27 TV Main Characters That Sucked So Much, They Probably Should've Been Side Characters
Recently, Reddit user u/Competitive_Owl7085 asked, "Who was the most unlikeable main character of a TV show?" and people had a lotttt of thoughts. Here are main characters people wished would just straight-up leave the show!
1.June from The Handmaid's Tale
"She has gotten multiple people killed through her selfish actions. This current season is just a power fantasy from the writers and ends every episode with her staring at the camera menacingly."
"Season 1, I felt bad for her and wanted her to escape. After the ending of Season 2 though, I couldn’t continue watching. It’s like the writers kept forcing her to come back to continue the show, but it didn’t make sense because I feel like she would’ve been sent to the radiation mines or killed. But honestly after all those people worked so hard for her to get her out, only to just spit in their faces? Yeah, fuck her."
2.Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory
"Went from a clueless socially awkward side character in the first couple of years to a self-centered narcissistic bully. I don't know why they ever hung out with him."
3.Caillou from Caillou
"That bald whiny little punk is the worst."
"Seriously. Kid threw tantrums every few minutes and parents responded with such unrealistic bullshit patience at the veeeery very end of the episode, usually bribing or conceding in some way, and little twerp never learned a thing. He taught my first kid the *concept* of making a fuss just for attention, and of using a whiny tone when you don't get what you want, and of hating vegetables. Show was banned in my house before my second kid emerged. He's a self-entitled, obnoxious bully."
4.Piper from Orange Is the New Black
Suggested by u/Alice_Van_Osbourne
"First time I realized you could love a show and hate the biggest star of said show. The beginning is a slog on rewatches because so much of them building up the world involves Piper, and I don’t give a fuck about her character (obviously they had to as this is based off a book)."
"God invented the fast-forward button just for Piper scenes."
5.Nancy from Weeds
"Horrible mother and clearly unstable AF. By the end of the show I loathed her and hoped that she would fail. Poor Andy."
"Thank you. I hated her so much I couldn’t finish the show."
6.Debbie from Shameless
"Damn near everyone on Shameless, but Frank or Debbie fight for the top spot."
"Debbie is by far the most annoying character since she tried to baby trap some dude, but honestly every character sucks ass."
"As she aged she became so unbearable. All she did was scream at everyone like she was out to get the world."
7.Carrie from Sex and the City
"Unbelievably entitled, shallow, spoiled and treated all of her friends like shit. I don't enjoy the show for what it is; it's my favorite hate-watch — just to see the new depths Carrie will sink to every episode.
Especially heinous was when she got herself into debt by tanking her relationship with the guy who bought and was renovating her apartment and turned down money offered by two of her best friends just so she could bitch out the one that didn't offer. And for some reason that friend ended up giving her the money.
And she tried to cheat on her husband with a guy that she had previously cheated on."
8.Raymond from Everybody Loves Raymond
"Conceited little bastard."
"The wedding invitation episode where Debra finds out he’s been using weaponized incompetence to make her do all the chores their entire marriage... devastating. I cry a little watching that scene."
9.Sabrina from The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
Suggested by cmalarkey90
"I had to drop that show because of her. She is the direct cause of all her own suffering and that of those around her. How many plot lines need to revolve around her being repeatedly told not to do something by literally everyone she knows, only for her to decide she knows best, do it anyway, and then have the gall to act like the victim when it all blows up in her face. She has got to be one of the most self-serving, unrelatable protagonist ever written. Without that protagonist specifically being the villain of their own story."
10.Rory from Gilmore Girls
"Both my parents love Gilmore Girls and watched it often. I only really started paying attention to it in my teens, and I couldn’t stand Rory. She was alright in the beginning, but toward the end she just became unbearable. She didn’t realize how good she had it and how often things were just handed to her. She was so used to everything being the Rory show where she was always praised...that the moment something didn’t go her way she flew off the handle and made it everyone’s problem. And she never learned. The revival just showed she never learned or experienced any growth. To me Rory is a perfect example of 'big fish in a small pond' not being able to cope outside their bubble and the outcome of not moderating praise and criticism of kids. There’s a reason Rory ended up the way she did, and it’s because pretty much every adult in her life acted like she walked on water and could do no wrong."
11.Emily from Emily in Paris
"Watched first episode of first season and NOPE. Can't believe there's going to be a third season."
"It’ll never happen, but I would love for there to be an Emily in Paris/You crossover season where Joe stalks Emily. It’d be horror comedy gold and expand the Netflix cinematic universe."
12.Dr Smith from Lost in Space
"As a kid, I loathed Dr. Smith on Lost in Space. I didn't understand why they didn't just fucking murder him."
"I thought Dr. Smith was the most entertaining part of that show, but man, he was a terrible person. Just hilariously awful."
"He was such a sniveling douchebag."
13.Walter White from Breaking Bad
"Every choice he makes puts his family at risk, he refuses help out of stupid pride, he’s arrogant, and he wound up getting at least 160 people killed. He’s a brilliant chemist, but he’s a shit businessman and an evil person."
"One of the most frustrating moments of the show was when Hank and the DEA concluded Gale was Heisenberg, but a drunk Walt’s pride could not let someone else take credit for his illegal work."
"I'm rewatching Breaking Bad now, and it occurred to me pretty early on how much of a loser Walter White really is. The constant terrible lying, the insecure ego-trips, how much of a fucking douche he is to Jesse, and he's a dork to boot. He's such a disingenuous fucking dickhead that my biggest plot hole so far is how he pulled Skyler White in the first place. For all her faults, she's leagues better than Walt."
"He also could have taken a job offer from his old company in the first few episodes. Yes, it was pity and charity, but it would've been a meaningful job in the chemical industry and solved his problems.
That's why his confession to Skyler in the very end was so important — I did it for me. He wanted the thrill of 'breaking bad' and not quietly or competently solving his problems like a normal person, but a menace with nothing to lose."
14.Alan from Two and a Half Men
Suggested by u/Cronicasdecrimen
"The character has some depth in the first season or two. He was sympathetic. Then they Flanderized the fuck out him. Shame, because Cryer himself is awesome."
15.House from House M.D.
"A person like that in real life would be unbearable."
"He has exactly one friend in the world and puts him down all the time."
"I can't stand House as a show. I think he's supposed to be a 'lovable asshole,' but from what I've seen of the show, I don't love him at all. I just hate that fucking guy every second he's onscreen."
16.Tori from Victorious
Suggested by u/Mermaid89253
"It's weird in retrospection how much she was thirsting for Beck despite him being with Jade...even if Jade was toxic, but like, still, WTF, LOL."
"Yes! No matter what she does, she's always in the right! I especially hate the prom episode. It craps all over Jade, even though Jade was the one constantly wronged by Tori and her desire to have a prom, which the school never even had."
"She literally doesn’t ever care about her friends’ problems unless it makes her look good, and she has no real flaws so nothing is ever her fault, and god, she’s just so annoying."
17.Meredith from Grey's Anatomy
Suggested by u/ipakookapi
"She’s the most self-centered and insufferable person on that whole show, and that’s saying a lot because most of those people are self-centered and insufferable."
"For me it was her talking about how 'dark and twisty' she is, and I would constantly think, No, Meredith, you’re really not. I also couldn’t stand how being miserable and not being able to be happy was basically her entire personality. It just got annoying. Like, 'OK, Meredith we get it you have a constant cloud over your head and you’ll be miserable till the day you die — can we move on now?'”
18.Prue from Charmed
"She was awful. Everything was about her. Anytime there was a big bad demon out and about it was, 'The demon is here for me and me alone, and I have to be the one to stop it.' Like no, girl. The power of three is not just you. She ruined Piper's wedding, and that's the ultimate sister foul. She was awful to Phoebe out of pure jealousy. Always bringing up the past like she was the only one capable of change when she was the one character who literally never grew. Even Daryl evolved somehow! Oh and crapping all over Phoebe's relationship with Cole. Yeah, he was a demon, but she didn't know that at first. She just couldn't be happy for her younger sister because she spent so many years pushing Andy away."
19.Elizabeth from The Blacklist
Suggested by u/ment_tritchell14
"Her whole role is shit. This amazing profiler who missed that she lives with a spy, does the wrong thing in every situation, and waffles between the strongest most competent fighter and clumsy?"
"I’m a huge James Spader fan and watch everything he does, but stopped watching The Blacklist after Season 3. Just could not stand her character. And I know Agnes was just a baby, but my god, I just could not buy that Liz was that concerned about her. She was such a non-entity; the writers should have just written around the actor’s pregnancy."
20.Susan Mayer from Desperate Housewives
"Whiny, childish, dramatic and never took responsibility for ANYTHING, to the point her teenage daughter has to balance the checkbooks and make doctor's appointments for her. She repeatedly screws her friends over if she thinks it'll help her win back Mike, burns Edie's house down and doesn't fess up for years, slut-shames Edie while constantly jumping from relationship to relationship (oh, and she cheats on her boyfriend he's in a coma), butts into situations that have nothing to do with her, and when a trail guide calls her out on how she's a selfish drama queen, she throws a tantrum and storms off into the woods, and the only reason she doesn't die of exposure is because Mike inexplicably manages to track her down. Oh, and she forced Gaby to go on a date with her mentally unstable stalker to try to persuade him to pay Mike's bail and doesn't give a shit that this could seriously endanger Gaby."
21.Jack from Lost
"Total POS who was wrong every goddamn time."
"For most of the show, Jack is a wound of person, unable to relate to anyone except by trying to fix their problems for them, without any facility for self-reflection. He can be such a frustrating character at times."
"It's funny, because I distinctly remember him being pretty likable in the first season, but he was all of a sudden a huge asshole in Season 2 onward. Like from literally his first line in Episode 2.01."
22.Dawson from Dawson’s Creek
"The amount of times I've yelled, 'THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU!' at my screen while watching his scenes over the years is stunning. Pacey and Jack were both 10,000 times better male characters than he was."
23.Eric from That '70s Show
"He’s an asshole throughout the whole show, but toward the end of the series it really ramps up. WTF did Donna see in him??"
"I think this scene summed it up perfectly."
24.Amy from Superstore
"I mean Jonah can be a bit much, but she is so mean to him, and he is probably the nicest person. Then she strings him along for years and wants him to uproot himself across the US, and she couldn’t even say if she wanted to marry him or not. Like, it was still the beginning of the relationship, and [she] was treating it like a five-year summer fling."
25.Rachel from Friends
"Think about how the show starts: She shows up on Monica's doorstep and is like, 'Well, I've fucked up my life so now I'm going to make it your problem.' ... Let's not forget that at the start of the show Monica and Rachel weren't friends, and hadn't been since high school — the whole reason Rachel went to her is because she was the only person she knew in New York who wasn't invited to her wedding. ... It's established in the episode with Brad Pitt that Rachel was a vicious bully in high school. So at the start of the show we have an objectively terrible person. Does she really change as the show goes on? I don't think so.
—She wants to break up with Ross but doesn't have the decency to tear the Band-Aid off in one go, and instead leaves Ross to do the hard work. As far as I'm concerned, 'Let's take a break' is code for 'I want this to be over, but I don't want to take responsibility for it,' and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise. Then she throws a tantrum at him for 'cheating' on her.
—She flies all the way to London for the express purpose of dangling herself in front of Ross one more time just as he's getting married, and manages to wreck his wedding and his relationship with Emily.
—When they both get married in Vegas, somehow it's all Ross's fault (Ross obviously shouldn't have said he got the annulment when he didn't, but putting all the blame for the debacle on him was unfair).
—When she came onto him and got pregnant, she lied to their whole friend group about it and tried to blame it on him. Even when he tried to take the high road and let it go, she insisted on pushing it.
The whole 10 years was her jerking Ross around and expecting him to come running whenever she called, and never taking any responsibility for their relationship problems."
26.But also, of course, Ross
Suggested by u/secretly-bees
"What’s really wild is that you can tell when the show aired he was supposed to be the most sympathetic character. He’s a massive piece of shit. Joey is probably the nicest guy on the show. He’s a womanizer, but he’s never deceitful about it. And he would do anything for his friends."
27.And finally....Jerry from Tom and Jerry
Suggested by Prior-Resist4486
"OK, but actually. That's why I can't watch the show; [I] hate seeing that smug little shit win every time."
"That fucking mouse was loathed in our household."
