Top Ten Character Arcs in TV in 2022

 

10 Best Character Arcs on TV in 2022

I contributed a number of entries to TV Fanatic where I am currently writing:

Tori Nichols (Peyton List) Cobra Kai, Netflix-Tori caught the audience’s attention the first day when she walks into Cobra Kai and challenges anyone in her way to a battle royale. In 2002, she became a capable anti-hero that provides a welcome counterpart to Samantha’s privilege. Although we expected to cheer an eventual Samantha win at the tournament this year, it felt unexpectedly right to see Tori triumph at the end of the day (Even if there was a technicality involved).

Gordon (Paul Reiser), Reboot (Hulu): The best thing about Gordon is that he isn’t that much different from where he was at the start of the season. He makes insensitive jokes and doesn’t appear to have changed his ideas of what’s funny or what isn’t. But, he has formed a genuine relationship with his daughter and a genuine appreciation of the people he works with. With that, every insensitive joke he makes has a little more good intent behind it.

Al (Adhir Kalyan), United States of Al (CBS)-South Asian characters on TV are typically either ambassadors of cool (the personas of Kumail Nanjiani or Utkarsh Ambudkar) or sheltered nerds. Adhir Kalyan first became known through the 2007 TV series Aliens in America as an exchange student who was doomed to high school nerdom the moment he entered the school in his traditional South Asian garment. Most of Kalyan’s roles have been like that, but Al is a wonderful exception as he has started to change and (more importantly) assimilate to the better opportunities of his culture. He even gets a make-out buddy (Jayma Mays) and squares things better with his non-traditional love interest (Azita Ghanizada).

If I were to round out the list to a clean top 10, I would say:
Craig (Craig Robinson), Killing It (Peacock:) Learning to stop chasing some bourgeoisie vision of success is empowering (If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be writing these words). And learning to appreciate a good person (Claudia O’Doherty) for her faults and strengths takes a lot of growth as well.

Eli “Hawk” Moskowitz: (Jacob Bertrand), Cobra Kai (Netflix): It’s not just Tori that was a tournament winner that no one predicted. It’s also an ending we didn’t know we wanted until it happened.

Emma (Cristin Milioti), The Resort (Peacock): A determinator of a character, nothing will stop Emma from finding out what happened to these two random strangers 15 years ago. But she learns about herself and her marriage in the process. Sort of like that hackneyed “the treasure was friendship all along” trope, but tonally the show managed to work out Emma’s arc.

John Hunchman (John Hodgeman), Dicktown (FX): The stunted Encyclopedia Brown John Hunchman finally earns an iota of self-respect when he solves a 20-year-old high school case. The second season of Dicktown was more serialized than the first and it worked y to John’s favor.

D’Arcy Bloom (Alice Wetterlund), Resident Alien (SyFy): The idea of watching a Winter Olympian try to retain her former glory is always an interesting arc. It’s also a great anti-ship: Her relationship with Elliott didn’t work because she’s not there yet, but her efforts towards intimacy count for their own sake. It’s also unclear if a Season 1 version of D’Arcy would have apologized to Kate.

Portia (Haley Lu Richardson), The White Lotus (HBO): A lot of fellow fans of this show saw Portia as suffering from some sort of character defect for rejecting the vanilla Albie in favor of the bad boy. But, come on, she needed to go over to the dark side a little before valuing him properly. And what a wild episode it was: Surely more than the ennui-laden zoomer wished for when she wanted to feel alive.

George Shultz (Sam Waterson), Dropout (Hulu): Having unfortunately lived in the US during the last six years, it’s easy to see how evil is perpetuated by powerful people not wanting to admit they’re wrong. I’m not familiar enough with the real-life story of Elizabeth Holmes to know what George Shultz actually did but the idea of him is nice and we need to know more. And he’s pretty damn effective in Sam Waterson’s hands