Entertainment Editorial: The Ten Best Characters On TV in 2011

I watch a lot of TV by trade and feel like I have seen all the necessary shows to be able to say what I think are the best ten characters on TV THIS YEAR (Sorry, Don Draper and co.). If I didn’t include some of your favorites it’s probably because I really like a show but there is no one character I consider that deep yet (The Good Wife, Game of Thrones, American Horror Story, Community) or plot takes precedence over character (Sons of Anarchy, The Killing) or there are some stand out characters past their prime (House, Dexter, Nurse Jackie). Also, I limited my list to two characters per show (Sorry, Breaking Bad’s Jesse Pinkman) otherwise the entire list would be made up of Breaking Bad, Justified, and Parks and Recreation.  [Feel free to tell me if I missed any of your favorites and add your own list below…]

Honorable Mention: Kale Ingram from AMC’s now-cancelled Rubicon. I know, I know, this show was technically last year but I can’t miss a chance to single out the criminally underrated Rubicon and the best gay character (Ingram’s mysterious CIA operative) since Omar Little on The Wire.

10. Damages’s Patty Hewes: I know some will argue Damages is past its prime and some don’t even know it’s still on the air, but Hewes will always be a great character and remains the best example of a female anti-hero that’s been done so well for men (Vic Mackey, Tony Soprano, Walter White, Michael Caffee) in recent years.

9. Parks and Recreation’s Ron Swanson: Some will consider this a really shallow choice, but Swanson shows that a sitcom CAN create vivid characters IF it chooses to but many are just too lazy to choose to do that. Swanson’s man’s man might strike some as a one-note choice but they’ve never seen the episodes around his ex-wives where he either turns into a suburban wimp or a devious sex fiend.

8. Fringe’s Walter Bishop/Walternate: The regular Walter Bishop has went from comic relief to a tortured scientist (literally) haunted by his dead son and Walternate (the other universe’s Walter Bishop whose own son was kidnapped by regular Dr. Bishop) is corrosively bitter. [And yes, that sentence makes a lot more sense if you actually watch Fringe.] I like how it shows that just one event can permanently change a person’s emotional DNA.

7. Homeland’s Nicolas Brodie: I’ve heard that this is Claire Danes show but it isn’t (her character is extremely annoying). Brodie’s mysterious prisoner of war-turned closeted Muslim (and possible traitor) keeps the plot in motion by keeping you guessing but also holds the series emotional center as you wind up feeling quite a bit for the slightly damaged Brodie, traitor or no traitor. It’s still early in Homeland’s run so this series could fall apart, but right now it’s Brodie that keeps me watching.

6. Parks and Recreation’s Leslie Knope: If there’s one choice I will take some heat for, it might be this one. Some think Leslie’s can-do perkiness is annoying and that she’s actually a fairly one-dimensional character but don’t be fooled by her brightness. Leslie has a lot of layers beneath her sunny exterior and–just to be totally honest–it’s great to have such a positive role model for young women instead of whiny doctors (Grey’s Anatomy, Nurse Jackie) and bitchy real people (every reality show ever made).

5. Justified’s Boyd Crowder: The most constantly evolving villain on TV. In just two seasons he’s went from white supremacist gang leader/bank robber to God fearin’ inmate to backwoods vigilante to blue collar worker to a more refined rural kingpin. And yet, ALL of those incarnations are believable (partly due to the great performance from The Shield’s Walton Goggins). Sorry, lead character Raylan Givens, it’s Boyd that really makes Justified interesting.

4. Boardwalk Empire’s Agent Nelson Van Alden: This show is filled with a great supporting cast–and a crappy lead in Buscemi’s Nucky Thompson–that steals scenes, and it may feel weird to include Van Alden (who is only in every other episode) so high on the list. But I really see the puritanically rigid yet closetedly weird Van Alden as something more than a character: he’s the walking embodiment of America. He wants to relentlessly cast scorn on others for their sex and drinking but conducts an affair that produces an out-of-wedlock baby and steals money from bootleggers. He’s deeply religious but has broken the laws he holds so dear…he’s a walking contradiction that doesn’t know he’s a contradiction. You’d call him a hypocrite if he weren’t so scarily sincere and devoid of irony in his beliefs.

3. Justified’s Mags Bennet: Those of you who saw Justified’s second season know what I’m talking about. Mags is the ruthless FEMALE kingpin of a rural Kentucky crime family comfortable with shaking down weed dealers and even more ruthless coal corporations alike. She’s a killer, a bad mother, deceptively wholesome, crafty, and yet absolutely likable…heartbreaking in some scenes and hilarious in others. Justified is a good show but her presence elevated it to great in the episodes she was in.

2. Breaking Bad’s Gustavo Fring: He’s the most unknowable of villains…a deceptively mild-mannered and bland fast food kingpin that’s actually a ruthless New Mexico meth lord. Beneath Gus’s passive calm is actually a creepy, calculating patience that always seems to be one step ahead of his rivals. As another drug king hiding “in plain sight,” he’s the perfect foil for the show’s “hero” Walter White.

1. Breaking Bad’s Walter White: No surprise here right? Like Gus, Walter is a deceptively staid, timid criminal hiding in plain sight, only the reverse of Gus in that he started out as a suburban dad and wound up in the meth game. He’s not a badass anti-hero impervious to bullets (Vic Mackey, Jack Bauer) or someone ultimately out for the greater good (Jack Bauer, Dexter Morgan). He’s weak, he’s selfish, he’s sometimes foolish, not above begging for his life (usually as part of a trap), and yet he’s the most realistic character on television. As I’ve said before, Walter is the furious symbol for an America that’s played by the rules their entire life and have nothing to show for it, and are determined to go out on their terms. He’s a teacher-turned-criminal who has found, disturbingly, that he’s really more comfortable as a criminal…a symbol for humanity as a whole once the pretensions are stripped away.