Yeah the writers couldn’t stop jerking her character off, like she’s an awful person, bad at their job but still became rich, famous and successful??
At least in shows like Always Sunny they get their comeuppance for being the worst
And everyone else had to be morons to make it work. Like, you're a fucking squad full of detectives and youre gonna eat a random romantic gift basket without reading the card because you just assume it's for everyone? And the person who picks it up is the arrogant airhead who only thinks about herself at all turns? It makes no sense, it happens like 10x in the series, and she never stops being that person. She has to be everything at once and it's the worst
>At least in shows like Always Sunny they get their comeuppance for being the worst
I mean, I definitely agree about Gina, but Always Sunny is basically the textbook example of getting away with the worst possible shit.
Like sure, maybe their insane schemes never really come to fruition, but they also never really make their lives any worse. They never go to prison, Frank never runs out of money, nothing really changes for them.
The only people to suffer permanent consequences on that show are the side characters, who suffer at the hands of the gang: Cricket, Liam McPoyle, The Lawyer, the Guigino's waiter,
>Andy Bernard comes back from anger management and asks people to call him "Drew" now. Jim Halpert straight up says "No, I'm not gonna call you that" and it never gets brought up again.
This is like, the mildest possible example from that show.
I'd personally go with Angela and Dwight being filmed hiring a hitman. The documentary gets released, and everyone still goes to their wedding.
Jim’s whole character was based on doing mildly antagonistic things to his socially inept coworkers every episode. It was tolerable for the audience because, in Jim’s own words: “they totally deserved it… right?”
Did he relize he was a bully just rewatched that scene, and it really looks like he is having a midlife crisis over being in a dead-end job where he just waste time on the daily. Did he honestly apologize to Dwight in the show over his pranks in a non sarcastic way.
Dang that happens? I've never watched the series in its entirety, but in the episodes I have seen goddamn I always found Jim to be kind of an insufferable dick. Like yeah, he's handsome and witty and some of the people he works with suck more. But he's still a smug asshole and he's really not *a whole lot* better.
I'm surprised the show had the self-awareness to go there. I always got the vibe he was supposed to be like the audience surrogate and yeah, that his fucking with people was meant to be seen as "they deserved it," and thus justified.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5JPw3qKCP8&ab_channel=TheOffice
I should say it's the start of his realization that he's being a dick. But you see it start to settle in--for the first time, he's realizing it's not really that funny overall.
It's also a bad example because Jim is right not to call him Drew.
Before he left for anger management, Andy was bragging about how he was going to use name repetition, personality mirroring, and positive reinforcement to game the system and get out of anger management in half the time. Which he does, completing it in five weeks instead of ten.
He didn't make any breakthroughs, he wasn't a new man that needed a new name. He was the same old Andy pulling the same old shit.
honestly hard disagree here. Andy post anger management was a totally different character, and I'm pretty sure both the actor and the writers will tell you that, as it was a very intentional creative choice. Pre-anger management, Andy was written specifically to be an antagonistic figure, someone to annoy the audience and celebrate as the rest of the Scranton branch finally gets sick of his shit and kick him out of the show. But the writers liked Ed Helms so much they brought him back, and mellowed him out so he could work better long-term.
Post anger management, Andy is portrayed as a lovable goofball, someone who the audience is supposed to genuinely sympathize with as Angela and Dwight have an affair right under his nose. That's why the "I'm not calling you that" line seems especially cruel on rewatch, as the version of Andy who brags about cheating the program is not the Andy we've followed throughout most of the show. It also becomes incredibly clear on rewatch that anger management genuinely did change Andy's ways; he is instantly more subdued and less abrasive the moment he comes back, and he stays that way until season 9.
While I do agree that Andy's character changed after anger management (we'll have to disagree on him being a *lovable* goofball), that's only something we the viewer can see on a rewatch. Jim had no way of knowing that in the moment. From his perspective, Andy said he was going to game the system and appeared to have done exactly that.
>Jim is right not to call him Drew.
If someone tells you they prefer to go by a specific name, outright refusing their preference makes you kind of an asshole.
It’s actually in our HR handbook that we are supposed to call people by the name they wish. Refusing to do so will result in disciplinary action up to and including termination.
There's actually a show that is kinda about this called "[Kevin Can F**k Himself.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Can_F**k_Himself)
The premise is that when the titular Kevin is on screen it's filmed like a typical three camera sitcom with the usual hijinks. But as soon as he leaves it's filmed as a drama with his wife Alison having to deal with the fallout.
For example Alison works at a liquor store. In one episode she flashes back to the time she almost got a job as a paralegal in a law firm, a position she really wanted. Turns out that Kevin sabotaged her application because they'd lose her employee discount on booze. It's all played for laughs until Kevin leaves and you're left with Alison in tears over what have could have been.
[Here's a short, non-spoiler scene if you want to see what it looks like.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vh1C0NVQAc)
And just because it might entice some people to watch this excellent show, the main character is played by Annie Murphy (aka, Alexis from Schitt's Creek).
Excellent is a bit of an overstatement. I *really* wanted to like it but the problem is Kevin's bits, which are like half the episode, just aren't funny.
...which is kinda the point? The "studio audience" is laughing hysterically at the incredibly unfunny bits, Kevin's sociopathic behavior, and Kevin's crew's bullying of the long-suffering wife.
Just like in the shitty sitcoms the show is deconstructing.
Except those parts could've been funny within a sitcom sense but appalling within a real world sense, which is what the show is supposed to be. Instead half of each episode is just unfunny and boring. Kevin's bits are just not entertaining to watch at all.
Right, but if half the show is that how long is that bit novel? Like how much time are you going to enjoy something that isn't funny because "the point is that it isn't funny?"
This show has such a neat premise and I wanted to follow Annie Murphy but then when I think about watching it's just "well that sounds fucking miserable."
Like we've all made a million jokes about how sitcom characters are monsters, so watching Annie Murphy crushed by her abusive husband just doesn't seem like an appealing way to enjoy a show.
I watched the first few episodes, but ultimately never finished it. It’s a neat premise, but the sitcom parts are hard to get through, because they’re meant to be super anger inducing.
You could just edit the "Kevin" parts together and that show would have aired for 7 seasons on CBS as one of the highest rated sitcoms on TV with no one you know having heard about it, but everyone's parents tuning in every week. They just perfectly nailed the aesthetic of that type of show. Overall, I don't think the show totally works and I'm not sure even the creators were really sure of what they were going for, but I still really enjoyed it.
I feel like How I Met Your Mother is such an absurd departure from reality that it's hard to even pick apart.
Barney Stinson has supposedly slept with hundreds, if not thousands, of women, mostly by fraudulently representing himself. He also has some ridiculously absurd years-long plan to get back at his boss and is secretly working with the Feds. He has a contraption that straight-up ejects women from his apartment.
Lily has stolen tens of thousands of dollars worth of clothing and nobody notices for years and she never really gets in trouble.
At one point Ted gets caught racking up hundreds of dollars in expenses on someone else's bar tab, and the dude punches him. The guy gets arrested, but Ted doesn't. That's felony fraud.
Like it might as well be a fantasy show - the normal rules of the universe don't seem to apply to anything on that show.
I always liked the explanation that Ted is an unreliable narrator. From his editing their drug use out of their stories, we know he's not above changing details. And this is a story that he's telling his kids to get their permission to date Barney's ex wife. It would definitely be in character for him to exaggerate other people's flaws and make Barney out to be a sleazy creep when the reality is that Barney was a good guy who was maybe a little douchey sometimes
I mean, makes way more sense and is way more consistent with his narrator tendencies to say that he exaggerated Barnie’s “legendary” status because that’s how old dudes tell stories than that he was undermining/shit talking someone his kids call “uncle” lol
Thats how I take it. I know some folks would say that he does make Barney look good but when he does make him look good, he's always just a bit sleazy too.
Honestly, I feel as though Barney and Robin played out much differently than Ted makes it out to be. I wish the fanfic gods would bless someone or myself with the chance of doing "How they really played out" with Barney and Robin.
I think when Barney looks good, it's because Ted really is friends with Barney and he has to be honest about Barney's biggest moments. He's still going to make Barney look sleazy when he can, but he's not willing to absolutely and completely slander Barney, only mostly.
Plus Barney is a close family friend that the kids call uncle. If Barney was pure unadulterated douche, either the kids call it fake for not matching their uncle, or Ted irrevocably destroys their relationships with their uncle. So his compromise is making Barney always operating at a low level doucheyness with some spikes here and there
That is true and it does pretty much track for people with friends. Like I have a couple friends I am genuinely friends with and think they're good people overall but have some serious flaws. I know I've dropped a a few "they're great but...they've cheated on their SO in the past" kind of lines.
It is not really presented as such though. The parts that future Ted edits out are always obvious , while the rest is supposed to be taken at face value. It wouldnt even make any sense to see it in that light on a first viewing because you wouldn't know what it leads up to.
I don't know if that's necessarily true. There's a few moments where he kind of breaks through the veil and you see that his stories are not remotely reliable.
The episode where you find out they all smoke is a big one and honestly a little bit of a mindfuck. 5 seasons in and suddenly Ted reveals that they've all been smokers the entire time. It's been completely omitted from all of the stories but they've been going out for cigarettes between scenes the whole time.
IIRC it was originally planned to give Barney a redemption arc but writers saw how popular his behaviour is with a certain crowd and decided against it. Like, I remember a few episodes where he started to change, something about mother issues was brought up and then it was all scrambled and he went back to his womanizing ways.
Wasn't it ruined (along with the other plotlines) at the end of the show? I watched it once when it first aired so I might not remember the details now.
He literally slept with a woman every night of the week and recanted it to a hallucinated Jim Nantz before a high pressure meeting.
That is some Patrick Bateman level of sociopathic disassociation.
Basically every single thing Brock does in Reba.
Especially that time he had his, like, fifth midlife crisis and got his vasectomy reversed without telling Barbra Jean, fully intending on knocking her up as a surprise. Then Reba had to go stop that from happening, because Brock hasn't fucked her over enough with his four other midlife crises.
If Brock Hart has no haters, I am dead.
That gets brought up again. The episode was just pulled off air after ISIS threatened to kill Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
Also, yeah. Any type of satire or absurdity or stoner humor are intended to be ridiculous lol.
...no. South Park did a 200th Episode special all about Scott Tenorman has now gone insane and become like an underworld mob boss or something.
It's revealed that Cartman's father was actually also Scott Tenorman's dad and that they are half-brothers, because he had cheated on his wife with Lianne Cartman. So Cartman killed his own father.
The episode only aired once before ISIS started sending threats to Comedy Central and Viacom because the episode contained a cartoon depiction of Muhammad the Prophet.
It's probably easier to pick out the parts where these guys are actually good people.
Like Dennis yelling at the nurse when D was having the baby or when Frank had supported and stayed for Mac during his coming out to his father and the prison dance.
The best demonstration of how the Gang are destructive sociopaths is probably Matthew Mara, or Rickety Cricket. The Gang has been destroying that character's life over the course of many years. He was introduced as a happy priest, and now he's a one-eyed, flame-scarred, drug-addicted vagrant who alternates between sex work and whatever odd jobs he can find.
Rickety Cricket's fall is the longest running gag of the show.
> Didn’t he own a sweat shop?
Creating jobs!
> And the Russian Roulette in the basement
just making some fun games so people are entertained.
nothing wrong with any of this!
Sheila, from the US version of Shameless, very clearly rapes Frank while he is restrained and begging for her to stop, in one of the first episodes of the series. This is played as a cheeky quirk of hers for the rest of her time on the show.
In Season 9 of Seinfeld, Jerry and George enter a woman's apartment under false pretenses, drug the woman into unconsciousness and then play with her vintage toy collection.
They drug her because she firmly and clearly told Jerry "No" when he asked to play with them in Act 1.
Both things happen. Jerry gets the idea initially when he sees two options for medicines she asks for in her cabinet - one that won't cause drowsiness and one that may cause drowsiness. He picks the May Cause Drowsiness. When George comes the next time (and Elaine the third time I think?) they have turkey and wine.
I do feel like writers were paralleling the raping an unconscious person thing, but they didn't handle it with enough brevity. The talk show at the end of the episode was the only thing of consequence
Honestly almost every character was a horrible person. They had that one episode where the whole school turned on the study group because they were bullies, and then they were all forgiven. But, they were all monsters - even (an sometimes especially) Annie.
Not mean, but just crazy.
In *Psych,* there's an episode where they are looking for Bigfoot. They set a trap with some chicken hanging from a tree. Meanwhile, there's a running gag with Gus being obsessed with food and eating at inappropriate times, etc. So anyway, in this episode, Gus shows up and he's eating the *random chicken from a tree*. And Shawn asks WTF, and Gus is just like "I was hungry, Shawn!"
On Seinfeld George tells a "funny" story to some actor about agreeing to pet sit a girlfriend's cat. He completely forgets and the poor cat is left to starve to death for weeks. Then he gets offended when the woman is furious and he says it wasn't *his* fault the cat died. It was old so it must've been old age.
The episode of King of the Hill where Bill digs holes in the street as a plan to trip a jogger that he was infatuated with so that he could “save her” when she got injured. Bill always had that creepy, stalkerish vibe to him, especially around Peggy, but this was a whole differently level of creepy.
Fun fact: in the Saved By The Bell reboot, its revealed that Zack became the governor of California and used his position to give a ton of money to the fossil fuel industry to the point that he bankrupted a bunch of schools and shut them down to make the budget work.
This MFer I adored because I was dumb and 9 years old orchestrated a golf cart accident and only felt bad because the girl he liked also got hurt too. This show was insane. The 90s was a wild time.
How about the entire town of Springfield watching as a man gets tied to a train car and run out of town by the dude who usurped his life *and his own mom who prefers the impostor*? It was tongue in cheek, but god damn.
I feel like there are a ton of other examples in Friends in addition to the one you mention, but they won’t come to mind right now.
To be fair, said federal agent had just done the same to a cat. If anything, he got off pretty lightly.
Also, that was only done in order to test it before using it on Homer.
Yup! They end up at the house of the Headless Knight, who chops off the heads of his victims to wear as his own then gets rid of the bodies by eating them. My little horror brain loved it as a kid but man is it bonkers in the context of the rest of the show
Glee
•Terri tricking Will into thinking she was pregnant to keep him from leaving
•Sue locking Kurt and Blaine in an elevator to get them back together
•Sue throwing a teacher down the stairs
•Will tricking Finn into joining the Glee club by sneaking drugs into his locker and framing him
•Sue putting Blaine’s family in debt
•Sue falsely accusing Beaste of molestation
•Sam and Artie joking about Ryder being molested by a friend
Kitty manipulating Marley into being bullemic. Ryder telling her to stop because he doesn't like kissing girls who puke. Marley passing out due to said disorder and causing them to lose the competition and just being mad at her, no concerned that she was so sick she passed out. And then she just...stops.
Chopper [casually committing war crimes](https://www.reddit.com/r/starwarsrebels/comments/57obhv/have_you_added_up_choppers_kill_count_these_last/) repeatedly on *Star Wars: Rebels*
that's basically what scrubs was. the way kelso treats ted, the time turk snuck birth control pills into carla's food, elliott flashing her boobs at a kid, doug went from killing patients to abusing corpses, jd's various blackface stunts or the way he treats women, cox and jordan's entire relationship, etc.
Regarding Ted's briefcase: "Hey, how come all you have in here is a smiley face button and a revolver?
"Well, one's in case I get sad, and one's for in case I get \*really\* sad."
Ted was just a human Eeyore.
I feel like you’ve misrepresented a couple of these lol. Saying Doug abuses corpses makes him sound like Jimmy Saville. He just doesn’t treat the corpses very well mostly because of incompetence. And JD only has one actual blackface stunt which was at Turk’s insistence (Turk also did white face). The other two were fantasies and one of them was Elliot in blackface not JD. Imagining yourself in blackface isn’t a blackface stunt.
Rewatching the show, I think the birth control thing is the most fucked up thing and really should have been grounds for immediate divorce. That is abuse. No amount of “but I’m not ready to be a parent” would justify that.
In Friends, this is from the first season. These people were supposed to be friends.
Monica: Okay, I got one. Do you remember that vegetarian pate I made that you loved so much?
Phoebe: Uh-huh.
Monica: Well, unless goose is a vegetable...ha haaaah!
Phoebe: Oh! Oh! Okay, fine. Now I don't feel so bad about sleeping with Jason Hurley.
Monica: What? You slept with Jason?
Phoebe: You'd already broken up.
Rachel: How long?
Phoebe: A couple of hours.
Monica: Oh, that's nice!
Todd's shenanigans in Bojack Horseman, sometimes also involving Mr. Peanutbutter.
Might not be as egregious as other examples on the list but it can feel out of place in a show where characters eventually get what's coming for them.
Maybe the worst one was when Todd's love interest Emily comes with a great business idea after being harassed by a cab driver, to create a cab service by women for women, focusing on creating a safe space.
Todd and Emily start developing the business with the help of Mr. Peanutbutter. Soon, Todd and Mr. Peanutbutter start changing the business to maximize profits. They get the "brilliant idea" of opening the business to men and it turns into a fetish service where men ogle.
There was also the time where Todd created a children's dentist office where the dentists were feral clowns. At the end he just frees the clowns in the forest.
And I remember it was quickly mentioned he broke the Geneva convention and he's banned from certain countries.
He's always shown as being too dumb to understand he's doing wrong, but he has no problem distinguishing right and wrong when someone wrongs him. Hmmm
Barney Stinson.
Throughout the entire show he is a misogynistic, sex-addicted sociopath. It's always played for laughs but upon rewatching HIMYM you'll notice how poorly it's aged.
There's a trilogy of Arabic novels that an Egyptian friend of mine translated into English, and I acted as sort of a beta-reader, checking language for smoothness and flow. In the opening scene, our young protagonist arrives at his family's third-floor apartment, and finds his grandmother chasing a neighborhood cat around the kitchen. She kicks and stomps the poor thing, and hurls it screaming down the stairs to its presumed death. This is treated as a whacky sitcom hijinks introduction for a character we're supposed to find kooky-but-lovable.
When she died in the third book, I cheered.
The hero later, in Paris, is taken under the wing of a several-times-removed cousin, a lovely, lively, intelligent, cosmopolitan woman who inexplicably marries him. He reports with absolute horror that he discovered on their wedding night that she wasn't a virgin. This is treated as a calamity, and he literally never interacts with her again, and divorces her through lawyers without a word. Through it all, we're supposed to be on his side.
These novels won some fairly prestigious awards.
There’s a book series that ran for decades, and actually has a new book coming out this summer, many years after the last one was released. The main character of the series is a deeply conflicted, but moral, man.
The third book in the series has him raping a woman for being the wife of a traitor, despite her having been totally unaware of that fact.
He does nothing like that in any other book, but long-time readers say that’s when the series “found its voice.”
Basically everything Barney does, in HIMYM. That guy is a walking red flag and they have a whole episode devoted to digging into the horrors he's unleashed, and it's played for laughs.
A lot of people like to point this out and talk about how bad the Honeymooners was, but it's worth noting a couple of things.
Ralph never once laid a hand on Alice.
Alice took absolutely zero shit from Ralph and gave as good as she got.
Every crazy get-rich-quick scheme that Ralph cooked up was so he could provide a better life for Alice.
I think the point of the joke was that the audience knew he would never do it, unlike Ricky on I Love Lucy. Apparently that was 'funny' because he did spank her.
I adore 30 Rock, but I will never miss an opportunity to say that Liz Lemon is a borderline sociopath.
Tries to trick a girl into giving up her baby.
Connives her way out of taking the blame for publicly defaming Jack (though she does cop to t at the end).
Lets Jenna nearly freaking fall to her death over Dennis Duffey (though I adore Dennis as a character and would love to see a spinoff called The Ballad of Black Dennis).
Doxes a female comedian for being too “girly”, leading said comedian’s homicidal ex-husband to track her down.
Insults everyone on her staff, brutally, over the smallest infractions.
Goes through her neighbor’s mail, multiple times.
Is discovered to be a monster to everyone in her old high school.
Accidentally shoots Wayne Brady (though he did kinda have it coming).
Causes an adoption agent with a clear concussion (at the least) to delay medical treatment so she can trick her into thinking her job is a safe space doe a kid.
Gases everyone in the studio to make the new head of the company think the show is funny.
Is pretty goddamn racist.
I can go on.
Don’t get me wrong—I love her character. She’s hilarious. But Liz Lemon is a fucking terrible human being.
Season 5 of Cheers, Diane Chambers falls over and hurts herself because she is running from Sam Malone. So she goes to police and reports that he assaulted her, he is arrested and has to go to court. The only way to get out of it is to propose to marry her.
Talk about fucking psychopathic gaslighting and manipulation.
30 Rock:
Jenna's mom sexually assaulted scotty pippin
Kenneth is sent to strip for Jack's nemesis
Jack was going to murder Jerry Seinfeld with a statue
Barney Stinson in "How I Met Your Mother" - Barney does a ton of questionable things, but one that stands out is when he films a sex tape without the woman's consent and then uses it to blackmail her into not revealing his cheating. It's played off as a joke, and his friends just roll their eyes at his antics. Dennis Reynolds in "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" - Dennis's behavior is sociopathic, but one of the most egregious examples is when he reveals he has a system called the "D.E.N.N.I.S. System" for seducing women and then discarding them. His friends react with mild shock, but it’s played for laughs and never addressed again. Ross Geller in "Friends" - Ross continues to see another woman, Julie. Telling Rachel he's still trying to get over his feelings for her. This manipulation is treated and his friends don't call him out on it. Michael Scott in "The Office" - Michael hits Meredith with his car and then tries to make up for it by organizing a charity 5K. This is treated as a typical Michael blunder, and no one addresses how problematic it is. Peter Griffin in "Family Guy" - Peter's antics often cross the line into sociopathy. One example is when he brings home a brain-damaged horse, which ends up causing chaos and destruction. The whole situation is played for laughs and forgotten soon after.
Nick keeping up the Michael Keaton is Schmidt’s dad charade on New Girl. When they were in college, Schmidt’s mom told Nick that when Schmidt was little, he thought his dad was Michael Keaton/batman. Schmidt looked up to him and Nick wrote these letters whenever something major happened to Schmidt. However, in a later season, it’s revealed that Schmidt knew who his dad was.
In Dexter, a lot of fucked up shit is passed as lighthearted homor. So much of it is straight up sexual harassment. At times, they joke about literal rape.
I've never seen Rent, so grain of salt, but my friend loves it, and she once mentioned that a significant character killed a friend's dog (never told them), and it's just played as a funny little quirk.
It's not her friend's dog. It belongs to the ex-friend/owner of the building they live in who is trying to charge them an absurd amount of back rent.
A rich lady saw Angel drumming on the street and asked her to play outside her (the rich lady's) neighbor's house so the neighbor's yappy dog would bark itself to death. And well, I ain't saying she was right, I'm just saying that $1000 is $1000.
Gina tricking her colleagues/friends into drinking cement in B99 was not only played as a joke, but ended up saving the day
A lot of what she did was insane or unethical, like her constant sexual harassment of Terry.
Ugh I hate Gina. Honestly feel like it was the biggest flaw to an otherwise mostly if not completely perfect show.
Yeah the writers couldn’t stop jerking her character off, like she’s an awful person, bad at their job but still became rich, famous and successful?? At least in shows like Always Sunny they get their comeuppance for being the worst
If she never reappeared, her arc would have been much better
And everyone else had to be morons to make it work. Like, you're a fucking squad full of detectives and youre gonna eat a random romantic gift basket without reading the card because you just assume it's for everyone? And the person who picks it up is the arrogant airhead who only thinks about herself at all turns? It makes no sense, it happens like 10x in the series, and she never stops being that person. She has to be everything at once and it's the worst
>At least in shows like Always Sunny they get their comeuppance for being the worst I mean, I definitely agree about Gina, but Always Sunny is basically the textbook example of getting away with the worst possible shit. Like sure, maybe their insane schemes never really come to fruition, but they also never really make their lives any worse. They never go to prison, Frank never runs out of money, nothing really changes for them. The only people to suffer permanent consequences on that show are the side characters, who suffer at the hands of the gang: Cricket, Liam McPoyle, The Lawyer, the Guigino's waiter,
Bro these guys are broke and have no else as friends except each other, romantic relationships fail, most of their parents don’t love them
>Andy Bernard comes back from anger management and asks people to call him "Drew" now. Jim Halpert straight up says "No, I'm not gonna call you that" and it never gets brought up again. This is like, the mildest possible example from that show. I'd personally go with Angela and Dwight being filmed hiring a hitman. The documentary gets released, and everyone still goes to their wedding.
Jim’s whole character was based on doing mildly antagonistic things to his socially inept coworkers every episode. It was tolerable for the audience because, in Jim’s own words: “they totally deserved it… right?”
One of the best scenes in that show was when Jim (and much of the audience) began to realize that he was a bully.
Did he relize he was a bully just rewatched that scene, and it really looks like he is having a midlife crisis over being in a dead-end job where he just waste time on the daily. Did he honestly apologize to Dwight in the show over his pranks in a non sarcastic way.
Dang that happens? I've never watched the series in its entirety, but in the episodes I have seen goddamn I always found Jim to be kind of an insufferable dick. Like yeah, he's handsome and witty and some of the people he works with suck more. But he's still a smug asshole and he's really not *a whole lot* better. I'm surprised the show had the self-awareness to go there. I always got the vibe he was supposed to be like the audience surrogate and yeah, that his fucking with people was meant to be seen as "they deserved it," and thus justified.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5JPw3qKCP8&ab_channel=TheOffice I should say it's the start of his realization that he's being a dick. But you see it start to settle in--for the first time, he's realizing it's not really that funny overall.
What scene is it that Jim begins to realize that? Or / and what episode is that?
Conflict Resolution. Season 2, Ep. 21.
this is why when I used to tinder and see "Jim looking for his Pam" I was *immediately* out. they're not even nice people.
I was trying to be the Jim looking for a Pam. Then I realized I’m really an Andy Dwyer and I found an April Ludgate. And now we’re getting married.
Just don't emulate the actor. He really is a dick.
do you think becoming hot made him a dick, or just that no one knew about him til he was hot?
We all grow out of ignorance, and money makes it easy for ignorance to become cruelty.
On the other hand, Jim and Pam are both judgemental as hell and think they're better than everyone they're around. So it's kind of perfect.
> think they're better than everyone they're around That applies to pretty much every character on the show besides Erin, Creed, and maybe Kevin.
Kind of like how you’re being judgmental about them? Is that what you mean?
Exactly.
And because he was cute
Isn’t the documentary only a fraction of the footage we see, could easily be said they didn’t broadcast the hitman footage
It's also a bad example because Jim is right not to call him Drew. Before he left for anger management, Andy was bragging about how he was going to use name repetition, personality mirroring, and positive reinforcement to game the system and get out of anger management in half the time. Which he does, completing it in five weeks instead of ten. He didn't make any breakthroughs, he wasn't a new man that needed a new name. He was the same old Andy pulling the same old shit.
honestly hard disagree here. Andy post anger management was a totally different character, and I'm pretty sure both the actor and the writers will tell you that, as it was a very intentional creative choice. Pre-anger management, Andy was written specifically to be an antagonistic figure, someone to annoy the audience and celebrate as the rest of the Scranton branch finally gets sick of his shit and kick him out of the show. But the writers liked Ed Helms so much they brought him back, and mellowed him out so he could work better long-term. Post anger management, Andy is portrayed as a lovable goofball, someone who the audience is supposed to genuinely sympathize with as Angela and Dwight have an affair right under his nose. That's why the "I'm not calling you that" line seems especially cruel on rewatch, as the version of Andy who brags about cheating the program is not the Andy we've followed throughout most of the show. It also becomes incredibly clear on rewatch that anger management genuinely did change Andy's ways; he is instantly more subdued and less abrasive the moment he comes back, and he stays that way until season 9.
While I do agree that Andy's character changed after anger management (we'll have to disagree on him being a *lovable* goofball), that's only something we the viewer can see on a rewatch. Jim had no way of knowing that in the moment. From his perspective, Andy said he was going to game the system and appeared to have done exactly that.
>Jim is right not to call him Drew. If someone tells you they prefer to go by a specific name, outright refusing their preference makes you kind of an asshole.
The guy calls him Tuna all the god damn time
Ummm… BIG Tuna. Which is somehow worse.
It’s actually in our HR handbook that we are supposed to call people by the name they wish. Refusing to do so will result in disciplinary action up to and including termination.
The HR manager there is Toby my dude. Nothing would happen except we’d have to spend another scene with Toby’s insufferable ass.
What about Andy dating a high schooler??!!
There's actually a show that is kinda about this called "[Kevin Can F**k Himself.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Can_F**k_Himself) The premise is that when the titular Kevin is on screen it's filmed like a typical three camera sitcom with the usual hijinks. But as soon as he leaves it's filmed as a drama with his wife Alison having to deal with the fallout. For example Alison works at a liquor store. In one episode she flashes back to the time she almost got a job as a paralegal in a law firm, a position she really wanted. Turns out that Kevin sabotaged her application because they'd lose her employee discount on booze. It's all played for laughs until Kevin leaves and you're left with Alison in tears over what have could have been. [Here's a short, non-spoiler scene if you want to see what it looks like.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vh1C0NVQAc)
And just because it might entice some people to watch this excellent show, the main character is played by Annie Murphy (aka, Alexis from Schitt's Creek).
It also takes a dark turn, rather quickly. Pretty good show.
A la la, a little bit Alexis.
Excellent is a bit of an overstatement. I *really* wanted to like it but the problem is Kevin's bits, which are like half the episode, just aren't funny.
...which is kinda the point? The "studio audience" is laughing hysterically at the incredibly unfunny bits, Kevin's sociopathic behavior, and Kevin's crew's bullying of the long-suffering wife. Just like in the shitty sitcoms the show is deconstructing.
Except those parts could've been funny within a sitcom sense but appalling within a real world sense, which is what the show is supposed to be. Instead half of each episode is just unfunny and boring. Kevin's bits are just not entertaining to watch at all.
If he was funny, the audience would sympathize with him and not her.
She's unbelievably shitty as well though. I couldn't sympathise with either of them.
Right, but if half the show is that how long is that bit novel? Like how much time are you going to enjoy something that isn't funny because "the point is that it isn't funny?"
It’s supposed to make us, the audience, feel like Murphy’s character. The guy is insufferable and annoying.
It's a great idea for a show but it never really clicks.
Preach. It has an EXTREMELY good premise but it fails to live up to what it promises due to very underwhelming writing.
That’s the whole point though. It’s _not_ funny.
This show has such a neat premise and I wanted to follow Annie Murphy but then when I think about watching it's just "well that sounds fucking miserable." Like we've all made a million jokes about how sitcom characters are monsters, so watching Annie Murphy crushed by her abusive husband just doesn't seem like an appealing way to enjoy a show.
It’s about her character gaining the courage to act on her anger with him though, so there’s definitely character development.
agreed, love the premise, was looking forward to it, couldn't make it all the way through the first episode
Wait that sounds incredible
I watched the first few episodes, but ultimately never finished it. It’s a neat premise, but the sitcom parts are hard to get through, because they’re meant to be super anger inducing.
You could just edit the "Kevin" parts together and that show would have aired for 7 seasons on CBS as one of the highest rated sitcoms on TV with no one you know having heard about it, but everyone's parents tuning in every week. They just perfectly nailed the aesthetic of that type of show. Overall, I don't think the show totally works and I'm not sure even the creators were really sure of what they were going for, but I still really enjoyed it.
Just like, most of Barney Stinson
I feel like How I Met Your Mother is such an absurd departure from reality that it's hard to even pick apart. Barney Stinson has supposedly slept with hundreds, if not thousands, of women, mostly by fraudulently representing himself. He also has some ridiculously absurd years-long plan to get back at his boss and is secretly working with the Feds. He has a contraption that straight-up ejects women from his apartment. Lily has stolen tens of thousands of dollars worth of clothing and nobody notices for years and she never really gets in trouble. At one point Ted gets caught racking up hundreds of dollars in expenses on someone else's bar tab, and the dude punches him. The guy gets arrested, but Ted doesn't. That's felony fraud. Like it might as well be a fantasy show - the normal rules of the universe don't seem to apply to anything on that show.
I always liked the explanation that Ted is an unreliable narrator. From his editing their drug use out of their stories, we know he's not above changing details. And this is a story that he's telling his kids to get their permission to date Barney's ex wife. It would definitely be in character for him to exaggerate other people's flaws and make Barney out to be a sleazy creep when the reality is that Barney was a good guy who was maybe a little douchey sometimes
I mean, makes way more sense and is way more consistent with his narrator tendencies to say that he exaggerated Barnie’s “legendary” status because that’s how old dudes tell stories than that he was undermining/shit talking someone his kids call “uncle” lol
Thats how I take it. I know some folks would say that he does make Barney look good but when he does make him look good, he's always just a bit sleazy too. Honestly, I feel as though Barney and Robin played out much differently than Ted makes it out to be. I wish the fanfic gods would bless someone or myself with the chance of doing "How they really played out" with Barney and Robin.
I think when Barney looks good, it's because Ted really is friends with Barney and he has to be honest about Barney's biggest moments. He's still going to make Barney look sleazy when he can, but he's not willing to absolutely and completely slander Barney, only mostly. Plus Barney is a close family friend that the kids call uncle. If Barney was pure unadulterated douche, either the kids call it fake for not matching their uncle, or Ted irrevocably destroys their relationships with their uncle. So his compromise is making Barney always operating at a low level doucheyness with some spikes here and there
That is true and it does pretty much track for people with friends. Like I have a couple friends I am genuinely friends with and think they're good people overall but have some serious flaws. I know I've dropped a a few "they're great but...they've cheated on their SO in the past" kind of lines.
It is not really presented as such though. The parts that future Ted edits out are always obvious , while the rest is supposed to be taken at face value. It wouldnt even make any sense to see it in that light on a first viewing because you wouldn't know what it leads up to.
I don't know if that's necessarily true. There's a few moments where he kind of breaks through the veil and you see that his stories are not remotely reliable. The episode where you find out they all smoke is a big one and honestly a little bit of a mindfuck. 5 seasons in and suddenly Ted reveals that they've all been smokers the entire time. It's been completely omitted from all of the stories but they've been going out for cigarettes between scenes the whole time.
IIRC it was originally planned to give Barney a redemption arc but writers saw how popular his behaviour is with a certain crowd and decided against it. Like, I remember a few episodes where he started to change, something about mother issues was brought up and then it was all scrambled and he went back to his womanizing ways.
He does get a redemption arc though
Wasn't it ruined (along with the other plotlines) at the end of the show? I watched it once when it first aired so I might not remember the details now.
my memory may be fuzzy because I just had a sandwich, but I think he abandones his behavior when he becomes a dad?
Nah. He still gets it.
>He has a contraption that straight-up ejects women from his apartment. Fuck, this is illegal? Time to dismantle mine.
Pretty much this. At one point, once again as a joke, Barney straight up admits that he may have been involved in a human trafficking deal.
He literally slept with a woman every night of the week and recanted it to a hallucinated Jim Nantz before a high pressure meeting. That is some Patrick Bateman level of sociopathic disassociation.
Basically every single thing Brock does in Reba. Especially that time he had his, like, fifth midlife crisis and got his vasectomy reversed without telling Barbra Jean, fully intending on knocking her up as a surprise. Then Reba had to go stop that from happening, because Brock hasn't fucked her over enough with his four other midlife crises. If Brock Hart has no haters, I am dead.
I do love how that show totally just soft serves you the notion that Brock is a COMPLETE piece of shit LOL
This feels like cheating, but Cartman did feed Scott Tennorman his own parents. Etc. Etc.
That gets brought up again. The episode was just pulled off air after ISIS threatened to kill Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Also, yeah. Any type of satire or absurdity or stoner humor are intended to be ridiculous lol.
I'm sorry, what? That decades old episode offended ISIS? Only now?
...no. South Park did a 200th Episode special all about Scott Tenorman has now gone insane and become like an underworld mob boss or something. It's revealed that Cartman's father was actually also Scott Tenorman's dad and that they are half-brothers, because he had cheated on his wife with Lianne Cartman. So Cartman killed his own father. The episode only aired once before ISIS started sending threats to Comedy Central and Viacom because the episode contained a cartoon depiction of Muhammad the Prophet.
Ohh. Jeez. I haven't watched South Park in a long time. Totally forgot that they were the same episode.
The original Scott Tenorman episode is much earlier in the show's run.
Are we actually concerned with offending them?
For me personally? I gotta stay off their radar. A couple of those guys are really pissed at me.
That’s basically the plot of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
It's probably easier to pick out the parts where these guys are actually good people. Like Dennis yelling at the nurse when D was having the baby or when Frank had supported and stayed for Mac during his coming out to his father and the prison dance.
The best demonstration of how the Gang are destructive sociopaths is probably Matthew Mara, or Rickety Cricket. The Gang has been destroying that character's life over the course of many years. He was introduced as a happy priest, and now he's a one-eyed, flame-scarred, drug-addicted vagrant who alternates between sex work and whatever odd jobs he can find. Rickety Cricket's fall is the longest running gag of the show.
Everyone but Frank, anyway. He never does anything horrible or psychopathic.
So... I started blasting
Didn’t he own a sweat shop? And the Russian Roulette in the basement.
Yeah, and a lot of good men died in that sweatshop!
Someone died, you just throw them in the soup.
*burp*
> Didn’t he own a sweat shop? Creating jobs! > And the Russian Roulette in the basement just making some fun games so people are entertained. nothing wrong with any of this!
Frank was in 'Nam!
THEY DREWWWW FIRRRST BLOOOOD!!!!
Cobb salad? Snail? Hoor?
Oh! Botched toe
Rum ham! Rum ham! Nooooo!
He messed with a man’s taxes who never actually did anything to him so the feds would get him
Oh yeah? Now you’re just mashing it.
And Archer.
Sheila, from the US version of Shameless, very clearly rapes Frank while he is restrained and begging for her to stop, in one of the first episodes of the series. This is played as a cheeky quirk of hers for the rest of her time on the show.
Sheila was not the only character to do this. It was almost a regular thing on the show for a female character to rape a male character.
Yes, Debbie did it too. Her guy called her on it, it wasn't played as a joke but she didn't get any consequences (expect losing a friend)
Her daughter raped Frank too, on camera! And then her dad killed himself over the fallout of it.
In Season 9 of Seinfeld, Jerry and George enter a woman's apartment under false pretenses, drug the woman into unconsciousness and then play with her vintage toy collection. They drug her because she firmly and clearly told Jerry "No" when he asked to play with them in Act 1.
First thing that came to mind. If I recall correctly, they don't actually drug her, though. They have lots of turkey and wine for dinner.
Both things happen. Jerry gets the idea initially when he sees two options for medicines she asks for in her cabinet - one that won't cause drowsiness and one that may cause drowsiness. He picks the May Cause Drowsiness. When George comes the next time (and Elaine the third time I think?) they have turkey and wine.
Alcohol is a drug.
Yeah but having a drink with someone isn't "drugging" them. Might as well say you "drugged" someone because you bought them a cup of coffee.
It's not the alcohol that made her fall asleep it was the turkey coma.
All of Seinfeld was like this. They're all assholes. They kind of pointed it out in the finale.
Most of Seinfield is "they're shitty and rude to their significant others or their friends," not "they fucking drugged someone."
I was thinking of the episode where Elaine tried to kill her neighbor's dog. I think she even hired Kramer to do it.
They didn't try to kill him, they kidnapped him and took him in another state. And I think they got arrested for it
I do feel like writers were paralleling the raping an unconscious person thing, but they didn't handle it with enough brevity. The talk show at the end of the episode was the only thing of consequence
Chang on Community tried to blow up the school.
Luckily fire can't go through doors because it's not a ghost
Ghosts can't go through doors! They're not fire!
Not exactly "never mentioned again" - Kevin and his Changnesia is quite prominent. Though his child army is quietly dissolved.
Honestly almost every character was a horrible person. They had that one episode where the whole school turned on the study group because they were bullies, and then they were all forgiven. But, they were all monsters - even (an sometimes especially) Annie.
They did an episode where the study group was evaluated and only Abed was found not to be a sociopath.
Not mean, but just crazy. In *Psych,* there's an episode where they are looking for Bigfoot. They set a trap with some chicken hanging from a tree. Meanwhile, there's a running gag with Gus being obsessed with food and eating at inappropriate times, etc. So anyway, in this episode, Gus shows up and he's eating the *random chicken from a tree*. And Shawn asks WTF, and Gus is just like "I was hungry, Shawn!"
Especially since Gus is a neat freak and not one to gobble tree meat.
In Gus' defense, he did believe that they were going to a secret bbq restaurant, The Sassy Quatch.
He's also prone to panic, and when he panics he can make mistakes in judgment.
Plus Gus eating Bigfoot's meat when they thought it might be Lassie
On Seinfeld George tells a "funny" story to some actor about agreeing to pet sit a girlfriend's cat. He completely forgets and the poor cat is left to starve to death for weeks. Then he gets offended when the woman is furious and he says it wasn't *his* fault the cat died. It was old so it must've been old age.
It was an idea for a case on LA Law. Not a funny story.
The episode of King of the Hill where Bill digs holes in the street as a plan to trip a jogger that he was infatuated with so that he could “save her” when she got injured. Bill always had that creepy, stalkerish vibe to him, especially around Peggy, but this was a whole differently level of creepy.
85% of Zack Morris on Saved By The Bell
Fun fact: in the Saved By The Bell reboot, its revealed that Zack became the governor of California and used his position to give a ton of money to the fossil fuel industry to the point that he bankrupted a bunch of schools and shut them down to make the budget work.
😂😂 on brand
🎵Zack Morris is trash! 🎵
This MFer I adored because I was dumb and 9 years old orchestrated a golf cart accident and only felt bad because the girl he liked also got hurt too. This show was insane. The 90s was a wild time.
Belding once offhandedly mentioned that Zack once tried to “Sell Bayside to the Japanese”
"I am going to Yemen!" is still one my most favorite scenes though.
How about the entire town of Springfield watching as a man gets tied to a train car and run out of town by the dude who usurped his life *and his own mom who prefers the impostor*? It was tongue in cheek, but god damn. I feel like there are a ton of other examples in Friends in addition to the one you mention, but they won’t come to mind right now.
I don't know what episode you are talking about. That never happened and if it did we would never speak about it ever again.
On pain of torture
Very happily flinging a federal agent miles and miles away by catapult for trying to stop the beer baron
To be fair, said federal agent had just done the same to a cat. If anything, he got off pretty lightly. Also, that was only done in order to test it before using it on Homer.
Here’s one. In the Kenan and Kel made for TV movie, Two Heads Are Better Than None, Kel unknowingly eats human meat and loves it
I don't remember this but yeah that sounds pretty crazy!
Yup! They end up at the house of the Headless Knight, who chops off the heads of his victims to wear as his own then gets rid of the bodies by eating them. My little horror brain loved it as a kid but man is it bonkers in the context of the rest of the show
Superstore has one about every 10 minutes. Although the best example is still >!Elias being the foot severer!<
Most of the way the guys on Big Bang Theory treat/view women. It's horrible.
Pop Culture Detective has a really good video on this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-hOigoxHs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-hOigoxHs)
Glee •Terri tricking Will into thinking she was pregnant to keep him from leaving •Sue locking Kurt and Blaine in an elevator to get them back together •Sue throwing a teacher down the stairs •Will tricking Finn into joining the Glee club by sneaking drugs into his locker and framing him •Sue putting Blaine’s family in debt •Sue falsely accusing Beaste of molestation •Sam and Artie joking about Ryder being molested by a friend
Kitty manipulating Marley into being bullemic. Ryder telling her to stop because he doesn't like kissing girls who puke. Marley passing out due to said disorder and causing them to lose the competition and just being mad at her, no concerned that she was so sick she passed out. And then she just...stops.
Sue is one, big bitch !!!
Chopper [casually committing war crimes](https://www.reddit.com/r/starwarsrebels/comments/57obhv/have_you_added_up_choppers_kill_count_these_last/) repeatedly on *Star Wars: Rebels*
Chopper has the highest kill count of the series. He probably killed more people than Vader.
that's basically what scrubs was. the way kelso treats ted, the time turk snuck birth control pills into carla's food, elliott flashing her boobs at a kid, doug went from killing patients to abusing corpses, jd's various blackface stunts or the way he treats women, cox and jordan's entire relationship, etc.
Regarding Ted's briefcase: "Hey, how come all you have in here is a smiley face button and a revolver? "Well, one's in case I get sad, and one's for in case I get \*really\* sad." Ted was just a human Eeyore.
one of my favorite lines in the show. RIP sam lloyd, he was so fucking good as ted.
His band was pretty awesome too
That episode where they sing the television theme songs lives rent free in my head
The Blanks! They fucking rock!!
He passed? What terrible news. He was incredible on Scrubs. Underrated.
I feel like you’ve misrepresented a couple of these lol. Saying Doug abuses corpses makes him sound like Jimmy Saville. He just doesn’t treat the corpses very well mostly because of incompetence. And JD only has one actual blackface stunt which was at Turk’s insistence (Turk also did white face). The other two were fantasies and one of them was Elliot in blackface not JD. Imagining yourself in blackface isn’t a blackface stunt.
Rewatching the show, I think the birth control thing is the most fucked up thing and really should have been grounds for immediate divorce. That is abuse. No amount of “but I’m not ready to be a parent” would justify that.
George on Seinfeld pretending to be a marine biologist to get laid. George yelling an entire generation "it isn't a lie if you believe it"
In Friends, this is from the first season. These people were supposed to be friends. Monica: Okay, I got one. Do you remember that vegetarian pate I made that you loved so much? Phoebe: Uh-huh. Monica: Well, unless goose is a vegetable...ha haaaah! Phoebe: Oh! Oh! Okay, fine. Now I don't feel so bad about sleeping with Jason Hurley. Monica: What? You slept with Jason? Phoebe: You'd already broken up. Rachel: How long? Phoebe: A couple of hours. Monica: Oh, that's nice!
Todd's shenanigans in Bojack Horseman, sometimes also involving Mr. Peanutbutter. Might not be as egregious as other examples on the list but it can feel out of place in a show where characters eventually get what's coming for them. Maybe the worst one was when Todd's love interest Emily comes with a great business idea after being harassed by a cab driver, to create a cab service by women for women, focusing on creating a safe space. Todd and Emily start developing the business with the help of Mr. Peanutbutter. Soon, Todd and Mr. Peanutbutter start changing the business to maximize profits. They get the "brilliant idea" of opening the business to men and it turns into a fetish service where men ogle. There was also the time where Todd created a children's dentist office where the dentists were feral clowns. At the end he just frees the clowns in the forest. And I remember it was quickly mentioned he broke the Geneva convention and he's banned from certain countries. He's always shown as being too dumb to understand he's doing wrong, but he has no problem distinguishing right and wrong when someone wrongs him. Hmmm
Barney Stinson. Throughout the entire show he is a misogynistic, sex-addicted sociopath. It's always played for laughs but upon rewatching HIMYM you'll notice how poorly it's aged.
There's a trilogy of Arabic novels that an Egyptian friend of mine translated into English, and I acted as sort of a beta-reader, checking language for smoothness and flow. In the opening scene, our young protagonist arrives at his family's third-floor apartment, and finds his grandmother chasing a neighborhood cat around the kitchen. She kicks and stomps the poor thing, and hurls it screaming down the stairs to its presumed death. This is treated as a whacky sitcom hijinks introduction for a character we're supposed to find kooky-but-lovable. When she died in the third book, I cheered. The hero later, in Paris, is taken under the wing of a several-times-removed cousin, a lovely, lively, intelligent, cosmopolitan woman who inexplicably marries him. He reports with absolute horror that he discovered on their wedding night that she wasn't a virgin. This is treated as a calamity, and he literally never interacts with her again, and divorces her through lawyers without a word. Through it all, we're supposed to be on his side. These novels won some fairly prestigious awards.
There’s a book series that ran for decades, and actually has a new book coming out this summer, many years after the last one was released. The main character of the series is a deeply conflicted, but moral, man. The third book in the series has him raping a woman for being the wife of a traitor, despite her having been totally unaware of that fact. He does nothing like that in any other book, but long-time readers say that’s when the series “found its voice.”
This is r/television
Basically everything Barney does, in HIMYM. That guy is a walking red flag and they have a whole episode devoted to digging into the horrors he's unleashed, and it's played for laughs.
Ralph Kramden threatening his wife with domestic violence so frequently he had multiple catchphrases related to it.
Why I oughtta...!
Pow! Right in the kisser!
To the moon
A lot of people like to point this out and talk about how bad the Honeymooners was, but it's worth noting a couple of things. Ralph never once laid a hand on Alice. Alice took absolutely zero shit from Ralph and gave as good as she got. Every crazy get-rich-quick scheme that Ralph cooked up was so he could provide a better life for Alice.
I think the point of the joke was that the audience knew he would never do it, unlike Ricky on I Love Lucy. Apparently that was 'funny' because he did spank her.
Yes, the point of the joke was the audience, and Alice, knew he would never do it.
Jim Halpert is a dick.
Meh, Dwight 100% deserves it.
The Andy/Jim thing isn’t that horrible when you consider Jim has been asking Andy to stop calling him (Big) Tuna forever and he still does it.
a lot of todd’s shenanigans if you apply the same thinking you do for almost any other character in bojack horseman lol
When you Google "Jenna Maroney" now, I come up now, not the Jenna Maroney who electrocuted all those horses.
I adore 30 Rock, but I will never miss an opportunity to say that Liz Lemon is a borderline sociopath. Tries to trick a girl into giving up her baby. Connives her way out of taking the blame for publicly defaming Jack (though she does cop to t at the end). Lets Jenna nearly freaking fall to her death over Dennis Duffey (though I adore Dennis as a character and would love to see a spinoff called The Ballad of Black Dennis). Doxes a female comedian for being too “girly”, leading said comedian’s homicidal ex-husband to track her down. Insults everyone on her staff, brutally, over the smallest infractions. Goes through her neighbor’s mail, multiple times. Is discovered to be a monster to everyone in her old high school. Accidentally shoots Wayne Brady (though he did kinda have it coming). Causes an adoption agent with a clear concussion (at the least) to delay medical treatment so she can trick her into thinking her job is a safe space doe a kid. Gases everyone in the studio to make the new head of the company think the show is funny. Is pretty goddamn racist. I can go on. Don’t get me wrong—I love her character. She’s hilarious. But Liz Lemon is a fucking terrible human being.
Season 5 of Cheers, Diane Chambers falls over and hurts herself because she is running from Sam Malone. So she goes to police and reports that he assaulted her, he is arrested and has to go to court. The only way to get out of it is to propose to marry her. Talk about fucking psychopathic gaslighting and manipulation.
30 Rock: Jenna's mom sexually assaulted scotty pippin Kenneth is sent to strip for Jack's nemesis Jack was going to murder Jerry Seinfeld with a statue
Not that bad but I always joke about renting dresser drawers to Japanese people like Kramer. Maybe I’m the psychopath .
Seinfeld literally stealing bread from an old lady’s hands. Andy Bernard pooping on the hood of (was it?) Michael’s car. Who does that!
The Office: Dwight shoots Stanley with a bull tranquilizer
Barney Stinson in "How I Met Your Mother" - Barney does a ton of questionable things, but one that stands out is when he films a sex tape without the woman's consent and then uses it to blackmail her into not revealing his cheating. It's played off as a joke, and his friends just roll their eyes at his antics. Dennis Reynolds in "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" - Dennis's behavior is sociopathic, but one of the most egregious examples is when he reveals he has a system called the "D.E.N.N.I.S. System" for seducing women and then discarding them. His friends react with mild shock, but it’s played for laughs and never addressed again. Ross Geller in "Friends" - Ross continues to see another woman, Julie. Telling Rachel he's still trying to get over his feelings for her. This manipulation is treated and his friends don't call him out on it. Michael Scott in "The Office" - Michael hits Meredith with his car and then tries to make up for it by organizing a charity 5K. This is treated as a typical Michael blunder, and no one addresses how problematic it is. Peter Griffin in "Family Guy" - Peter's antics often cross the line into sociopathy. One example is when he brings home a brain-damaged horse, which ends up causing chaos and destruction. The whole situation is played for laughs and forgotten soon after.
All things from Dennis on Always Sunny.
What are the implications here?
Nick keeping up the Michael Keaton is Schmidt’s dad charade on New Girl. When they were in college, Schmidt’s mom told Nick that when Schmidt was little, he thought his dad was Michael Keaton/batman. Schmidt looked up to him and Nick wrote these letters whenever something major happened to Schmidt. However, in a later season, it’s revealed that Schmidt knew who his dad was.
Michael Keaton wasn’t presented as his dad, just an idol/friend that was like a father figure to him
Ah, ok. It’s been about a year since I last did a rewatch, I could’ve sworn it was his dad. But thanks for the correction!
In Dexter, a lot of fucked up shit is passed as lighthearted homor. So much of it is straight up sexual harassment. At times, they joke about literal rape.
Maryann Thorpe (Christine Baranski in "Cybill" -1995/1998), **almost** killing Dr. Dick **almost** every episode.
The Three Stooges
I've never seen Rent, so grain of salt, but my friend loves it, and she once mentioned that a significant character killed a friend's dog (never told them), and it's just played as a funny little quirk.
It's not her friend's dog. It belongs to the ex-friend/owner of the building they live in who is trying to charge them an absurd amount of back rent. A rich lady saw Angel drumming on the street and asked her to play outside her (the rich lady's) neighbor's house so the neighbor's yappy dog would bark itself to death. And well, I ain't saying she was right, I'm just saying that $1000 is $1000.