Another week, another iconic villain was ejected from the competition and flung through the wall, leaving us down a second top-notch TV personality and sadly depriving us of weeks of holy grail one-liners and reads that will leave even those of us untargeted shaking in their boots.
But that’s jumping ahead to the final two minutes of this week’s otherwise filler-centric House of Villains, which manages to thrill and delight even in its weaker episodes entirely despite its parameters. We owe that success to its charming band of misfits who continue to show up, vamp, give camp, and soak up camera time.
We wrap up last week’s dull mystery of the secret note left on Bananas’s pillow, learning that Bananas wrote a series of notes “in girls’ handwriting†to devise his (very weak) blindside on Bobby. It must be said loudly and plainly that this is a boring and underwhelming misdirect and blindside that somehow still made for great TV. All it did was freak suspected note-writer Corinne out, which each villain should aspire to do with every waking breath because an activated Corinne puts on a show the likes of which simply should be taught in reality-TV college.
The most important lesson we learned this week is that Omarosa and Jonny Fairplay are running this game. They’re smart strategists, establishing alliances, secretly courting votes, learning when to speak and when to back down from a win to throw people off their scent, and they’re very clearly the ones to beat. Anyone who doesn’t immediately put them on the Hit List is a bad game player, and yes, that means you, Bananas, for whom throwing Anfisa — a production assistant who put on a mic pack and walked onto the set without anyone noticing — is clear evidence of boneheaded “strategy.â€
Though decidedly not a top-notch game player, this episode belongs to New York (as all episodes of all TV programs should). She’s spiraling from the start, continuing her tirade against Bananas, abandoning any rational gameplay in favor of her trademark blend of tightly controlled lunacy and off-the-cuff insults that Emmy-winning comedy writers wish they could’ve thought of first.
“Let me tell you something, Johnny Bananas … you amphibian, reptile-looking motherfucker,†she calmly lobs across the table at the man who’s just nominated her for the Hit List. A delightful, nonsensical, non sequitur follows it: “Don’t raise your penis at me!†Does the House of Villains have HR? Asking for a friend!
The next day, the Hit List threesome — Anfisa, New York, and Bobby — are secretly given their challenge, “Hidden Agenda.†Each villain is given a list of increasingly unhinged tasks to get their fellow housemates to perform, without letting anyone know that each completed task is a point for the villain up for elimination. The lists include shoulder massages, spilled drinks, Corinne cooking New York egg whites and serving them in a bowl, and Anfisa squirting ketchup on Bananas’s crotch, which he then licks off her feet … I could go on, but how does one top journalistically recapping televised feet-play on this fine and reputable website?
Further cementing his frontrunner status, Fairplay figures out that the challenge is secretly happening in front of the cast’s very eyes, and like he did with Jax two episodes prior, he tries to sabotage New York by quietly telling villains not to complete her requests. Watching him solve this in real time feels as electrifying as he must’ve felt figuring it out.
Somehow, we’re not even to the nuttiest part of the episode yet, which is when Dance Moms star and meme queen Abby Lee Miller pulls up to the House of Villains in her motorized scooter and says the Hit List villains will have to learn a choreographed dance routine, before then forcing the non-Hit List villains to get up and dance. Frankly, I couldn’t have dealt with multiple episodes of her, but it’s a hoot to see her calling the villains idiots and never breaking character once. Unlike Danielle Staub last week, she announces that Bobby has won the challenge — saving himself from elimination — and exits stage right in a timely fashion.
That leaves New York and Anfisa on the Hit List, and Omarosa kicks off her anti–New York campaign with a quote that will haunt me for weeks: “It’s the campaign for Anfisa to stay … four more years! Four more years!†Omarosa says with a frightening grin. She sure is … self-aware!
For some reason, the villains go bowling, which is just an excuse for Omarosa to stir up some more shit, and for us to get a supremely delightful confessional of Tanisha dragging the former Trump staffer’s political ties. It also leads to an Omarosa-orchestrated fight between Tanisha — who has grown and evolved but lets us glimpse a little Bad Girls Club Tanisha again and God, what a thrill — and New York that mostly goes nowhere.
At the Banishment Ceremony, it becomes clear very quickly that there’s only one possible outcome, and New York herself knows it, so she makes the most of her final moments on screen. In her final plea before the votes, she doesn’t beg; instead, she just reads out her LinkedIn bio for the group as a reminder of what duller television will be in store if they keep Anfisa instead of her: “I’m the original HBI-motherfucking C … and I deserve my spot here in the House of Villains. So I need y’all to keep me here. I don’t want a sympathy vote. I don’t need a sympathy vote. But I need y’all to understand the pecking order.â€
Omarosa senses her opportunity and, throwing a lit stick of dynamite into a pile of lit sticks of dynamite covered in gasoline, counters: “So you don’t want my sympathy vote? That’s what you’re saying?â€
I need you all to mentally prepare yourself to relive what happens next if you’ve already watched it, and if you’re coming to this recap blind, I need you to take a moment, breathe in deeply, breathe out, and make sure you’re comfortable.
“Since I already said that, Omarosa,†New York replies, “may I also say that I find you to be a cock-sucking, come-guzzling Republican cunt, and I sleep better at night knowing that you’re not in the White House.â€
Microphone dropped, thrown, hurled into the moon, shattered into a million pieces, reassembled, and dropped again. It’s clearly over for the HBIC, but what a way to go out, confirmed by the villains’ shocked faces and peals of laughter. Even Omarosa seems impressed. Game recognize game.
With a vote of 4-2, the second villain to be banished from the House of Villains is … Tiffany “New York†Pollard. Sadly, this feels like Flavor Flav dumping her on VH1 more than a decade ago all over again, but worse. “Fuck you all, you sons of bitches,†she says as she’s catapulted into the wall. Long live New York, an icon who continues to give. An honorary Emmy for her work in these four episodes alone would be fitting.
The Villains’ Attic
• Corinne is establishing herself here as a celeb-reality lifer. She’s giving great TV, as she did on The Bachelor, and it’s just nice to see her in her element. Let’s get her on more shows, producers!
• The more confessionals about gameplay and strategy, the better. Watching legends like Fairplay and Omarosa talk about how they’re scheming and strategizing is the show’s winningest asset. I love seeing how the sausage gets made, and they’re really peeling back those curtains.
• Shake seems deeply confused by every interaction, which is giving High Comedy, but based on the preview, it looks like he will wake up next week and start playing the game. I’m excited to see it because we can’t have two people (hi, Anfisa) coasting this hard.
• Did anyone else see Jax tease this week that he’ll be returning to the House of Villains at some point? We should’ve known there would be a twist, so maybe all hope is not lost for a New York victory?