‘Big Brother 16’ debate (spoilers): Is Team America the worst twist ever?

Let’s face it: It’s very hard to rank out the effectiveness of the “Big Brother” twist. There are some that sound interesting on paper that turn out to be flops, and then others that seem relatively terrible that turn out to be fun. (There are some minor live-feed spoilers ahead.)

For example, a good example of the latter was the MVP last season. Sure, it was entirely unfair for Elissa to constantly win this, but the strategy that surrounded it turned out to be mostly interesting, and we will not contend that the twist really ended up ruining the game of any good player. You could say the same thing about the Saboteur: It was kind of stupid, but it was only for entertainment and not to destroy strategy. The coaches’ twist in season 14 was one of the few that sounded cool and actually was cool.

Then, you have some of the other twists. America’s Player was a great idea in season 8 and was for the most part fun … at least until Eric Stein was forced to keep Evel Dick in the game, changing the whole fabric of that season. The Battle of the Block this season felt like a pretty cool idea, but come two weeks in the strategy basically kept people from nominating any real threats so they can just backdoor someone later.

Now, we turn to Team America. Was this a good idea on the surface? Maybe, but it depends on what you get out of it. We were hoping for a “Big Brother Canada” sort of twist where they were all just silly tasks to make the house more fun, and not things that would impact the game. Seeing the twist systematically destroy one player in Zach has not been fun, and even worse, watching the self-righteousness of the people in Team America (maybe Frankie, and at points Derrick in the Diary Room) has been even less funny. In the right hands, this could have been a good twist; unfortunately, it has instead fed the egos of some of the wrong people in this game, and set up a situation where there is constant pandering and the notion of pleasing “America” has messed up the game. It has turned Derrick and Frankie almost into malicious assassins.

Would we say that Team America is therefore the worst twist ever, since it’s had such a big impact on the game that may have not been so intended? We wouldn’t say it is the worst, since this could have been fun in theory with different people who didn’t take it so seriously. If we were to rank the worst twists ever, we would say that the duo twist in season 13 was extremely favored for the returning players at the start of the game, and never led to an entertaining season; meanwhile, the Coup D’etat completely ruined any semblance of strategy in season 11 just for the sake of getting rid of Jessie. Anything that completely negates most of what people are doing in the house is in our mind the worst twist.

Still, there is time for Team America to be worse if it continues to slant things in the favor of Frankie, Derrick, and Donny the rest of the game … but we don’t feel like there is anything really redeeming it at this point. The whole point of this alliance was to do what America wanted, and instead they’ve managed to destroy the one person in the game other than Donny that people actually enjoy. Zach was probably getting backdoored anyway, but this latest mission not only sealed his fate, but made many hate him.

What do you think about Team America, and where it stacks up against some other twists? Share below, and to see some actual “Big Brother” live feed scoop, you can do so here. You can also sign up today for some more scoop via our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: CBS