S31: Nicole Franzel and Victor Arroyo (Engaged)

[Whimsy]

Nicole Franzel and Victor Arroyo (Engaged)

Previous seasons: Big Brother 16, winner of Big Brother 18 (Nicole); Big Brother 18 (Victor)

Nicole Franzel
Age: 26
Hometown: Ubly, Michigan
Current occupation: Registered Nurse, content creator, podcast co-host

Three words to describe you: Cuddly, quirky, and competitive.

What excites you most about traveling?
Being immersed in different cultures and learning about them. Also, as cliche as it sounds, getting to see the world; it's not easy to get this experience and I'm not going to take it for granted.

Who do you think will be your biggest competition: Racers, Houseguests, or Castaways?
Former Race teams, for sure! They know how to work together as a team, what their prior strengths and weaknesses are and know what to pack, which we are very uncertain about!


Victor Arroyo
Age: 28
Hometown: Ubly, Michigan
Current occupation: Freight broker

Three words to describe you: Outgoing, silly, and competitive.

What excites you most about traveling?
Experiencing different cultures, foods, meeting new people and trying new activities. Also, seeing the other beautiful landscapes of the world.

Who do you think will be your biggest competition: Racers, Houseguests, or Castaways?
Racers, because they have done this before which makes them more prepared for this type of competition.

[scrb]

Was this guy on The Challenge one year?

[lexington11]

On 4/18/2019 at 12:13 PM, scrb said:

Was this guy on The Challenge one year?

Yeah...he was cast on the Vendettas season as Natalie's vendetta. From what I remember, he wasn't really a fit for the usual cutthroat politicking that goes on there, so this race should be more his thing 

[mikewho]

I'd read about The Challenge often by a poster here. I watched maybe 4 of the episodes online before I was told I'd have to pay to continue watching. Ain't no way. Victor was on it.

Every episode was full of this:

'I have a vendetta against her because she knew I wanted to fuck that guy but she fucked him first.'

And the guys. 'I have a vendetta against him because he knew I wanted to fuck that girl but he fucked her first'.

Gag-worthy. But at least in the episodes I saw, Victor stayed out of that stuff.

Worse than anything I've EVER seen on Big Brother.

[lexington11]

On 4/19/2019 at 4:09 PM, mikewho said:

I'd read about The Challenge often by a poster here. I watched maybe 4 of the episodes online before I was told I'd have to pay to continue watching. Ain't no way. Victor was on it.

Every episode was full of this:

'I have a vendetta against her because she knew I wanted to fuck that guy but she fucked him first.'

And the guys. 'I have a vendetta against him because he knew I wanted to fuck that girl but he fucked her first'.

Gag-worthy. But at least in the episodes I saw, Victor stayed out of that stuff.

Worse than anything I've EVER seen on Big Brother.

Yeah...he stayed out of the drama and avoided being in the line of fire up until around episode 6, when he was voted into elimination because some of the more cutthroat/nastier guys apparently couldn't believe that Victor really was that laid back, and they were convinced it was just a front.

[Halting Hex]

Technically, the thread title is a spoiler.  Vic/Nic had already run this Race when he surprised her during her visit to the Big Brother house in BB20.  (She thought she was there to host a competition, as previous Houseguests sometimes do, but it was actually set up so that Victor [with his hair cut and his beard shaved] could propose on camera, which he did, and she accepted.)  So the engagement is something that happened after these episodes, not the current-as-of-Race-Time status of the couple.

I mean, there's nothing to say the two of them couldn't provide Relationship Drama during the Race, but if they do, it will all work out.  So if Leo tries to seduce Victor into moving in with him and Pablo and a new cat they'll get for Victor, don't believe it. 😉  Vic picks Nic.

One detail I'd forgotten that's noted in their Race bios is that Victor has moved from New Orleans to Nicole's tiny (population 800) hometown of Ubly, MI.  Awww.  This makes Nicole's claim in 31.02 that she's never traveled internationally surprising.  Ubly, which is in the "thumb" of Michigan,  is only 110 miles and change from Detroit (which is almost a straight shot south down MI-53), and south of the Motor City lies what Journey mistakenly (in "Don't Stop Believing") calls "South Detroit", but which most of us call "Canada".

I mean, Nicole could be too thick to realize that what's on the other side of the Windsor Tunnel is a whole different country, or she might literally never have been two hours south of her home, but either surprises me.

[spanana]

I did watch their season of Big Brother as well as Nicole's original one, and while I was mostly neutral on Nicole, I did really come to like Victor.   I knew he was on The Challenge briefly but couldn't bring myself to watch it, so the explanation of him just wanting out of the drama probably fits the bill.  I get the impression Victor likes competing and all of that, but not the drama, so as said something like The Amazing Race is probably a better fit for him and his particular skills.  If I remember correctly, he was pretty good with puzzles and things that required actual brain power in addition to the physical stuff.

Nicole I liked okay on her first BB season and the second I didn't enjoy her game play, but I also thought the over the top hate towards her at the end was well, over the top.   I don't think she's a legitimately awful person like many other BB players.

They were in NY with Leo last night as his bar, so they must be on good terms.  I wonder if Leo/Jamal will be on their podcast.  They recently started one so some of the recent travels have been to meet up with people for that.  They had the guys eliminated the first week on last week.

[lexington11]

7 hours ago, spanana said:

I did watch their season of Big Brother as well as Nicole's original one, and while I was mostly neutral on Nicole, I did really come to like Victor.   I knew he was on The Challenge briefly but couldn't bring myself to watch it, so the explanation of him just wanting out of the drama probably fits the bill.  I get the impression Victor likes competing and all of that, but not the drama, so as said something like The Amazing Race is probably a better fit for him and his particular skills.  If I remember correctly, he was pretty good with puzzles and things that required actual brain power in addition to the physical stuff.

Nicole I liked okay on her first BB season and the second I didn't enjoy her game play, but I also thought the over the top hate towards her at the end was well, over the top.   I don't think she's a legitimately awful person like many other BB players.

They were in NY with Leo last night as his bar, so they must be on good terms.  I wonder if Leo/Jamal will be on their podcast.  They recently started one so some of the recent travels have been to meet up with people for that.  They had the guys eliminated the first week on last week.

Yeah...Victor was a finance major in college, and some of the competitions he won on Big Brother, including a couple of the ones that got him back into the house, were mental/puzzles. And I've seen Colin & Christie liking a lot of his and Nicole's Instagram posts, so those two teams are most likely on good terms as well. 

[Giuseppe]

On 4/25/2019 at 11:39 AM, Halting Hex said:

One detail I'd forgotten that's noted in their Race bios is that Victor has moved from New Orleans to Nicole's tiny (population 800) hometown of Ubly, MI.  Awww.  This makes Nicole's claim in 31.02 that she's never traveled internationally surprising.  Ubly, which is in the "thumb" of Michigan,  is only 110 miles and change from Detroit (which is almost a straight shot south down MI-53), and south of the Motor City lies what Journey mistakenly (in "Don't Stop Believing") calls "South Detroit", but which most of us call "Canada".

I mean, Nicole could be too thick to realize that what's on the other side of the Windsor Tunnel is a whole different country, or she might literally never have been two hours south of her home, but either surprises me.

I would wager that Nicole just doesn't exactly consider driving into Canada as traveling Internationally.

[jhlipton]

37 minutes ago, Giuseppe said:

I would wager that Nicole just doesn't exactly consider driving into Canada as traveling Internationally.

Isn't Canada just Colder America?  LOL

[Halting Hex]

4 hours ago, Giuseppe said:

I would wager that Nicole just doesn't exactly consider driving into Canada as traveling Internationally.

True, she doesn't have to be as pedantic as I am.  I mean, I count myself as having been to Montana, even though all I did was drive out of Yellowstone Park (Wyoming) into the town of West Yellowstone, Montana, before making a left turn and heading south into Idaho.  There's certainly the argument I should have spent the night (I ended up in Pocatello that day) or at least have stopped the car and put my feet on the ground in Big Sky Country, but no, I say that counts as Montana on my "50 states" list. 

But it's completely possible that Nicole isn't so literally-minded.  Good point.

[spanana]

Nicole and Victor have Phil on their podcast this week.

[scrb]

They're not really that good, not playing political game and making mistakes.

They might have been doomed picking the cheese and eggs one where she seemed to dump into the creek several times.

Lucky and flew under the radar for the most part to make it this far.

[Brookside]

I've never seen her in anything else, so I don't know if she's always like this, but I can't stand her little girl voice, little girl demeanour, and little girl approach to physical challenges.

[lexington11]

10 hours ago, scrb said:

They're not really that good, not playing political game and making mistakes.

I'm surprised at their missteps in the political game, because Nicole won BB by playing an under the radar political game, so I'd have expected her to handle that part of the race well

[spanana]

23 hours ago, lexington11 said:

I'm surprised at their missteps in the political game, because Nicole won BB by playing an under the radar political game, so I'd have expected her to handle that part of the race well

I think they are naturally at a disadvantage not being a true Race team.  The Survivor/BB/AR teams all seemed to want their reality show to win, so I think with them being the only non-Race team left, there is this sort of unspoken knowledge that the Amazing Racers left would prefer Vic/Nicole out and have an all AR finals.  I don't know that that means the other teams don't like them necessarily.

The other thing I'd say is I think Nicole has issues when she is tired and anxious and worn out.  I get it.  It's the reason why I could never do this show because I'm a hot mess.  Big Brother is stressful, but it's a different kind of stressful and where you are mostly sitting around a comfy house all day.  So I think maybe she has less control over her emotions here and is a bit more on edge.  Which is not me calling her a hysterical woman or anything, but it's easier to be a bit melodramatic and all of that when you are also hot, physically spent and exhausted. 

Obviously Victor made a mis-step since Leo/Jamal seemed to take their u-turn vote so personally, but the other few little dust-ups seem to be mostly Nicole.  I also don't think they are hated in the sense that somebody confirmed to them that they should u-turn Team Fun as they were on the way to the u-turn board, which while having a second team u-turned benefits everyone to a degree, if people really wanted them out that bad they could have just let them figure it out for themselves.

Also post race they seem fine with everyone.  Or fine enough with their fellow racers agreeing to come on their podcast and be good sports.  The only people I think they have legitimately bad blood with are the Reillys, who not so coincidentally are the only eliminated racers who haven't done their podcast.  They seem to be fine with Leo/Jamal and Becca/Floyd in the real world.  They were hanging out with Leo in NY at the start of the season.

[chaifan]

I give Nicole credit for not giving up on the pole jump, and also for really giving it her all on the cow lift.  She was putting every ounce of her body weight into pulling that rope, at least on the second attempt - similar to what Colin was doing.   She's tiny, but she does what she can.  But I commented last week, KF seems to be setting in with her. 

[ByaNose]

I just don’t want Nicole & Victor to win. She already won BB. LOL!!! I think Victor is a nice person & done the bulk of the heavy lifting. I agree they seem to get along with everyone except the Reilly sisters like a lot of the other teams. Out the four teams left they seem the weakest along with Leo & Jamal. The big question is will they come in 3rd or 4th in the first hour?!?

Edited June 22, 2019 by ByaNose

[lexington11]

On 6/21/2019 at 12:41 PM, spanana said:

I They seem to be fine with Leo/Jamal and Becca/Floyd in the real world.  They were hanging out with Leo in NY at the start of the season.

Yeah, and Becca & Floyd really didn't take that U-Turn personally, because they understood that it was just a way for Victor & Nicole to save themselves, and they also knew how hard it was to U-Turn a team they were close to. And the friendship with Britney & Janelle is also still going strong, because I remember seeing Brit show up for Victor's proposal to Nicole

[spanana]

On 6/22/2019 at 12:42 PM, ByaNose said:

I just don’t want Nicole & Victor to win. She already won BB. LOL!!! I think Victor is a nice person & done the bulk of the heavy lifting. I agree they seem to get along with everyone except the Reilly sisters like a lot of the other teams. Out the four teams left they seem the weakest along with Leo & Jamal. The big question is will they come in 3rd or 4th in the first hour?!?

I'd argue if we are solely looking at performances on this race to date, I think Nicole/Victor are overall stronger than Leo/Jamal.  But that is me 100% discounting their previous race experience.  Just in the sense that I think Leo/Jamal have had higher highs (winning legs), but also IMO lower lows. Yes, Nicole/Victor were saved by an elimination leg once but most of their other finishes have been pretty decent and Leo/Jamal seem more likely to make bigger screw ups on tasks where it doesn't seem like they should screw up.

I know I said this in the other thread, but the majority of the issues Nicole/Victor have is if she's not physically able to keep up with some of the other racers (like in foot race type of thing) or navigational.  They definitely have had some navigational trouble.

That said Leo/Jamal have major navigational troubles on top of seemingly being careless reading clues/following directions at times.

One thing I'll say for Nicole/Victor this race, no matter where they finish, is they haven't made a lot of dumb racing mistakes during the actual racing part.  You can argue they made dumb moves socially, but task wise they didn't struggle much.  They read their clues, followed directions and did what they needed to do.

[ByaNose]

3 minutes ago, spanana said:

I'd argue if we are solely looking at performances on this race to date, I think Nicole/Victor are overall stronger than Leo/Jamal.  But that is me 100% discounting their previous race experience.  Just in the sense that I think Leo/Jamal have had higher highs (winning legs), but also IMO lower lows. Yes, Nicole/Victor were saved by an elimination leg once but most of their other finishes have been pretty decent and Leo/Jamal seem more likely to make bigger screw ups on tasks where it doesn't seem like they should screw up.

I know I said this in the other thread, but the majority of the issues Nicole/Victor have is if she's not physically able to keep up with some of the other racers (like in foot race type of thing) or navigational.  They definitely have had some navigational trouble.

That said Leo/Jamal have major navigational troubles on top of seemingly being careless reading clues/following directions at times.

One thing I'll say for Nicole/Victor this race, no matter where they finish, is they haven't made a lot of dumb racing mistakes during the actual racing part.  You can argue they made dumb moves socially, but task wise they didn't struggle much.  They read their clues, followed directions and did what they needed to do.

I agree. Leo & Jamal have really regressed this season from the last race. It's a tight race between Leo/Jamal & Nicole/Victor. I guess the other racers could block Nicole & Victor which would help out Leo & Jamal. I do think they are the two weakest teams left in the race though. They've both have had their issues. It will be interesting to see how it plays out between the two of them.

[lexington11]

21 hours ago, spanana said:

I know I said this in the other thread, but the majority of the issues Nicole/Victor have is if she's not physically able to keep up with some of the other racers (like in foot race type of thing) or navigational

I saw that as their main issue in this past leg, because out of all 5 teams, the two of them were at the biggest disadvantage with the tandem biking due to the height difference, because from what I saw on TV, Victor seemed to have no problem with the pedaling, while Nicole looked like she could barely reach those pedals, and I suspect that caused most of the difficulty in this episode.

[Brookside]

On ‎4‎/‎26‎/‎2019 at 6:46 PM, Halting Hex said:

True, she doesn't have to be as pedantic as I am.  I mean, I count myself as having been to Montana, even though all I did was drive out of Yellowstone Park (Wyoming) into the town of West Yellowstone, Montana, before making a left turn and heading south into Idaho.  There's certainly the argument I should have spent the night (I ended up in Pocatello that day) or at least have stopped the car and put my feet on the ground in Big Sky Country, but no, I say that counts as Montana on my "50 states" list. 

But it's completely possible that Nicole isn't so literally-minded.  Good point.

Yeah!   That means dozens of countries that I've flown over are off my bucket list.