Buckle up y’all, because USA Network just dropped our newest obsession, The Anonymous. Each week, we’ll be covering all of the deceitful drama, because trust, there’s plenty of it. What better way to start than with a bumper, three-part Anonymous premiere?
Produced by the brilliant minds who brought us The Circle and The Traitors, this new competitive reality show is like a mashup of all of our favorite social strategy games.
Part of the game is played in the real world, while the other half is played in “Anonymous Mode.” With the help of DANI (Digital Anonymous Networking Interface), the sassy AI host, they compete in challenges to increase the cash pot each week. The goal is to be the most anonymous player in the game because that person gets to delete someone from the competition. Got it?
Clearly, NBCUniversal is expecting this to be a hit — they simulcasted the three-episode premiere across USA Network, Bravo, and even the SyFy network. Thank goodness they did, because we need as many eyes on this as possible. It’s chaotic, it’s catfishy, and we got some real gamers in the mix ready to stake their claim on the $100,000 prize. Here’s what went down during the three-part premiere of The Anonymous.
Meet the cast of The Anonymous
For the debut season of The Anonymous, the casting team managed to get some major personalities. We have Survivor alum Nina Twine, who just happens to be the daughter of the legendary Sandra Diaz-Twine. There’s also Big Brother winner Xavier Prather, who comes into the house ready to secure another reality show win.
At first glance, you might think that the gamers would have an advantage over the rest of the normies in the cast. However, in Episode 1, we quickly learned that each of these players brought their own unique skills to the game, and they all have secrets. Plus, they’re instructed to pick anonymous avatars so they can wreak chaos in Anonymous Mode. Here’s a quick rundown of the players and the avatars they chose in the first episode.
- Marcel Cunningham / Dollar Sign: A professional video game streamer looking to bring his gaming skills to reality TV.
- Sydney Dorsey / Wizard: A former pageant girl whose boyfriend gave her permission to flirt her way through the competition.
- Dillian Frelow / Alien: A real-life influencer competing to be the Phaedra Parks of the show.
- Lilly Jenkins / Pizza: A girl who says a total of five words in the entire three-episode premiere.
- Andy King / Butterfly: A Fyre Fest organizer who became a meme thanks to a Netflix documentary.
- Robbi Jade Lew / Dice: A professional poker player who tries to keep her cards close to her chest.
- Kacie Mize / Shark: A self-proclaimed “wild child” with a sweet, Southern accent.
- Xavier Prather / Fish: The first Black winner of a regular Big Brother season who wastes no time telling everyone that he won Big Brother.
- Christopher Shulstad / Donut: A charming outdoorsman who claims to want to play an honest game.
- Tyrenna Tolbert / Truck: An innocent-looking lady who is actually a senior enlisted advisor in the United States Army.
- Nina Twine / Popcorn: The daughter of a Survivor legend trying to fly under the radar.
- Jack Usher / Football: A professional board game player, because apparently, that’s a thing.
Welcome to the Anonymous
There’s a lot to take in with The Anonymous. The house looks like it’s straight out of a sci-fi movie. They have underground hideouts, and DANI is watching their every move. It looks like the had a major production budget, and on top of all of that, the gameplay moves quickly. Right off the bat, DANI warned the players that someone would go home every day, and she wasn’t bluffing.
In the first episode, the competitors were challenged to a memory game to help add money to the prize pot and earn safety from elimination. The tricky part: each player had to choose their level of difficulty for the game, meaning some people would get off easy while others had to memorize super long sequences.
Andy opted for the easiest difficulty, which immediately put a target on his back. On the other hand, Robbi had all eyes on her because of how well she crushed the challenge. Although she didn’t want to tell anyone about her poker career, her performance in the challenge revealed to everyone that she’s got a photographic memory. She could be a threat.
Entering Anonymous Mode
After their first challenge, the players entered their hideout and went into Anonymous Mode, to chat about the game as their secret avatars. These scenes look and feel like they were plucked right out of The Circle. Similarly to that show, it took approximately three seconds before the group chat started getting messy.
Immediately, everyone started calling out Lilly for being too quiet throughout the first day of gameplay. Andy and Sydney got dragged because they weren’t good at the challenge.
After hashing things out, DANI had each contestant nominate someone for elimination. Most people voted for Sydney, because of how she performed in a challenge. Nina said she just simply didn’t like her vibe. Either way, Sydney felt completely blindsided that the majority of her competitors voted for her to leave first.
Fortunately for Sydney, she wasn’t the only person who got votes. Lilly scored a couple of votes for being too mousey. Dillian got a vote from Marcel, seemingly for being too loud. Then, Jack nominated his buddy Andy to confuse everyone about his secret identity.
The Anonymous premiere claims its first victim
The final phase of Anonymous Mode is the test, where DANI challenges each player to try to match an avatar to a player, Whoever gets the least amount of correct votes becomes the Anonymous, which is basically like getting Head of Household on Big Brother.
In Episode 2, we learned that Jack became the first Anonymous and got the power to vote out one of the at-risk players. During the dramatic elimination ceremony, DANI revealed that Sydney AKA Wizard, had been kicked out of the competition.
After all of those nominations, that probably wasn’t too surprising. Either way, it’s a bummer for Sydney, because she hardly had a chance to even play the game. However, she can always say she was the first person ever eliminated from The Anonymous. Wear that badge with honor, Sydney.
“I don’t say mean things, but to the Anonymous, you can kiss my ass,” Sydney said upon being eliminated.
“I came into this game, and I told you guys that I was single, but I have a lovely boyfriend waiting back at home for me,” Sydney then revealed, to zero reaction from her competitors.
Is Jack gaming a little too hard?
As cliché as it sounds, things got very real for the players after Sydney got the boot. Anyone could go home for any reason without any in-game repercussions for the Anonymous.
With that power, Jack took it upon himself to kick his game into overdrive. He’s talking strategy a mile a minute like Dan Gheesling on Season 2 of The Traitors. It’s a lot, and he might end up talking himself into a corner, just like Dan.
For now, Jack’s strategy in Episode 2 was all about shifting the focus away from him and onto somebody else. Unfortunately, that person was Marcel. Somehow, everyone started looking at him with suspicious eyes even though he really hadn’t done anything noteworthy.
Meanwhile, Jack continued to solidify a friendship with Fyre Fest Andy. Poor guy had no idea that Jack was the main one working against him! The knife is firmly planted in Andy’s back and he has no idea.
It’s also worth noting that Jack was the only person who noticed that Nina resembled Sandra from Survivor. He’s onto her secret, and everybody needs to be watching their backs with this guy.
Balls to the wall
For the second challenge, the players had to throw a bunch of colorful balls into a giant goal. Whoever sunk the most balls would win immunity, but there was a catch. DANI explained that some of the goals had players’ names written on them. Sinking a ball into those holes meant that player would be blocked from having immunity. Messy.
Once the results were revealed, it turned out people were getting blocked left and right. Some of the players didn’t want to admit to blocking their competitors, but the cameras caught it all! Ultimately, Xavier won the immunity.
Later that night in Anonymous mode, the players nominated Lilly, Andy, Kacie, and Marcel for elimination. Jack’s plan to throw Marcel under the bus worked, and he wound up with the most votes. Meanwhile, Marcel cast the sole for Kacie, which seemed completely out of left field. What did she do to deserve that?
Jack’s wrath continues, and an alliance forms
In Episode 3, it’s revealed to us that Jack won the Anonymous for the second week in a row. He chose to eliminate Kacie, which was surprising to everyone. She only had one nomination, so how did she end up getting kicked out? Blame it on Jack and his expertly duplicitous strategy.
“In the real world, y’all know me as Kacie, but in Anonymous Mode, I was Shark,” Kacie dramatically revealed before leaving the competition.
The rest of the cast looked flabbergasted, and Xavier decided to shift into strategy mode. The other players already respect him because he’s an experienced gamer, so he became the ringleader of the show’s first alliance. He recruited Robbi, Nina, Chris, and Jack, and devised a plan to vote together to force people out of the house. For some reason, they decided that Tyrenna would be their first target.
Meanwhile, you couldn’t help but feel bad for her because she looks so sweet. The camera cuts to her just eating pizza and minding her own business while all of these gamers conspire against her. Tyrenna, you in danger, girl. Or is she?
Although everyone at home knows Robbi is the Dice, for some reason, everyone in the game becomes convinced that it Tyrenna was actually hiding behind that avatar. So, when they got into Anonymous Mode the following day, the chat lit up with accusations connecting Dice to Tyrenna.
Tyrenna chose to lean into it. If everyone matches her with the wrong avatar, then the alliance might mess around and vote Tyrenna in as the Anonymous.
Tyrenna comes face-to-face with elimination
In Episode 3’s Anonymous Mode, the players once again chose to nominate Andy and Lilly for elimination, along with first-time nominee Chris. Marcel wound up on the chopping block thanks to votes from Andy and Dillian, and then of course, Tyrenna got nominated by the alliance.
With literally half the remaining cast up for elimination, the stakes were already high, but then DANI challenged them to a face-to-face competition where their bluffing skills would come into play. They talk a big game in Anonymous Mode, but what about when they’re forced to make eye contact?
In the game, each of the at-risk players had to grab a box. One box had a ticket to immunity, whereas the rest of the boxes left the players at risk. The players could steal each other’s boxes, so the goal of the game was to lie to each other about the contents of their box. It’s like a horrible game of Secret Santa.
After a few minutes of back-and-forth and bad advice from the players on the sidelines, we learned that Marcel had the box with immunity, so he’s going to live to see another day.
That was great news for Marcel, but bad news for Tyreena. Now, her only hope for survival is to win The Anonymous. It’s very possible. All she has to do is continue to convince everyone that she’s the Dice. If she wins the power to eliminate, then Xavier’s alliance might be in trouble.
The Anonymous continues with new episodes, Mondays on USA Network at 11/10c. It’s also streaming on Peacock starting August 26.
TELL US – WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE SERIES PREMIERE OF THE ANONYMOUS? WHO DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO BE THE THIRD CONTESTANT ELIMINATED? DO YOU THINK XAVIER’S ALLIANCE IS GOING TO WORK OUT?