After a wild week of broken promises and controversial decisions
After a wild week in the Big Brother house, the first houseguest got the boot on Thursday.
Season 23 of Big Brother kicked off in high gear after Brandon "Frenchie" French earned himself the Head of Household title and his team, The Jokers, safety from elimination.
He then proceeded to make a lot of promises to nearly everyone in the house, arguing that he wanted to put a "meathead" on the block for the first eviction and claiming he wasn't going to nominate any women or people of color.
His sights were set on Christian Birkenberger, but when Christian won immunity, Frenchie's frantic plans were thrown into disarray, because he'd already promised too many people too many things and now was spiraling.
So, he ended up nominating Kyland Young and Alyssa Lopez -- both contestants who are POCs and one of whom is a woman, breaking essentially all his plans.
Needless to say, everyone is baffled by Frenchie's motives and confused by his plans -- this seemingly includes Frenchie, who repeatedly tries to explain himself but sounds more like he's frantically rationalizing snap decisions instead of making logical choices.
After Derek Xiao won the veto competition, Frenchie convinced Derek to veto Kyland and take him off the block, allowing Frenchie to instead nominate Travis Long -- whom Frenchie previously promised he wouldn't nominate.
Needless to say, going into Thursday's eviction episode, Frenchie had a lot of sway in the house but almost zero trust. While Frenchie couldn't go home Thursday, he is no doubt a big target in the week to come.
When it finally came down to the eviction vote, both Alyssa and Travis got a chance to defend themselves with speeches directed toward the other houseguests.
"I first want to say thank you because we all know my anxiety has been insane this week and literally within the first hour you guys were so supportive and understanding, and you have no idea how much that meant to me," Alyssa shared in a candid speech. "With that being said I would love to still play this game with you all and get to know you all even more so. And no matter what I respect any decision you make."
When it came to Travis' speech, the 22-year-old Honolulu native immediately stripped his shirt off to show off his abs, as his housemates laughed. However, his speech was genuine and sentimental.
"Houseguests, you guys have taught me throughout these last quick eight days that it is possible to love, to deeply fall in love with 15 people at the same time. I have a love, a support and unfettering desire for you all to be wickedly successful long beyond and outside the walls of the Big Brother house," Travis shared, adding with a laugh, "And if anyone discovers the stains in my bed, on my sheets, it's not what you think. I got pranked with some shaving cream while I was sleeping."
While Travis is clearly a likeable guy, he's also a clearly strong competitor who could pose a threat to everyone's game in the future -- so he has to go. The vote comes in 11-2 for Travis, meaning the handsome houseguest is the first to go.
After saying his goodbyes to everyone, Travis sat down with host Julie Chen Moonves, and reflected on Frenchie's decision to nominate him for eviction.
"I have a lot of honor and respect for Frenchie. [He's] here playing for his family, playing for his kids. But he makes a lot of promises," Travis said. "With that, he made a promise to me the first day he entered the louse with the boys, he said, 'All of you guys are safe, like, on me, as a man, I have you guys.' I told him straight up, 'That's a bold claim.' And sure enough, he did not uphold it."
With Travis gone, the game is down to 15 players, several large alliances, multiple "final-two pacts" (several of which Frenchie has with different people), and there's a lot of houseguests with understandable trust issues as the show moves on.
New episodes of Big Brother air Sundays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. Meanwhile, the 24-hour live feed is available to stream on Paramount+.
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