An emotional ending on the premiere of Josh Duhamel's 'Buddy Games,' and more from a night of reality competition shows

It was a painful night of reality competition shows on CBS Thursday, both physically and emotionally, with tears being shed on the series premiere of Buddy Games, backs nearly being broken on The Challenge and a few hurt feelings on Big Brother.

So here’s a look at some of the highlights — and lowlights — from a jam-packed night of competitions, quiet conversations, votes and more quiet conversations. Starting with…

Buddy Games

What started as a 2019 comedy film directed by Josh Duhamel has expanded into a reality competition series hosted and executive produced by Duhamel. The show — and the movie — are based on a 20-year tradition in which Duhamel and his friends come together once a summer to compete in various games.

Thursday’s premiere of Buddy Games introduced the six teams of four friends that will live together at an adult summer camp and test their bonds through various challenges. Ranging from police officers to pageant queens to roller derby competitors, the teams are definitely an eclectic mix. Which segues to...

Clip of the Night: Meet the teams.

And while it’s mostly fun and games, it turns out that there are also some extremely tough choices to make as the season goes on. At the end of a very muddy and very interesting obstacle course of sorts, the bottom two teams — Chicago’s Finest and Philly Forever — had to face off in a game called “Ring-a-ding-ding,” where one player from each team is blindfolded and wearing bells and they have to find the other person and remove flags from their waist.

When Philly Forever wasn’t able to pull out the win, Duhamel revealed the “shocking” twist of the game: the team can stay, but they have to send home one of their members. If a team gets down to just two, that's when everyone has to leave. This led to a very emotional decision for Philly Forever, with tears flowing not only from them but other teams too when it came down to saying goodbye. Which segues to…

Winner of the Night: Feel-good friendships. Like Duhamel said to an emotional group after Philly Forever said goodbye to one of their friends, “I think these guys represent true friendship.” Which really does seem to be at the heart of the show, compared to your average reality competition where there’s usually a level of backstabbing and deception.

Look ahead: With all six teams still remaining — minus a person for one team — the season promises to be filled with more dirty, gross, demanding and fun games. The last team standing will earn a cash prize of $200,000, the Buddy Games trophy and, of course, bragging rights.

The Challenge

On The Challenge, the big competition of the night was a two-pronged event called “Speed Jump.” For the first phase, contestants had to jump on a trampoline to look over a wall at a board filled with numbers and add them all up, write it down and see if they’re correct.

But the fun with trampolines didn’t stop there. Well, actually, the fun part did stop there to make way for pain, because the next part of the challenge involved jumping on a trampoline on the back of a moving flatbed truck, while trying to grab flags above their heads. Of course, if they didn’t time things right or jump from the right spot, the landing wasn’t always back onto the forgiving trampoline. Which segues to…

Loser of the night: Their backs! Especially the back of contestant Tori Deal, a Challenge veteran, who landed so hard on hers on the hard side of the trampoline that fellow castmates were legitimately concerned. Luckily she was able to get back up and not only finish the challenge, but she earned the most points of any female. Either way, everyone who participated was no doubt feeling it the next day.

Look ahead: After Survivor alums Chris Underwood and Sebastian Noel battled it out in the elimination challenge, it was Noel who had to pack his bags or put out his torch or whatever and head home. Now 14 players remain heading into what host T.J. Lavin called “the final stretch,” aka there are only three more episodes left.

Big Brother

And on Big Brother, heading into an elimination night it was Cameron Hardin sitting as the Head of Household, and he chose a somewhat surprising duo to be put up for elimination: Felicia Cannon and Izzy Gleicher.

This was most likely a move to start going after houseguest Cirie Fields, a Survivor alum who has plenty of close allies — like Felicia and Izzy — and is considered to be one of the unofficial leaders of the house.

Before the vote, both Izzy and Felicia had a chance to plead their cases to the rest of the house. Which segues to…

Quip of the Night: “By the faith of a mustard seed” was uttered by Felicia while making her case to the house. Here is the full quote:

“This week has been long and exhausting, and I have survived, by the faith of a mustard seed,” Felicia said to her fellow houseguests. “At some point in this game, every person in here will have to be willing to make a decision and take the lead rather than following everybody else. The winner of BB 25 is going to be the person that has the leadership and the courage to do just that. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it. Smooches.”

Look Ahead: Maybe the mustard seed line did the trick, because after plenty of back-and-forth among the houseguests throughout the episode, it was Izzy who was sent out the front door and straight into the freshly eliminated interview chair across from host Julie Chen Moonves. The episode ended with the remaining 10 houseguests beginning the next Head of Household competition, an endurance challenge called “Attack of the 50-foot Meatball.”

Mustard seeds? Meatballs? Mmm, who’s hungry?

Buddy Games and The Challenge: USA air Thursdays on CBS; Big Brother airs Sundays, Wednesdays and Thursdays on CBS.