There’s something to be said for being so involved in a TV show that you become wholly lost and absorbed in the fictional world it’s created. It’s another thing when someone in that fictional world is so goddamned annoying that you want to conjure them up in real life just so you could slap them. Who is the worst character on TV? With all the talk over how awful Marnie from Girls apparently is, here’s a look at some other recent contenders.
The Daily Beast
Let’s let Girls own Ray (Alex Karpovsky) take this one away: “You’re extremely judgemental. You came in here and immediately insulted me and my neighborhood.You come across like you’re better than everyone, and you want no part of their lives, and then when you’re excluded from things you’re outrageously offended and hold a grudge. Also you’re unbearably uptight. And you use people. You use people a lot. So much so that even when you try to connect and be sincere, it comes across as phony. I think that more or less sums it up: you’re a huge, fat, fucking phony.” That about sums it up, right?
Jessica Miglio/HBO
If you watched all of the third season of Homeland, bless you. You’re among the brave who soldiered on past that horrendous Dana-taking-a-naked-selfie-and-was-also-kind-of-suicidal storyline that the rest of us just could not get past in the season opener. When The Daily Beast interviewed Dana’s portrayer, Morgan Saylor, here’s what she had to say in the piece aptly titled “TV’s Most Hated Character Talks Back”: “Characters are not always supposed to be loved. You could look at most characters and see mixed reactions. I don’t know. I don’t take it personally. I think it’s kind of interesting to see people, like, spending so much time focusing on something like that.” Whatever.
Kent Smith/Showtime
How bad has the insufferably bland Mr. Bates gotten on Downton Abbey? The Daily Beast’s Andrew Romano has a suggestion on how save the popular PBS drama from sinking quality. Take it away, Andrew: “Just kill Mr. Bates, already!”
Nick Briggs/Carnival Film & Television Limited 2013 for MASTERPIECE
Have you ever wanted to physically hurt a child before?
Macall B. Polay/HBO
When a show is called The Walking Dead and characters are killed off willy nilly each week, it’s even more frustrating when an annoying character keeps skirting death ever episode, living to torture us more. Thus was the case for Lori on The Walking Dead, until she finally bit the dust last season.
Gene Page/AMC
On Mad Men, Don Draper cheated on, lied to, abused, marginalized, and otherwise treated his wife, Betty, like dirt. So it says a lot about how grating and awful Betty was as a character that, despite all of that, people still hated her. Thankfully, the most recent season of Mad Men gave Betty some kick-ass redemption. So she’s no longer the absolute worst. Just mostly so.
Jordin Althaus/AMC
People hated Skyler White so much on Breaking Bad that the poor actress who (so brilliantly) played her, Anna Gunn, felt the need to pen an op-ed in The New York Times defending her character. The piece was good! And it worked—Gunn won the Emmy that season!
Frank Ockenfels/AMC
The charisma of a dead tree and the entertainment value of watching a gold fish swim, made all the worse by Matthew Morrison’s god-awful overearnestness. Will Will Schuester ever not be the worst thing to ever happen to a musical comedy soap opera teen drama spoof? Glee tells us, “Don’t stop believing.” Logic tells us to give it up.
Adam Rose/FOX
Season two of Orange Is the New Black debuts on Netflix June 6. Less Larry, more Taystee, please.
Barbara Nitke for Netflix
