Boring ‘Big Brother 22’: Who is going to win this season?

When fans of Big Brother found out we were getting a season 22, despite the pandemic, we were overjoyed. Fans were even more excited when it was revealed the season was intended to be an all star cast. Big names like Janelle Pierzina and Doctor Will were being thrown around and we were all rabid to find out who was going back into the house.

However, when the season premiere aired fans quickly realized “all star” was a bit of a loose term. We were gifted the presence of Janelle – though her stay was far too short – but for the most part the cast was comprised of random previous houseguests, many who weren’t very good or very well-liked. 

Then there was David Alexander, who didn’t even make it past the season premiere from season 21 and to most people didn’t even count as a previous player of the game. Even his fellow houseguests this year were a bit miffed by his presence. 

Ever since the underwhelming season premiere (which to some seemed to feature a rigged head of household competition) fans have been increasingly disappointed with Big Brother 22. The season has been painfully predictable, has systematically evicted every likable houseguest faster than you can say “good luck in the veto”, and not even once has the big core alliance had to deal with not being in power for a week.

After the first ever triple eviction last week – which many have felt was an act of mercy from the producers to end this bland season sooner – we’re left with just six houseguests remaining: Tyler, Christmas, Enzo, Cody, Memphis, and Nicole. Who will win this season? Well, if the predictability holds up, we have our guesses.

Cody’s run of the house

Pre-gaming has been a hot topic among every circle of people who are still watching Big Brother 22. No matter which circle of online fans you talk to, they’re peeved that some of the house guests appear to have made plans ahead of going into the house. While it seemed like mostly speculation, early evictee Janelle has confirmed it happened.

The biggest accusation flying is that Derrick Levasseur, the winner of season 16, coached Cody Calafiore. Why? Well, Cody went to the final two with Derrick in BB16, even though he knew it’d mean taking second place. So this time around Derrick told Cody exactly what to do in order for the soccer player to cash-in his own $500,000 check.

So far, it looks like Cody hasn’t hit a single snag. We’ve never seen him in danger of going on the block, and we’ve never seen him have to think on his feet or rectify someone’s mistake. He’s coasted this whole season along with everyone else currently in the house. Only now are they going to turn on each other, but all of them blindly trust Cody – and to a slightly lesser extent Memphis.

Who will win?

Cody seems to have lined up every single domino – or rather Derrick has – in order to make his win a surefire thing. If Cody goes to the final two with Nicole like he hopes to then it’s hard to see any other outcome. Since Nicole has already won Big Brother it’s highly unlikely that the jury members will vote for her to win again if she’s sitting next to someone who hasn’t – and at this point she’s the only former winner in the house.

Not to mention Cody has won a lot of competitions this summer and Nicole hasn’t. If Nicole had honored her final two deal with Ian she might have had a shot at winning again – since he was the only other returning winner. However, Ian was liked by a lot more people in the house, so really Nicole has been locked in a house with no hope of walking away with the grand prize for months now, and she doesn’t even realize it.

Potential upset

We’re pretty certain Cody will win. The only person who might give him a run for the literal money is Memphis, who has been playing pretty hard & is more eloquent than Cody. This means he could potentially convince the jury that he was the mastermind behind the whole season, which has been running smoother than a chocolate river. 

However, we’ve already heard Cody floating the idea of getting Memphis out, so it seems he knows better than to sit next to him on finale night. Unless Memphis wins HOH next week and targets Cody, we see really only one possible outcome for who will be dancing in the Big Brother 22 confetti on finale night.

Time for change

What BB really needs is some structural changes. This will prevent future houseguests from being able to create plans ahead of going into the house. Right now the show is so formulaic – right down to the casting – that you could create a pretty foolproof handbook these days.

Changing the casting so that you’re not putting in the same stereotypical types of people, could be a great start. But also changing how some of the basic rules function could be a serious help – such as letting everyone play in veto competitions again, so that backdooring isn’t such an easy & cowardly way to evict your enemies.

Hopefully BB is more interesting next year – that is if this year’s ratings haven’t tanked too hard to prevent another season.