky was brave and asking questions about his life. Later on because of their snoring problems they both were relagated to the HoH room to relieve the other houseguests. Because of this they became good friends, with Kent even offering to share the bed with Bunky. This relationship confused several people in the house, such as Mike, who had decided Kent fit the stereotype of the Southern Christian Homophobe. BB2 has now run two different segments on the "unlikely" friendship of "The Odd Couple". It seems that not even CBS can get over their stereotypes.
Third Nominations/Banishment
In the next HoH competition Hardy edges out Shannon for the victory. This puts in motion some of the more interesting events so far. Hardy had stated several times his extreme dislike of the people in Chill Town. He offered Mike a deal to not nominate him if Mike would never nominate him if he got HoH, but Mike turned it down. Either way, it seems that Hardy really always planned on his nomination of Will and Shannon. Going into this nomination Shannon continued to have problems relating with the other houseguests, and was starting to get upset. After the nomination it seems she lost it all together. She repeatedly called Hardy a "coward" and claimed he was "jealous". After thinking Hardy was laughing at her, she took his toothbrush and used it to clean the toilet. Luckily, Big Brother made her dispose of the toothbrush. She told Hardy that she had broke it by accident. Hardy, being no fool, interrogated her about it and made it obvious she was lying. Shannon has continued to act erratically, lashing out at people and then getting upset. Even stranger is the reaction by the other members of Chill Town to this nomination. They state that it shows Hardy is an idiot, and that he's a "marked man". But there will only be two people left who have any interest in getting rid of Hardy. And even if they get HoH and nominate him there really isn't anyone who would have a good chance of beating him. Hardy is following his game plan of destroying Chill Town and is gaining the support of everyone else in the house. Krista and Bunky mulled over the idea of banishing Will, but in the end, after Shannon personally asked everyone to vote her out, Shannon left with a 6-0 vote.
Fourth Nominations/Banishment
In the next HoH competition Kent barely defeated Mike. That's the second time a member of Chill Town has come close to winning. After gaining the HoH Kent talked several times with Will and decided to not nominate him. He mulls over doing the same thing Mike did in the first round of nominations, with Mike as the target. He even asked Bunky if it would be ok to nominate him. Bunky made it as clear as mud that he didn't like the idea. Kent eventually nominated Mike and Krista. Right after the nomination Mike claimed Kent did something morally wrong by nominating him because he "saved" Kent in the first week. Kent points out that there was no agreement of any sort, and I'd have to agree with him. In the "diary room" Mike pledges to wage war on Kent, which will probably just make his chances of being banished better.
It seems that CBS used their editing powers to try and make this week more interesting. There was a lot of focus on Nicole talking with Will about saving "Mike". The day of nominations even had Hardy going along with the plan. In the end though, the Will was the only one to vote for Krista and Mike was gone. I'm sure there was footage of Nicole and Hardy dismissing plans to ally with Will and Mike but it never aired.
Fifth Nominations/Banishment
In the next HoH competition Hardy once again won. When asked if he already knew who he was voting for he very definitely said, "yes". Even though he has become better friends with Will he continued on with his goal of voting out Chill Town by nominating Kent and Will. Kent alienated the rest of the houseguest during the week and got booted 4-0. That means even Bunky voted him out, but he claims that was just so he could stay in the game. Even though several people claim to be in alliances there really isn't an alliance left. Nicole finally found out about Hardy's "alliance" with Monica and Krista and so they're not too happy with each other. Krista, on the other hand, has mentioned that she would break her alliance with Hardy at the right moment in order to win.
Sixth Nominations/Banishment
In the next HoH competition Nicole managed to finally win. She decided to nominate Krista and Monica, because she felt they were a "power of two". She may have been working off of finding out that Hardy, Krista and Monica had some sort of alliance. This nomination could be seen as an attack on Hardy. Krista ended up getting voted out because she was the biggest threat. Monica was well aware of this and very upset about it. Basically everyone was overly emotional about doing this. Even Will felt bad for not giving Krista a sympathy vote.
Currently
There was no HoH competition after the banishments for some reason. I've never been able to find a list of rules for how things will work for now on. I'm guessing for now it'll work like normal. If Hardy doesn't get HoH next time I'm almost certain he'll be nominated and voted out. Nicole might not nominate him, but I think anyone else would.