For nearly 100 days, Big Brother season 16 was entertaining US viewers, back in 2014. It all started on June 25, when the season premiere took place. Exactly 97 days later, we witnessed the Grand Finale of the season, which revealed the winner of the 16th instance of the popular reality TV show. Derrick Levasseur, a police sergeant from Rhode Island, became the season’s winner and took home the main prize of 500,000 US dollars.
The season’s memorable for many reasons, starting from the fact that it was on-air for over three months. It also brought many new twists and updates to current rules. For example, the season 16 of Big Brother was the one in which the Battle of the Block competition premiered. Still, what makes the season most memorable is how entertaining the HouseGuests were. We’re going to remember some of them forever!
Big Brother Season 16 HouseGuests
The 16th season of Big Brother saw a total of 16 HouseGuests spending time in the house. Each week, one of them was to be evicted from the Big brother house until, finally, only one left, who was going to be awarded the half mil prize. The contestants came from various parts of the USA and had ventured in all kinds of businesses before entering the house.
The goal of each contestant was to stay in the Big Brother House for as many days as possible, preferring until the end. However, some of them managed to stay much shorter, as evictions took place at the end of every week.
Battle of the Block – the Biggest Twist of the Season!
In the previous seasons of Big Brother, earning the title of Head of Household meant safety from evictions for the week. However, the things changed in the season 16, when the Battle of the Block was introduced. The new twists featured a competition for the eviction immunity between two HOHs. As you can see, the fact that there were two HOHs each week was another innovation that marked the season.
As a part of the Battle of the Block challenge, the two Heads of Household had to choose two other HouseGuests, thus making the total number of nominees four. The four nominated HouseGuests would then form two teams and compete for immunity. The HOH who had picked the losing team would get dethroned.
What this meant was that the dethroned Head of Household would be eligible for nominations at the end of the week. This is something that added plenty of excitement to the game show. In fact, the new twist was loved by the viewers, which is why it returned in the season 17 as the public’s favorite. The twist, however, was discontinued since.
Team America
To get the American public involved more, the Big Brother producers decided to launch a new twist. They named it appropriately Team America, as the twist involved three contestants who were to make decisions based on the public vote. Each member of the American public had a chance to control 3 HouseGuests. All they needed to do is cast their vote on important questions related to the house budget, nominations, etc.
The public also had to choose missions for the Team America members, some of which involved starting showmances, sabotaging other HouseGuests, etc. The 3 members of Team America were Donny, Derrick, and Frankie. Joey was also a part of the alliance, but she got herself evicted from the Big Brother house before the Team America was fully formed.
Zankie Alliance
Team America was an alliance created by the producers of Big Brother and controlled by the viewers. But, there were plenty of other alliances in the Big Brother house. All of them were created by the HouseGuests themselves to increase their chances to stay in the house until the end. One of the most memorable alliances in the Big Brother season16 was the one called Zankie.
Appropriately named, this alliance numbered only two members – Zach and Frankie. The goal of the alliance was to reach the Final Two stage of the season. Unfortunately for Zankie, neither of the team members managed to achieve the target, but they were mostly to blame themselves for this. Because of the arguments between Zach and Frankie, the alliance fell apart on a few occasions, before finally ending in Week 9, when Zach got evicted.
Although this alliance was marked by frequent fights between its members, it failed to achieve its purpose. Both of the members of the Zankie alliance got evicted relatively early on, especially compared to the members of other alliances.
Other Alliances in the Big Brother Season 16
This season was particularly rich in alliances among the HouseGuests. Apart from the Team America and Zankie alliance, we also witnessed many others. Crazy 8s, for example, was a planned alliance that would involve a total of 8 HouseGuests, but it never took off. One that did take off was Bomb Squad, which numbered nine members.
After the Bomb Squad alliance had broken up, the former members formed a new alliance, called The Detonators. Creating the alliance proved as a good choice, at least for some of the members. Still, the most successful alliance of the season 16 was The Hitmen alliance between Cody and Derrick. Both of its members reached the Finale, with Derrick winning the Grand Prize and Cody finishing as the runner-up.
Most Interesting Moments of the Season
The season 16 of Big Brother lasted for nearly a hundred days, so it’s no surprise that many interesting things happened along the way. Some of the moments that stuck in the viewers’ memory include the time when Caleb and Victoria had to wear leaf-covered bathing suits, in the manner of Adam and Eve.
If you watched the season 16, you probably remember the Week 4, when Jocasta started speaking in tongues, after winning the Battle of the Block. But, this wasn’t the only weird moment in the season – we also saw Cody hitting himself in sleep.
The Big Brother season 16 was also full of emotional moments, such as Zach reaction on the night he got evicted. If you watched the series, you’d probably remember it, but it’s worth reminding you – before even hearing the results, Zach jumped on the table and started throwing fruit loops on other HouseGuests.
The Rewind Button
Another particularly interesting moment was the discovery of the Rewind Button. The button was placed in the house as a part of a twist, but no one had the slightest clue what pressing it implied. The Rewind Button was placed in the former Have-Not room during the Week 11. When learning about this from Julie Chen, the HouseGuests went into the room, and all of them together pressed the button.
Once pressed, the button triggered a new Twist. It stopped the Live Eviction and started a countdown clock. This meant that the HouseGuests would go one week in the past, that is, that all of the previous week’s competitions had to be done again.
Although the twist seems interesting at the moment, the Big Brother season 16 was the only one so far to have featured it. Still, who knows what the future holds! We might see it again in some of the future seasons.
Final Few Weeks in the House
The Week 12 of the Big Brother season 16 saw two evictions taking place. The first time, when Caleb was HOH, Cody won the Power of Veto. This meant that they were safe from eviction nominations. The two nominated contestants for the first Round of evictions in the Week 12 were Victoria and Frankie. With a unanimous vote, it was decided that Frankie was the HouseGuest who was to leave the house of Big Brother.
The Round 2 of evictions in the Week 2 saw Derrick winning the HOH competition, thus securing a place in the Final Three. As Cody managed to win the Power of Veto, the two nominees were Victoria and Caleb. Victoria was yet again lucky, and Caleb had to leave the house. What this meant that in the Finale we were to see Victoria, Cody, and Derrick competing for the 500,000 dollar prize.
The Grand Finale
There was only one week left before the Finale when only three HouseGuests left in the Big Brother house. At this point, the contestants had one thing in mind – winning the Head of Household title, which would mean a ticket to the Finale, because the HOHs are immune to nominations. At the same time, this means that the last HOH of the season was the one who was to decide which one of the remaining two HouseGuests was to go to the Finale.
Same as in the previous seasons of Big Brother, the last HOH competition consisted of three challenges. Cody won two out of three challenges, which means that he was the one who had to decide who would go to the Finale – Derrick or Victoria.
As Cody was a member of the Hitmen alliance with Derrick, his decision was to evict Victoria. This means that in the Grand Finale he was pitted against Derrick. The decision about the Grand Prize winner was to be decided not by them, but by the members of the Jury!
Who Won Big Brother Season 16?
If you are a fan of this game show, you probably know that Derrick was the one who won Big Brother season 16. He was awarded the 500,000 US dollars prize after the Sequestered Jury voted in his favor. Still, not every of the 9 members of the Jury voted for him. In fact, the voting result was 7-2 in Derrick’s favor, with Jocasta and Donnie being the only members of the Jury who voted for Cody to win the prize.
But, the half a mil prize for winning the season was not the only money Derrick earned from the show. Earlier in the season, he won money for being a part of the Team America alliance. What this meant was that after leaving the Big Brother house, Derrick was richer for a total of 575,000 dollars!
Still, it seems that the money did not affect him – Derrick remained in the force, coming back to his police sergeant duties after the season end. However, he did stay in the public eye. Derrick played a part of the Investigation Discovery series called “Hard Evidence: Is OJ Innocent? The Missing Evidence.” Produced by Martin Sheen, this documentary series started airing in early 2017.
Why we’ll remember the Season 16 Forever?
Big Brother season 16 was the longest seasons of the game show up to that point, with the HouseGuests spending 97 days in the house. With more than three months on-air, this season had become a part of our daily lives. We loved watching the HouseGuests conspiring against each other and creating various alliances to avoid getting evicted.
Still, what got stuck in our memory is the huge number of games and challenges the HouseGuests had to play on a regular basis. The goal of these competitions was not to have fun but to earn money for the food, as well as to increase their chances of staying in the house for another week. All in all, we wouldn’t mind if future seasons of Big Brother featured same or similar challenges.