The Best ‘Big Brother’ Player Ever: Dr. Will Kirby

By all rights, Will Kirby should have been one of the first people inducted into the Reality TV Hall of Fame. In Big Brother 2, he took control of the game and never let it loose, all the while telling people he was lying yet somehow making them believe him. Sometimes, however, proper recognition takes a little while. So now is the time.

Unfortunately, the time picked was the time Will was voted off of Big Brother: All-Stars. It was not intentional – I fully expected him to be moving on when I originally prepared this induction. Instead, this is his coda.

But let us give him his due – he should have been booted from All-Stars in the first few votes, as he was the only winner in the cast and the other players should have recognized him as the most dangerous person there. Realization came late to Janelle, but she finally figured it out. In the meantime, though, we are here to recognize what he did way back in Big Brother 2.

While Big Brother was in its second season in the U.S., Big Brother 2 was truly a new and different game. In the first season, houseguests nominated each other for eviction, but the viewing public actually voted. So Will had nothing on which he could base his strategy and play – it was all new and wide open.

Shortly after entering the house, Chill Town was formed. This group was made up of Will, Mike Boogie, and Shannon. Will and Shannon were drawn to each other and spent a fair amount of time canoodling. Meanwhile, the three of them acted like they controlled the game.

It didn’t take long for the rest of the house to revolt. Mike won the first HOH competition and nominated the then-unliked Nicole and the very well-liked Sheryl as a pawn. The house decided to show Chill Town who was in charge, and voted off Sheryl. Thus began the decline of Chill Town.

Ironically, the impending demise of Will’s alliance signaled the rise of Will himself. When he was nominated against girlfriend Shannon (the term “showmance” had not yet been invented), he convinced her that if he stayed around instead of her, he could do more damage in the house. So she left, but not before earning herself a Reality TV Hall of Shame Moment for her use of Hardy’s toothbrush to clean the toilet.

With Shannon gone, Chill Town was down to Will and Mike. While Mike still thought of himself as a “star” and the others as “extras,” Will began to let his egotistical humor work for him instead of against him. Among his classic lines was the one describing himself as “Half man, half amazing!” And at one point he asked himself, “Who can I fake bond with tomorrow? Who can I fake bond with tomorrow?”

When Kent won HOH, Will really moved into the type of action that won him this Hall of Fame induction. He convinced Kent and others that he could never ever win because everybody hated him. He also made a deal with Kent for immunity. It was a lie, of course, but it bought him the week while Kent targeted Mike and Krista, with Mike going home.

Hardy won HOH next and nominated Will against Kent. But Will continued his campaign of “woe is me, I can never win.” Kent, on the other hand, told the truth and exposed many of the various alliances. Indeed, Will even said in the diary room that Kent had the whole house figured out. But the Big Brother game, like politics, doesn’t reward telling the truth, so Kent was sent packing.

Will was busy laying out the groundwork for the rest of the game. He had made amends with Nicole, complimenting her and bowing to kiss her feet. At the same time, he let her in on some of the shifting alliances in the house, thus “proving” his trustworthiness to her while at the same time making her more suspicious of the others. He did the same with Hardy. By the time he was done, he had turned Krista from an ally of those two into a sworn enemy (he had plenty of help from Krista herself, of course).

That was when Will pulled another trick out of his hat. Krista and Monica (Krista’s lone remaining friend) called Will over to the hot tub to attack him for revealing Krista’s secrets. Will saw it coming and decided to turn it into a whole-house meeting instead, then deftly sidestepped the issue, shifting the target elsewhere.

As the game continued, Will convinced Nicole that he was loyal to her – despite the fact that he continually admitted to being “evil” and a liar. It was an awesome strategy that nobody except Will himself (in All-Stars) has duplicated to this day. Tell people you’re a liar and they suddenly believe you’re being honest to them. Brilliant!

At the same time, Nicole believed she was using Will, all the while telling us her real allegiance was to Hardy. The problem was that whatever she thought she was doing, Will was doing it better.

Weeks passed. Will didn’t win HOH, but allowed others to win it and do his dirty work. He was nominated by Hardy against Bunky, but Will made a deal – he promised not to nominate Hardy and Nicole if Will won HOH, and they agreed to let him stick around. It was a great deal for Will – a classic among his moves, really – and a terrible one for Hardy and Nicole. The only way they’d know if he was lying was if he won HOH and nominated them both, in which case it would be too late (remember, this was before vetoes). Indeed, Will told viewers in the diary room that he was lying through his teeth, and would happily stab them in the back. Will acknowledged to us that he would have made any deal he could to stay in the game, and Hardy was dumb not to recognize this. So he shook Hardy’s hand and looked him in the eye, which led Hardy to tell Nicole, “He shook my hand. I believe him.” Thus was the magic of the evil doctor.