Vote for 2017's Best Villain
It’s time for the Yahooies, our third annual reader-voted awards honoring the best — and sometimes worst — of the year. Each day through Dec. 8, we will announce the nominees for one category, with an accompanying poll. The winners will be crowned Monday, Dec. 11.
The nominees for 2017’s Best Villain are…
Aunt Lydia, The Handmaid’s Tale
The greatest villains are almost always the truest believers in their cause. And there’s no truer believer in the Republic of Gilead than Lydia (Emmy winner Ann Dowd), the reigning Aunt at the Red Center, where fertile women enter as distinct individuals and emerge as docile breeders known as Handmaids. Lydia uses all the resources at her disposal to aid that transformation, from insults to beatings to mutilations. The scariest thing about Lydia is that she claims all of this abuse is motivated by love… and means it. —Ethan Alter
Demo-dogs, Stranger Things
Dustin’s demo-dog “pet” Dart started off as a little pollywog who snacks on 3 Musketeers, and in just a few days, he’d grown much larger — and he wasn’t hungry for candy anymore. It’s like that question, “Would you rather fight one horse-size duck, or 100 duck-size horses.” The Demogorgon was terrifying, sure, but we’d take it over an army of flesh-eating little monsters. —Kelly Woo
Pennywise, It
Stephen King said it best to us earlier this year: “Clowns are scary. There’s just no way around that.” And, apologies to Tim Curry, Bill Skarsgård’s take on It‘s demon clown takes the scary to a whole new level with his twitchy-dancing, kid-killing, nightmare-inducing Pennywise. This horrific harlequin is easily the villain of the year — just ask poor Georgie. —Marcus Errico
Perry, Big Little Lies
What makes Perry (Emmy winner Alexander Skarsgård) such a chilling character is that he doesn’t look like a villain at all. Handsome, charming, suave, passionate — he seems like the perfect husband for Celeste. But like many abusers, beneath that beautiful veneer is a controlling, emotionally manipulative gaslighter. And when Perry’s pool of simmering rage finally boils over, it takes a village to fight back. —KW
Rose, Get Out
Jordan Peele’s subversive thriller is loaded with surprises, but most devilishly delightful among those are the revelations involving Rose Armitage (Allison Williams). Even as one by one, the Armitage family members (and their high society friends) are revealed to be sociopaths, there’s reason to hold out hope for Rose. Just look at the way she defended Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) from that cop! Ultimately, she might be the wickedest of them all, considering her role as lead recruiter, luring countless young black people to their body snatchings. The fact that she maintains an innocent demeanor — see the childlike way she separates her Froot Loops from the milk while listening to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack — makes her even creepier. —Kevin Polowy
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