Claim to Fame is back! Let the messy guessing begin

ABC’s Claim to Fame, my favorite summer reality TV competition is back, and this new group of celebrity-adjacent players are here to play.

Miguel, for instance, tells us he’s using a “fake name to make people think I am more Spanish than I actually am.”

The same is true of Gracie Lou, whose fake name is just the start of a totally artificial identity designed to get people to think her relative is a country singer, even though “I barely know what’s going on in the country world,” she says.

These are simple but clever strategies, and when combined with the production’s casting of people who don’t just look exactly like their sister Simone Biles (alas, “Louise”!), all of this sets the stage for a solid third season.

Our hosts Franklin and Kevin Jonas are back, complete with bits, like people on the set fawning over Kevin, though Frankie gets some jokes in too, pointing out that Kevin is less famous than Nick.

That opens with them in a motorcycle. “Dude, why am I in the sidecar?” Frankie asks his more-famous brother, Kevin, who replies, “Is that even a question?”

The competition has again returned to the former Biggest Loser ranch, and I’m glad to have this show cleanse the grounds of that toxicity.

Because it’s season three, the producers/editors also dispense with setting up the regular features. So we just dive into the cocktail party where the players introduce themselves with two truths and a lie.

The producers shared a handful of lies with us, but not too many, and didn’t even give us all the clues:

1. Miguel: grandfather, actor, Oscar. He said the lie is that the relative is his grandfather.
2. Graice Lou: uncle, musician, Emmy
3. Dedrick: uncle, singer, best rock song of the year multiple times
4. Danny: uncle, wrestler, Grammy
5. Hud: mom, singer, Grammy
6. Jill: grandfather
7. Adam: Grammy
8. Naomi: young artist award
9. Bianca: Peabody award
10. Mackenzie, father, singer, Tony. She said the lie is that there is “nothing associated with Broadway in my family at all.”
11. Shane: cousin, actor, Oscar

Inside the house, the players find the clue wall locked behind doors. Perhaps it’s all The Mole I’ve been watching, but I was hoping there’d be some kind of secret challenge to figure it out. Instead, a Jonas just unlocked it before the first Guess-Off.

Miguel gets down on the floor and looks up underneath a table to see if there’s anything there, and declares it’s just a table. No hidden immunity idols there, apparently.

As the players get to know each other, Jill says, “I keep forgetting that we all have celebrity relatives.” Shane reveals that a team he plays on doesn’t even know his relative, which is probably a clue in itself.

Then it’s time for the now-standard first challenge: the talent show. As much as I like Claim to Fame, I’m really not a fan of this, nor this season’s twist. Instead of just performing a challenge, the players have “three talent tests,” Kevin says. The players have to present three talents, using props. So is this an improv challenge? An actual talent show? And also: Why?

Shane, who’s wearing what looks like a realistic fried chicken drumstick on a chain around his neck, catches a grape in his mouth, juggles, and does a split. Was that all three talents? Or one act? We’re not told.

There are some insights here, like Adam sharing that “I sound like my celebrity relative, so it’s a dead giveaway,” so he doesn’t sing, but plays the drums instead.

Gracie Lou may be a fake character, but her ability to sing is not fake—she’s amazing! However, that’s a misdirect. Her relative is not musical, she says. That’s the talent show at its best: showing off a genuine talent and game play at the same time.

Naomi, too, sings very well when she performs “Amazing Grace,” while Mackenzie jokes that, in her family, “singing is not hereditary.”

Meanwhile, Hud, wearing boxing gloves, spars with Frankie, while Danny does stand-up that includes “I just flew in. My arms are tired.”

Miguel tries to recite a poem, “Storms of Life,” and all he can remember is “sorry, sorry, sorry.” He also apparently attempted some kind of art:

The players vote for each other, and Gracie Lou is the winner, and gets the season’s first clue, while the bottom two are Miguel and Bianca. One of them will be voted to be the season’s first guesser.

Before they even leave the stage, Adam whispers to Miguel, “I’m going to help you out.”

Miguel is totally thrown off by this, and mics catch him praying: “I know I’m not a very good Christian but please, please, please help me,” he pleads, because God is most definitely interested in helping out reality show contestants but not, say, children in war zones being killed by bombs or starving to death.

It’s not just God who Miguel also pleads to, but himself: “just don’t cry on camera” he says repeatedly. Then he does cry, while talking to Adam, but covers his eyes with his arm so we cannot see. He babbles something about “be the man of the house” and “the one who provides,” both of which caused me to puke a little.

As annoying as all this is, what I do like about Miguel is that he appears to be in the house to play for the money, not the fame. And he’s focused on playing. “I’m going to do whatever the fuck I have to,” he tells us in an interview.

We get some early guesses; Jill thinks Miguel’s relative is Jeff Goldblum, while Bianca thinks Miguel may be related to either Eric Estrada or Desi Arnez.

The clue wall is unlocked, just in time for the first guess-off, and some players freak out about how obviously some things identify their own celebrity relative. There is, for example, a robin and a bird cage—is that Robin Williams, star of The Birdcage?

Miguel is worried he’ll be the one everyone votes for, because “if they get me on that guessing block, I am outta here.” That’s actually accurate.

Danny tells us “Miguel’s running around like a chicken without a head. Stop thinking people are coming after you—they are,” he laughs.

Miguel listens outside the door, hearing people say they’ll vote for him, and also listening to Gracie Lou and Bianca run through theories. Bianca and Gracie Lou think Shane might be related to Forest Whitaker, thanks to some movie popcorn, a ghost, and a dog, perhaps a reference to the Forest Whitaker film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.

Adam, whose connection to Miguel is unclear, tries to get support for voting for Bianca, in part because Gracie Lou and Bianca are friends, and Gracie Lou gets a clue.

Before the guess-off, Gracie Lou chooses Naomi’s clue, and her rebus puzzle shows this: a bra, T, backpack, tiara, an arrow pointing into a door, a club, and four croissants and steaming tea cups.

The first part she gets right away: The Brat Pack. I think the tiara is likely “princess,” and then “in.” The club would suggest The Breakfast Club, but I don’t understand why there are four little tea and croissant combos. The number must be significant.

Bianca goes to sleep, content, while Miguel literally runs around the house. He does some more praying and talking about “bettering my life” and saying, “please God. I need the money so badly.” If that’s true, maybe there are better ways than, you know, on a competitionr eality TV show?

I’m still unsure whether I’m irritated by Miguel’s pleading or grateful we have a player who’s not just about fame and attention and camera time (for example, see season 2, episode 1’s post-elimination meltdown), but actually seems to care about winning the prize.

The players vote, and there’s just a one-vote difference: the guesser is Bianca, not Miguel. Surprise!

The implication was that 1) Miguel managed to sway people and 2) there was concern about Bianca and Gracie Lou’s closeness. I don’t need a full-on Survivor edit of the strategy, but I am curious if that’s what happened—or if just half the people think Miguel isn’t a threat.

Bianca chose to guess who Shane is related to, and guessed Forest Whitaker. I thought she had it—especially when his face started twitching immediately! But no, Bianca was wrong. “I’m sorry,” Shane said.

Bianca is therefore out of the game, so her relative was revealed to be her aunt, Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts, who told her via a video message, “you have been the star of our family all along.” Awe.

After her exit—Bianca didn’t have a meltdown, instead just hugging everyone—we get one final and pivotal scene.

Sitting around the table, Miguel does an impressive trick where he seems to pull a spoon out of his nose. (Why didn’t he do that at the talent show?! Hmm.)

Dedrick says, “Can’t do that in front of my kids because they’ll actually try it. The problem is, I’ll walk into the ER or something and they’ll be like, For real, Mr. Jackson? Again?“

At the start of the episode, Dedrick told us he’s related to one of the “most famous and iconic people in the world.”

And to quote Naomi, “Holy shit, he called himself Mr. Jackson.” Could it be that obvious?