the villain edit is the most successful anger management program in history

Women's rage needed somewhere to go and reality tv built the infrastructure.

Do you know that feeling? The slightly unearned pleasure of watching a woman on reality TV get “the villain edit” and feeling like she deserved it all along.

You laughed as Erika Jayne, formerly untouchable, undid her iconic ponytail and smeared her mascara down her cheeks for the world to see. You felt the air leave the room as Aviva Drescher, cornered by “shrews” at a white-tablecloth dinner, unbuckled her own prosthetic leg with the detached precision of a war medic.You recoiled when Diana Jenkins turned that cold, billionaire-sanctioned gaze on Garcelle, her lip-licking intensifying into a predatory tic while she essentially told a room full of women that they were beneath her tax bracket and her empathy. You cringed as Dorinda Medley stabbed herself in the hand with a dinner fork while trying to make a point that didn't exist, her eyes glazed over with a terrifying, gin-soaked vacancy.

You laughed. You clapped. You cheered. You grabbed your friend and shouted, “You will not believe what she did next!”. You texted your sister, “I hated her at the beginning of the season but now I just feel sorry for her.” You need a place to put all that rage and resentment, and because she’s invited you into her home and filtered life, she is the one to receive it.

You weren’t her only hater of course — the production team was right there with you, amplifying her worst moments and unearthing everything they could possibly find to paint her as manipulative, backstabbing, and even evil. You should probably be ashamed. You should feel bad for laughing. But somehow it all felt kinda right. She is the reason for the season. And you have all the help you need in making her worlds collide. You are a fan. You are a Bravoholic.

As a Below Deck fan, I've often contemplated the mechanics behind the careful engineering of a reality TV villain. And if you're like me, you probably have too. You've watched enough seasons to see the production hand. You know what frankenbiting is: producers line up a few soundbites that happened at separate times during filming, attach some ominous music, and voilà — you’ve got a full-on villain. If you want to line up that chaos for a perfect edit, you better make sure your soundbites come from the top of the season. Allow an evil laugh, a “she’s an idiot,” and some kind of “better you than me” to be the first soundbites the audience hears, and you’re in business. It doesn’t matter what happens in between.

Viewers love to hate, and everyone needs a villain.

I spent last winter watching Below Deck Season 3 for the very first time, which has the perfect combination of a shady crew, a ridiculously easy-going primary, and the luscious blonde deckhand Rocky Dakota. You probably know what edit is coming, if you know what I’m talking about at all. But if not, let me catch you up: Over the course of the season, we see a Rocky who goes from charming, kooky girl to sneaky, emo drunk to full-on Voldemort. The whole season the producers are clearly building the foundation for a flip, and they do it so well.

There is, of course, an obvious distinction between a well-loved yachtie gone bad (Hannah) and one who has been evil from the start (Adrienne). The former invites unchecked chaos because, at the end of the day, we like them, while the latter are made evil by established forces, like money, whiteness, and access. But it's the one you loved who stays with you. Watching the popular stew behave horribly transports us back to the high school lunchroom, when the Cool Girl says the wrong thing at the wrong time, cementing your spot on the shit list.

The Cool Girl arrives, and you already remember what she feels like. You remember what it feels like to be on her good side, but more importantly, you remember the power you have when you're on the outside. You remember that she knows exactly how to poke at your most sensitive parts, that she will only ever share her power with an inner circle that is always too small. You remember the rush of adrenaline when you say the right thing at the right time, the pit of shame when you say the wrong thing, and you know that she'll make sure everyone else remembers too. You remember, and you want to hate her all over again. This is what production gets for free when they cast a Rocky: the ease of it, the understanding that the audience has already done the work.

I remember watching the episodes, spellbound by the pacing of it all. How do they do it? I wondered. The way the edit foreshadowed and lingered just long enough to create anticipation in the viewer, only to cut away and leave you disappointed, Rocky’s face remaining frozen in a mask of confusion and distress. Did I try to stop it? Was I angry at production? Or was I watching the thing close around me and finding it interesting?

You're pre-loaded with all of that and more, but pre-loaded isn't quite right. It implies passivity — nothing is getting in your way, you'll just sit there and be annoyed for eleven months until production has the chance to activate all that potential again. You don't just remember and wait — you remember and tell everyone who will listen.

You grab your friend and ask if she saw that TikTok. You find it in yourself to explain for the third time why Amy Dunne's Cool Girl monologue is offensive, why Euphoria's Maddy is a school shooter if we're being serious, why Brooklyn 99's Amy Santiago makes police brutality funny. You text your best friend that you're sick of the Cool Girl on The Fall. You explain to your partner that the Cool Girl from That Show is not the same as the Cool Girl from This Show. You go to bed sick of explaining Cool Girls to everyone but sick of them, too. You still load your Venmo card and hit send. I hate her, you write. I hate her so much.

To put it lightly, I was obsessed with Rocky at first. She was loud and a little deranged, and I loved her. She represented an era of California surf, post-Girls women (indeed she could have easily been a character written by Lena Dunham). Her entire crew hated her, but she was cool to me.

But then, the moment comes.

It is the moment — maybe they don’t call it a moment on Below Deck, given the genre’s insistence on the explicit absence of time passing — where I cross over. Where I go from defending Rocky to participating in her downfall. Where I know what is happening when it happens. The moment Rocky tells Emile about what happened in the laundryyyyyyy rooooooooom¹ — and she tells him like it’s a fun story, lowering her voice only for dramatic effect and not because she actually thinks this is a secret — I completely lose it. I rewind it. I hate how much she loves telling it, how she leans in, how she gestures, how she is extremely pleased with herself. I hate that she told Emile, who has been looking at her since the first day of the season like she is a snack he isn’t sure he’s allowed to have. I loathe the way she isn’t thinking about Eddie’s girlfriend back home, or what Eddie is going to say when this gets back to him, or what it means that she told the crew. Rocky is not thinking about any of that. Rocky is thinking about how good the sex felt in that tiny room and she wants everyone to know.

Then, of course, it takes a turn. Eddie finds out. The denial is immediate — bosun voice, verdict delivered to the whole crew: didn’t happen, she’s making it up, he doesn’t know what she’s talking about (she has to be imagining it, guys). At this point I know exactly what I’m watching. The crew hears his version. They believe him. Rocky is in her room. She has locked the door. She will not come out. The crew picks a side. She’s crying. It’s humiliating. It’s ruthless. She told the truth. He told a lie. She’s the one in the locked cabin. All of this gets played against her for the rest of the season. The laundry room story is real, but the story the edit tells about it is not.

I crawl into bed next to my sleeping boyfriend who has vowed never to speak of this again, pick up my phone, and log onto the group chat. “Rocky is off her rails. I can’t stand her.” I think of the Cool Girl, the one who reminds you of Rocky, and how easy she is to hate. I think of hating that girl when she was me, and how much more fun it is to scorn her than to defend her. I think of all the times I made someone else responsible for my unlovability and it felt so good. So I do it. I post the text. I participate in the group chat ritual of hating the loser girl. I feel like a high school girl, keeping a list of awful things that people have done to me in the hopes that one day I will get to do the awful thing back. This will show you.

I was fully on board the villain edit train, even while fully aware of how trains operate. The knowing didn’t help. I still went with it. I’m not entirely sorry. There was something delicious about it, even if it was manufactured — and it was manufactured. Rocky's post-show willingness to relitigate it hasn't exactly helped her case with me, but more than that, watching Kate at the 100th episode reunion deliver "you're not the best yachtie, but you're so entertaining and so talented" with that smile — that solidified my stance. Rocky went full culinary school grievance in response and I'm sorry, I didn't want the culinary school grievance. I didn't want to be lectured. Give me the drama, please. Give me the fights over the mic. Give me Kate's face when she says it. I'm sorry, Rocky. I really do love you. You've got nice hair and I love your tattoos. You're not really a bitch. You're an incredible TV personality, but you're not a bitch. If anyone's a bitch, it's Kate.

I've racked my brain wondering, why was I so quick to buy into what she was selling at first? And why did I hate her for it afterwards? Even when I laughed at her jokes and celebrated her wins alongside her, I still knew in my gut she wasn't to be trifled with. She was dangerous. But wait—that's why I liked her initially! Although I didn't want to root against her, obviously, I loved that she was a woman who would do anything to win. A woman who could wear a mermaid costume and just chill with Captain Lee and stay there. Running scared was the only way to live when someone like Rocky Dakota was around.

She left me with no choice. I could deny it all day long, but I was rooting for her exclusively because I wanted to be her. I wanted to believe I could do to men what she was doing to Eddie; that I could turn their whole world upside down, if only they would recognize my brilliance. In the end, I wasn't mad Rocky Dakota was playing a dirty heel. I was mad because she pulled the wool over my eyes. Now I had to pay the price for it.

So they find me, empty, willing. This is the catch-22 of the villain edit: while I have spent years refusing to watch the girl or boy next door get away with anything, putting my anger toward those who “deserve” it, I’m still a woman. I still have access to the sanctioned outrage that lives in this shape. Women are forced to carry a coiled anger we can’t discharge or else risk being punished for it. It’s not rage, exactly; it’s more specific and insidious than that. It’s accreted frustration at the Cool Girls who seem to be getting away with something, taking up space in ways you were trained not to. It’s the accumulation of all the moments you’ve been made to feel too much, so you’ve learned to shrink and twist into a shape that makes you invisible.

Reddit posts like these…

That anger bubbles up without a sanctioned outlet, and the villain edit is the drainage system. You’re not crazy or transgressive for wanting to scream at them. The appetite for woman-on-woman cruelty, one that feeds and sustains misogyny, existed long before girls like Rocky were even a name on a casting sheet. The show has pre-approved the object of your fury, and now it’s leaving the drain open. It’s not yours, but you’re welcome to it. All you need to do is squeeze into the shape they’ve made for you. The show has been running long enough, and the supply is seasonal and renewable. When you’re done with this one, they’ll have another.

This is your chance to finally let it out. Let it go. Unspool it all over the living room as you laugh-mad-cry. You’ll feel better, at least for a little while.

After all, villainy as a currency on reality TV is not the effect of the edit. It’s the effect of demand. And you are hungry. So hungry. But so am I.

If you liked this post, please like and comment to help me fight the evil algorithm. Yes, even if you have no idea what I just wrote about. It’s highly appreciated!

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1. Eddie and Rocky turned the laundry room into their private “no-camera” hookup den, all while he had a girlfriend waiting back home! He totally gaslit her by calling her crazy, until the “dirty laundry” finally came out and exposed his massive lie. He was 1000000% in the wrong.