I friggin love this TV villain
OK, I’ve only seen the first season of Yellowjackets—gosh, that sh*t is dark! But you know which character I thought was absolutely phenomenal? The villain, Misty Quigley. Or, as her frenemies un-affectionately call her, Misty F*cking Quigley.
What makes her great is all in the details: she has a pet parrot, she scores her life with music from Phantom of the Opera, and y’all—she’s wicked smart. Every time you think someone’s playing her, you find out she’s actually using their weaknesses to play them. And this is true even when it’s teenage Misty.
Her one endearing quality? She just wants to be loved and accepted. And who can’t relate to that? Except… she’s got a really messed-up version of friendship that usually involves creepily inserting herself into the lives of the people she calls friends.
“Spearing leaves no stone unturned as she provides grace and hope to all who are healing.”
I love a good villain—the kind where you’re genuinely curious to see how their life turns out. Do you want them to experience redemption? Maybe. But maybe you’re more curious if they’ll finally get caught. And if they do face long-term consequences, you’re actually surprised, because they always seem one step ahead. They’re survivors.
Sometimes I find villains like Misty cathartic to watch—because I’ve known villains in real life. The ones on TV often get some form of comeuppance. Like Misty: no one really trusts her. And that thing she wants more than anything—love and acceptance—will never be hers, because she’s too manipulative and conniving for anyone to truly get close.
That’s often true of real-life villains, too. On the surface, they might look successful and popular, and they always seem to get away with things. But we don’t see what happens behind closed doors. We don’t know if their kids actually like them. Their spouse may seem supportive, but she might be secretly afraid—or quietly planning her escape. Maybe they keep their job not because they’re respected, but because people are too scared to fire them.
A lot of the real-life villains I’ve known have confessed to being lonely. They have maybe one or two people they’d call real friends. But just like Misty, they have a distorted version of friendship. Their “friends” don’t actually trust them.
It’s been enormously healing for me to write about the villains I’ve encountered. Sometimes I fictionalize them in a novel. Sometimes I write the real-life story—like I did in my book A Thousand Tiny Paper Cuts. Putting them on the page takes their power away. I get to tell the story in my own words, after decades of them controlling the narrative. I gain distance. I can even look at them and think, Oh—you’re just this little thing I’m writing about. They’re not so big and scary anymore. I’ve taken the monster of my dreams and turned it into something cathartic, even a little funny, and much smaller than they’d like me to believe they are.
Villains like Misty Quigley are actually very small inside. They do horrible, hurtful things to feel some sense of control. And yes, they hurt others—but more often than not, the person they hurt most is themselves.