'House of Villains Season 2 Needs More Than a Good Cast to Save the Show

July 2024 · 9 minute read

The Big Picture

Between Richard Hatch, the original Survivor, and Teresa Giudice, the original Jersey Housewife, they have had their villainous antics captured on screen. And their legacy is about to be cemented on screen in the second season of House of Villains. With a diverse cast spanning a plethora of franchises, House of Villains Season 2 is bound to be a campy good time filled with lies, deception, and pure evil. But the actual game format needs to reflect the diabolical nature of its cast. The games and challenges of Season 1 were a bit too silly. With a group of individuals looking to expand their fifteen minutes of villainous fame on reality television, causing more drama within the challenges could amplify the drama in the evil lair. Honoring the characters who are committed to putting their careers on the line will make the series even more exciting.

Reality television fans love their shows, and they love watching their favorite characters interact with other characters from different franchises and universes. In a time when reality television crossovers are keeping the genre alive, E!'s House of Villains, hosted by the brilliant and alway quippy Joel McHale, was the sleeper hit of the fall. Uniting ten of reality television's legendary villains to compete for a cash prize of $200,000 and the title of America's Ultimate Supervillain has resulted in campy television, proving why America just adores loving to hate a reality television villain. New shows tend to have growing pains. The first season of House of Villains certainly wasn't perfect, but with such potential, especially with a top tier second season cast, a bit of a shakeup in format might improve the program and make it even better. House of Villains has the potential to be an even greater guilty pleasure.

House of Villains
TV-14Reality-TVGame Show

Villains from some of television's most popular reality shows will be put in competition, where each week one will be eliminated until only one winner remains.

Release Date October 12, 2023 Cast Joel McHale , Johnny 'Bananas' Devenanzio , Omarosa , Anfisa Arkhipchenko , Tanisha Thomas Main Genre Reality-TV Seasons 2

'House of Villains' Season 2 Cast is Exceptional

The premiere season of House of Villains had immense success by welcoming a strong cast of villains throughout the history of reality television to the evil lair. With a cast blending original reality villains like Tiffany "New York" Pollard, Omarosa Manigault Newman, and Jonny Fairplay with the modern era of villains like Corinne Olympios, Jax Taylor and Shake Chatterjee, the season forced some of the biggest egos into one villa where they would manipulate one another to win. The season only worked because of the cast. Fans tuned in to watch these legends interact and just so happen to compete in silly challenges. If there were no challenges involved and the show leaned a bit closer to a show like The Surreal Life, the impact likely would have been the same. House of Villains is about the people, not the game. There are ways to improve that, but we'll get to it.

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For season 2, the casting team had an uphill battle to top their first cast. Shockingly, they might have done it! Moving into the Evil Liar for the second season include Wes Bergmann (The Challenge), Teresa Giudice (The Real Housewives of New Jersey), Jessie Godderz (Big Brother), Richard Hatch (Survivor), Victoria Larson (The Bachelor), Larissa Lima (90 Day Fiancé), Kandy Muse (RuPaul's Drag Race), Camilla Poindexter (Bad Girls Club), Safaree Samuels (Love & Hip Hop), and the shocking return of HBIC Tiffany "New York" Pollad (Flavor of Love). These individuals have brought chaos to the world of reality television and are likely to play hard. With a mix of individuals coming from competitive series and those who had their lives documented for love or fights, if the first season was any indication, those who have a competitive past are likely to battle hard. Fans of The Traitors Season 2 are aware how the dynamic of gamers and non-gamers can affect the overall outcome and create alliances.

'House of Villains' Season 2 Needs to Lean Into Each Villain's Infamous Moments

As displayed in the teaser for House of Villains Season 2, each of the new villains were tasked to read off their infamous quotes or act out their infamous moments. The hilarious trailer was the perfect way to tease fans for the next season. What House of Villains has done well was remind the audience why each villain is the villain that they are. Audiences love nostalgia. They love to remember the moments that catapulted their favorites to superstardom. Tapping into those moments immediately in the teaser is a great way to bring in a new audience.

One of the absolute best moments from Season 1 was when the ultimate winner, Tanisha Thomas, in a moment to remind her cast mates why she is evil, brought in a choir at six o'clock in the morning to wake them up, performing her iconic pan wake up moment from Bad Girls Club 2. The remix of "I Didn't Get No Sleep Cause of Y'all" honored her reality television history, all while causing chaos in the house. Staged or not, it then led to Omarosa freaking out at production, accusing Tanisha of hitting her with a tambourine when Omarosa tried to steal the spotlight of the moment. Of course, nothing of the sort actually happened as no contact was ever made. But Omarosa, known for embellishing a situation when it suits her needs, went to urgent care, walking back into the Evil Lair with a brace on her wrist.

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To no one's surprise, the brace was missing at moments in the final episode when the villains returned to vote for the winner. The show trolled Omarosa greatly as they showed she was fibbing about the extent of the injury and airing what the show's medic said to her about competing. Thankfully, the medic made one last appearance before Omarosa's elimination as she complained, refusing to be flipped backwards as every other eliminated contestant previously had. It wasn't the wrist but her newfound cough and compression on her lungs. Thanks to her historic run on The Apprentice, Tanisha delivered the infamous "you're fired" line before Omarosa's departure. It's moments like this that viewers remember most from the show. The challenges truly are second fiddle.

Season 1 was ripe with cameos from other villains who didn't get the cut to make the show. The cast was greeted by the likes of Tiger King's Carole Baskin, Dance Mom's Abby Lee Miller, The Hills' Spencer Pratt, Below Deck's Ben Robinson, and The Real Housewives of New Jersey's Danielle Staub. While their time was brief, they helped to remind the fans of how big the world of villany on reality TV is. Season 2 should not only bring in other villains to help run the challenges alongside Joel, but bring in some of the villains' rivals to keep things spicy. Imagine, if you will, Teresa's sister-in-law turned rival Melissa Gorga showing up on the doorsteps of the Evil Lair. The mind games that would ensue would be nothing short of television gold. Imagine, if you will, if Richard Hatch's rival Sue Hawk shows up to give her speech one more time. Hell, if New York is there, bring back another Season 1 player to help taunt Wes Bergmann. Who wouldn't love a cameo from his long-time rival, perennial reality TV junkie, and the runner-up, Johnny Bannas!

The Challenges Need to Reflect Villainy

Since House of Villains is a competition reality show, there are challenges. It is the basis of how players are determined as the Supervillain of the Week, giving them immunity. The Supervillain of the Week will then nominate three players to be put on the Hit List, risking their banishment from the house. Those three villains will get the chance to compete in a Redemption Challenge where one will earn safety. From there, the rest of the villains will vote to banish one of the remaining two villains on the Hit List. The challenges help to establish alliances, rivalries, and the ability to backstab like they did during their original villainous tenure. With this necessary element required for competition, House of Villains Season 2 needs to incorporate challenges that have a villainous twist within.

Playing silly games sadly felt like fodder for the actual action within the house. What could partially be to blame is the pacing. Most standard reality competition shows end with an elimination after each episode. House of Villains does prolong this process a bit, likely due to the fact they want to keep their stars on screen as long as possible. The stakes need to be raised. Whether it's attaching an additional small prize to the challenges or having a prize pot to add to, making the challenges have more of a purpose is crucial to keep House of Villains exciting. When the challenge does cause some chaos post-challenge, it reminds the audience that these are villains. The challenges need to manipulate the action in the house even further.

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To improve the challenges to reflect the top-tier cast they have, the challenges could easily honor the villains' iconic moments through the games. Perhaps incorporating a table-flipping challenge to honor Teresa. Or perhaps bringing back a dark room challenge with the infamous snakes and rats to pay homage to Sue Hawk's infamous Survivor: Borneo final Tribal Council speech to Richard Hatch. With Kandy Muse in the cast, certainly the show will force the cast to lip-sync for their lives to a great villain anthem. A rose ceremony challenge where the thorns are on not villains' side could honor Bachelor Nation's Victoria Larson. No matter what direction production goes, tying the challenges to the villains could amplify the stars that are there.

There is so much promise for House of Villains Season 2 to be even better than its predecessor. Marrying the tropes of reality television with over-the-top comedy and stupidity makes House of Villains stand out in all the right ways. A minor shakeup will improve the program and help boost it to top tier reality television. The reality is, the moments in the house made House of Villains special. They must capitalize on this while fixing the mechanics of the actual game. This is not a show where fans want to see moral growth from their villains, though some players departed as heroes in the end. The assets are present. Utilize them!

House of Villains Season 2 is set to air this Fall on E!. Season 1 of House of Villains can be streamed on Peacock.

Watch on Peacock

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