House of Villains

Heavy Is the Head That Wears the Crown Season 1 Episode 10 Editor’s Rating 5 stars *****

House of Villains

Heavy Is the Head That Wears the Crown Season 1 Episode 10 Editor’s Rating 5 stars *****

I’ll level with you: It’s been a hard year for me, my friends, and basically everyone I know. I got married this year, and 2023 still ranks among one of the most challenging years I have ever miraculously gotten through. Somewhere along the way — probably precipitated by my umpteenth migraine, which in itself could’ve been precipitated by, you know, the Horrors — I closed my pop-culture ranks. I swaddled myself in all the comfort items I could draw close: Housewives, Kitchen Nightmares (a godsend for returning after all these years away), and anything unchallenging became my nightly ritual.

I’m telling you this because, for these reasons and more, I’ve developed such an absolute fondness for and genuine love of House of Villains that upon watching tonight’s season finale, I felt myself getting emotional. There are so many ways this could’ve gone wrong. We could’ve been handed something self-serious and dull, a challenge-driven carbon copy of [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and other reality competitions and shows it’s instead so gleefully spoofing. Its cast could’ve refused to lean in, turning away from the camp oozing from the house’s every nook and cranny. Its host could’ve taken a cynical approach to being dragged back into the world of celeb-reality after years of building a name for himself on the oh-so-beloved Community (give us that damn movie, Joel).

Instead, House of Villains winked at us, at its past, at its genre, at the contestants who made up its motley cast of characters, and threw everything it had at us week after week. By no means was this show perfect television, but it never aspired to be; rather, House of Villains proved to be the rare series that so confidently knew what it was from the jump that no hiccup (its brightest shining star, New York, getting an early chop) or misstep (Omarosa losing the plot and playing victim for weeks on end) could deter the maniacal amounts of fun it brought to the table week after week.

So, let’s crown us a villain, shall we? With Omarosa in our rearview mirror (bye, flop!), we enter this episode with some strong competitors at the forefront: Fairplay, Bananas, and Tanisha have all earned their way to this finale for different reasons. I know I’ve given Tanisha grief for refusing to engage in logical strategy, but this woman has played a staggeringly good social game, winning over allies better than anyone in the house. Oh, Shake and Anfisa are in the finale, too.

And so, too, are all our departed villains, who are here to join the remaining competitors for the rest of the game, which means “New York is in the motherfucking house” once again, my friends, and man oh man, is it good to see her (and Jax, and Corinne, and Omarosa, and not Bobby for some reason). “Have you not seen Friday the 13th?” Tiffany asks. “I’m worse than Jason Voorhees, sweetheart, because I’m the HBIC, and you can’t kill me because I’ll keep coming back and back and back.”

Our dearly departed not-winners are here, you see, to be the Survivor jury of the House of Villains finale, or the RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 3 jury if you’re feeling more villainous about your outlook. Bobby is ineligible to vote because of his reticence to return — which, if you believe Reddit, is because he allegedly “had a better-paying offer overseas” (to allegedly go to London Fashion Week), which is allegedly part of the reason he put himself on the Hit List in the first place … allegedly.

In announcing the show’s final Battle Royale — the Last Supper, hosted by Below Deck icon Chef Ben — Joel McHale lays out the finale rules: Its winner is an automatic finalist, and that person chooses three villains for the Hit List. Whoever isn’t chosen sits alongside the winner in the final three, whereas the Hit List nominees will battle it out for the final spot, leaving the two losers of that challenge on the jury.

For the Last Supper, the jury gets freshly prepared sushi from Chef Ben (“Is he from France?” New York asks in confessional). The competitors are told they each have to order $200 of food from the chef, ranging from a hard-boiled egg ($10) to a spicy chicken wing ($20) to a red snapper eyeball ($30, “with a delightful crunch,” to which New York says, “they didn’t kill these fish kosher-ly!”). Forty dollars will get you a testicle, which New York says she thinks came from a human man, and if you’re wondering why I keep mentioning New York, it’s because she is an icon who has electrified this show time and time again. Oh, and $50? That’ll get you a “squealing pig brain pie.” They then race to see who can finish their $200 meal first. I wish my words could do justice to the next scene of Tanisha failing to grasp the concept of ordering enough dishes to get to $200, but you’ll have to just imagine the magnitude of ethereality as you also read me describing the fight that immediately ensues once Omarosa says “counting’s not her forte.”

“Can you stop talking about me?” Tanisha claps back. “You are obsessed. You are too old for this at your big age. You are disgusting.”

“Dude, yeah, Omarosa, you suck,” Shake says, throwing his hat in the ring, sensing the finish line in sight, throwing away any possibility of a jury vote just to kick a flop while she’s down (don’t metaphorically kick her, Shake, she’ll call her attorney).

In news that should shock no viewers of this show, Bananas pulls away from the pack immediately, dousing his food in water and shoving it down his throat, pausing only to briefly gag on a fish eyeball that explodes in his mouth. “What a disgusting slimeball!” shouts New York with joy.

After the challenge, Fairplay starts planting seeds of jealousy in Corinne’s brain, telling her that Bananas and Anfisa are in love and have gotten closer since Corinne left the house, a half-truth Bananas promptly tries to undo, but will it be enough when it comes to securing her vote?

But Corinne isn’t the woman on Bananas’ mind, and neither is Anfisa; instead, what’s weighing on The Challenge champ is whether or not to take his longtime ally and house BFF Tanisha to the finale with him. On the one hand, he says, if he brings her, then he’s taking away a vote from himself; on the other, if he leaves her out, he’s taking away her shot at $200,000, and the guilt of that genuinely seems to be crushing him. Has our Bananas gone mushy?

At the Hit List nomination ceremony, we see the inner workings of Johnny Bananas in action: Shake and Fairplay are the first two up for elimination, followed by, semi-shockingly, Anfisa! “I’ve been accused of not having a heart before,” Bananas says before signing his own likely death warrant and sealing Tanisha’s probable win in the process.

The final Redemption Challenge — a “test of how well you know your fellow villains” called “Who Said It?” — signifies the last day in the house, which feels like a “pass ‘Go,’ collect $200, enter the final three” pass sealed, signed, and delivered for Fairplay. But it’s Anfisa who pulls away with an early lead before the two-point-per-answer round kicks in, which swiftly knocks Shake out, followed … by Fairplay himself. “Just like on Survivor, I finished second,” he says, sort of incorrectly, but he seems so dejected that you have to give it to him.

So there’s your final three, world: Johnny Bananas, Tanisha, and Anfisa. One of them seems like an absolute nonstarter as a possible winner, and that’s Anfisa; although people like her plenty (aside from Shake), she didn’t play a social or strategic game, so … it’s a no from me, dawg. So it’s a two-person race between two legends and two true pioneers of the genre, and that feels totally right to me.

Bananas starts his jury maintenance by arguing perfectly to their hearts and heads in the same breath, pointing out what each person has to keep up with financially outside of the game. “I feel like the decision should be made within the parameters of the house,” he says. But “this is bullshit,” says a bitter Fairplay, who points out (correctly) how much money his new enemy has won throughout the years on his MTV shows. So who knows? Logic might be out the window here!

At the banishment ceremony, after Anfisa and Bananas offer up perfunctory remarks, Tanisha gives the jury speech of a lifetime, working her way down the jury one by one to establish how she’d formed a personal connection with each member at one point in the competition or another. You can see the tears welling in her eyes as she talks about playing for her son, about entering the house frightened because she’d never done a show like this before. “I’m Tanisha,” she says. “That’s all I can be.” Mic dropped.

Let’s tally the live vote: Shake starts us off by notching one for Bananas, followed by Corinne, before Omarosa shocks the room by voting for “her biggest adversary,” Tanisha. Fairplay says he’s “not here to change a child’s life” and votes for Bananas with a fiery speech about gameplay. Jax throws his vote to Tanisha.

It all ends with New York. “Typically, bananas turned me on,” she begins. “Whether they’re grilled or chopped up in a bowl of Shredded Wheat, a banana is gonna give you that potassium that your bone density needs and craves. And I thought long and hard about Johnny’s banana. You have amazing hair and a nice bum. My heart is with you. But my head, my heart, and my feet are with Tanisha.”

We’re split, leaving Anfisa with zero votes and eliminated … and in control of the tiebreaking vote, which she, in a final, iconic backstab, gives to Tanisha. Sorry, but can you hear me screaming? I love this show. I LOVE THIS SHOW.

That’s right, America: Tanisha from Bad Girls Club is America’s Greatest Supervillain, winning $200,000 and bringing an end to one of the most entertaining, stupid, amazing reality TV competition series of all time. Thank you, House of Villains, for all that you’ve contributed and all I hope you’ll contribute in the years ahead. And thanks to all of you for reading along with all these unhinged missives and love letters to villains past, present, and future. Happy holidays and happy trails — may we meet again in the House of Villains soon.

Villains’ Attic

• Jax tells Tanisha that moments after his elimination, his wife Brittany called him to tell him she’d been hospitalized but didn’t want him to have to quit the game to rush to her. It turns out she’d had a stroke, he says, but after spending two nights with her in Cedars-Sinai, she pulled through. Jax is easy to clown on as a caricature, but talk about insane timing. Thinking of you, Brittany!

• Tanisha interrupted a confessional to cough and gag because of “that cow stuff coming back up” … There’s no reason she shouldn’t be on my TV screens once a week, if not more regularly.

• “Shake, who do you choose as America’s supervillain — other than your butthole from last night?” Joel! McHale! Emmy! When!

House of Villains Season-Finale Recap