Villainess Review: Jill Rhodes (Naughty or Nice)

One of the many things I love about the holiday season is the holiday-themed shows and films. Hallmark starts celebrating the holidays in October, and I mean both networks; the mystery films take the rest of the calendar year off to make way for the holiday films on their channel. I don't expect villainesses to appear, and even if one does appear, they're usually just nasty or "Grinchy," and they redeem themselves by film's end, because, hey, it's the holidays. That's what the holiday spirit is all about.

Not in this case, though.

I recently watched one of Hallmark's classic holiday films, Naughty or Nice, and I swear I remember when this was promoted because of a cast reunion, which I will delve into later. The central character is a woman named, get this, Krissy Kringle, but despite the name, she's not that much into the Christmas spirit. Krissy's main focus is her quest for a promotion at her workplace, Purcell Advertising, and she had a good support system in the form of her friend and co-worker, Jill Rhodes. However, her meeting with the head honcho, Helen Purcell, sees Krissy actually laid off, much to Krissy's bewilderment.

After returning home following her firing, Krissy dines with her parents (played wonderfully by Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter in another Family Ties reunion; not the one that I'll mention later), and it's followed by Krissy receiving something quite peculiar in the mail: a book with the words "Naughty or Nice" on the cover. The book was supposed to be sent to Kris Kringle, which explains a lot, and if that wasn't enough, Krissy now had to start her new job at a mall--dressed as an elf. She quickly learns the book's ability to put out the naughty people; among them her new boss, who's been withholding his employee's pay, as well as her neighbor, Debbie O'Brien, who has been stealing decorations from her neighbors to win the annual decoration contest.

The book is put to the right use; exposing the naughty and writing the wrongs. As Krissy is doing so, she sees a surprising sight: her former co-worker, Jill, with her former boss, Helen. Very strange, especially so soon after Krissy was fired. Krissy decides to look into Jill's file in the book, and that's when the truth starts to come out: Jill stole Krissy's promotion. She had been taking credit for Krissy's work to make herself look good, and she even denigrated Krissy to Helen. So yeah, Jill's a snake in a business suit. After seeing Lucas Leigh (Krissy's boyfriend) mentioned, Krissy believed that he and Jill were having an affair, leading to an angry confrontation that left Krissy quite embarrassed, as Lucas revealed that he and Jill saw each other once--during a time where he and Krissy were broken up.

So there was no affair, and at this point, Krissy does learn that the book reveals the "nice" as much as it does the "naughty," including the revelation that Debbie had done a lot of charity work (though, as Debbie herself admitted, it doesn't excuse her thievery). As for Jill, however, all that's revealed about her is more villainy, as she is actually a corporate mole working for Pogue and Price, Purcell's rival company. Her mission was to steal Helen's clients and send them to P&P, with the result seeing her become partner. With Debbie's help, Krissy and Lucas worked to expose Jill, doing so in Helen's office, only for Jill to continue to deny everything and even portray Krissy as being "unstable." The pair presented evidence of Jill accepting payment from P&P, and that ended up being Jill's undoing. Jill vowed to ruin Helen, only to end up fired in favor of bringing Krissy back, as Krissy informed Helen that all of the previous business owners want to work with her, but only if Krissy's back on the job. Of course, Helen accepted; a truly satisfying ending to this holiday story.

Naughty or Nice aired on Hallmark on November 24, 2012, and the film featured Danneel Ackles as the evil Jill Rhodes, acting alongside her One Tree Hill co-star, Hilarie Burton, who played main protagonist Krissy Kringle. That's not all they have in common. That name, Ackles, better be familiar to those reading this; Danneel Ackles (nee Harris) is married to Dean Winchester himself, Jensen Ackles, while Hilarie Burton is married to Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who played John Winchester during SPN's first season. Regarding this film, though, it was quite a good one. I wasn't expecting one villainess, yet we got two in this one, but while Debbie definitely redeemed herself from her deeds, Jill was truly evil and fiendish, as well as morally corrupt. She played that sweet BFF persona very well, but the climax saw Jill in true evil schemer mode, and it was delicious to see.

Danneel Ackles was amazing in her villainous role, especially when she acted out Jill's true evil colors in the climax. I actually learned that her One Tree Hill character, Rachel Garcia, was a bit of a heel on the show, but she did switch to being a face later on. I mentioned Supernatural; Danneel Ackles did finally recur on the series, doing so as evil angel Anael during the last three seasons of the long-running series. This also includes the episode, "Destiny's Child," which also featured Genevieve Padalecki (Jared Padalecki's wife) back as Ruby, as well as a scene with both SPN wives together; very epic!

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Check out Jill Rhodes' profile on Villainous Beauties Wiki!