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Villains make drama work. Heroes would be nothing without them, just regular people in search of a narrative. “The more powerful and complex the forces of antagonism opposing the character, the more completely realized character and story must become,” writes Robert McKee, the author of the seminal Hollywood screenwriting manual Story. Furthermore, writes John Truby, author of The Anatomy of Story, “The relationship between the hero and the opponent is the single most important relationship in the story. In working out the struggle between these two characters, the larger issues and themes of the story unfold.”
Not every prestige show has a clear villain—often the complexity comes from a morally murky world. But many Peabody-winning shows have given us some great bad guys, and epically antagonistic women, from Ted Lasso’s nefarious soccer-team boss Rupert Mannion and Barry’s chatty gangster NoHo Hank to Ugly Betty’s scheming editor Wilhelmina Slater and Glee’s sociopathic cheer coach Sue Sylvester. Here, seven of our favorite black-hats and where to watch them.
NoHo Hank, ‘Barry’
Barry‘s brilliant combination of humor and deadly violence produces one of the most memorable antagonists in recent TV history: NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan), a Los Angeles-based Chechen gangster whose shifting alliances often put him at odds with affable actor/hitman Barry (Bill Hader). He loves the self-help book The Four Agreements, sparks a touching romance with Bolivian gangster Cristobal (Michael Irby), tries to go legit by starting a sand importation company, and loves a nice tropical-print shirt. He sunnily delivers some of the show’s funniest lines, like when Barry asks Hank if he’s evil, and Hank replies, “I mean absolutely! Do I not tell you that enough? You are like the most evil guy I know, man. All this talking has made me hungry. You know what I could really go for? Yoshinoya beef bowl.” Or, to Barry’s on-again, off-again boss: “You and Barry are like Fleetwood Mac. You break up, you get back together and then you make a great album: the Best of Fleetwood Mac.” Or: “It’s another head. … Why am I still opening these?” Proof that villains needn’t be all doom and gloom, even when they’re murderous gangsters.
Where to Watch: Max
Sue Sylvester, ‘Glee’
The most over-the-top element of an over-the-top show, cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) is McKinley High’s chief bully and the unrepentant enemy of the struggling glee club at the series’ center. Lynch all but twirls a mustache as she struts around in her signature red-and-white track suit haranguing her cheerleaders (”You think this was hard? Try auditioning for Baywatch and being told they’re going in another direction. That was hard”), attesting to her own importance (”I will no longer be carrying around photo ID. You know why? People should know who I am”) and insulting everyone else (”I thought I smelled cookies wafting from the ovens of the little elves who live in your hair”). Is she a role model? Absolutely not. But on a show built on camp, she is funny even just in concept: Who on earth could vehemently oppose a glee club? And yet, she’s even funnier when Lynch tears into her. Sue gives the club’s setlist to a rival at Sectionals, stages a fake suicide, and coaches a competitor’s glee club. She also performs Madonna’s “Vogue” and Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical,” and eventually becomes Vice President of the United States, because Glee is like that.
Where to Watch: Hulu
Kilgrave, ‘Jessica Jones’
Leave it to a Marvel-based series to name its villain Kilgrave. David Tennant plays the truly terrifying comic book villain who used his mind-control powers to keep heroine Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) as a sex slave. Jessica’s quest to overcome this trauma while she works as a private investigator makes for a more poignant and compelling narrative than the usual superhero story and sets up a gripping final showdown: his mind control powers versus her super-strength. Jessica’s story is so dark that she could almost be considered an anti-hero, given her drinking problem and antipathy toward most humans, but the contrast with Kilgrave’s truly diabolical nature makes her all the more empathetic.
Where to Watch: Netflix
Ben Linus, ‘Lost’
Played by Michael Emerson with an eerie glare, Ben Linus struck terror into Lost viewers as the leader of the mysterious “Others,” the menacing island dwellers who confront the series’ plane crash survivors in the second season. He arrives in our characters’ lives pretending to be a friendly guy named Henry Gale whose hot-air balloon has crashed there, but then turns. He captures and keeps survivors Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) in cages and forces Jack (Matthew Fox), a doctor, to perform surgery on his spinal tumor. He looks like a kindly professor but reveals himself to be a tightly wound manipulator who readily employs violence. He is at turns threatening, whiny, biting, and, most of all, unpredictable, a testament to Emerson’s performance. After all, he stole the show’s Best Villain title from a literal Smoke Monster.
Where to Watch: Netflix
Ms. Cobel/Mrs. Selvig, ‘Severance’
Severance takes viewers inside the mysterious Lumon corporation, where a division of employees on the “severed” floor have undergone a procedure to split their work selves from their home selves. Things begin to unravel when previously loyal employee Mark S. (Adam Scott) encounters a former coworker on the outside who’s desperate to reveal Lumon’s dark secrets. In the first season, we also learn that Mark’s seemingly sweet, hippie-dippie neighbor Mrs. Selvig (Patricia Arquette) is actually his domineering boss, Ms. Cobel, on the inside. Given that she’s unsevered and merely pretending to be Mrs. Selvig, and that she at one point drills into a dead man’s skull at his funeral to retrieve a microchip from his brain, and that she says things like, “If you want a hug, go to hell and find your mother,” it’s safe to call her a villain. But there are also hints that her own troubled past led her to Lumon, and she’s far from the top mastermind there. Season 2 (which premieres in January) may reveal more sympathetic depths to her character.
Where to Watch: Apple TV+
Rupert Mannion, ‘Ted Lasso’
Ted Lasso became one of the biggest feel-good, zeitgeist-capturing hits of the last decade when it debuted on Apple TV+ at the heights of the pandemic. And the title character’s Midwestern goodness and positive masculinity are only underlined by the dastardly Rupert Mannion (Anthony Head), the slick former owner of the British soccer team that Ted (Jason Sudeikis) is hired to coach. It is Rupert’s mistreatment of his ex-wife, Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham), that sparks the series’ entire plot, prompting her to purposely hire a rube from the states who knows little about soccer. Even as Ted and Rebecca transcend that initial set-up, Rupert remains unchanged and unrepentant throughout the series’ entire three seasons, one of the few forces of darkness in a sunny show full of redeemable rogues.
Where to Watch: Apple TV+
Wilhelmina Slater, ‘Ugly Betty’
Mode magazine’s creative director with editor-in-chief ambitions, Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa Williams) causes several seasons’ worth of havoc in the name of achieving her dreams and taking the top title away from Daniel Meade (Eric Mabius), the playboy son of the magazine’s owner, Bradford Meade (Alan Dale). She plots with a mystery woman who turns out to be Daniel’s transgender sister Alexis (Rebecca Romijn), who faked her own death; tries to get recovering alcoholic matriarch Claire Meade (Judith Light) drunk so she’ll sign over the magazine to Wilhelmina; seduces Bradford into nearly marrying her; then steals his sperm after he dies so that she can conceive a child who is an heir to the Meade empire. Naturally, the only one who regularly foils her plans is Daniel’s heart-of-gold assistant, Betty Suarez (America Ferrara). But Wilhelmina is, above else, an endless source of catty zingers. On Betty’s blouse: “It’s hideous, like driving through Ohio.” To her assistant: “Marc! That is the most cruel thing I’ve ever seen. Somebody’s getting a raise.” On her Botox: “Even if I wanted to express sympathy, I physically can’t.” Proof that the villain is often the juiciest part.
Where to Watch: Netflix