Highlight of 2022 BBMzansi Season 3 (Week 1)

The first week in the Big Brother Mzansi house has been an emotional roller coaster. It all began with the introduction of 18 Housemates to the public at the first Live Show, and the personalities were on display right away. From the vegan B.U. (who still wears an animal leather headpiece because he is “Zulu first, vegan second”) to Terry – an adult content developer with no chill – it became evident that the Housemates are all extremely different.

It usually takes a few days for Housemates to start sharing intimate stories with one another, but Biggie’s instruction that they tell each other about where they come from was interpreted as a request that they talk about serious struggles that they have endured. The result was a series of revelations during which the Housemates opened up about some very painful (and occasionally harrowing) experiences from their lives, and Day 1 of Big Brother Mzansi will probably go down as the fastest acceleration from “fun and games” to “deadly serious” in the history of the franchise.

This ramp up did not come without its consequences, though. Having opened up about some very sensitive issues, QV came to realise that they were still unresolved in her mind, and that she needed to deal with them as a matter of urgency. After some consultation, she elected to bring her role in the game to an early end, and voluntarily left the House on Day 3, a move that surprised viewers and Housemates alike.

Arguably, another result of the Housemates sharing their personal stories was a sense of over confidence: if they could go through that, they could do anything, right? This confidence showed itself when Tulz – who won the title of Head of House on Monday – was presented with the first Wager Task: present a play, poem or performance that demonstrates where the Housemates come from. When Tulz shared the Task with the other Housemates, and they needed to decide how much of their weekly income they would wager on the outcome, they elected to bet 100% – an astonishingly bold move for their first such Task of the season.

It proved to be a bridge too far: sharing stories of personal tragedy does not translate to being able to work together on a creative brief, and their over-confidence quickly lost some of its shine as the Housemates started to quarrel and bicker over the direction of the Task Presentation, so far as to seriously entertain the notion of reworking the entire focus of the performance the night before they were required to present it. In the end, it was all for naught. Based on their work over the course of the week, Biggie announced that they had failed in their Task, and they lost their entire income for the following week.

Other divisions have also become clear. The Diary Sessions on Friday were illuminating in this regard, with multiple Housemates of the opinion that the relationships between the women were less-than-stellar, bordering on openly hostile. Mphowabadimo complained about Yoli totally ghosting her and suggested that this was because she was uncomfortable with Mpho being a sangoma. Acacia suggested that Dinkybliss’ emotional back-and-forth was a sign of her playing the game rather than an honest response to stress.

While most of the Housemates claim that the men are getting along, that’s not quite so cut and dried, either. Themba claimed that the Men’s’ Conferences – as they have become known – were really his brainchild, and he did it to get the men focused on the women, rather than the game. His plan is to keep the other men occupied on unimportant matters while he goes about manipulating the situation to his advantage. Time will tell if his strategy bears any fruit.

It was against this backdrop that the Saturday Night Party went down. Rather than any ships setting sail, it turned out to be a night where crushes were… well, crushed. Tulz and Nale established that they would continue as friends – which sounds nice, but Tulz had already admitted to having a crush on her, so that might not have been an unmitigated joy. Dinkybliss tried to shoot her shot with Themba, who firmly rejected the move by calling her a “sister”, which is just about the biggest shutdown a person can get. Even more surprisingly, Dinky’s claim that the two of them had already come close to having a sexual encounter was empathically rejected as untrue.

Undeterred, Dinky tried her luck with some of the other men, including B.U., but ended up recommending that he finds someone he has a crush on, so that he can be with them. It was a weird moment.

Venus and Terry are of the opinion that Norman is trying to hook up with one of them as part of a strategy, and they insist that they’re not going to play his game, so he’s out of the running (if he even wanted to be in it).

That brings us to today, and the second Live Show of the season; with the Housemates fearing Eviction – and totally unaware of what Lawrence might drop on them as host – the Housemates face an unpredictable night and an even more unpredictable week ahead of them.