| “ | With a certain degree of immodesty, I can tell you I have killed 800 times you. But I've done it with subtlety, with interest, with ingenuity. I am the last of the imaginative executioners. | „ |
| ~ Vassiloff boasting of his prowess as an assassin. |
Commissar Vassiloff is the main antagonist of the Twilight Zone episode "The Jeopardy Room". He is a Soviet enforcer who sets out to kill defector Ivan Kuchenko before he can escape.
He was played by the late John van Dreelen.
Biography[]
Vassiloff is shown at the beginning of the episode in the unnamed country the story is set in watching Kuchenko, who he tracked there, from across the road. He turns to his assistant Boris and tells him that he's an "artist" and so has devised an elaborate plan to defeat Kuchenko.
Soon after, Vassiloff arrives in Kuchenko's hotel room and captures him by getting him to ingest a sleeping draught. Kuchenko comes round in the eponymous "Jeopardy Room", where Vassiloff, in true villain fashion, tells him over an intercom that he's rigged an object in the room with explosives and that he'll let him live if he finds the object within three hours. Vassiloff also tells him that if he tries to escape before the time limit ends, Boris will shoot him. However, Vassiloff also explains to Boris that the rigged object is the phone, which will detonate if Kuchenko answers a call.
As time progresses, Kuchenko becomes paranoid, not finding anything suspicious about the phone due to picking it up outside of a call. He even pleads with Vassiloff to kill him, but Vassiloff refuses due to enjoying watching Kuchenko suffer. He eventually calls Kuchenko, but he realises that the phone is rigged to explode when he answers it and doesn't pick it up. Later, Vassiloff calls Kuchenko again, but he takes the opportunity to run away, dodging gunfire from Boris.
Later, Vassiloff and Boris go to the empty room to dispose of evidence but receive a call from Kuchenko. Boris unthinkingly answers and Vassiloff and Boris are both killed in the explosion. Kuchenko hangs up due to having killed his tormentors, and Vassiloff and Boris are shown dead in the rubble of their room, confirming that neither of them escaped.
