‘Big Brother’ Season 19 Premiere Recap: The Summer Of Temptation

CBS’ summer reality competition Big Brother returned last night with the premiere of the show’s 19th season. While the premiere was the lowest rated in series history, it was still the big winner for Wednesday night. Being billed as the ‘Summer of Temptation,’ the season did its best to get off to a quick and explosive start.

Honing in on the temptation theme, this season’s Big Brother house looks quite different from those of the past. The updated house is decorated with snakes and apples and one contestant revealed herself to be reptilian from the get go.

Megan Lowder begins to rub other contestants the wrong way right from the start. After one of the first competitions, she made contestant Josh Martinez cry because of her snaky ways. Hated from the beginning, Megan would go on to self-evict after locking herself in the diary room.

It all reportedly stemmed from an incident involving a racial slur. Megan told Alex Ow – an Asian contestant – that another contestant, Jessica Graf, called Alex a “panda.” Jessica denied ever using the slur and everyone began to suspect that Megan made the whole thing up. Feeling ostracized, Megan decided to leave the house of her own volition.

Meanwhile, Paul Abrahamian, a contestant on season 18, shows up at the house and several houseguests attempt to gain his trust because Paul’s arrival means that someone else has to go home. In addition, Paul gets to save eight other houseguests.

Elena Davies, first tries to tempt Paul with a cheese sandwich. Noting his love of brie and the tangibility of the sandwich, he accepts. Mostly all of the other contestants try to gain his trust with silly speeches and compliments. Jason Dent goes to meet Paul dressed in his cowboy get-up. He comes in howling and tells Paul that he wants to “get tight and close” with him. Paul isn’t very impressed. Christmas Abbott chooses to intimidate Paul with her competitiveness and her “sick social game.” In the end, Paul gives his friendship bracelets to Raven Walton, Kevin Schlehuber, Dominique Cooper, Mark Jansen, Ramses Soto, Jessica, Elena, and Jason.

After the remaining eight face off in a competition, Christmas, Cameron Heard, and Jillian Parker are put on the block. The three houseguests are then given the temptation of power and they get to decide if they will be eliminated by vote or competition. Jillian and Christmas decide that a vote is best, while Cameron, a super-fan of the show, decides that if he’s going to go, it’s going to be because of a lost competition.

With the vote decided as the method of elimination, Cameron is sent home as the first elimination. But now, with the revelation that Megan has self-evicted, some are speculating that Cameron could return.

Find out as Big Brother continues its summer run on Wednesdays and Sundays at 8 p.m. EST and Thursdays at 9 p.m. EST on CBS.