Entertainment Editorial: The Ten BEST TV Characters of the Year

A few days ago I listed the worst TV characters of the year, but it’s only fitting to celebrate the holidays with the best of the bunch…

Best Trend: Badass Senior Citizens…Like The Strain’s Eldritch Palmer and especially Abraham Setrakian or Fargo’s Ted Danson or Justified’s cool criminal lovers Katherine Hale and Avery Markham. Sorry, Raylan and Ava, but Mary Steenburgen and Sam Elliot were the couple that most walked away with the show this year.

Best All-Around Cast of Characters: Banshee and Fargo…Banshee’s amazing cast of characters has been well-documented in previous years and Fargo’s season two? Well, how could you possibly choose just one character from a cast that includes Hanzee (the most relentless criminal since No Country for Old Men’s Javier Bardem), Kirsten Dunst’s possibly crazy Peggy, Bokeem Woodbine’s smooth Kansis City criminal, or Nick Offerman’s conspiracy theorist lawyer? I can’t even pick my favorite Gerhardt.

Runner-Up: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’s Kimmy and Titus…I wish there was more room. These two took conventional sitcom characters–the gay black best friend in particular–and shattered the mold that made them.

Honorable Mention: Mr. Robot’s Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) and Phillip Price (Michael Cristofer)…Although the first season had as many frustrating moments as excellent ones, it does seem like a genuinely interesting showdown is being set-up between Elliot and Phillip, whose philosophies only seem diametrically opposed. Some of the best scenes in the first season are when the two are laying out their inner philosophies and you can see how clearly that shapes them: Elliot the freedom-loving hacker’s inner life is a mess while Phillip the ruthless corporatist may advocate a “survival of the fittest” mentality that borders on fascism. Do both philosophies just circle back around to a strong leader in Evil Corp? Is there really a different outcome between revolution and repression? When the show tries to tackle these themes is when it’s at its finest.

10. Vikings’ Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel) and Floki (Gustaf Skarsgard)…A fascinating duel about faith takes place between and inside these characters as Viking King Ragnar is tempted by Christianity even as they invade a Christian enemy in France. It may all be a ploy by Ragnar to suss out his true enemies, but that doesn’t make his need to avenge his fallen priest friend–killed by Floki in a misguided act of appeasement to the Gods–any less real. The climactic battle in “Paris” sends both men reeling into their beliefs, and watching Floki wrestle with his faith in “the Gods” while trapped inside a burning float largely outside the battle could have been its own play.

9. True Detective’s Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell) and Frank Semyon (Vince Vaugh)…”Whaaaaat?” people might ask at this head-scratching pick, but it has everything to do with just how well-crafted these two characters (and unexpected best friends) are that they are on this list despite some implausible dialogue. Even if the calculating but honorable Semyon says crazy things, there’s nothing less than electric in his bond with the violent, vulnerable Velcoro and their relationship is really the strongest thing in the second season. There are moments with these characters–like Ray finally hooking up with Annie by asking if she wants to feel something or Semyon’s aspirational desperation to do anything from getting his money back to crawling out of that final desert trap alive–that almost single-handedly save the much-drubbed second season.

8. Homeland’s Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) and Allison Carr (Mirand Otto)…Season five had a lot of strong elements that may have–at first–not seemed totally intertwined, such as a hacking plot, a Russian spy plot, a refugee storyline, and a terror in Berlin plot. The connective tissue was Allison, perhaps the most despicable villain “Homeland” has ever had. For most of the season, Otto seems to be underplaying the role and that works brilliantly to remind us that a CIA mole probably wouldn’t be any flashier than your average civil service employee. Plus, it’s a funny paradox that Carrie seems to have more layers and mysteries as “Homeland” keeps going, and Danes herself seems to get less awards attention even as she gets more natural in the role.

7. Hannibal’s Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelson)…Hannibal’s final season wasn’t its best, but it still gave us a last great showcase for the best frenemies on television, the enduring psychological duel between unstable cop Graham and perfectly in-control psychopath Lecter. The show’s central joke has always been that Lecter is so high-functioning insane that his worldview may seem more sane than Graham’s shakier grasp on reality, and we’ve been led to question whether Graham can keep any moral compass while around Lecter or if he should even want to. The series finale answers that question–sort-of–and plays up the show’s belief that morality is really a matter of taste. No one but Hannibal could say “save yourself, kill them all” with such authority that you might think it’s reasonable advice.

6. Outlander’s Captain Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies)…Outlander fans would think I’m insane for listing the show’s villain when there’s a perfectly good couple to root for (and they are great characters too). But 2015 was a great year for sexually flexible, pragmatic British villains–Turn, Game of Thrones, The Bastard Executioner–and Captain Jack Randall is the sickest villain since…well, Hannibal Lecter himself burst onto the scene nearly 25 years ago. He doesn’t just want to kill the Scottish rebels, he wants to break them, and not just psychologically but spiritually too. He’s not content to just worm his way into their heads (or lower-body cavities), but also their very souls. I believe the death of Captain Randall will be the TV event of the year, whenever it happens.

5. Hell On Wheels’ Chang (Byron Mann), Mei (Angela Zhou), and Mary Fields (Amber Chardae Robinson)…”Hell On Wheels” may seem like a strange choice among these more acclaimed or buzzed-about series, but the show was never better than the first half of its fifth and final season, which saw railroad foreman Bohannon clash with Chang’s Asian crime boss, bond with Mei (a real-life Mulan who has to pretend to be a boy to keep a job), and get introduced to “Stagecoach Mary.” It pulls back the curtain on the Chinese railroad workers who never really got their due, and Mary just might be the first black female hired-gun I’ve ever seen in a Western.

4. Getting On’s Dr. Jenna James (Laurie Metcalfe)…In a way you could pick any main character off of this criminally underrated show, but Jenna James–not to be mistaken with the other JJ–keeps with this list’s tradition of picking a conventionally “unlikable” female protagonist from a quickly-cancelled HBO comedy (like last year’s “Comeback” or “Enlightened” the year before that), and Dr. James may be the best one yet. This is arguably the most fully-formed, realistic character off of this list, and you could practically imagine her walking around the next hospital you wind up at…hopefully not anytime soon. Trust me, if you haven’t seen this show yet, you should.

3. Better Call Saul’s Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) and Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks)…Everyone loves the mid-season episode that finally lays out “Hitman” Mike’s reason for leaving Philadelphia, and showcases the vulnerability beneath Mike’s menace, almost as though he’s hoping you’ll be reasonable so he won’t have to kill you. [Talk about the Badass Seniors trend mentioned above.] But Saul is just as fascinating, a character worthy of Mark Twain as a huckster lawyer grasping for legitimacy before finally realizing why he shouldn’t even want it.

2. Justified’s Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins)…Sorry Raylan, but a lot of Justified’s fans have been watching the series for Boyd during the last few seasons. “Justified” has never really been about its lawman hero, and Boyd’s smooth criminal showcased new depths of ruthlessness (and romance) as he came this close to getting out of Kentucky with his treasure. I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t miss seeing what this character is up to during the slow late-Winter season Justified usually airs during. [And it’s worth noting that Sam Elliot’s Avery Markham was just as interesting to watch.]

1. Show Me a Hero’s Nick Wasicsko (Oscar Isaac) and Mary Dormand (Catherine Keener)…How in the hell did a six-episode miniseries walk away with the best characters out of the 100 TV shows considered this year? Because nobody crafts realistic character arcs like David Simon. This is based on a true story, and it truly does show as Wasicsko and Mary go through nuanced changes you can fully imagine happening. Mary goes from anxious homeowner desperate to stop a housing project from being built in her neighborhood to tolerant neighbor, without a shred of pandering or artifice. While Nick gets batted around by the winds of politics, going from championed reformer to boo-ed lame duck to desperate, serial campaigner that will run for any job that allows him to stay in office. Nobody in Simon’s deeply empathetic, perceptive work is a straight-up hero or villain, and these two characters are impossible to pigeonhold, as real people so often are.