Big Brother season 23, episode 1 recap: Who’s the first HoH of the season?

Big Brother officially returned with its highly-anticipated twenty-third season. In the newest season, we received 16 new, intriguing houseguests who are all determined to win that grand prize.

Long-time host Julie Chen welcomed each houseguest to the house after fans got to know a little more about these new faces. Once the pleasantries were out the way, the ninety-nine-day competition began with an intense puzzle to kick start an even more soon-to-be intense season.

Who were the victors of this first competition? Who sided with who? Which houseguest seems to be on the outskirts? We tell you all this and more as we recap the first episode of Big Brother season 23!

Note: As mentioned, this article contains spoilers for the first episode. 

What happened on last night’s episode of Big Brother

Following their introductions, Julie had the 16 new houseguests move into the beach-themed house in four separate groups. In each group, four contestants went head to head to solve a poster puzzle, where the winner would be eligible to compete in the first HoH competition of the season. The groups and the winners (bolded) were as followed:

• Group One: Derek Fraizer, Brandon “Frenchie” French, Travis Long, and Xavier Prather
• Group Two: Azah Awasum, Britini D’Angelo, Alyssa Lopez, and Whitney Williams
• Group Three: Christian Birkenberger, Brent Champagne, Derek Xiao, and Kyland Young
• Group Four: Hannah Chaddha, Tiffany Mitchell, Sarah Steagall, and Claire Rehfuss

The winners, then, were able to pick their teammates based on short first-impression videos consisting of the remaining twelve houseguests. These videos only featured two individuals at a time, and whoever the four winners preferred, they were able to choose.

Before they were sorted into teams of four each consisting of two women and two men, Julie let these excited players know that they will be playing in teams for the majority of the season, and if one of their teammates is safe, the other three teammates are safe as well, which was a shocking twist for both the audience and the players. The official four teams and their one-time team captains (bolded) are as followed:

• The Jokers: Derek F., Azah, Frenchie, and Britini
• The Aces: Hannah, Derek X., Whitney, and Brent
• The Kings: Christian, Sarah, Alyssa, and Xavier
• The Queens: Claire, Kyland, Tiffany, and Travis

In the battle for HoH, the team captains had to assemble a house-of-cards on a wheel that their other three teammates had to balance. Naturally, there had to be some sort of increased difficulty, which is why Julie added that a large card would randomly fall on their house-of-cards, thwarting all of their progress.

The first team captain to successfully balance their cards and ring the button with their cards still balanced would win HoH and would be safe for the first week of the season. However, the last team to assemble the cards would, unfortunately, be the first Have Nots of the season. Here are the victors and losers.

Who won HoH last night on Big Brother?

The Kings ended up being the last team to get it done, making these four the Have Nots of the week; the Aces received third place, the Queens were in second, and the Jokers came in first place, making Frenchie the first HoH of the season–but expect the unexpected.

Before Julie offered Frenchie a huge game-changing decision, she let the houseguests know that they were no longer playing for half of a million dollars but were now playing for a whopping $750,000 grand prize! The houseguests were floored and immediately knew that the stakes were raised.

Following the increased grand prize news, Julie offered Frenchie a tempting deal that was almost impossible to refuse. Frenchie had the option of competing in another competition where, if lucky enough, he would gain two weeks of safety for his team. On the flip side, he had the option to opt out of the competition, which would only keep his team safe for one week. Should he lose the competition, safety for the week would pass on to the runner-up team, the Queens.

It was, indeed, a tantalizing offer, but Frenchie decided to play it safe and bowed out of the additional competition. Julie then told the new HoH to give the competition a try to see what would’ve been the outcome, and it turns out that he would’ve been successful and got his team two weeks of safety.

After a long and exciting first day, the houseguests headed into their new beautiful house and got to know each other more. We don’t know what relationships and dynamic duos will form yet, but we do know that we’ll be right here to update you with all the latest.

Stay tuned for more recaps for Big Brother season 23!