Take Me Out, Coach

S14E01

Well, we're back. Crap.

From the studio, Julie looks relatively normal, if a bit overdressed, in a formal red ball gown...until she comes down the steps and it turns out it's actually pants. She rarely disappoints on the sartorial front. As usual, she leads with the news of this season's "twist." Yes, there will be twelve new houseguests, but "four of the greatest houseguests of all time" will be joining them, to play their own game with its own rules and its own prize. We'll see how long that takes to fall apart.

The house's decor is more retina-battering than ever as we get the usual speech about the house full of cameras, microphones, and willing prisoners. The narrator adds that some "Big Brother legends (over headshots of freaking Rachel [don't even joke about that, show], Dan, Janelle, Enzo, Jeff, Mike Boogie, Evel Dick, Britney, and Dr. Will), will return to change the game, and also that one houseguest will leave before the night is over. That last part is the best news yet.

Back in the otherwise empty studio, Julie reiterates that four former houseguests are coming back, but this time as coaches rather than players. She's not telling us who they are yet, at least not until we meet the virgins.

Cue the not-at-all-staged montage of newbies "discovering" their invitations while going about their everyday lives, in which they are apparently followed by CBS cameras at all times. We start with Frank from Naples, FL, who claims to be the biggest Big Brother fan ever. Of all the people I've heard say that, at least one of them has to be wrong. Frank claims to have been prepping for the game by getting in shape and "reading strategic books." And dressing and coiffing himself like a character from Wet Hot American Summer while he's at it.

Moving on to Danielle, a self-described "Southern girl" and nurse from Tuscaloosa, AL. She also says she's very girly, which I guess is all that the editors think we need to know.

And then we're in Bennington, VT, to meet Shane, who claims to be a house-flipper but looks more like "construction guy" in a pinup calendar. With an assist from the editors, of course. He's got five houses on his hands right now, so a half-million-dollar prize would...well, let's face it, make a very small dent.

we meet Jodi, from Calipatria, CA. She recently married a guy with five kids, and is apparently fitness-oriented. She's also an African-American woman, so I think that looking at the last batch of seasons, we can be assured she won't reach the top four.

By M. Giant

On to Ian, a chemical engineering student at Tulane University in New Orleans. Ian...looks like the casting department at Big Brother thinks a chemical engineering student should look like, if you know what I mean. He thinks being smarter than everyone will give him an edge. Indeed, he's already wondering why he has an invitation but no key. Can't get much past this egghead, clearly.

The one we meet is Wil from Louisville KY, who looks like a poor man's Fabio but talks like a poor man's RuPaul. How's Kentucky treating you, sunshine?

Heading to Staten Island, we encounter Jodi, a glamour puss who seems given to grand proclamations while gesturing like a Real Housewife of the Jersey Shore. She also boasts that she's Sicilian, which I'm making sure to record now because I'm sure she'll never mention it again.

Back down south, where short-mohawked Willie from Dayton, TX comes right out and admits, "My brother is Russell from Survivor." I don't watch Survivor, but even I've heard of Russell, who we see telling Willie at home to know when to make the big moves. "So I can't play like you?" Willie shoots back. If nothing else, he can follow a script.

Kara from Los Angeles is the first of the houseguests to flat-out admit that she's a model, as we see her hanging out by the pool in a bikini with what I assume are her colleagues. Her big goal appears to be finding love inside the Big Brother house. Because that always works out so well.

Back in the Midwest, Joe from Shererville, IN claims to have been a professional chef for 15 years, and then proceeds to ignite flames on his stove that should be scorching his ceiling. "I can even make slop taste like filet mignon," he claims. In which case he'll be invaluable... in which case he won't last five minutes.

Pierced, tattooed Jenn from Brooklyn tells us she was in the all-girl platinum-selling metal band Kitty (I do vaguely remember their one minor hit, though not its title). She says she's also Puerto Rican and a proud gay woman, and "you either love me for it, or you despise me for it." Don't worry, Jenn, I fully expect to despise you purely for your personality, like I have so very many houseguests before you.

Montage of packing and leaving and I already wish they were saying goodbye to us instead of their families. And then, back in the studio, the houseguests are cut loose to assemble outside the front door, where as usual they're not allowed to speak through Julie's standard speech of welcome-slash-warning. The first gang of four to step inside are Wil, Ashley, Jodi, and Frank. Now there's whooping and screaming to go along with the loud décor. If I had a bowl of slop here with me it would be an all-out assault on every one of my senses. Wil quickly spots Frank as a possible member of some kind of hair-alliance.

to head inside are Ian, Shane, Jenn, and Danielle. "Honey, I'm home!" Ian calls as he enters. This is Danielle's first encounter with a person who looks like Jenn, it turns out. Finally, Willie, Joe, Kara, and Jojo get to go inside. Is anyone worried about the confusion of having a Joe, a JoJo, a Wil, and a Willie in the house? JoJo quickly gets on my nerves by Diary Rooming about how she always gets her way, when clearly what happened is that nice Midwestern guy Joe just yielded a bed to her out of Midwestern niceness. Ashley, meanwhile, wants to make JoJo and Kara her little-doll toys. That's actually better than some strategies I've heard on this show.

The champagne pops, and after conforming that Ian's old enough to drink, they sit around for self-intros. Wil explains how he makes flash mobs and viral videos, which makes me like him less, and Joe bellows in the DR that "WIL COULD BE ONE OF THE PRETTIEST CHICKS IN THE HOUSE." Willie doesn't mention his relationship to Russell while talking about himself, but Ian's onto him anyway, somehow. "The resemblance is too strong," he says. Joe sells his chef skills right from the gate. Danielle the nurse claims to be a kindergarten teacher, because she doesn't want them to know she's working on three degrees, and plus also that worked out so well for Nary and Jamie on The Amazing Race last season. Jodi tells everyone about her five stepkids, Ashley gives a self-intro so short that nobody thinks she's done, and then Ian cops to being a chemical engineering student. "So if the hot tub breaks, I'm the one to fix it." Ashley totally digs him, because she likes the nerdy guys. Or maybe she just figures he can synthesize opioids for her out of cleaning supplies.

Frank says he's unemployed, which Jodi doesn't believe for a second. I totally believe Frank; he looks pretty unemployable to me. JoJo tells them she's a bartender, to go with their chef. Jenn introduces herself and says she's "super-excited to be there." Kara talks about being a model, and Ian's totally smitten with her. A triangle already. As for Shane, he soon gains Danielle's attention, what with him being a hot carpenter and her assuming he's "good with his hands." Toast, and a DR'ed threat from Willie, and a tease from Julie about the four returning coaches, and the soon-to-be-departing houseguest, and at last, the ads. At long, long last.

Back from a lengthy preview of The Dark Knight Rises (which, okay, I sat through), Julie brings up the four past houseguests who will be returning. We're reintroduced to each of them in montage form, starting with Dan, who won BB10. Dan is, if not the best, certainly the most underrated player since I started covering this show; he played cool and smart and constantly mindful of his own vulnerabilities. Plus who else ever won with a unanimous vote? I flatter myself that if my worst nightmare were to come true, I'd play the game like Dan. He's since married a girl named Chelsea and coached his football team to a state championship.

Then Janelle from BB6 and All-Stars (before my time, in other words) reminds us that she holds the record for winning the most competitions in one season of BB: five Powers of Veto and four Heads of Household (I don't know if I'm pluralizing those right or she is, but clearly only one of us cares). She tells us that she's married with a baby, and is a "real housewife of Minnesota." Oddly, I haven't seen her around.

Then comes Britney from BB12, another of my least unfavorite players on account of how we share a common mortal enemy (Rachel) and she was generally funnier than any person named Britney has a right to be. She's also married, and promises to be less naïve this time than the year she was totally blindsided by the Brigade.

And finally, Mike Fucking Boogie from BB2 and All Stars, who's still living in the glory days of Chill Town, and still considers himself the best player ever. Of course he does.

So now it's time for Julie to get on the viewscreen to update the houseguests. She breaks out the motto, "expect the unexpected," which of course everyone totally expects her to do. She tells them that four of the best players ever will be coming back into the house, which horrifies them until Julie adds that the veterans will be coaching them rather than competing against them. Now they're happy. She says each of the veterans will come in and pick their players to coach, and the coach whose protégé wins the game will win hundred grand as well. Frank analyzes that this means there are two games going on this season. The houseguests start rattling off names (Dan, Hayden, Janelle, Boogie, and if three out of four isn't bad, per se, it's a little eerie), and then the doorbell rings. Enter Dan, greeted like a conquering hero. Dan gives a low-rent Coach Taylor speech, and while everyone's still hopping up and down in a group hug, Britney walks in and is immediately overwhelmed. Frank's not impressed. Then in comes Mike Boogie, who Ian first watched when he was ten years old. I think I need to have a word with Ian's parents. Finally in comes Janelle, who happens to be Britney's favorite ever. Britney's happy to see her and hugs her like a mini-me, while Mike confesses faux-ruefully about his history with Janelle during All-Stars. "This shit just got real," Kara says.

Dan also spots Willie's resemblance to Russell, but Willie wants to stay undercover. In fact, he lies and says he's never seen Russell before. Mike and Janelle are having the same conversation off in another room, and saying neither of them plans to pick him for their teams. Julie gets on the viewscreen to interrupt the mixer and explain the reason they don't have keys, as Ian wondered earlier: although there are twelve houseguests, there are only eleven keys -- which means one of them is leaving tonight. And which means one coach will start out short. Competition, coming right up. And already we can see why the "twist" hasn't been fully thought out. As usual.

After the ads, everyone's in the backyard, which is set up like a nursery for giant quadruplets. Each of the coaches is standing on a giant bed, and Julie says it's time to pick teams. With the order determined at random, Britney gets to go first, and she chooses Shane, who climbs up to join her on the big green bed. Mike, on the big pink bed, picks Frank for his hair and personality. Janelle, on the big blue bed, picks "Wil with one L," because he wants people who look like they're good schemers. Yeah, you can always tell that about people by looking at them. Speaking of which, it's Dan's turn to pick. He names Kara, which he DRs is for some other reason than wanting someone cute to him on the big orange bed. They reverse the order for the round, so Dan gets to pick again, and goes with Danielle. Janelle chooses Ashley. Willie's starting to feel a little passed over. Mike picks Ian, who tells him, "You're a legend, man." Don't encourage him, Ian. Britney picks Willie for her second choice, then JoJo for her third and final pick. Mike goes with Jenn, and that leaves Janelle to pick from Joe and Jodi, standing there like a couple of losers. Janelle goes with Joe, so Dan gets Jodi. "We're happy to have her," Dan says classily.

For the competition, Julie tells them to "get into your PJs," which they do in the time it takes to execute a screen-wipe edit. The first Head of Household competition is about to start. Julie is looped in post-production saying that the coaches won't be competing, and also that the houseguests will be playing this one as teams. The coach of the winning team will get to pick the HoH from his or her group, but the coach of the last-place team will have to cut one of their people loose tonight.

Finally, Julie's ready to explain the actual competition. It's basically a relay race along each team's lane of giant mattresses to bring back one giant teddy bear at a time from a big pile at the end of each lane. If anyone falls, they have to go back to the last end they were at. The first team to transport three bears to the shelf and turn off a light wins. Julie adds that each coach can make a substitution at the twenty-minute mark. Is it really going to last that long? Well, yes, because Julie hasn't even started the count-off before the mattresses they'll have to run on start spinning and moving. Nothing for it but to get started, though.

Ian, Frank, and Danielle all fall on their first runs to the bear-bin and have to start over, but Shane doesn't fall until he's on his way back, and thus gets the first bear for Britney's team. Wil delivers one to Janelle, and Frank gets one across to Mike while Danielle is still struggling to finish a round for Dan's team. Jodi takes over for Danielle, figuring her long limbs will be an advantage, but she looks like she's playing a backyard version of Wipeout. Clumsy diving and leaping continues all around, and Willie gets Britney's second bear before Kara gets the first bear for Dan's team. Ian gets Mike's second bear, and JoJo is outmatched trying to bring back Britney's third bear. Janelle's team closes the gap, and we leave it in what Julie says is a three-way tie.

We come back with Ashley, Jenn, and JoJo struggling to get their respective teams' third bears back across the course. Danielle is just trying to get her team out of last place. Britney and her green team give JoJo the intensive coaching she needs to return with a bear, which she finally does, and than all that needs to happen is for Shane to get back across and hit the buzzer, which he does. So Britney will be picking the first HoH from her team, and she's almost as happy about it as they are. Julie reminds them that it's still a race to not to come in last. A horn goes off, which means twenty minutes are up and they can do a substitution. Mike swaps Jenn for Frank, who quickly retrieves the pink team's third bear. Wil gets the third bear back to Janelle's team and races back to hit the buzzer, so her team finishes in second. Frank hits Mike's buzzer, putting that team in third, so Dan's all-girl team is last. He encourages them anyway, telling them it'll be all right. Which is will be, for two of them, and I have a feeling it'll be the cute white ones.

As for Britney, she names Willie as the first HoH, so that's quite the reversal for him. She explains in the DR that he needs the week to make some deals and establish himself, which makes sense; of course Russell's brother is going to be a target, whether he admits to the relationship or not. As for Dan, Julie says she'll give him some time to make his decision. A commercial break's worth of time, to be precise.

The inside of the house looks rather silly with everyone in their pastel PJs milling about. Dan says Kara's safe, so he has to decide between Jodi and Danielle. He says it's not just about the competition that just went down, but the whole game. In a one-on-one with Jodi, she throws Danielle under the proverbial bus for getting defeated during the competition, and Danielle tells Dan that she thinks Jodi might "cause drama." Not that that's racist or anything, with absolutely nothing to go on other than first impressions and the unspoken assumption that black women cause drama. Julie gathers everyone in the living room and orders Dan to name the first evictee of the season: it's Jodi, unsurprisingly. She lasted even less time than I expected. Back to the five stepkids, lady. And I think we officially have the whitest fifteen people in the house ever. Ian DRs that he's never seen anything that cruel on this show, which is surprising not because it's true (I'm not convinced it is), but because it got shown on the air. Willie triumphantly says he's not worried any more: "It's all about me." Clearly Willie's strength, whatever it is, it not in taking the long view.

By M. Giant

Then there's a montage of the coming week, Julie flogging the various other Big Brother-related stuff we can seek out in case we want to waste even more time than the three hours a week we'll already never get back, and a final eavesdrop on the houseguests. Which is even less interesting than usual, apart from Kara and Danielle talking about needing to get out of their shorts. That's got to make Dan feel good about keeping them.

M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.