It’s day ten inside the House of Villains, and all the villains are sending their intentions of Shake being eliminated from the group out to the universe, but there’s nothing more treacherous than a villain whose back is against the wall, so let’s keep an eye on Shake.
Tanisha begins the episode as fired up as she was last week, and thank the reality-TV gods for that, because witnessing a fully activated Tanisha — even if it’s sparkling with a hint of performativity, because, baby, she is a showgirl — is like watching Serena Williams on her best day. “I hate that passive-aggressive shit,” she says to Omarosa moments after being put on her Hit List. “I’m aggressive-aggressive,” Omarosa responds calmly. “I came at you from the front.”
Tanisha’s argument — deeply compelling on a human level but an immediate failure from a competition perspective — is that she’s a mother who gave up “everything” to come here to try to win money to help raise and support her son. Bobby seizes upon her pathos and tells her to cry, to which Tanisha legendarily responds, “You must be smoking dick.” Someone send me the GIF when it’s ready, please.
The villains regroup for a “waffles and mimosas” brunch outing the next morning, with Tanisha’s temper as boiling as the night before, leading to yet another amazing quote: “She would put her own mama on the Hit List, okay?” Before the meal, Bobby toasts the group, and I am stealing it for my next brunch: “There’s still eight of us, which is a goddamned shame.”
Tanisha tells Omarosa she was wrong for putting her on the Hit List because the show would be boring without her, which, if we’re looking at the three candidates (Corinne, Shake, and Tanisha), is certainly partially true! “If you think you are carrying this show, you’re very wrong,” Omarosa replies, and to be fair to her, Omarosa is carrying this show in New York’s absence, so I’ll give her the point. And she almost wins the whole argument — until she calls Tanisha a one-hit wonder, setting her up for a gorgeous, decadent layup so good it sends a chill up one’s spine. “Omarosa, that would be you,” Tanisha replies from across the brunch table. “That’s why you get the least amount of jobs, and that’s why your ass was fired from the White House. Stop pressing me, sis.” Sure, it’s low-hanging fruit, but only icons are plucking it from the tree and throwing it back in Omarosa’s face! It makes me proud to be a Tanisha stan.
The Hit List ready themselves for their Redemption Challenge, finding what they think is a nightclub set up in the house’s backyard. The door rings, Shake answers, and he welcomes a shockingly low-energy Spencer Pratt (“A villain gone soft,” says Corinne) to the house without knowing who The Hills legend is. Also, to etch Bobby’s words into stone: “He done gained a few pounds — which is fine!”
Spencer shows them the inside of the “nightclub,” which it turns out is filled with rats, snakes, and scorpions. Much like Corinne, you simply would not find me within a mile of this challenge (“The Darkest Hour”). The villains must enter the pitch-black chamber and hunt through the boxes of creepy-crawlies for tokens, which they can add one at a time to their competitors’ respective towers. Once a villain’s tower hits five tokens, they’re out of the running for immunity.
Once again proving this show’s worth, there’s a pull-the-curtain-back twist: Shake is a veterinarian, meaning Tanisha and Corinne, already squeamish, throw in the towel before the challenge begins, knowing full well that Shake has a paw up (see what we did there?) on both of them. Producers intervene, telling them they didn’t know who would be up for the Hit List, making it clear that the challenges are set for when they’re set, meaning there’s no behind-the-scenes tinkering (if we believe them) to favor one villain over another. “I know it’s scary, but you know I can’t do anything that’s gonna kill you,” one producer tells Tanisha. That’s not as reassuring as he might think!
The challenge proceeds — Corinne and Tanisha in gloves, Shake bare-handing it — with the rest of the villains watching from TVs inside the house. Shake starts with an early lead, tossing a token in Corinne’s tower, then a second, a third, and a fourth before either of his competitors has even really put their hands in the boxes.
Corinne is knocked out basically immediately, and seconds later, Tanisha self-eliminates, painting a target on her back with the rest of the villains, who lose respect for her refusal to participate. “Me and animals don’t mix unless they’re on the menu,” Tanisha says mournfully.
Drastic times call for drastic measures, and we see Tanisha calling in a secret favor late at night. That favor? Turns out it’s a 6:15 a.m. large-group choral rendition of Tanisha’s iconic “I didn’t get no sleep ‘cause of y’all” Bad Girls Club rant that wakes up the entire house. House of Villains really is a meme factory, jolting life into decades-old viral moments that host Joel McHale regularly picked apart on The Soup. It’s so full circle and so mesmerizing that you can’t help but respect the producers’ and cast members’ hustle. (Special shout-out to Fairplay quietly recording the choir on his phone.)
If you believe what’s coming out of their mouths, Bananas and Bobby express admiration for Tanisha’s big move, possibly swaying their votes in her favor to support a villain willing to show the house what she’ll do to stay in the competition. But Bobby is a flip-flopper, despite his constant refrain that “he’ll stay loyal to the end,” so when it seems like he’ll be the deciding vote among the group, it makes for a live wire of an elimination ceremony.
At the Stronghold, Corinne starts her plea to the group with a speech that makes Joel McHale interrupt her mid-sentence. “I wanted to just say that each and every one of you has touched me in a different way …” she begins before the group explodes into peals of laughter. Tanisha’s speech feels like a concession of defeat, but Corinne’s does too, so it’s hard to know which way the axe will swing.
When the votes are counted, the third villain to be banished from the house by a unanimous decision is Corinne, which is right and just. After she’s hurled into the wall, Joel jokes that The Bachelor legend has been flipped right into the set of Big Brother, and if that isn’t the perfect metaphor for the revolving door of reality shows House of Villains is nestling itself among, I don’t know what is.
The Villains’ Attic
• Omarosa’s back-seat confession that she gets Botox in her underarms to avoid sweating in borrowed gowns for red-carpet events? Chef’s kiss.
We learn that not only does Shake have an OnlyFans account (Bobby does too), but that his arrangement with one paying subscriber (“This guy in Indiana”) necessitates sending constant photos and videos of him vaping (“and my empty vapes”). Shake’s sugar-baby era was not on my bingo card!
• I need one of those “Team Corn” crop tops Corinne was rocking during the Redemption Challenge.
• Bobby calling Anfisa “Antifa” is unfortunately the peak of comedy, and it’s all downhill from here.
