Villain Of The Week: Ian Kept His Hands Clean

Villain of the Week will be a continuing segment on Reality Nation, but we’re going to finish up the Big Brother section of this feature until next summer, with an appreciation of Ian Terry, who has to be the most noteworthy villain of this week. Uh … right?

In the average season of Big Brother, the winner has left enough victims in his or her wake so that the word villain seems like an apt description. Even in a season like last summer’s game, where Rachel didn’t do anything especially evil other than predictably try to get rid of all the women again, she had such a headstrong personality that you got the sense the jury was voting her the money only because the rules were that someone had to win.

But this season was different. There were bitter jurors at the end, certainly, but most of that venom was directed towards the eventual losing finalist, Dan. Even though Ian was allied with Dan after the coaches came on board, and even though he was Head of Household more than any of them (which usually leads to bitterness, since you can’t be evicted unless you were nominated first), the jury spared him for the most part. He insured it so that the last person he evicted would be the only vote against him, which is about as good as you’re ever going to have in on Big Brother.

So Ian was too innocent to be a villain. Unless … he was only playing the role of the innocent, allowing Dan to take all the heat. As Kevin Spacey said in The Usual Suspects, “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” Could it be that Ian, someone who has been studying Big Brother since he was a child, deliberately pulled an incredible feat of misdirection, allowing himself to derive all the benefits of villainy with none of the bad reputation?

It’s a fascinating concept to wrap your brain around: a villain so brilliant, so wily, that none of his victims ever realized what he was up to. It might not be as satisfying as watching someone like Mike Boogie performing his feats of horror, but Ian came out with his reputation intact – the perfect cover, we might add, for even more evil in the future. Just so you know, son … we’re on to you.

Who should be our next Villain?