Gitana Duka

Thank you! I totally agree – we need more varied representation across television and media as a whole!

That’s a really interesting comment Melina! I do agree that Jesse is the heart and soul of Breaking Bad, despite being ‘the bad guy’ himself. However the reason why I didn’t include these redemptive side kicks in the article itself is because there are examples – Boardwalk Empire comes to mind – where a show has succeeded without the presence of these kinds of characters redeeming the protagonist.

I think it truly depends from show to show!

Cheers Nick – it’s a sign of a good writer when the audience relates to the characters doing terrible things, as opposed to the others who are doing the right things for the right reasons.

Exactly! As an audience we identify more with multi-dimensional characters, after all how complicated is the normal human? Hopefully the success of this trend will encourage networks to push the boundaries further and further.

Cheers! And that’s very true – having multiple seasons to properly explore a character and what works well is one of the advantages of television, and why I think difficult dramas and characters work much better than in the film world.

Thank you! And yes, there’s always been instances of grittier heroes, it just seems that more and more series are now more confident in stepping out of their comfort zone, it’s very exciting!

Agreed! It’s great that networks feel it’s now okay to experiment with their audience – seeing how successful South Park and Family Guy are, hopefully it’ll encourage Hollywood to try and branch out and tinker with darker, grittier media.

Sadly Skyler falls into the trap that many female characters who 1) have their own agency and 2) act as a foil for the leading male characters fall into on television (just look at Andrea from The Walking Dead and Margaret from Boardwalk Empire). It’s a shame because I absolutely love Skyler and I think Anna Gunn does an amazing job of portraying her.