17 TV Characters We Will Never Forgive
TV villains come and go, but there are a few we'll never forget—or forgive. So who is the absolute worst? See if you agree with our #1...
17. Katherine Pierce, The Vampire Diaries
Elena's evil doppelganger did a LOT of damage during her time in Mystic Falls, including but not limited to killing Jeremy (the first time), pretending to be Elena and breaking up with Damon in the worst way possible, forcing Tyler and Mason to activate their werewolf curses, and causing Stefan, Damon, and Caroline to become vampires. While we may never forgive her for some of those things, we can all probably agree that Stefan, Damon, and Caroline are all better off immortal, so we'll let that one slide.
16. Lex Luthor, Smallville
Over 10 seasons, Lex went from almost a stranger to Clark's BFF to his worst enemy. He performed cruel human experiments, forced Lana to marry him, drugged her into thinking she was pregnant, murdered his sister, murdered his father, murdered anyone who would let him murder them, pretty much.
15. Malcolm Merlyn, Arrow
Remember that time Thea's dad trained her and brainwashed her to kill Sara Lance? Yeah, maybe she's coming back (in a way) for that epic-looking Legends of Tomorrow spin-off, but we will forever hate Malcolm for that and almost everything else he's ever done.
14. Eli/Rowan Pope, Scandal
It's a tough battle between Rowan and Tywin Lannister for Worst Dad of All Time, but Rowan is certainly a tough contender thanks to his continued manipulation of his otherwise incredibly powerful daughter and her various lovers. He also controls (or controlled, before Olivia finally got the jump on him and sent him to jail) a terrifying secret organization that likes to torture and kill people. He's also responsible for turning taking Huck away from his adorable family and turning him into a sick monster. The list of things we'll never forgive him for is looooooong.
13. Sylar, Heroes
Slicing open people's brains to steal their powers for his own? Now that's just a brutal way to murder people, even for a serial killer. Of course, Sylar's complete lack of empathy allowed him to do that and so much more. There were absolutely no redeeming qualities to him. (We choose to forget his whole "redemption" storyline ever happened, because the later seasons as a whole were just...terrible.) On the plus side though? Zachary Quinto is EVERYTHING.
12. Joffrey Baratheon, Game of Thrones
The product of (not so) secret incest, this little s--t held Sansa captive, used Ros for target practice, and HAD NED STARK BEHEADED, among other things. He also threw a lot of fits and was generally annoying to the point of us cheering for his death by poison at his own wedding. He deserved much worse, to be honest.
11. Harrison Wells/Eobard Thawne, The Flash
On one hand, he gave us our new favorite TV superhero. On the other hand, he did it selfishly after killing said superhero's mother and also engaging in a deadly feud with that superhero for what apparently adds up to several centuries. He also killed various people in various timelines, all after stealing the identity of the perfectly harmless Harrison Wells in order to build a particle accelerator that killed people and also gave other people deadly superpowers. So, yeah, we do not have much love in our hearts for the Reverse Flash.
10. Daniel Shaw, Chuck
He was the double agent to end all double agents, fooling everyone around him multiple times over. We thought we had met the worst side of him when he took Sarah to Paris to kill her, but then he returned to get Chuck, Casey, Sarah, and even Beckman locked out of their jobs, and to kill Chuck's dad (Scott Bakula!) right in front of him. We still have trouble trusting Brandon Routh, no matter how many superheroes he plays.
9. Warren Mears, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
He killed Tara! Sure, he did it on accident, but that's because he was actually trying to kill Buffy. He's also generally gross and mysoginistic and very very evil. He was later flayed alive when Willow went all veiny, which might be considered suitable punishment.
8. Nina Myers, 24
You do not kill Jack Bauer's wife. We repeat. You do not kill Jack Bauer's wife. Our favorite TV action star was never quite whole again after Nina murdered the love of his life.
7. Angelus, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
We will never ever EVER forget watching Giles arrive home to roses and wine, only to discover his murdered girlfriend Jenny Calendar sprawled on his bed. Angel did some baaaaad things while acting as the evil Angelus, but this act has never stopped breaking our hearts.
6. Kai, The Vampire Diaries
He kept Bonnie and Damon prisoner in a freaky 1994 hell world, absorbed & killed his younger brother, stabbed his pregnant twin sister through the stomach at her wedding, and linked Elena's life to Bonnie's so that as long as Bonnie's alive, Elena is in a permanent state of sleep. So yeah. He's the worst. ... But is it bad that we kind of still love him?!
5. Tywin Lannister, Game of Thrones
Do they make mugs for World's Worst Dad? If so, we'd like to order in bulk, and then chuck them all at Tywin's head. His horrid, unfair treatment of his dwarf son from the moment he was born was just the beginning of his awful parenting skills, including overlooking the fact that his two older children were totally boning. Oh and he also orchestrated the red wedding, in which Catelyn Stark, Robb Stark, and Robb's pregnant wife, among others, were all brutally murdered. Ending up dead on the toilet at Tyrion's hand was only a fraction of the end this man should have gotten.
4. Gemma Teller Morrow, Sons of Anarchy
Among other things, she brutally stabbed the love of her son's life in the back of the neck with a barbecue fork, and it was up to her poor eternally scarred grandsons to figure it out. Jax ended up shooting her in the back of the head and leaving her to rot in her rose garden, and we still can't get the image of Jax coming home and discovering Tara's body out of our heads.
3. Ramsay Bolton, Game of Thrones
"Ramsay is violent and sadistic, and fond of the ancient Bolton practice of flaying." That sentence, from the Game of Thrones wiki, should be enough to convince you that Ramsay (Iwan Rheon) is the worst. If you need more evidence, and want to be sick to your stomach, watch or read about Ramsay's adventures in season 5, in which he marries Sansa and then rapes her on their wedding night, and then rapes her some more. Apparently someone at Game of Thrones thought we didn't hate the guy enough already. They were wrong, and now we'd like to request his head on a stick, please.
2. Arthur Mitchell, Dexter
He was a serial killer for more than thirty years, but his most offensive kill—and the one we'll never forgive him for—is the mother of Dexter's son, Rita (Julie Benz), who ended up dead in a bathtub at the end of season four, with her adorable child Harrison screaming in his PJ's in a pool of blood. Which probably inadvertently led to Dexter winding up as a lumberjack. So yeah, we're blaming the Trinity Killer for the worst TV finale of all time.
1. Black Jack Randall, Outlander
With no tragic backstory to speak of, it appears that the English captain Black Jack Randall is just evil, plain and simple, and he really likes assaulting people, especially when those people are named Jamie Fraser. He's also very fond of torture and going to great lengths to obliterate what is basically the greatest love story ever told on TV. Really, is there anything more awful?
His portrayer, Tobias Menzies, simultaneously makes us want to punch him all over the face and also shower him with Emmy Awards. Perhaps if we could hit Black Jack all over the face with an Emmy award, that would be a somewhat suitable compromise.
Congratulations, Black Jack Randall...YOU ARE THE WORST.