Dumb characters in cool shows

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Teacher_Ag
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9:52a, 4/30/22
AG
Late to Breaking Bad, making my way through the seasons. Great show overall but these Salamanca brothers are gimmicky. Why not just have two brothers who work for the cartel who act...normal. Every scene they're in feels very inauthethic and takes me out of the intrigue of the plot.

What are some characters from other shows you wish hadn't been written the way they were.
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javajaws
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10:00a, 4/30/22
AG
Oh look, a thread about Wendy Byrde!
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Head Ninja In Charge
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10:01a, 4/30/22
AG
Hot take here, but I thought Brother Mouzone was the worst character (caricature, really) in the Wire. Worse than Ziggy.
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Teacher_Ag
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10:13a, 4/30/22
AG
BtW my problem with this series just came to and end lol.
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NoahAg
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10:18a, 4/30/22
Jack Bauer's daughter.
Let's go, Brandon!
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Mega Lops
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10:37a, 4/30/22
AG
Skylar white
Wendy Byrd
Dana in Homeland
Gemma teller morrow
Claire underwood

Come to think of it, making lead-ish females so hateable is now it's own trope. They aren't exactly antagonists 100% of the time, but they are somewhat akin to foils.
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jokershady
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10:46a, 4/30/22
AG
END OF THREAD….

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Duncan Idaho
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In reply to Mega Lops • 10:50a, 4/30/22
Jesus Christ!

He said "cool shows" and you bring up SoA? Jesus Christ.

And Jesus Christ!!! Gemma isn't even the dumbest female characters in that show. I mean Jesus Christ how terrible was Tara? I mean for Jesus Christ's sake, she was a doctor and still that stupid.




And that's just the first season
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Sooper Jeenyus
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In reply to Duncan Idaho • 11:05a, 4/30/22
AG
IDK… I have to agree. Gemma is high on my list of all time hate-able characters. Wish she would have met her just and painful death long before she did.
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bonfarr
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11:10a, 4/30/22
AG
Even as a young child I knew the character of Mearth on Mork and Mindy was stupid.

Great show though.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this post reflect the opinions of Texags user bonfarr and are not to be accepted as facts or to be accepted at face value.
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Potcake
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In reply to Duncan Idaho • 11:25a, 4/30/22
AG
Just a little overboard with the references.
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aTmAg
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In reply to Teacher_Ag • 11:52a, 4/30/22
AG
Teacher_Ag said:
Late to Breaking Bad, making my way through the seasons. Great show overall but these Salamanca brothers are gimmicky. Why not just have two brothers who work for the cartel who act...normal. Every scene they're in feels very inauthethic and takes me out of the intrigue of the plot.

What are some characters from other shows you wish hadn't been written the way they were.
I think the twins in BB are genius writing. The portray the cartels as scary without having to show all the twisted and disturbing things the cartels really do. Real life cartels killed kids with axes in front of their parents and forced busloads of innocent people to gladiator fight to the death with hammers and knives (and I'm leaving the more disturbing details out). If BB showed any of that, then it would have required a lot more unnecessary story, and people would have tuned out instantly.

Compare BB to FX's The Bridge. The Bridge was more realistic on the Cartels, but only barely, and even that was too dark and unpleasant to enjoy. Sure enough, it got canceled.

So Breaking Bad made the twins silent Terminator types that kill without mercy or compassion, but aren't shown to be too gruesome. Usually they just shoot people. The worse killing was using a machete on Tortuga, but even that was framed to not show anything too bad.

They provided the aura that Walt was over his head danger-wise. And they served that purpose perfectly.
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aTmAg
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In reply to Head Ninja In Charge • 12:05p, 4/30/22
AG
Head Ninja In Charge said:
Hot take here, but I thought Brother Mouzone was the worst character (caricature, really) in the Wire. Worse than Ziggy.
I agree 100%.

And while I think Omar was a great character, I think they went over the top trying to make him a badass. The idea that he could walk around unarmed in a bathrobe and people would runaway and drop their drug stashes at his feet was ridiculous. They should have left that part out.
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pimplepopper
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12:15p, 4/30/22
AG


Justified - Michael Rappaport
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
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Duncan Idaho
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In reply to aTmAg • 12:24p, 4/30/22
I agree with this rational well thought out post.
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Duncan Idaho
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12:25p, 4/30/22
I also predict this thread will become filled with characters people didn't like but were actually well written characters at least on the same level as the rest of the characters on the show.
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bluefire579
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In reply to Mega Lops • 12:29p, 4/30/22
AG
David Happymountain said:
Skylar white
Wendy Byrd
Dana in Homeland
Gemma teller morrow
Claire underwood

Come to think of it, making lead-ish females so hateable is now it's own trope. They aren't exactly antagonists 100% of the time, but they are somewhat akin to foils.
Hateable != Dumb. You listed several characters (haven't seen Homeland, so can't speak to that one) whose actions are specifically written to make them detestable to the viewer. Compare that to what someone said above in Kim Bauer, whose only purpose is to be a damsel in distress for several consecutive seasons with no real personality beyond that.
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Definitely Not A Cop
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12:30p, 4/30/22
AG
I think Wendy is a way better character than Skylar. Wendy at least doesn't pretend that she's any different than Marty or she is innocent from the damage they have caused. She is just a soulless she Devil that will get what she wants, and I can respect that. Skylar is just there to make Walter feel guilty the entire time.
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rhutton125
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12:32p, 4/30/22
AG
I thought it was dumb in S4 of Breaking Bad when Gus fixes his tie before falling down. Cheesy to the point of detrimental to an otherwise believable show.
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Brian Earl Spilner
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In reply to Definitely Not A Cop • 12:32p, 4/30/22
AG
+1
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aTmAg
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In reply to Definitely Not A Cop • 12:41p, 4/30/22
AG
Definitely Not A Cop said:
I think Wendy is a way better character than Skylar. Wendy at least doesn't pretend that she's any different than Marty or she is innocent from the damage they have caused. She is just a soulless she Devil that will get what she wants, and I can respect that. Skylar is just there to make Walter feel guilty the entire time.
I don't get the Skylar hate. She acted completely reasonable. Even when she had the affair. Walter White lied his ass off time and time again and it slowly destroyed their marriage. That would piss any spouse off. I'm glad they didn't make her stupid and buy into all the BS he spewed. The fact that idiots hated Anna Gunn in real life shows how well that character was written.
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TXAG 05
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In reply to rhutton125 • 12:51p, 4/30/22
AG
rhutton125 said:
I thought it was dumb in S4 of Breaking Bad when Gus fixes his tie before falling down. Cheesy to the point of detrimental to an otherwise believable show.


Agreed.
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Ulrich
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In reply to aTmAg • 1:09p, 4/30/22
Skyler White isn't wrong in the end, Walt turns out to be a monster. As a viewer though, when you meet Skylar she's flipping out over every little thing the protagonist does. The protagonist is struggling with a terminal cancer diagnosis, to all appearances is a kind of bumbling but well-intentioned normal guy, and he's played by an actor who has been most recognizable as the lovable loser at that point in his career. She comes off as terribly unfair, and that colors perception throughout the series, especially for first time watchers.

If the series started in season two or three, I bet people would view her a lot differently. Conversely, one can imagine a scenario where Skylar knows a lot more about Walt than we do and already has good reason to be suspicious and angry, but we the viewer just don't know it yet.
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Ulrich
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1:19p, 4/30/22
I'll throw Meadow Soprano in the mix. Her "power level", for lack of a better word, is all over the place. One episode she's a lazy bum failing out of school, the next she's a genius trying to decide whether she wants to be a doctor or a lawyer, and the next she's an awkwardly-written teenager pooping out sophomoric takes on the cause du 2003.

I don't remember anyone else being badly written. Lots of characters who had various levels of hatability (and Meadow was at the top of that scale), but I never really felt like they were poorly written. Some scenes were a little silly.
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aTmAg
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In reply to Ulrich • 2:00p, 4/30/22
AG
Ulrich said:
Skyler White isn't wrong in the end, Walt turns out to be a monster. As a viewer though, when you meet Skylar she's flipping out over every little thing the protagonist does. The protagonist is struggling with a terminal cancer diagnosis, to all appearances is a kind of bumbling but well-intentioned normal guy, and he's played by an actor who has been most recognizable as the lovable loser at that point in his career. She comes off as terribly unfair, and that colors perception throughout the series, especially for first time watchers.

If the series started in season two or three, I bet people would view her a lot differently. Conversely, one can imagine a scenario where Skylar knows a lot more about Walt than we do and already has good reason to be suspicious and angry, but we the viewer just don't know it yet.
I guess we are spoil tagging this:

So the only thing that I consider her to have done that was *****y rather than a reasonable response was when she demanded WW get treated for cancer when he didn't want to. But even that was still a understandable and very well written. It reminded me a lot of my in-laws arguing about putting their mom in a home. Some wanted to let her live at home like she wanted, others thought she didn't know what she was asking for, etc. It paralleled closely to the "intervention" scene.

And if you think about it, it was necessary for the entire story to take place. If he agreed to get treatment from the start, then how would he pay for it? He couldn't just come out and tell Sklylar "I'm going to sell meth". Him doing that and her going along with it from the start would have been wildly unrealistic. And if he said, "I'm not sure how we are going to pay for it." the she would have had him go to Eliott and Grechen within 10 minutes. If he said no, then what would he tell her about how they would pay for it?

No, they needed to give WW time to work out if selling meth was even a possibility. For him to ride along with Hank, talk to Jesse, get the RV, and all of that. That means he had to NOT tell Skylar. And it wasn't like they were rolling in the dough after they sold that first batch. And they almost got killed and had to kill 2 people. He wasn't even wanting to continue. So it made perfect sense that he would NOT want treatment early on.

So if Skylar said, "okay.. you can die in peace" then the show would have been over too quick. So they had to have WW change his mind. And that's where the intervention came in (and him agreeing to treatment the next day).

To me, it's all a sign of outstanding writing. They didn't make her annoying or antagonistic for the hell of it. Everything they had her do made sense from her character's perspective AND the story as a whole.

I cannot think of a better written show, movie, etc.
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utah, get me two
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In reply to Ulrich • 2:11p, 4/30/22
Meadow is a nice piece of ass
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utah, get me two
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2:11p, 4/30/22
Jackie Aprile Jr
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Teacher_Ag
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In reply to aTmAg • 3:13p, 4/30/22
AG
aTmAg said:
Teacher_Ag said:
Late to Breaking Bad, making my way through the seasons. Great show overall but these Salamanca brothers are gimmicky. Why not just have two brothers who work for the cartel who act...normal. Every scene they're in feels very inauthethic and takes me out of the intrigue of the plot.

What are some characters from other shows you wish hadn't been written the way they were.
I think the twins in BB are genius writing. The portray the cartels as scary without having to show all the twisted and disturbing things the cartels really do. Real life cartels killed kids with axes in front of their parents and forced busloads of innocent people to gladiator fight to the death with hammers and knives (and I'm leaving the more disturbing details out). If BB showed any of that, then it would have required a lot more unnecessary story, and people would have tuned out instantly.

Compare BB to FX's The Bridge. The Bridge was more realistic on the Cartels, but only barely, and even that was too dark and unpleasant to enjoy. Sure enough, it got canceled.

So Breaking Bad made the twins silent Terminator types that kill without mercy or compassion, but aren't shown to be too gruesome. Usually they just shoot people. The worse killing was using a machete on Tortuga, but even that was framed to not show anything too bad.

They provided the aura that Walt was over his head danger-wise. And they served that purpose perfectly.


Take the Mexican dudes from Training Day. That was realistic. My concern isn't any of the stuff you mentioned, just making the characters twins who walk side by side robotically into each scene and do their business with no emotion. I know it's supposed to be "menacing" or something but it just comes off as unrealistic and gimmicky. Just make them typical cartel gangsters. Each scene they were in feels very Hollywood in the worst way.
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Funky Winkerbean
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3:23p, 4/30/22
AG
JarJar..I don't need to explain it.
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aTmAg
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In reply to Teacher_Ag • 5:33p, 4/30/22
AG
Teacher_Ag said:
aTmAg said:
Teacher_Ag said:
Late to Breaking Bad, making my way through the seasons. Great show overall but these Salamanca brothers are gimmicky. Why not just have two brothers who work for the cartel who act...normal. Every scene they're in feels very inauthethic and takes me out of the intrigue of the plot.

What are some characters from other shows you wish hadn't been written the way they were.
I think the twins in BB are genius writing. The portray the cartels as scary without having to show all the twisted and disturbing things the cartels really do. Real life cartels killed kids with axes in front of their parents and forced busloads of innocent people to gladiator fight to the death with hammers and knives (and I'm leaving the more disturbing details out). If BB showed any of that, then it would have required a lot more unnecessary story, and people would have tuned out instantly.

Compare BB to FX's The Bridge. The Bridge was more realistic on the Cartels, but only barely, and even that was too dark and unpleasant to enjoy. Sure enough, it got canceled.

So Breaking Bad made the twins silent Terminator types that kill without mercy or compassion, but aren't shown to be too gruesome. Usually they just shoot people. The worse killing was using a machete on Tortuga, but even that was framed to not show anything too bad.

They provided the aura that Walt was over his head danger-wise. And they served that purpose perfectly.


Take the Mexican dudes from Training Day. That was realistic. My concern isn't any of the stuff you mentioned, just making the characters twins who walk side by side robotically into each scene and do their business with no emotion. I know it's supposed to be "menacing" or something but it just comes off as unrealistic and gimmicky. Just make them typical cartel gangsters. Each scene they were in feels very Hollywood in the worst way.
What made the Mexican dudes from Training day scary is the situation, not the guys themselves. And there are plenty of gangsters in BB. 2 more guys like that would have been "meh". They needed to make the cartel ones stand out as especially evil. And other than show them torturing children, there weren't many options.
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Bruce Almighty
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6:26p, 4/30/22
AG
By far the dumbest character in a good show is Marie in Breaking Bad. I don't understand the Skyler hate. You were supposed to hate her, which means the character was well written. Marie is just dumb.
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aTmAg
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7:00p, 4/30/22
AG
I didn't like Chuck in BCS. Not in a "what a jackass" sort of way (which he was), but his whole electromagnetic aversion was a bad idea, IMO. There is this movie called Copycat with Sigourney Weaver where she is an expert on serial killers. Of course the main antagonist goes after her. But the thing is, she had a mental condition where she couldn't leave her house. Like she was ridiculously phobic and couldn't see straight outside. And it became a real cheap "scare" that the killer was in her house and she couldn't run away. If she could run away, it would have solved everything. I hated it so much, it actually sort of pissed me off.

The Chuck thing is almost like that. Not quite, but close.
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Scriffer
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In reply to pimplepopper • 8:51p, 4/30/22
AG
pimplepopper said:


Justified - Michael Rappaport

This is it for me. I actually like Justified more than Breaking Bad, but he damn near ruined everything.
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MGS
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In reply to Scriffer • 8:57p, 4/30/22
Scriffer said:
pimplepopper said:


Justified - Michael Rappaport

This is it for me. I actually like Justified more than Breaking Bad, but he damn near ruined everything.
Probably not so much a bad character, just a bad actor.
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TexAg2001
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In reply to Ulrich • 9:00p, 4/30/22
AG
Ulrich said:
Skyler White isn't wrong in the end, Walt turns out to be a monster. As a viewer though, when you meet Skylar she's flipping out over every little thing the protagonist does. The protagonist is struggling with a terminal cancer diagnosis, to all appearances is a kind of bumbling but well-intentioned normal guy, and he's played by an actor who has been most recognizable as the lovable loser at that point in his career. She comes off as terribly unfair, and that colors perception throughout the series, especially for first time watchers.

If the series started in season two or three, I bet people would view her a lot differently. Conversely, one can imagine a scenario where Skylar knows a lot more about Walt than we do and already has good reason to be suspicious and angry, but we the viewer just don't know it yet.
I've binged BB all the way through twice. On the first viewing, I absolutely hated Skyler and was in Walt's camp for the entire show. Upon the second viewing, my mindset completely changed and I pretty much agreed with everything Skyler did and was rooting for Walt's downfall. For me, the show had a completely different, but still enjoyable, feel to it the 2nd time around. Genius writing.....
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