The Big Bad in My Roommate is a Detective: Thoughts on the Moriarty Character

 *Spoilers*

At the end of My Roommate is a Detective, the big bad or Moriarty character is confronted by the detective, Lu Yao. Sir Norman has been manipulating cases for over thirty episodes. He has done this by inserting newspaper articles/advertisements into a self-published circular. These articles/advertisements do not create the killers' motives--they already harbor murderous feelings--but rather push them to act and give them clever ways to do it. 

I don't buy it. 

I mostly don't buy it because people just aren't that observant--or gifted at making the leap from written reports to clever engineering. As my students say--and I've said myself--"I get what I'm supposed to do--but now, I actually have to write it myself."

And as Poirot, Lord Peter Wimsey and profiler John Douglas point out, murderers tend to stick to what they know. Forensic Files confirms: murderers, even when they think they are clever, are kind of dumb. 

However, I found the big bad in My Roommate less irritating than in other shows, such as Sherlock and The Mentalist, because he doesn't take over the story line. He has far too much influence and gets involved in far too many minor cases, but ultimately, the murderers are the people who actually did the murders.

I have zero interest in big bads who become the focus of the drama (even though The Mentalist's Red John doesn't appear on the screen, he controls many of that show's plots): How much does the big bad know?! Where is the big bad now?! Who has the big bad manipulated this week?! What will the big bad do next? How will the good guys suffer because of the big bad?! 

I really don't care. (Possibly why I find conspiracy theories mind-numbing at best.)

My Roommate isn't run by the big bad but by the friendships, which is far more interesting. 

Not only do I prefer that the big bad not take over the story line, I also prefer the big bad to have comprehensible motives. In My Roommate, Sir Norman ultimately just wants to make a profit, which--as a guy with an overlaid British accent--makes him capitalistically evil, not "profoundly" evil, which is a relief because making a profit is at least understandable. (Though the bank plot is really the only profit-oriented crime that makes sense for Sir Norman to undertake.)

However, the sister is a FAR better villain since her motives, rather than being vaguely profit-oriented, are a swirl of conflicting pressures: her desire to keep her brother safe; her contempt for his friends and their low-origins; her pride and honor; her underlying fear of the father and whether he might do something worse.

I've said it before--I'll say it again: the most interesting villains are the villains with a face and grounded, relatable motives.