Casey Durkin/E! Entertainment
Back in the ’90s and early 2000s, reality television, if you were lucky, could be a fateful entry point into Hollywood, the music industry and even corporate America. Now, the once-ridiculed genre has expanded so much— with shows like Love Is Blind and Real Housewives occupying their own universes—that many reality stars are maximizing their celebrity within that space. It certainly helps that a number of reality series and competitions nowadays cast old/current TV personalities, putting them in a house together and hoping for a big, fat drama-fest. Examples this year alone include MTV’s latest season of The Challenge, Peacock’s The Traitors, Bravo’s Winter House, MTV’s Jersey Shore All Stars, and, on Oct. 12, House of Villains on E!.
Despite its placement on a less buzzy network, House of Villains is the ultimate meeting of chaotic reality forces. The small but star-studded cast of produced and self-delegated antagonists include Jonny Fairplay from Survivor, Tanisha Thomas from Bad Girls Club, The Real World/The Challenge’s Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzino, Love and Hip Hop: Miami’s Bobby Lytes, Love Is Blind’s Shake Chatterjee, The Apprentice’s Omarosa Manigault-Newman, The Bachelor’s Corinne Olympios, Vanderpump Rules’ Jax Taylor, 90 Day Fiance’s Anfisa Arkhipchenko and, last but not least, Flava of Love’s Tiffany “New York” Pollard.
Hosted by Joel McHale, the show sees this Mount Rushmore of “villains” competing in a series of “Battle Royale” challenges for a $200,000 cash prize and the worthless title of the ultimate reality supervillain. The winner of the challenges gets to nominate three players to put on a “hit list,” who then compete in an redemption challenge where the winner can escape possible elimination. Afterwards, the rest of the house votes off one of the two remaining nominees. Just like The Traitors, which this show feels like a hurried response to, the ability to gather allies ultimately trumps any sort of physical or mental strength that may help you win a challenge.