Top 25 Characters of 2024

 Another delayed listicle. I have long loved doing this 25 characters list.

You can see a couple of them here and another one here

1 Andrew Yancy (Vince Vaughn), Bad Monkey- Like the hard-boiled detective or the steadfast cowboy, Yancy marches to the beat of his own drummer. Yes, he would love to get it on with a hot detective, get his badge back, or enjoy tormenting his waspy neighbor (he’s more chaotic than lawful good), but not if it means letting a white collar criminal go free. It’s the archetype of the wayward American hero across multiple genres, but not many characters can walk the walk,  and talk the talk with such gusto. And it’s Vince Vaughn playing the part, so we know right off the bat, this guy can at least talk that talk.

2 The Goddess Deliria (Hannah Wadddingham) Krapopolis-Let’s face it. Most Gods have a hint of vanity. It’s sort of a requirement for the job, isn’t it? The difference between Deliria and your run-of-the-mill p is that she exists on pure vanity. And enough motherly instinct to make her recognizable for those of us with tough-love mothers. But not too much or the show wouldn’t be as riotously funny.

3 Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott), If Matt Damon’s snub at the Oscars for the 1999 film was one of the biggest tragedies of that era, it’s pretty remarkable that Scott can come in and fill those shoes with such fearlessness. Scott’s Ripley is somehow both more forcefully vindictive, and more understated than Damon’s creepy leech interpretation.

4 Jerry (Mike Patrick O’Brien), What We do in the Shadows-The key to adding a character late into the mix of a show’s run is they have to be rough around the edges. Jerry is a perfect foil in that he has the nerve to call out his fellow vampires on their sloth. Every character choice that went into to Jerry was a winner from his outfit as a Transylvanian butler, to his Pinky-and-the-Brainesque casualness about the task of taking over the world, to his aloofness to his role in a Nandoor-induced love triangle


5 Rogue, X-Men 97- If I were to rewatch an old episode of X-Men, it would be for the cringey puns based on ridiculous regional stereotypes. In other words, the Cajun Gambit, the Canadian lumberjack Wolverine, the Black Pantheresque Storm, and Southern Belle Rogue are the caricatures worth ironically laughing at, with a little bit of 90s child Jubilee adding some seasoning. In this attempt to mature the season to accommodate the aging of its primary fan base, the show has miraculously managed to keep Rogue cringe while giving her an actual arc.

6 and 7 Morgan (Justine Lupe) and Sasha (Timothy Simons), Nobody Wants This- I’ve been slowly learning that the difference between a romantic drama and a romcom is all in the supporting players. If there’s laser focus on the leads, then it’s the Richard Linklater Before series. Add the leads’ social circles as stand-ins for their romantic values, and add an extension a dose of quirk and it’s a party. That’s what you have here with a will-they-won’t-they-oh-no-they-can’t….can-they?

8 Amanda LaRusso (Courtney Henggeler) Cobra Kai- The bizarreness of a modern-day high school environment (with its emphasis on anti-bullying compared to the ‘80s), in which teenagers have to learn karate just to survive a Mad-Max-like dystopia of constant bullying, has had a strong need for a deadpan skeptic like Amanda. But at the end of the series run? Screw it. Amanda as the karate equivalent of a soccer mom feels like a more apt direction at this point.

9 Tindaro (Dougie McMeekin) The Decameron-My favorite show of the year was an upstairs-downstairs comedy set in a century where both sides of the societal divide were equally at the mercy of plague-carrying rats. And the bumbling hypochondriac Tindaro would probably not get very far in the “who lives longest” betting pool. But this rotund ball of delight proved full of mettle in a relatively dynamic arc.

10 Eddie Horniman (Theo James)The Gentlemen-In an era when nepobaby is a bad word, it’s not easy to root for anyone with such generational privilege. But it certainly helps that Eddie is never more than a couple false moves from having his head, the heads of those he cares about, and those under his employ blown off. As the title suggests, he’s a sly operator but also a class act.

11 Rufus Coatesworth, Death and Other Details-Considering there are so many takes on the eccentric, tunnel-vision. detective — whether modeled after Hercules Poroit, Sherlock Holmes or whatever the hell Daniel Craig is doing in Knives Out — it’s pretty remarkable for Mandy Patinkin to come up with such a unique creation here, as the detective entrusted with solving the murder of his protégé’s mother.


12 Dove Maloney (Siobhan Cullen), Bodkin- Fitting squarely in the category of female firecrackers who won’t let anyone put them in a box, Dove is the best of the trope. Of course, it helps for a hard-core journalist to have a great foil, in the hapless podcaster Bodkin (played with aplomb by the introspective Will Forte): A directionless and obtuse foreigner particularly with what she sees is a naive kindness.

13 Principal Cinnamon Scuttleworth (voiced by Phil Lord), Clone High- It was thrilling to see my favorite one-season wonder return to the airwaves but the sharp edges of these characters had been filed off and the new additions were pure vanilla. Except Scuttleworth. He has the hamminess of a cartoon villain with a couple ounces of pathos for good measure. You might enjoy seeing him blown up like a Looney Tunes villain, but you root for him to piece himself back together for his next crazy scheme.


14 Nadja, What We do in the Shadows-The best thing about the “Guillermo and the vampires become tech bros” arc is how enthusiastically Nadja assimilated. Her treatment of Guillermo and most other humans as pesky miscreants who are mostly useful for menial labor and meals, so she was always a good fit for the world of passive aggressive one-upmanship of Wall Street.

15 Dexter (Leo Woodall), One Day- What’s this, the thug from White Lotus is a sensitive heart throb underneath all those tattoos? Well, even as a straight guy, I thought Woodall was pretty hunky. But watching him sell this gender-flipped beauty and the geek romance. I’m impressed.


16 Dr Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) , Evil-The show gets a lot of mileage out of this extremely charismatic actress who telegraphs so much with her face.
17 The Bleacher Creatures, Clone High-We all know that the cool kids in school are never the most interesting. Giving Christopher "Topher" Columbus villain friends was the best thing the second season ever did.  
18 Det. Helen Chamberlain (Danielle MacDonald), The Tourist-A brilliant detective with a heart of gold. That successfully sets up a labyrinthine plot to get away from an evil captor and can't pull it off. That's an interesting choice.
19 Mr Beast (James Donaldson), Beast Games-The Beast Games were a disappointment, but it was an interesting glance into the mind of history's most successful YouTuber. Despite attempts at cancellation, he's one to root for.
20 Ethan Crum (Greg Larsen), The Tourist-Helen, Elliot, meet your comic relief. Now that that's out of the way...
21 Beatrice Worth (Brooke Lena Johnson), Cruel Intentions-If the show (like the movie) is centered against the two amoral step-siblings, then Beatrice is your sidelined hero. She had casual sex with one sibling (let's applaud her for sex positivity) and tried to pledge three times to the sorority of the other, but adolescents are complex and conflicted. She's still the right person to take down the elitism in my book.
22 Android SM 33 (voiced by Nick Frost), Star Wars: Skeleton Crew- Confession, I just li
23 Frank the Temp (I can't even remember; that's the point), Futurama-At long last! Someone who's less respected among the crew than Zoidberg
24 Colin Robinson (Mark Porsch), What We Do in the Shadows-Colin has always been a wonderfully jagged fit to the rest of the vampires, and I'll miss him tremendously. Who ever thought of a villain who's super powers were based off boringness. 
25 Heather (Edi Patterson), Resident Alien-Heather, the avian alien who visits Earth for a bureacratic check-up, has a resistant courtship and an epic whirlwind romance. It's thanks to Heather, we now know how Harry's gills are cleaned. We are eternally greatful.

25 Best Characters on TV in 2020

1. Linda Cardinelli as Judy Hale, Dead to Me-A wet ball of emotion caught in the center of an accidental murder in this dark comedy, Judy is magnetic in her endless positivity, empathy, and hope. She deservedly wins over the cynic Jen Harding and her family and when the two break down crying, it’s worth all the feels. The character is also cleverly dressed in bright colors and cute outfits to radiate her persona and even in times of distress, she remains resolved to make lemonade out of lemons.

2. Mahershala Ali as Sheikh Malik, Ramy- Ali is the first Muslim to win an Academy Award in acting and he reportedly jumped at the chance to be in the most mainstream piece of pop culture portraying American Muslims to date. His character oozes wisdom and authority and there’s a lot to be said about the way Ali pauses in conversations to show that he doesn’t take even basic human interaction lightly.

3. Awkwafina as Nora, Awkwafina is Nora from Queens-Awkwafina broke out in Crazy Rich Asians and has had a number of notable roles on screen in an astonishingly short time but if you want to see her unleashed in her full comic glory, you have to watch Nora from Queens. The character is a developmentally stunted late twenty-something with minimal job credentials who lives at home and completely owns her mediocrity in all its glory. Awkwafina works the character’s baseless positivity through physical comedy, voice inflections, and facial tics and it’s a master class.

4. Jack Quaid as Hughie, The Boys-The closest equivalent modern television has to a Hitchcockian hero a la North by Northwest or The 39 Steps. Jack is constantly over his head and never asked to be on the wrong end of a global conspiracy but he has gradually grown into the role and is a great one to root for.

5. Belinda Bromilow as Auntie Elizabeth, The Great-Cautious enablers of autocrats might not necessarily be in vogue right now, but the beauty of a period piece is it enables us to look at characters from a distance. Rather than looking at Elizabeth as a proverbial Ivanka to an 18th century Donald Trump, we can simply take her as an interesting character on her own merits and that she is. She’s firmly old money but is quite sharp for a woman in a pre-feminist era and is never out of the loop of court intrigue.

6. Chris Rock as Loy Cannon, Fargo-Rock has been ill-served by a filmography that couldn’t successfully harness his comic gifts or speech cadences. If Chris Rock were to ever fit into a dramatic role, this would be it. It channels his observational prowess, punctuated line delivery and adds a hint of world weariness.

7. Hank Azaria as Jim Brockmire, Brockmire-Alcoholic characters are a dime a dozen but Brockmire is a truly unique brand of mess. Predicated on a Funny-or-Die sketch in which a baseball broadcaster can’t stop tourets-ing about his personal demons on air, Brockmire has been a hilarious character for four seasons whether he’s winning or losing at life. The show’s final season saw the character closing out his own life out on a win. Considering how impossible this seemed from the outset, it was nothing short of inspiring.

8. Jo Firestone as Sarah, Joe Pera Talks to You-In this sweet subplot of two oddballs connecting romantically, Sarah has some lovely quirks. She compliments Joe nicely through her social awkwardness as she is afraid of crowds and has moments of frustration that hint at something deeper. She’s never not animated whereas he is more reserved. The biggest bombshell about Sarah, however, is that she casually believes in an imminent apocalypse like it ain’t no thing. Bring on the brimstone.

9. Ramy Yousef as Ramy, Ramy-How refreshing is it that a male TV show protagonist isn’t about trying to get laid but trying to avoid the perils of sexual temptation? Whatever your thoughts are about religion or Ramy’s particular religion, watching Ramy struggle on his journey is rarely devoid of insight.

10. Wynn Everett as Ellen Johnson, Teenage Bounty Hunters-The guidance counselor every high schooler wish they had. She’s the kind of side character that hints at a richer back story you’d want to see more episodes of.

11. Jessie Buckley as Oraetta Maylower, Fargo-Every season of Fargo has an off-beat character who treats murder with the same gravity as watering their hydrangeas and that’s Oraetta Mayflower in a nutshell. Only this time, it’s baking pies.

12. Bette Middler as Haddasah Gold, The Politician-Hadassah manages to remain endearing (to the audience, at least) while remaining brash, unfiltered, and ruthless.

13. Laura Haddock as Zoe, White Lines-The psychotropic paradise-set noir had a lead protagonist that was pushy, and sometimes foolish but never devoid of passion or charisma.

14. Jillian Bell voicing Violet Heart, Bless the Hearts-The deadpan goth daughter (think a more thoughtful version of Aubrey Plaza navigating high school) stepped into the spotlight quite a bit this season with episodes showing her having a wide range of emotions and puncturing a couple of holes through her veneer.

15. Matthew Berry as Jackie Daytona (AKA Laszlo Cravenworth), What We Do in the Shadows-The alter ego created by Laszlo in order to flee a duel is a high school volleyball coach and bartender who can hide his true form with a simple tooth pick. Few guises could be more ridiculous and few random character traits put together could be as surreptitiously funny.

16. Kayla Cromer as Mathilda, Everything’s Gonna Be Ok-For the show’s tonally jarring mixture of serious and frivolous, it at least gets one thing right: The autistic character of Mathilda, who is far more vibrant than the typical mold of the disabled character we ordinarily get. Like any ambitious person, Mathilda wants to be more than what her condition defined her as: Sexual, popular, independent.

17. Dawnn Lewis voicing Becket Mariner, Star Trek: Lower Decks-The Star Trek canon would forever be incomplete if a character like Mariner didn’t eventually surface. It wouldn’t make sense that in this massive space fleet, a few iconoclasts or slackers wouldn’t pop up among the lower ranks. Luckily, Mariner is an apt mixture of both.

18. Ben Whishaw as Rabbi Milligan, Fargo-For those who found the season’s opening montage confusing (though undeniably visually fantastic), Milligan was the son of an Irish mob boss who was forced as a pawn between the Irish and Jewish mobs to be raised by a Rabbi’s family. As a kid, he abetted his father in a slaughter of Kansas City’s Jewish mafia, then turned on his Irish family years later to secure a top lieutenantship in the incoming Italian mob. In the present, the Rabbi isn’t to be trusted but his instincts aren’t violent or malicious. He simply laments the imperfect hand of cards he’s been dealt with and tries to make do.

19. Aya Cash as Stormfront (Kiara Risinger), The Boys-Every good superhero series needs a villain and while an argument can be made for putting a moratorium on the Nazis, I’m willing to excuse it with Stormfront for the shock value of the reveal alone. Raise your hand if you saw her origin story coming.

20. Rob Riggle as himself, Holey Moley-This wacky sports competition that would be at home on the fictional TV station, “The Ocho”, as presented by the movie Dodgeball. Helping keep the surreal vibe alive of treating mini-golf as if it’s the world’s most intense sport is comedy vet Rob Riggle who commits fully to the bit while riffing so hard that his broadcasting partner, Joe Tessatore, can barely keep from breaking most of the time.

21. Natasa Demetriu as Nadja, What We Do in the Shadows-Like her fellow vampires, Nadja has about as much empathy to humans as we mortals have towards farm hens that will eventually end up in a McDonald’s Happy Meal. Occasionally, she’ll humor them or entertain a centuries-long romantic fling, but don’t mess with her jewelery. With Demetriu’s vocal inflections, she really sells the “oh, what an adorable human” angle.

22. Justin Kirk as Peter, Kidding-A very rich and nuanced portrayal of a step dad awkwardly trying to fit into a new family. A considerate guy, Peter treads the line in a rough relationship of exes. He tries to be both a supportive husband to a woman who wants space from her ex, and a genuine pillar of support to the severely scarred ex himself. And don’t forget his killer musical number.

23. Geraldine Viswanathan as Alexandra Shitshoveler, Miracle Workers-Imagine being the only sane man (or woman) in the Dark Ages of Europe capable of making the observation, “hey, maybe we’re not living in a good era of history.” Alexandra has ambitions in a time when the concept of ambition doesn’t exist and that’s a pretty solid character to base an ambitious comedy around.

24. Kate Mara as Claire Wilson in A Teacher-Judging by the reviews and internet comments, not everyone was able to move past Claire’s sins to appreciate the complexity of the story being told about her situation. That’s a shame because if you make that leap of empathy, there’s an interesting portrait about the why and the how of someone who falls into a situation which would brand her with quite the scarlet letter.

25. Jennifer Esposito as Brenda, Awkwafina is Nora From Queens-For a socially awkward single dad who’s best dating days are behind him, Brenda is the best you can hope for. She ricochets your lame dad jokes with some old spinster humor and accommodates your mid-life paralysis to see the prince within. Sweet, artsy, and eccentric, Brenda made a big impression with a small amount of screen time.

Honorable Mentions:

Amanda Peete as Jules James, Brockmire; Bowen Yang as Bao, the Chinese Trade Minister, SNL; Catherine Keener as Diedre Pickles, Kidding; Daniel Radcliffe as Prince Frederick, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt; Elizabeth Berkley, Saved by the Bell; Hamza Haq as Bashir Hamed, Transplant; Heidi Gardner as Bailey Gismert, SNL; Jessica Rothe as Samantha, Utopia; Jessica St. Clair as Kelly, Space Force; Jessica Walters voicing Mallory Archer, Archer; Jimmy O Yang as Dr. Chan Keifang, Space Force; Julie Garner as Ruth Langamore in Ozark; Kate Mara as Claire Wilson in A Teacher; Lisa Kudrow as Hypathia, The Good Place; Maddie Phillips as Sterling Weasley, Teenage Bounty Counters; Mary Mack voicing Jesse, Solar Opposites; Mary Mouser as Sam LaRusso, Cobra Kai; Maya Rudolph voicing Betty Hart, Bless the Harts; Nicole Law as May, Tales from the Loop; Nuno Lopez as Boxer, White Lines; Patton Oswalt as Principal Durbin, AP Bio; Peyton List as Tori, Cobra Kai; Poorna Jagannathan as Nalini Vishwakumar, Never Have I Ever

 

25 Best TV Characters of 2018

Again, check out my patreon  to keep me in business. Don't worry. Though I'm posting this in 2020, I have a 2019 edition of this list lined up too. I also did these lists between 2012 and 2015 if you click on the top 25 character tab.

1.       Pete Holmes as himself, Crashing (HBO)-As opposed to most comedians (or the fictionalized TV versions of themselves) who just want to get ahead, this show has a protagonist who’s sincerely trying to navigate the changing boundaries of integrity as he gets a taste of success in the world of stand-up. The apologetic Holmes is gangly, awkward and sometimes wrong but there’s an underlying sweetness to him.

2.       Giovanni Ribisi as Marius Josipovic/Pete Murphy, Sneaky Pete (Amazon)-Watching genius at work is why we’re attracted to a character like Pete whose extroadinary abilities to think on the fly, read people, and work a con make him almost like a stateside Sherlock Holmes on the wrong side of the law. With a supreme expertise in his field, Pete is in the mold of the procedurals of the aughts (particularly Burn Notice but also House and Monk) but his backstory and the progression of his relationship to the Murphy clan make him fit into the serialized mold as well.  

3.       Julie Garner as Ruth Langmore, Ozark (Netflix)-Ruth feels like she wouldn’t fit in anywhere other than the Missouri/Arkansas border and that’s great for the show. She’s pragmatic and tough-as-nails but she doesn’t shy away from showing her emotions with her allegiance to her boss or her hope for a better future for her cousin.

4.       Kristin Chenoweth as Lavinia Peck-Foster, Trial and Error (NBC)-To fill in the shoes of John Lithgow’s unapologetically weird professor and carry the momentum of a sitcom into a second season with entirely different, Chenoweth had a high bar to meet. She’s not just a great caricature of disconnected rich privilege, but she also is a great example of the bunny ears lawyer trope (someone who shouldn’t be as effective professionally as they are) as killers go considering she seems to have so little awareness of reality.

5.       Manny Jacinto as Jason Mendoza, Good Place (NBC)-There is now depth to the stupidity of Jason Mendoza that can’t be mined for comedy. This year’s Jason-centered episode “The Ballad of Donkey Doug” proved quite a bit of impressive backstory for a guy who’s Jacksonville upbringing has sounded too ridiculous to be true.

6.       Wyatt Russell as Sean “Dud” Dudley, Lodge 49 (AMC)-Think of how great the world would be  if we had more people as open to other people (of all generations) and as curious about the world around them as Dudley. The seemingly dense surfer has had some bad breaks with the death of his dad and the decline of his pool business but he never stops seeing the glass as half full.

7.       Carla Jiminez as Alba, The Mick (Fox)-The opening scene of the pilot shows us a protagonist who saunters into a grocery store and uses the cosmetics aisle for her morning routine without even paying. But even then, she’s not the most id-driven character on the show. That would be the nanny left over from a past regime who will happily shirk responsibility and go on a bender if the situation calls for it. She’s also body positive.

8.       Juliett Lewis as Jandice, Camping (HBO)-Most suburbanites probably know a soccer mom or HOA member who resembles Jennifer Garner’s uptight camping trip organizer Kathryn. Likewise, most of those people wish that those Kathryns in their lives could be paired up with a foil like the boundary-pushing hippyish Jandice.

9.       Wilson Bethel as Ben “Bullseye” Pondexter, Daredevil (Netflix)-A fitting doppelganger to our title character, Daredevil’s powers are more fully spelled out than in any other iteration of this story which makes his fight scenes both cool (duh) and menacing within the context of this higher-stakes story.  

10.   Allisyn Ashley Arm as Heather, AP Bio (NBC)-Heather started as one of about  dozen students in  fraudulent teacher Jack Griffin’s teacher through which limited screentime has been divided. But Arm used every opportunity when the camera was on her and every line delivery to be spectacularly eccentric and a treasure in her own right.

11.   Dale Soules as Frieda Berlin, Orange is the New Black (Netflix)-The focus of the show’s sixth season was on two feuding sisters who turned the rest of the prisoners into competing gangs. The squirrelly Frida managed to show how far her survivor instincts had gotten her by quietly outsmarting the show’s main villains in Rube Goldberg fashion.

12.   Jordana Spiro as Rachel, Ozark (Netflix)-The kinds of characters in these high-pressure dramas (like Breaking Bad or The Americans) that get caught between conflicting sides with no way out are generally the innocent bystanders worth rooting for. Rachel is a resilient firecracker with good instincts and it’s wonderful to see her make it out alive.

14.   Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Daredevil (Netflix)-In my previous iteration of this list, I felt I had to make room for Foggy, Matt, and Karen as all three big something to the team besides being well-drawn characters themselves. As the stakes felt higher and the story became more gripping, Karen was the one who was most transparent with her dread and resolve. She also made the list the last time I did this.

15.   Nick Sandow as Warden Joe Caputo, Orange is the New Black (Netflix)-Obviously the main storyline of Season 6 is Tasha “Taystee” Jefferson but to see an ally say he’ll do something and then put his money where his mouth is, is quite cathartic. Yes, the white savior trope can be debated but that doesn’t necessarily mean Taystee’s story has been diminished or Caputo’s stepping up isn’t insignificant.

16.   Tony Shalhoub as Abe Weinberg, Marvelous Mrs Maisel (Amazon)-Poor Abe. Certainly not the most stringent and unreasonable of old-world Jewish fathers from the era but he’s been dealing with a world that’s changed too fast for his comfort. He should have given his wife more agency, and he should have been  less stubborn about his university , but Amy Sherman-Palladino’s shows aren’t built around tragedies: Hopefully, there’s room for Abe to grow in later seasons.

17.   Brandon Flynn as Justin Foley, 13 Reasons Why (Netflix)-While 13 Reasons Why can be tonally inconsistent and come across more like a typical high school show than something worthy of the topics it broaches, Justin has been written surprisingly strong this season. He’s dealt with guilt and remorse over enabling rape, a broken family, a drug addiction, threats from a step-mom and a betrayal by his best friend and it’s all been handled in such a way that I can’t take my eyes off the guy.

18.   D’Arcy Carden as Janet, Good Place (NBC)-Janet can literally do anything, but it’s the moments when she chooses to deal with the mundanities of, say, getting over an ex or dealing with people who aren't at her speed (like Michael typing at 6 wpm) where she shines. And bonus points for that bar brawl that she impulsively starts against Sean's demons in her dress and high heels. And even more bonus points for the creation of the second best character on the show in Jason Matzoukas’s Derrick.

19.   Carol Kane as Lily Kaushtupper, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix)-The final half-season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was a great showcase for the whole cast but count me in for more of the unattached Lily who has Tracy-Jordan-like namedrops to past chapters of past badassery. Kane gives the monologue of the season

20.   Hillary Anne Matthews as Diedre, Alex Inc (ABC)-An example of how an otherwise forgettable show can be watchable just to see a scene-stealing side character. Deidre is a scatter-brained assistant whose clinginess to her boss (Zach Braff) overtly borders on obsession.

21.   Cedric the Entertainer as Scott Joplin, Another Period (Comedy Central)-Part of the fun of this show has been the exaggerated cameos of historical figures who inexplicably make their way into the lives of the Bellacourt clan like Sigmund Freud (Chris Parnell), Albert Einstein (Matt Bessar) and Thomas Edison (Stephen Tobolowsky). Perhaps none of these comic characters is as cleverly constructed as the show’s version of Scott Joplin who’s presented as an aughts version of Kanye West (complete with self-worship and an Armenian bride).

22.   Libe Barer as Carly Bowman, Sneaky Pete (Amazon)-The Brendon de Wilde to Alan Ladd’s Shane, Carly is the kid of the family (if you can believe a 27-year old actor passing as 16) who stars agape at her older cousin who fascinates her with hints of a less provincial life. What’s interesting behind Carly is that she’s one step behind the others but you can never count her out as she has traces of Bowman ingenuity herself.

23.   Connie Britton as Abby Clark, 9-1-1 (Fox)-No harm in adding a pollyanna to a procedural. Abby is middle-aged and single with an aging parent to care for but there’s a certain upbeatness to her that makes her a quiet sort of stand-out. Her scenes, set apart from the rest of the cast, make her an interesting narrator of sorts.

24.   Jonah Hill as Owen Milgrim, Maniac  (Netflix)-One of the best portrayals of a depressed character to appear on TV. Jonah Hill does an excellent job at portraying the quiet surrender and numbness as he goes about his every day life and eventually enters into the world of fantasy.  

25.   Dania Ramirez as Jacinda/Cinderella, Once Upon a Time (ABC)-When introduced in her featured episode, Jacinda is a femme fatale disguised as a typical Cinderella. It matches well with her real-life persona who’s down on her luck but refuses to play damsel in distress with the two men vying for her affections.

Honorable Mentions:

Armen Weitzman as Garfield, Another Period; Beth Dover as Linda Ferguson, Orange is the New Black; Charlie Cox as Matt Murdoch, Daredevil; Danielle Brooks as Tasha “Taystee” Jefferson; Dascha Polanko as Daya, Orange is the New Black; David Koechner as The Commodore, Another Period;  Henny Russell as Barbara Dennan, Orange is the New Black; Jane Adams as Maggie Murphy, Sneaky Pete; Jayma Mays as Carol Anne Keane in Trial and Error;  Kristen Bell as Eleanor Shellstrop, The Good  Place; McKenzie Phillips as Carol Dennan, Orange is the New Black; Parker Posey as Dr. Smith, Lost in Space; Rachel Brosnahan as Midge Masel, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel; Sally Field as Dr. Greta Mantleray; Sophia Black-D’Ella as Sabrina Pemberton, The Mick; Scott MacArthur as Jimmy, The Mick; Ted Danson as Michael, The Good Place; Tituss Burgess as Titus Andromedon, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt