You guys, we did it. We have made it to the end of one of the strangest seasons of a reality-television program I’ve ever seen. I’ve been thinking a lot about why Beyond the Villa is such a bizarre media object. Sure, much of the drama and plot feels contrived, but that’s true for many reality-show first seasons. I hypothesize that the container is not built to handle the juice. By that, I mean that the most compelling part of Beyond the Villa is the stuff about the toxicity of reality television and its adjacent internet world. The format, tone, and structure of a reality-TV show do not leave space for genuine critiques of its evils.

If I were in charge of this project, I’d do one of two things. The first option is a true docuseries like Pop Star Academy: Katseye or America’s Swee

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