Big Brother Northwestern 5

## Cast/Memory Wall

**Big Brother Northwestern 5**, also known as **Big Brother Northwestern: All-Stars**, is the fifth season of Big Brother Northwestern. In a change to previous seasons, this season only featured returning houseguests from the first 4 seasons, making it the first season to not introduce any new houseguests. After competing as a houseguest during the previous season, Drew Slager returned as a host.

This season saw ten of Big Brother Northwestern's most iconic Winners, Finalists, and evicted houseguests return to battle against each other. With several new twists, such as a preseason advantage poll and a Chain of Safety, this season saw the return of past alliances and the emergence of new rivalries, but it was the alliance of losing Finalists (known as the Rightful Winners alliance) that controlled most of the action. After 7 rounds of dynamic gameplay, Season 4 Finalist Abraham Deitz-Green was crowned as the winner in a 4-3-0 vote over Season 3 Finalist Eli Blanks and Season 2 Finalist Lili Tarnopol.

## Production

Big Brother Northwestern follows the format of the rebooted Big Brother Australia series (seasons 12-14), thereby featuring the following production changes from the American version of Big Brother

* **Nominator Challenges:** At the start of each round, the housemates compete in a "Nominator Challenge". The winner of the competition has the sole power over the nominations. Immediately after the challenge, the winning housemate will be called to the Diary Room by Big Brother to name three nominees, and provide full reasons for their nominations. If the competition is run in pairs, then the winning pair must decide together on nominations.
* **Eviction Vote:** On eviction night, all housemates must vote to evict one of the nominees, with the exception of the nominating housemate (who will only cast a tie-breaker vote, if required), nor do the nominated housemates vote when there are only two nominees (on account of their votes canceling the other's out). The eviction vote is by secret ballot, with housemates casting their votes orally in the Diary Room to Big Brother, and must provide a reason for their vote. The nominee with the most votes is evicted from the house.
* **Final 3:** The finale of the seasons consists of the final 3 houseguests in the game.
* **Jury Vote:** Due to Big Brother Northwestern not having a viewing audience, the winner of the season was determined through a Jury Vote as opposed to a Public Vote.

### Filming

The idea of filming a season of Big Brother Northwestern had been tossed around for a while, but it was finally decided that Season 5 would be the first filmed season due to the All-Stars theme as well as the small cast size (a 10-person season would be shorter time-wise and easier to film and edit than a 12- or 14-person season). All Diary Room sessions, votes, and evictions were filmed, and a 20-minute video summarizing the season was published in September 2023. The Season 5 video can be viewed here.

## Twists

* **All-Stars:** For the first time in BBNU, the season consisted solely of returning houseguests, who were deemed “All-Stars” for how they previously played the game. The season consisted of winners, finalists, and memorable personalities, all returning to cement themselves as BBNU Legends.
* **Pre-Season Popularity Vote:** For the first time in BBNU, the first twist was revealed before the season began. The houseguests were given a poll to send out into the world, and the public was able to vote for as many houseguests as they liked. The houseguest who received the most votes would earn a game power, while the houseguest who received the least votes would not be allowed to vote at the first eviction.
* **No Fake Evictions:** Prior to the first Nominator Challenge, it was announced that, for the first time in BBNU, there would be no Fake Evictions throughout the entire season.
* **Chain of Safety:** During Round 4, the nominees were determined through a “Chain of Safety” selection process. It was revealed following the conclusion of the Nominator Challenge that the winner would not receive nomination power, but would instead receive safety and would select another houseguest to also receive safety. The chosen houseguest would then choose the next houseguest, and so on. The two houseguests left unpicked would be nominated for eviction.
* **Second Chance Challenge:** During Round 5, it was revealed that the three nominated houseguests would compete in a second challenge, where the winner would save themselves from eviction.
* **Double Nominator Challenge:** During Round 6, it was announced that there would be two nominator challenges for the round. The winner of the first would choose to nominate one houseguest for eviction. The nominated houseguest would not be allowed to compete in the second nominator challenge. In the second challenge, the winner nominates a second houseguest for eviction. The winner of the first challenge can compete in the second challenge, but is ineligible to be nominated.

## Houseguests

  **Winner**

 **Runner-Up**

 **Third Place**

 **Jury: *Abraham***

 **Jury: *Eli***

 **Jury: *Eli***

 **Jury: *Abraham***

 **Jury: *Abraham***

 **Jury: *Eli***

 **Jury: *Abraham***

## Alliances

*Arranged by duration/effectiveness/power:*

* **The Rightful Winners (Finalists Alliance)** - *Abraham, Ashley, Eli, Lili*
* **The Perfect Alliance** - *Abraham, Alex, Lili*
* **Triple A** - *Alex, Anne-Sophie, Ashley*
* **Lorde is Mommy** - *Anne-Sophie, Lili*
* **The Alliance Formerly Known As The Haters** - *Alex, Eli*
* **The Bussies** - *Ashley, James*
* **The Crown (aka Arts Alliance from BBNU2) (Winners Alliance)** - *Alex, James, Mattea*
* **Bussy-Rinas** - *Eli, James*
* **Besties of the Fucking Gamemaker Bad Bitch Hotties** - *Alex, Grace*
* **Deetz** - *Anne-Sophie, Grace, Nathan*
* **Cap'n Underpants** - *Anne-Sophie, Nathan*

## Game Summary

### Round 0 - Pre-Game

 **Bonus Life Advantage**

 **Lost Vote**

Before the game began, a preseason poll was released into the world. The houseguests attempted various strategies to get people to vote for them, such as posting the poll on social media and sending it in various GroupMe chats. After 208 entries were submitted, Nathan emerged on top and received the Bonus Life power, while Ashley received the least amount of votes and was ineligible to vote at the first eviction.

### Round 1

 **Co-Nominator**

 **Co-Nominator**

 **Nominee1 Vote**

 **Nominee1 Vote**

 **Evicted5 Votes**

The 10 All-Stars officially entered the Big Brother house once again. The first nominator challenge involved competing in pairs, which were Ashley & Nathan, Abraham & James, Eli & Lili, Anne-Sophie & Mattea, and Alex & Grace. Abraham & James won the challenge and nominated Nathan because they saw him as a threat and believed he had the preseason poll advantage due to his attitude, and Mattea and Grace because neither of them are in alliances with Abraham or James (which was not entirely true). Nathan revealed to the house that he has the advantage, but lied about what it was. While Alex attempted to lead the charge to evict Nathan to avoid Mattea being evicted, they were unsuccessful and Mattea was evicted in a 5-1-1 vote.

### Round 2

 **Nominator**

 **Nominee0 Votes**

 **Nominee4 Votes**

 **Evicted5 VotesFailed Bonus Life**

Alex won the trivia challenge in a surprise tiebreaker and nominated Nathan as their target alongside Abraham and Eli. While a majority of the house wanted to target Nathan for his advantage, Ashley wanted to take this opportunity to evict Eli as revenge for Season 3. Due to Ashley's campaigning, the vote ended up being a tie between Eli and Nathan, and Alex cast the tie-breaking vote against Nathan. Nathan then used the Bonus Life power, but failed, and Eli discovered that Ashley betrayed their alliance and voted to evict him.

### Round 3

 **Nominator**

 **Nominee0 Votes**

 **Nominee2 Votes**

 **Evicted5 Votes**

In the Wall-Sit challenge, Ashley emerged victorious after a face off with Alex, much to Eli’s dismay. Ashley then nominated Eli as her target, alongside Abraham, who she believed wouldn’t receive any votes, and Grace. In his speech, Eli called out his eviction as a move for Ashley’s resume. In a shock blindside of a 5-2-0 vote, Grace and Ashley were blindsided as Grace was evicted and Eli was saved thanks to his alliances.

### Round 4

 **Safety Chain Immunity**

 **Nominee2 Votes**

 **Evicted3 Votes**

Competing in the next challenge, Alex won and started the Chain of Safety. Alex gave safety to Abraham, who gave it to Eli, who gave it to Lili, who gave it to Anne-Sophie, leaving Ashley and James unpicked and the official nominees of the round. While Abraham and Eli wanted to evict Ashley, Alex decided to do what the houseguests in Seasons 1 and 2 wouldn't do and target James because of their high chance at reaching the end, and Anne-Sophie decided to switch sides because she felt slighted by Abraham's decision to save Eli in the Chain of Safety over her. This left Lili in the middle, who decided that while Ashley had betrayed the Finalists Alliance, she hadn't directly betrayed Lili, and Lili's vote resulted in James' eviction in a split 3-2 vote.

### Round 5

 **Nominator**

 **Saved**

 **Nominee1 Vote**

 **Evicted2 Votes**

Lili won the challenge and despite having just saved Ashley, chose to nominate Ashley as her target alongside Abraham and Alex, two of her allies. Alex then won the Second Chance challenge and saved themself from eviction, leaving Abraham and Ashley on the block. During their speeches, Ashley and Abraham started fighting over supposed loyalties with Eli and opinions on Eli’s strategy. In a split 2-1 vote with Anne-Sophie swinging back to Abraham's side, Ashley was evicted.

### Round 6

 **Nominator**

 **Nominator**

 **Nominee0 Votes**

 **Evicted2 Votes**

Lili won the first nominator challenge and nominated Alex for eviction, not wanting them to be evicted but choosing to save Anne-Sophie who Lili believed she could beat in a Final 3 scenario. Eli won the second challenge, choosing to save Abraham and nominate Anne-Sophie for eviction. In her speech, Anne-Sophie revealed that she had another event to go to and offered to be voted out. Despite this, the Finalist Alliance deemed Alex the bigger threat, and Alex was blindsided in a unanimous vote.

### Round 7

 **Nominator**

 **Nominee0 Votes**

 **Nominee0 Votes**

 **Evicted1 Vote**

Abraham won the final nominator challenge after facing off in a tiebreaker against Eli. Despite briefly considering to evict Lili, Abraham chose to evict Anne-Sophie because she desperately had to leave for her other event, allowing the Finalist Alliance trio that had controlled most of the game to reach the Final 3.

### Finale

 **Winner4 Votes to Win**

 **Runner-Up3 Votes to Win**

 **Third Place0 Votes to Win**

 **Production's Favorite**

The Jury Members returned to the house and listened as the Final 3 gave pitches as to why they should be crowned the winner of Big Brother Northwestern All-Stars. Eli talked about his feud with Ashley and how his alliances and strategic gameplay allowed him to not only survive multiple evictions but also his reputation from his first season, Lili talked about her challenge wins and how she played all sides of the house without betraying anyone, and Abraham talked about his well-rounded game that consisted of a combination of challenge wins, social connections, and strategic voting. In the end, the Jury crowned Abraham the winner in an extremely close 4-3-0 vote. Lili was very shocked to see that not only did she not win, but she also received 0 votes to win, and Eli noted the irony of losing by 1 vote a second time but stated that he played better on his original season. Drew later announced that Ashley was the winner of the Production's Favorite award due to her new aggressive gameplay and her feud with Eli.

## Trivia

* This is the first season of BBNU to feature all returning houseguests and no new houseguests.
* This is the second season to feature previous winners returning to play again, after Season 2.
* This season started at 5:14 PM and ended at 7:47 PM, lasting 2 hours and 33 minutes.
	+ With 10 houseguests and 7 rounds, this season beats Season 4 as the smallest and shortest season in BBNU history.
* As always, there were houseguests originally slated to appear on this season who had to drop out.
	+ Julie Monteleone was the last houseguest locked in, but they had to drop out at the last minute and were replaced by Mario Montes, who also had to drop out and was himself replaced by Lili Tarnopol.
	+ Milena Elias-Reyes, Rachel Rubin, and Morgan Barber were offered spots, but had to decline later on.
* This is the first season to not feature any Fake Evictions, although the Bonus Life power could have allowed for an evicted houseguest to return to the game after their eviction.
	+ Due to the Bonus Life twist, an extra round of gameplay was planned had the Bonus Life challenge been passed. This round featured the How Close Can You Get? challenge as the nominator challenge, but due to Nathan failing the Bonus Life challenge, this challenge ultimately did not appear in the season.
* The Final 3 of this season comprised solely of houseguests who had made the Final 3 in previous seasons, specifically Runners-Up.
* This season marks the first time that the winner of the Final Nominator Challenge goes on to win the game.
* This season marks the first time that a houseguest received no votes of any kind throughout the entire season: Lili Tarnopol received 0 eviction votes and 0 Jury Votes.
* This season features the first instance of a houseguest having the same placement as a previous season, as both Anne-Sophie Lacombe-Garcia and Eli Blanks received the same placement as their initial season.
* During this season, Nathan Hiykel became the first 3-time Jury Member.
* Due to the size and makeup of this cast, this season features the smallest Jury with 7 members, as well as the first Jury to comprise solely of returning players.
	+ Coincidentally, every member of the Jury that played on Season 3 voted for Eli to win, while every member of the Jury that did not compete on Season 3 voted for Abraham to win.
* Prior to the season, Abraham infamously texted co-host Emily Thompson and asked to form an alliance.