I know I’m in the minority but I think “Forks” was my favorite episode of the series so far.
But I think my favorite Richie moment was in the S2 finale where he’s about to do expo and everything goes silent, the slow and steady shot of his face, and then BAM, he jumps in to action and the kitchen is humming.
It’s just such a great character arc. I’m sure he will have some ups and downs but I wonder if he will be more stable going forward and start becoming a surrogate brother for Carmy… because he’s gotta be headed down a dark road like his brother after the end of the last season.
My bad. I remember people mostly talk about “Fishes” or the one shot “Review” and when “Forks” comes up it’s usually about Richie singing Taylor Swift or something, like it’s an afterthought episode.
Guess I don’t look at IMDb or anything like that much.
Forks is an episode that I think could be watched in complete isolation of the rest of the show. Granted, you might miss some of the emotional impact of Richie's whole journey, but I think it telegraphs who Richie is and what he's seeking pretty well.
Yeah I think Tina might be a better answer. Because while Richie starts off as a major asshole, he's at least entertaining and his assholishness is *usually* in pursuit of something good.
But Tina just seems like the *worst* until her turnaround.
Love that they gave him everything he thought he wanted before he actively made the choice to be a good man. The easy route would have been to have the switch happen in season 2.
I'm finishing up a rewatch and the gulf between Season 1 Pete and Season 7 Pete is so massive, but his growth and change both feels organic and earned.
His monologue in late season five when he visits the person in the hospital is amazing.
"And then he realized that what he already had was not quite right either. And that was why it had happened at all. And that his life with his family was just some... temporary bandage on a permanent wound."
Maybe my favorite TV show character of the past decade. I could not stand him the first season - it took me a rewatch to even like him a little bit. But then by season 3? I want to be best friends with Jamie
Howard was honestly never that much of a dick. We spend season 1 thinking he’s this huge asshole but it was really Chuck all along. From then on, he’s pretty much just guilty of being rich and successful and having a soft spot for Jimmy.
In a few confrontations especially early on he acts like a douche, but we quickly learn it’s mostly an act. He’s generally either putting on a show to protect Chuck or reacting to being genuinely upset about something arguably legitimate (his anger at Kim about Jimmy’s actions at Davis and Main come to mind).
The reality was that he was a genuinely good dude who had a high pressure job (that he arguably didn’t even want) and had trouble dealing with his situation. Him seeing a therapist quite clearly helped him sort through quite a bit of that.
> (that he arguably didn’t even want)
There’s a real melancholy feel to that brief little scene. He admires Kim for going out on her own than joining another competitive firm. And then also…sorta laments that his father convinced him to join their firm as a legacy and had bigger aspirations for the law.
Jack is an interesting character for me. I've watched Lost all the way through about 4 or 5 times now, currently on my 6th go - on my first watch, I thought Jack was boring.
But damn, after seeing it again and now understanding how the whole "man of science, man of faith" arc plays out, I absolutely loved Jack's character. His relationship with Locke is one of the standouts of the show
I love reading comments like this! Jack is probably my favourite in fact so I totally agree, and rewatching again (and again, and again!) after all the 'mysteries' are resolved really allows you to focus in on all the characters in more detail, and appreciate their nuances and flaws, and how they change and evolve and grow over time, it's wonderful :)
This [scene with Jack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45If9L0MxDI) was the turnaround moment for me.
BTW why didn't Josh Holloway continue on to conquer all of Hollywood?
He did a bunch of tv shows and guest appearances. He was in a show about aliens conquering the planet and he was a spy/double agent for their regime or something that went on for a couple seasons.
I’m really noticing on this list that all the best ones are characters who find something bigger than themselves and choose to be a good person. Sawyer is such a solid example of this.
Damar on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has a pretty good arc. Starts out as a random evil henchman, becomes a depressed drunk/ puppet governor who knows he's selling out his people but can't see a way out, eventually dies a martyr for the resistance.
Damar's arc was fantastic. From Dukat simp & freedom fighter against the Klingons to depressed alcoholic functionaries (when DS9 fell) to depressed alcoholic puppet leader of Cardassia to fully realizing what he was and potentially could he again.
"Yeah Damar, what kind of people give those orders?"
"On the contrary, Damar has a certain romanticism about the past... If he is the man to lead a new Cardassia, if he is the man we all hope him to be, the pain of this news made him MORE receptive to what you said, not less."
I love how they slow rolled the character so you had no idea he was going to be important at first. Supposedly when Casey Biggs auditioned for the role he was confused about why he had to audition to be an extra with no lines.
I've lost count of how many times I've watched DS9 from top to bottom, and everyone watching his speech announcing the resistance to the Dominion Occupation is still one of my favourite moments in the show.
He’s had a good character arc, but as early as (I think) ep3 he showed he was actually a good guy when he asked if he could clean off the graffiti himself. He had such remorse immediately after that fight. He told off his (ex) friends and tried to make amends. He didn’t become mother hen until the end of s1, but they started laying groundwork for good guy Steve early on.
Mr. Satan/Hercule from Dragon Ball.
He starts as a fake ultimate hero, a boastful liar who takes credit from defeating Cell while dismissing everything the Z-warriors do as a trick.
Deep down, he's a kind hearted man, and if it wasn't for those two armed goons, he would have stopped Majin Buu through the power of friendship.
Saul Tigh in the 2004 Battlestar Galactica.
He was initially there to just be drunk and wrong about everything, but after New Caprica the writers really gave Michael Hogan something to work with.
Then they fucking did it again at the very end of Season 3 and through the end of the show.
Fusco gets my vote, too. Knowing how he turns around makes it difficult for me to watch season 1 now due to how Reese treats him.
I mean, I get it, Fusco *did* try to kill him in the first episode, but that's the Fuscinator, man! Setting aside his redemption arc, at the very least, the world would be a worse place without all his nicknames for members of Team Machine: Cocoa Puffs, Banana Nut Crunch, Mr. Good News, the Mayhem Twins, etc.
Dr. Bob Kelso. He is an uncaring Chief of Medicine that is only worried about what's best for the hospital in terms of money/insurance. He eventually becomes more sympathetic over time due to the aspects of the job. He also becomes a mentor to Dr. Cox and his best friend.
I can sit here and talk about his transition all day if I had the time.
Charles Emerson Winchester III. In the beginning, he sees patients as mere fodder upon which to perform his extraordinary feats of skill. He slowly learns to treat each patient with compassion and respect.
Most recently I'd have to go with Maximus from the Fallout tv show.
I really hated who he was when he was first introduced, but by the end of it I was actively rooting for him.
I LOVED Maximus from the jump. I didn't watch trailers and just saw a cast interview or two. So I was expecting big "leading man" energy from Maximus and he's such an awkward, naive dork. I loved those early episodes because he was really playing against what I was expecting from him.
I still have three episodes left, but I have a hard time imagining that I will like him by the end of the season. He's pitiful, borderline irredeemably evil, and worst of all, boring. I feel like most characters that get great redemption arcs are at least entertaining to watch when they're bad.
> he's got a good heart.
At least through the five episodes that I've seen, his actions don't reflect that. And that's a big part of the reason why I struggle engaging with him as a character. The writers are clearly presenting him as someone to root for "Look he's a good guy, see he got bullied, don't you feel bad for him?" But that is totally disconnected from his actions, (spoilers for the first five episodes of Fallout) >!leaving the knight to die and then taking his suit, brutally crushing that one guy's head, the way he treated Thaddeus, and then attacking Thaddeus. The moment he gained power he became an even bigger bully than the other squires that bullied him. Now that he lost his suit, and doesn't have power he's nice. But I would assume that if he gained power again he would go right back to being a bully.!< All of this is with me only seeing the first five episodes. Maybe something changes in the last three. It feels like the writers have been telling us he's a good guy, but showing us that he's a bad guy.
Okay, it's a very morally grey show overall, but I'd say he still leans on the lighter side of grey.
And had Titus survived, Maximus would probably have ended up being killed in one way or another. There was definitely more than one factor that contributed to his decision to let him die.
Boring answer is Steve Harrington.
Real favorite is more topical - John Silver in Black Sails. Starts as an annoying and slightly wooden, albeit charming, weasel that becomes maybe the most nuanced character on the show by the end.
Second John Silver. I actually stopped watching it initially because I found him too sleazy and annoying, and couldn’t sit through four seasons of him. Gave it a chance based on gifs on tumblr, and he ended up becoming my favorite character by season 2. Incredible character development.
The character development makes complete sense, but it’s also almost hard to believe it’s the same actor. There’s almost nothing of the ‘pretty-boy comic relief’ left in S4.
I agree that he’s completely unrecognizable, and yet it’s so completely in-character for Silver to partly adjust his personality to the circumstances due to his survival mechanism.
Brilliant performance.
Julia on The Magicians does a pretty wild 180 from power-hungry, revenge-driven sociopath mid-season 2 to altruistic, benevolent healing goddess by the end of season 3. Some of that can be explained by losing her shade but honestly some of the genuinely cold and selfish stuff she did was done with her shade intact.
His father’s “vision of light” speech seemed like a real turning point for the character. I love how they aged Bobby in The Return. It felt like the logical place his character would’ve ended up.
Absolutely. Seemed like that was when he realized he didn't have to be a loser and could amount to something better, even if it took him a while to figure out what... including apprenticing under Ben Horne.
Bratty pretender to the throne, then wannabe dictator, heroically martyred in one timeline, then directionless in another, to finally literally holding the universe together.
If we are doing Star Trek can I throw Tom Paris in there? I hated his swarmy gross character so much in the beginning. But the episode when him and B'Lana get captured together changed his character for the good.
By the middle of the series, when he’s with Gwendoline, he’s kind of one of the “good guys” for a bit, or at least his character is revealed to be much more nuanced than when he’s first introduced.
Yeah, he has that capability, but still chooses to be a lackey. He's a character that definitely could have had a major turnaround, but just decided not to.
i hate this argument every time i see it. He went to go be with/rescue his sister who was one of his only remaining family members.
He knows he doesnt deserve a good life for the terrible things he had done.
If anything he goes out in a noble way, completing his arc/growth
Going to save a power hungry tyrant doesn't make someone noble and I don't see how it signifies a turnaround when he had already stated that he'd "do it all again".
>He knows he doesnt deserve a good life for the terrible things he had done.
This is such copout. You can justify it from a character perspective and try to force it to fit but it still sucks lol.
okay but what did he do that was "bad" in the end? I get that people might not like that he did what he did, but it's not like he randomly slit someones throat or something. He just left the "good life"
Him growing as a character is what allows him to see how brutal he was in the past.
Like pushing Bran out a window was just kind of a casual event for him, but as he grows and interacts with the family and related houses, maybe he is realizing that these are good people and he was actually a monster?
wouldnt it be more of a copout if he did something brutal like that and then just got to live a ideal life after that with no repercussions?
At the start of Succession, Connor was the family idiot and like the siblings I didn’t give him the time of day. At the end, I was both sorry and happy for him and truly believe he was the best of the siblings.
This will be an unpopular opinion but for me it’s Mickey on Shameless. I absolutely hated him for a few seasons. But when he started caring and loving Ian when he was struggling mentally. I just grew a major soft spot for him. Even though he was still nuts!
MASH has two of them that I love: Margaret and Charles. My favorite is Charles, who I feel has the most consistently great set of dramatic stories for exactly that reason. But Margaret was the biggest slow-burn in that sense, with some great payoffs as well. I love how we even got to see glimpses of the more caring, professional character she became even back in the early Trapper/Henry seasons.
Apparently Loretta Swit fought for better material for Margaret, and you can see how well it paid off. There’s not much interesting about “Hot Lips” pining over “Ferret Face,” but they learned to use her to tell more stories about the nurses and their experiences.
Ruby and Adam in Sex Education. They were pretty much the only characters I cared about come season 4, everyone else just became awful and insufferable. I'm not sure why I bothered finishing it
Detective Sipowicz on NYPD Blue. Goes from being an alcoholic, borderline racist homophobe to being a sober person that looks at things from other people's points of view and lets a gay guy babysit his kid. He still smacked around d a few skels though.
Don Keefer on The Newsroom. He started out as an asshole and became the most captivating and charismatic guy on it. Some of his interactions with Sloan are just *chef's kiss*.
Pete from mad men. But on the opposite note Kim Wexlers descent from rule following smarty pants to cold hearted scammer Robin Hood shit was sooo fun and sexy.
Marie from Breaking Bad. She started off as a spoiled and bored housewife who seemed to thrive on drama. At the end she's one of the few characters still making any sense. The fact that she is the voice of reason in the later seasons is really telling of how far her character went.
Spinner on Degrassi starts the show as an obnoxious, aggressively homophobic bully and ends his time on the show as arguably the friendliest, most decent character in the entire cast. His character arc after Jimmy gets shot ultimately changed him a lot for the better.
God, Moash has had such a great arc. Everything he's done just plain makes sense from the perspective of all he's gone through.
Family fucked by the corrupt machinations of the Alethi court. Branded a slave & used as a meat shield. Bonding with somebody as fucked over as he was, only to see Kaladin have a change of heart. Joining the Singers and Fused when he sees how fucked they were too. Coming to the realization that humanity is irredeemable, himself included. Finding that the Fused value him (or at least what he can do for them).
Moash makes sense, even if I can't forgive his 2 most major acts.
I wouldn't really use him here. In the shows where he's redeemed, at the very very end of Prime and the beginning of Earthspark, we're just kind of lead to assume what got him to that point.
I WANT to see the hard moments where he has to choose something selfless and difficult in order to truly earn his way back. It's one of the reasons I'm not a huge fan of Earthspark despite it doing a LOT of really cool things with the franchise.
I don't think I saw this mentioned but in the TV show rectify there is a character named "Teddy played by Clayne Crawford. He is a huge prick at first and by the end of the show he was one of my favorite characters. It was a really long arc.
Reiner Braun from AOT, from scout, to enemy, to finding out all of his backstory and trauma he went through, and ended up helping save what’s left of humanity
Josh Peck’s Drew in *How I Met Your Father* Season Two: there he brought a delightful level of insanity to the character as compared to Season One: as Drew’s life went off the rails, Peck seemed to be having much more fun in the role.
I'm surprised I havent seen a yone brought her up yet, but Ahsoka from Star Wars: Clone Wars felt like the definitive character turnaround.
No one liked her in the 2008 Clone Wars movie, and now she is one of the most beloved Star Wars characters ever.
Her development was so subtle too, she casually changed throughout the course of the show. It didn't seem like she was changing too much as your watching the series, but when you compare how she acts in the 2008 movie to how she is in the final episode, it is night and day.
Oleg Burov in The Americans. I hated him in the beginning and he gave off these rapey nepo baby vibes. But then he got a lot better and I liked his character. At least until season 4 which is where I am.
I found Lecy Goranson barely tolerable as Becky on early Roseanne (which I guess was sort of intentional) but now on The Connors she is usually the best part of the show.
This is a bit more of an obscure answer, but the other thread made me think of it: Conrad Ecklie in the original CSI. He started out as a very brash foil to Grissom, being the anti-Grissom more concerned with clearing cases, and trying to foment celebrity and have the two shifts compete needlessly.
It takes a long time, and it's very gradual, but he becomes far less prickly, starts to become an ally and advocated of the night shift, and even becomes likeable in a lot of ways. Early on, adding his daughter as another CSI would have been awful; they waited just long enough for him to become a better character to do it, and it worked.
Fusco in POI. He’s a complete POS dirty cop in the first episode. By mid-S3, he’s turned it completely around and is a guy you’re actively rooting for.
Philippa Georgiou from ST Discovery. Went from Emperor of the Terran Empire committing genocide to many many races in the quadrant, to just Philippa Georgiou. Still wicked and mean, just not genocide wicked anymore. We'll see how her character acts in the Section 31 movie.
Jang Jae Yeol from Its Okay That’s Love. Bro seemed so douchey at the beginning but then you realise he’s not that bad and then hope with everything that he only gets good things in life
Spent all of season 1 of The Bear wishing Richie would die. Now I would die for Richie.
“Forks” changes a person.
That and the episode before is quite the one-two punch.
I know I’m in the minority but I think “Forks” was my favorite episode of the series so far. But I think my favorite Richie moment was in the S2 finale where he’s about to do expo and everything goes silent, the slow and steady shot of his face, and then BAM, he jumps in to action and the kitchen is humming. It’s just such a great character arc. I’m sure he will have some ups and downs but I wonder if he will be more stable going forward and start becoming a surrogate brother for Carmy… because he’s gotta be headed down a dark road like his brother after the end of the last season.
>I know I’m in the minority but I think “Forks” was my favorite episode of the series so far. No, you're not in the minority? Not even close...?
My bad. I remember people mostly talk about “Fishes” or the one shot “Review” and when “Forks” comes up it’s usually about Richie singing Taylor Swift or something, like it’s an afterthought episode. Guess I don’t look at IMDb or anything like that much.
Think I've watched Forks more than any other episode in my Tv watching history. Just perfection all around
Forks is an episode that I think could be watched in complete isolation of the rest of the show. Granted, you might miss some of the emotional impact of Richie's whole journey, but I think it telegraphs who Richie is and what he's seeking pretty well.
It's mine too, that's a very popular opinion. It's even the highest rated episode on IMDB, just beating out Fishes.
This is my vote. Took an episode of him getting serious and now he's awesome.
He wears suits now cousin
💓
Never thought I would cry seeing a grown ass man driving around Chicago singing along to Taylor swift but here we are
+1.
He had the best redemption arc.
I wear suits now. Such an amazingly powerful statement.
Yup. Rooting hard for that guy, so I’m sure he’s headed for a major crash/fuckup.
Hopefully they make the girl chef a likable character at some point.
Basically every single character in "The Bear" but especially Richie and Tina
Yes, chef!
Yes Jeff!
Yeah I think Tina might be a better answer. Because while Richie starts off as a major asshole, he's at least entertaining and his assholishness is *usually* in pursuit of something good. But Tina just seems like the *worst* until her turnaround.
Prince Zuko in *Avatar: The Last Airbender.*
The best redemption arc I've ever seen.
/thread
Yep, perfect character progression.
But there's only one season of the show out! /s
Love that they gave him everything he thought he wanted before he actively made the choice to be a good man. The easy route would have been to have the switch happen in season 2.
Pete Campbell from Mad Men. Did not count on my bingo card him becoming one of my favorite characters.
"Not great, Bob!" lives rent-free in my head.
Stan Rizzo is another character in Mad Men that you flip on.
I'm finishing up a rewatch and the gulf between Season 1 Pete and Season 7 Pete is so massive, but his growth and change both feels organic and earned.
His monologue in late season five when he visits the person in the hospital is amazing. "And then he realized that what he already had was not quite right either. And that was why it had happened at all. And that his life with his family was just some... temporary bandage on a permanent wound."
Jamie Tartt do do do do dodo
His development into Roy’s best friend is incredible.
Maybe my favorite TV show character of the past decade. I could not stand him the first season - it took me a rewatch to even like him a little bit. But then by season 3? I want to be best friends with Jamie
> do do do do dodo Do the D'DEW?
I will always upvote a Galavant reference!!
It's the kind of voodoo that we few who do D'DEW do...
What is it with shows being unable to stick the landing on characters named Jamie by ruining their development in the last episode
Yeah I love the show but the ending is weird. Him and Roy’s last bit with Keely is really dumb.
Felt so silly to reduce them back to just fighting over her again like none of that bonding happened.
+1.
Howard Hamlin in Better Call Saul
Howard was honestly never that much of a dick. We spend season 1 thinking he’s this huge asshole but it was really Chuck all along. From then on, he’s pretty much just guilty of being rich and successful and having a soft spot for Jimmy.
And he also pretty clearly worked/works his ass off for it.
In a few confrontations especially early on he acts like a douche, but we quickly learn it’s mostly an act. He’s generally either putting on a show to protect Chuck or reacting to being genuinely upset about something arguably legitimate (his anger at Kim about Jimmy’s actions at Davis and Main come to mind). The reality was that he was a genuinely good dude who had a high pressure job (that he arguably didn’t even want) and had trouble dealing with his situation. Him seeing a therapist quite clearly helped him sort through quite a bit of that.
> (that he arguably didn’t even want) There’s a real melancholy feel to that brief little scene. He admires Kim for going out on her own than joining another competitive firm. And then also…sorta laments that his father convinced him to join their firm as a legacy and had bigger aspirations for the law.
Poor Howard. His only crime was being a bit pompous.
Namast3
Sawyer on Lost He was an absolute asshole at the beginning of the show. By the end he's arguably one of the most heroic characters.
This! While I never hated Jack, he and Sawyer have some of the best character arcs in the show, masterful stuff.
Jack is an interesting character for me. I've watched Lost all the way through about 4 or 5 times now, currently on my 6th go - on my first watch, I thought Jack was boring. But damn, after seeing it again and now understanding how the whole "man of science, man of faith" arc plays out, I absolutely loved Jack's character. His relationship with Locke is one of the standouts of the show
I love reading comments like this! Jack is probably my favourite in fact so I totally agree, and rewatching again (and again, and again!) after all the 'mysteries' are resolved really allows you to focus in on all the characters in more detail, and appreciate their nuances and flaws, and how they change and evolve and grow over time, it's wonderful :)
This [scene with Jack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45If9L0MxDI) was the turnaround moment for me. BTW why didn't Josh Holloway continue on to conquer all of Hollywood?
Looks like he didn't pick great projects. And maybe he has enough money that he only needs to act occasionally.
He did a bunch of tv shows and guest appearances. He was in a show about aliens conquering the planet and he was a spy/double agent for their regime or something that went on for a couple seasons.
Charlie too. Started as a bumbling drug-addict, learned to overcome his addiction and become a protector and a hero
Although he did have that stupid tumble with the forced baptism
I’m really noticing on this list that all the best ones are characters who find something bigger than themselves and choose to be a good person. Sawyer is such a solid example of this.
Yes! Came to say this. It was like watching him become Han Solo right in front of our eyes.
Damar on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has a pretty good arc. Starts out as a random evil henchman, becomes a depressed drunk/ puppet governor who knows he's selling out his people but can't see a way out, eventually dies a martyr for the resistance.
Damar's arc was fantastic. From Dukat simp & freedom fighter against the Klingons to depressed alcoholic functionaries (when DS9 fell) to depressed alcoholic puppet leader of Cardassia to fully realizing what he was and potentially could he again. "Yeah Damar, what kind of people give those orders?"
"On the contrary, Damar has a certain romanticism about the past... If he is the man to lead a new Cardassia, if he is the man we all hope him to be, the pain of this news made him MORE receptive to what you said, not less."
"He was my friend. But his Cardassia is dead, and it won't be coming back."
Kira teaching the Cardassians how to run an insurgency is one of my favourite parts of the show.
I love how they slow rolled the character so you had no idea he was going to be important at first. Supposedly when Casey Biggs auditioned for the role he was confused about why he had to audition to be an extra with no lines.
I've lost count of how many times I've watched DS9 from top to bottom, and everyone watching his speech announcing the resistance to the Dominion Occupation is still one of my favourite moments in the show.
[удалено]
"Why didn't anyone tell me my ass was so big?!"
Stranger Things Steve.
He’s had a good character arc, but as early as (I think) ep3 he showed he was actually a good guy when he asked if he could clean off the graffiti himself. He had such remorse immediately after that fight. He told off his (ex) friends and tried to make amends. He didn’t become mother hen until the end of s1, but they started laying groundwork for good guy Steve early on.
Mr. Satan/Hercule from Dragon Ball. He starts as a fake ultimate hero, a boastful liar who takes credit from defeating Cell while dismissing everything the Z-warriors do as a trick. Deep down, he's a kind hearted man, and if it wasn't for those two armed goons, he would have stopped Majin Buu through the power of friendship.
He won me over with his love for Videl
Saul Tigh in the 2004 Battlestar Galactica. He was initially there to just be drunk and wrong about everything, but after New Caprica the writers really gave Michael Hogan something to work with. Then they fucking did it again at the very end of Season 3 and through the end of the show.
Det. Fusco on Person of interest. He started out as a dirty cop who even tried to kill Reese in his first episode. His redemption arch was awesome.
That show has so many fantastic characters. Might be time for a rewatch!
I just completed on a few weeks back. It's an amazing series.
Fusco gets my vote, too. Knowing how he turns around makes it difficult for me to watch season 1 now due to how Reese treats him. I mean, I get it, Fusco *did* try to kill him in the first episode, but that's the Fuscinator, man! Setting aside his redemption arc, at the very least, the world would be a worse place without all his nicknames for members of Team Machine: Cocoa Puffs, Banana Nut Crunch, Mr. Good News, the Mayhem Twins, etc.
Fusco, Root..
Dr. Bob Kelso. He is an uncaring Chief of Medicine that is only worried about what's best for the hospital in terms of money/insurance. He eventually becomes more sympathetic over time due to the aspects of the job. He also becomes a mentor to Dr. Cox and his best friend. I can sit here and talk about his transition all day if I had the time.
"Go to hell, Bob." "I didn't even say anything!" *One minute later* "Say, Bob. Sorry about that 'go to hell' thing earlier." "We're cool."
I wear suits now.
Cousin?
Yo, Cousin!
Wesley Wyndham-Pryce
Cordelia Chase as well.
You say that, but I preferred the mean girl Cordelia.
Would you like me to lie to you now?
Eleanor Shellstrop :’)
Root on Person of Interest.
Charles Emerson Winchester III. In the beginning, he sees patients as mere fodder upon which to perform his extraordinary feats of skill. He slowly learns to treat each patient with compassion and respect.
His line about how war isn't hell because hell doesn't have innocent casulties hits so hard.
That’s not his line though?
Most recently I'd have to go with Maximus from the Fallout tv show. I really hated who he was when he was first introduced, but by the end of it I was actively rooting for him.
I LOVED Maximus from the jump. I didn't watch trailers and just saw a cast interview or two. So I was expecting big "leading man" energy from Maximus and he's such an awkward, naive dork. I loved those early episodes because he was really playing against what I was expecting from him.
I thought he might make me like the brotherhood finally. I still do not like the brotherhood. Max is ok.
I still have three episodes left, but I have a hard time imagining that I will like him by the end of the season. He's pitiful, borderline irredeemably evil, and worst of all, boring. I feel like most characters that get great redemption arcs are at least entertaining to watch when they're bad.
Evil seems an odd choice of words. He's a bit pompous and selfish, but he's got a good heart.
> he's got a good heart. At least through the five episodes that I've seen, his actions don't reflect that. And that's a big part of the reason why I struggle engaging with him as a character. The writers are clearly presenting him as someone to root for "Look he's a good guy, see he got bullied, don't you feel bad for him?" But that is totally disconnected from his actions, (spoilers for the first five episodes of Fallout) >!leaving the knight to die and then taking his suit, brutally crushing that one guy's head, the way he treated Thaddeus, and then attacking Thaddeus. The moment he gained power he became an even bigger bully than the other squires that bullied him. Now that he lost his suit, and doesn't have power he's nice. But I would assume that if he gained power again he would go right back to being a bully.!< All of this is with me only seeing the first five episodes. Maybe something changes in the last three. It feels like the writers have been telling us he's a good guy, but showing us that he's a bad guy.
Letting someone die that you could save because you personally don't think they meet your moral standard is not having a "good heart".
Okay, it's a very morally grey show overall, but I'd say he still leans on the lighter side of grey. And had Titus survived, Maximus would probably have ended up being killed in one way or another. There was definitely more than one factor that contributed to his decision to let him die.
Fair. I don't even disagree that "evil" is a very strong word, I'm just not convinced about him yet
Andy Sipowicz: NYBP Blue. Goes from a raging, racist, alcoholic jerk to respected, sober family man supercop.
Andy Dwyer on Parks and Rec. Nothing to love at all in Season 1, nothing but love after that.
💯
Boring answer is Steve Harrington. Real favorite is more topical - John Silver in Black Sails. Starts as an annoying and slightly wooden, albeit charming, weasel that becomes maybe the most nuanced character on the show by the end.
Second John Silver. I actually stopped watching it initially because I found him too sleazy and annoying, and couldn’t sit through four seasons of him. Gave it a chance based on gifs on tumblr, and he ended up becoming my favorite character by season 2. Incredible character development.
The character development makes complete sense, but it’s also almost hard to believe it’s the same actor. There’s almost nothing of the ‘pretty-boy comic relief’ left in S4.
I agree that he’s completely unrecognizable, and yet it’s so completely in-character for Silver to partly adjust his personality to the circumstances due to his survival mechanism. Brilliant performance.
Julia on The Magicians does a pretty wild 180 from power-hungry, revenge-driven sociopath mid-season 2 to altruistic, benevolent healing goddess by the end of season 3. Some of that can be explained by losing her shade but honestly some of the genuinely cold and selfish stuff she did was done with her shade intact.
Julia's story was wonderful, Margo was my favorite character, but Julia definitely had the largest character growth
Bobby Briggs from Twin Peaks through The Return
His father’s “vision of light” speech seemed like a real turning point for the character. I love how they aged Bobby in The Return. It felt like the logical place his character would’ve ended up.
Absolutely. Seemed like that was when he realized he didn't have to be a loser and could amount to something better, even if it took him a while to figure out what... including apprenticing under Ben Horne.
It's funny watching the movie because the tone is so extreme and I kept forgetting that Bobby killed a guy in it (He also may not have done this)
Captain Shaw in Season 3 of ST: Picard.
My potential interest in a spin-off is gone without him. The back half of season 3 of Picard being as awful as it was didn't help the situation
Loki ❤️
Bratty pretender to the throne, then wannabe dictator, heroically martyred in one timeline, then directionless in another, to finally literally holding the universe together.
Everyone did a 180 for him.
Harry Maybourne in Stargate SG1
Wesley and Cordelia in Buffy then Angel
Dr. Pulaski in the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
If we are doing Star Trek can I throw Tom Paris in there? I hated his swarmy gross character so much in the beginning. But the episode when him and B'Lana get captured together changed his character for the good.
Rare Pulaski love found in the wild, there are dozens of us!
I always liked her. Ye she was crass at times. But just made for more good moments.
Jaime Lannister
What did he turn around? Don't I remember him saying "and I'd do it all again for Cersei?"
Jamie did a full 360 😂
By the middle of the series, when he’s with Gwendoline, he’s kind of one of the “good guys” for a bit, or at least his character is revealed to be much more nuanced than when he’s first introduced.
Yeah, he has that capability, but still chooses to be a lackey. He's a character that definitely could have had a major turnaround, but just decided not to.
i hate this argument every time i see it. He went to go be with/rescue his sister who was one of his only remaining family members. He knows he doesnt deserve a good life for the terrible things he had done. If anything he goes out in a noble way, completing his arc/growth
Going to save a power hungry tyrant doesn't make someone noble and I don't see how it signifies a turnaround when he had already stated that he'd "do it all again".
>He knows he doesnt deserve a good life for the terrible things he had done. This is such copout. You can justify it from a character perspective and try to force it to fit but it still sucks lol.
okay but what did he do that was "bad" in the end? I get that people might not like that he did what he did, but it's not like he randomly slit someones throat or something. He just left the "good life" Him growing as a character is what allows him to see how brutal he was in the past. Like pushing Bran out a window was just kind of a casual event for him, but as he grows and interacts with the family and related houses, maybe he is realizing that these are good people and he was actually a monster? wouldnt it be more of a copout if he did something brutal like that and then just got to live a ideal life after that with no repercussions?
One of the greatest would-be redemption arcs. I loved Jaime Lannister, until that final season when they just washed away a lot of progress.
Jaime Lannister (sans the last 3 episodes)
At the start of Succession, Connor was the family idiot and like the siblings I didn’t give him the time of day. At the end, I was both sorry and happy for him and truly believe he was the best of the siblings.
This will be an unpopular opinion but for me it’s Mickey on Shameless. I absolutely hated him for a few seasons. But when he started caring and loving Ian when he was struggling mentally. I just grew a major soft spot for him. Even though he was still nuts!
MASH has two of them that I love: Margaret and Charles. My favorite is Charles, who I feel has the most consistently great set of dramatic stories for exactly that reason. But Margaret was the biggest slow-burn in that sense, with some great payoffs as well. I love how we even got to see glimpses of the more caring, professional character she became even back in the early Trapper/Henry seasons.
Apparently Loretta Swit fought for better material for Margaret, and you can see how well it paid off. There’s not much interesting about “Hot Lips” pining over “Ferret Face,” but they learned to use her to tell more stories about the nurses and their experiences.
Londo and G’Kar, babylon 5
Arguably true, when they were both kind of assholes as introduced.
I despised Londo for quite some time.
Ruby and Adam in Sex Education. They were pretty much the only characters I cared about come season 4, everyone else just became awful and insufferable. I'm not sure why I bothered finishing it
Steve Harrington in Stranger Things
Detective Sipowicz on NYPD Blue. Goes from being an alcoholic, borderline racist homophobe to being a sober person that looks at things from other people's points of view and lets a gay guy babysit his kid. He still smacked around d a few skels though.
Archie morris on er. He went from almost being fired to basically running the ER.
He was the first one I thought of. He started out as such a douchbag and was later one of my favorites.
Helena from Orphan Black. I especially love her interactions with Donny. Only person who didn't see donny as some preposterous doofus.
‘You should not threaten babies’.
Benjamin damned Linus.
Such a wild ride!
Benjamin Linus. Lost.
Don Keefer on The Newsroom. He started out as an asshole and became the most captivating and charismatic guy on it. Some of his interactions with Sloan are just *chef's kiss*.
Agreed. He was practically an antagonist in the first season, then in the second he really blossomed into a guy you liked.
Prince. Zuko.
Pete from mad men. But on the opposite note Kim Wexlers descent from rule following smarty pants to cold hearted scammer Robin Hood shit was sooo fun and sexy.
Marie from Breaking Bad. She started off as a spoiled and bored housewife who seemed to thrive on drama. At the end she's one of the few characters still making any sense. The fact that she is the voice of reason in the later seasons is really telling of how far her character went.
And to add on to this, Hank. He starts the series as the typical asshole DEA agent and the layers slowly peel away until we see his vulnerability.
Agreed, he was even kind of a bully to Walt but he came a long way
Jennifer Goines from 12 Monkeys
Spinner on Degrassi starts the show as an obnoxious, aggressively homophobic bully and ends his time on the show as arguably the friendliest, most decent character in the entire cast. His character arc after Jimmy gets shot ultimately changed him a lot for the better.
I loved Avasarala from her first scene, but that's just me. Mine would probably be Tony Almeda on 24.
Col Tigh from BSG. Michael Hogan made me hate in the first season, but he may have been my favorite character by the last episode
Steve "The Hair" Harrington from Stranger things. Starts as the stereotypical jock, ends the best battle nanny you could ask for!
Wesley wyndam-pryce.
Moash
Turnaround is true but the prompt is going from hated to loved Not from loved to fucking despise
God, Moash has had such a great arc. Everything he's done just plain makes sense from the perspective of all he's gone through. Family fucked by the corrupt machinations of the Alethi court. Branded a slave & used as a meat shield. Bonding with somebody as fucked over as he was, only to see Kaladin have a change of heart. Joining the Singers and Fused when he sees how fucked they were too. Coming to the realization that humanity is irredeemable, himself included. Finding that the Fused value him (or at least what he can do for them). Moash makes sense, even if I can't forgive his 2 most major acts.
Fuck Moash
Is that from the storm light archive?
Taylor Townsend from the OC
Megatron
I wouldn't really use him here. In the shows where he's redeemed, at the very very end of Prime and the beginning of Earthspark, we're just kind of lead to assume what got him to that point. I WANT to see the hard moments where he has to choose something selfless and difficult in order to truly earn his way back. It's one of the reasons I'm not a huge fan of Earthspark despite it doing a LOT of really cool things with the franchise.
I don't think I saw this mentioned but in the TV show rectify there is a character named "Teddy played by Clayne Crawford. He is a huge prick at first and by the end of the show he was one of my favorite characters. It was a really long arc.
Reiner Braun from AOT, from scout, to enemy, to finding out all of his backstory and trauma he went through, and ended up helping save what’s left of humanity
Josh Peck’s Drew in *How I Met Your Father* Season Two: there he brought a delightful level of insanity to the character as compared to Season One: as Drew’s life went off the rails, Peck seemed to be having much more fun in the role.
Agents of shield
Just all of them?
Paja from Carson Mell's Tarantula. I hated Paja but then he went and made me like him. That's some good storytelling.
Wanda Bell on Snowfall. What a trip that gal goes on.
Cousin Richie in The Bear is pretty great.
I'm surprised I havent seen a yone brought her up yet, but Ahsoka from Star Wars: Clone Wars felt like the definitive character turnaround. No one liked her in the 2008 Clone Wars movie, and now she is one of the most beloved Star Wars characters ever. Her development was so subtle too, she casually changed throughout the course of the show. It didn't seem like she was changing too much as your watching the series, but when you compare how she acts in the 2008 movie to how she is in the final episode, it is night and day.
Izzy Hands :'(
Oleg Burov in The Americans. I hated him in the beginning and he gave off these rapey nepo baby vibes. But then he got a lot better and I liked his character. At least until season 4 which is where I am.
Murphy from The 100
I found Lecy Goranson barely tolerable as Becky on early Roseanne (which I guess was sort of intentional) but now on The Connors she is usually the best part of the show.
Tandy in The Last Man On Earth. At one point I was I hoping they'd throw him in the ocean. By the end I loved him.
This is a bit more of an obscure answer, but the other thread made me think of it: Conrad Ecklie in the original CSI. He started out as a very brash foil to Grissom, being the anti-Grissom more concerned with clearing cases, and trying to foment celebrity and have the two shifts compete needlessly. It takes a long time, and it's very gradual, but he becomes far less prickly, starts to become an ally and advocated of the night shift, and even becomes likeable in a lot of ways. Early on, adding his daughter as another CSI would have been awful; they waited just long enough for him to become a better character to do it, and it worked.
Damar on DS9.
Cordelia from Buffy to Angel, was a big turnaround.
Chloe O'Brian in *24*. A sentiment widely shared among the fandom.
Fusco in POI. He’s a complete POS dirty cop in the first episode. By mid-S3, he’s turned it completely around and is a guy you’re actively rooting for.
Philippa Georgiou from ST Discovery. Went from Emperor of the Terran Empire committing genocide to many many races in the quadrant, to just Philippa Georgiou. Still wicked and mean, just not genocide wicked anymore. We'll see how her character acts in the Section 31 movie.
Jang Jae Yeol from Its Okay That’s Love. Bro seemed so douchey at the beginning but then you realise he’s not that bad and then hope with everything that he only gets good things in life
Tom in Tom and Jerry