Big Brother 22 week 1 recap: Goodbye Keesha, hello pregaming

The first week of Big Brother 22 saw the departure of a former America’s Favorite Houseguest winner, as well as two legends winning safety, dozens of alliances forming, and rumors of pregaming swirling outside the house. 

After the show’s first-ever live move in and cast reveal, Big Brother 22 seemed like it would be off to a roaring start: After all, it had a stellar cast, a high-tech house, and more reason to watch than ever, considering how few other TV options there will be as fall rolls around.

However, despite being set up for the win, week 1 came and went with very little fanfare – so much so that the houseguests themselves even commented on the lack of gameplay.

One massive point in this week’s favor was the introduction of night one feeds – usually, live feeds aren’t available to viewers until after the first live eviction, so superfans and feedsters got to bask in the glory of seeing all the action right from the get-go. If all week ones are like this one, though, we can understand why in the past the feeds weren’t live – veryyy little actually went down.

A predictable first week

Of course, there was the excitement of the houseguests moving in and scoping out their competition on night one, but the most eventful days of the week were the first and last – with a whole lot of nothing going on in the middle. With Cody as Head of Household, the question on everyone’s lips was whether or not Big Brother would follow in the footsteps of Survivor: Winners at War, which saw the new schoolers picking off the old-schoolers one by one. So, is that what’s happening here?

Yes and no. Initially, Cody seemed to have some ambitious plans for the first HOH of the season – he wanted to nominate Janelle Pierzina and Kaysar Ridha – two old school players who are notable not only because they both played in the previous All-Stars edition, but because of how tight the pair were on their previous seasons. With massive targets on their backs by sheer virtue of being in the house together, it seemed like Cody would come out swinging and put up two legends – but the Safety Suite got in the way.

Luckily for Janelle and Kaysar, on day two the houseguests found out that they would be able to compete to win safety for themselves and a “plus one” of their choice – and sure enough, Kaysar won safety, taking his BB6 & BB7 ride-or-die Janelle with him.

Although we’re a little worried for their safety heading into next week considering they both used their one-time passes and thus can’t play for safety again, we think it was the right call on Kaysar’s part to play – his intuition that Cody was gunning for him was spot on, and he ensured that neither of them could see the block and be the first boot.

Although Kaysar’s win left superfans celebrating, Cody wasn’t so happy – with his two planned nominees safe from eviction, he had to figure out a new game plan, which ended up being nominating Keesha Smith (BB10) and Kevin Campbell (BB11). Neither Keesha nor Kevin were nominated for being a threat like Janelle and Kaysar would’ve been – in Cody’s words, they were nominated just because he felt he didn’t know them as well as the rest of the house.

Heading into the veto competition, a poor draw for Keesha saw herself, Cody, Kevin, Tyler, Enzo, and Ian play for veto – Enzo being a bizarre houseguest choice pick on Kevin’s behalf. After a strangely sexual veto comp, Enzo pulled out the win (surprising us, because WHY would he want to win veto?) and opted not to save either nominee, despite the fact that Kevin had picked him.

We can’t say we blame Enzo for not using the veto – after all, it would undermine Cody’s nominations and put him in the tough spot of having to pick a replacement nominee. Given his alliance with Cody, it wouldn’t have made much sense.

The rest of the week proceeded relatively uneventfully – Tyler has made half a dozen final two deals, Nicole F couldn’t keep Janelle’s name out of her mouth, and Cody solidified himself many an alliance, ensuring that he wouldn’t be going anywhere next week. Despite some Wednesday night chaos involving Da’Vonne, Christmas, Janelle, and rumors of a sudden flip to keep Keesha, the house settled back down, and made the predictable choice – by a vote of 13 to 0, Keesha was the first evictee.

We can’t say we didn’t see it coming – Keesha didn’t have many allies, nor did she make very many attempts to campaign for herself once she was on the block. Although she was insanely entertaining on BB10, she just didn’t play as hard this season, which ended up getting her the boot.

Pregaming rumors

When it came to week one of Big Brother 22, the most drama seemed to be going on outside the house, not inside. Since day two, rumors have swirled that houseguests were pregaming – that is, striking up alliances and making plans with each other before they even entered the house – and even some former players who weren’t on the season were dragged into the drama.

Derrick Levasseur (winner of BB16, who notably sat next to Cody in the final two) took quite a bit of heat after reports sprouted that he and fellow winner Dan Gheesling (BB10) had set up a premade alliance for Cody and Memphis. Although we’re not sure if those rumors should be given any weight, Derrick went on Instagram live to discuss the situation, and the houseguests themselves were caught mentioning pregaming from time to time on the feeds, so from our point of view, it may not just be fan-generated fiction.

Regardless of the external drama, though, Memphis was able to snag a win during a True/False HOH competition, securing his safety for another week. Who he’ll nominate we can’t quite say – he mentioned earlier this week wanting to gun for Ian Terry (BB14) and put up Bayleigh Dayton (BB20) as a pawn, but as we know, plans change quickly and frequently in the BB house.

Best Big Brother moments

Clutch Play of the Week: Kaysar winning the safety suite and saving Janelle

Most Memorable Moment: Enzo suggestively rocking back and forth on his banana during the veto

Houseguest in the Best Spot: Tyler and his sea of final twos have him in a great position.

Did you watch week one of Big Brother 22? Who are you rooting for? Sound off in the comments below.