A show's villain is as important as its hero, but that doesn't mean we always know who the bad guy
is right away. Here’s a spoiler-filled list of the best bad guy in TV history.
When "Lost" arrived in 2004, there wasn't much
like it on the small screen. It featured an enormous cast and brought over 18 million
viewers to ABC — the highest ratings for an offering on the network in almost four years.
One thing the show didn't have, however, was an honest-to-goodness villain.
The survivors of downed Oceanic Flight 815 had to weather some pretty singular adversities.
There was the smoke monster, of course, and the everlasting conflict between anti-hero Sawyer
and, well, everyone else. But "Lost" was missing a true big bad. All that changed,
however, when actor Michael Emerson showed up as the mysterious Henry Gale in Season 2.
Some of the members of the group felt Henry's stories about arriving on the island in a
hot-air balloon, and losing his wife in the subsequent crash, were a bit too neat to be true.
So in the Season 2 episode "Lockdown," the Oceanic survivors go looking for answers. They find a
balloon and a grave, but Henry's wife isn't in it — the real Henry is. When the phony Gale is called
out for the falsehood, Emerson really shines in the role. He seems to morph into an entirely
different person, Ben Linus, in the blink of an eye. This manipulative antagonist would go on
to wreak havoc on the island in the following seasons, finally giving "Lost" a true villain.
The inaugural season of "True Detective" follows two investigators — played by Matthew
McConaughey [muh-KAH-nuh-hay] and Woody Harrelson — on the hunt for a serial killer. Throughout the
season, the show's writer and director expertly build the expectation of the evil we'll encounter
when we meet our villain. The protagonists' escalating run-ins with voodoo, kidnapping
cover-ups, and violent meth dealers signal that whatever is waiting at the end won't be pretty.
At the end of Season 1 Episode 7, audiences are finally clued into the killer's identity,
and it's an almost forgettable groundskeeper from way back in Episode 3.
In the hands of a lesser creative team, the moment might've felt like a lazy callback.
Not so here. By the time deranged killer Errol Childress [AIR-uhl CHILL-driss] appears,
casually giving two other police officers directions from his lawn mower,
viewers have witnessed a laundry list of evil deeds. The dread of confronting something much
worse than what the two leads have previously encountered is as thick as Louisiana's humidity.
As Errol watches the police officers drive off and the creepy music starts to play,
we see scars on the lower part of his face consistent with descriptions of a suspect.
Revelatory moments like this one really marked the slow-burning 1st season of "True Detective"
for greatness. The closing moments of "After You've Gone" dare the audience to keep watching,
and almost make viewers hope Harrelson and McConaughney stay at home.
“Stop. Really, man. Stop. I don’t wanna hear it.”
For much of "The Flash" Season 1, Harrison Wells acts as the kindly,
genius founder of S.T.A.R. [“star”] Labs. He supports Barry Allen's efforts as a superhero
and serves as his mentor. Over the course of the season, however, his character begins to
act increasingly strange, and Flash and his respective allies suspect something is off.
A stinger in Episode 9 shows the audience that Harrison is in possession of
Reverse Flash's iconic suit, but the show doesn't confirm the worst until Episode 15.
By that point, most of Team Flash suspect Wells is the yellow speedster, but not everyone is
convinced. Unfortunately, Wells' surrogate son Cisco [SIS-coh] finds out the hard way.
After Cisco discovers where Wells hides the suit in the previous episode,
Wells confronts him, admitting that he not only had a hand in Barry's mother's death but
is actually Eobard [EE-oh-bard] Thawne — Flash's all-time big bad. Anyone wondering why Wells might
announce his secrets so bluntly gets their answer when Wells follows his monologue by killing Cisco.
This moment, where Thawne admits his sins and kills a character his alter ego cared about,
cements the villain's full arrival and the scope of his malevolence. And it happened in the 1st
episode back from the show's mid-season break, giving fans a compelling reason to keep tuning in.
Marvel's "WandaVision" kicks off when the Scarlet Witch finds herself married to a
newly-risen Vision in an idyllic, sitcom-style existence. Viewers watch as Wanda tries to
embrace her new life, but slowly discovers something's amiss. All isn't what it appears
to be in Wanda's primetime network town, especially when it comes to her neighbors.
Throughout the series, Wanda has kooky and friendly encounters with a neighbor named
Agnes [AG-ness], played by a scenery-chewing Kathryn Hahn. Like any sitcom neighbor,
she's a bit snoopy, but mostly kind — until the end of Episode 7. While
Wanda takes a day to recharge, Agnes looks after her children. Soon, though,
Wanda suspects she and her family are in danger and goes to collect her kids.
“Where are the twins?”
Agnes tells Wanda the kids are playing in the basement. When Wanda descends the stairs,
she finds a witch's lair. Agnes then walks into the room and introduces
herself as a fellow witch named Agatha [AG-uh-thuh] Harkness.
As Agnes invades Wanda's mind, the show suddenly cuts to the song "Agatha All Along."
In one catchy tune, Agatha is revealed to have been pulling Wanda's strings throughout the whole
series — and worse, she killed Wanda's dog. The number is a great showcase for Hahn's charisma and
enormously raises the stakes for the coming series climax by introducing the main antagonist.
Who needs subtle reveals? More theme songs, please.
When "Westworld" first premiered in 2016, its robo-cowboy worldbuilding and unique storytelling
made it must-see TV. As the show confidently swaggered through its time-bending opening season,
it delivered twist after twist. One of the most devastating was the finale's bad guy reveal.
In the show's premiere, audiences are introduced to Jimmi Simpson's William
and Ed Harris' Man in Black. On first impressions, the two stand in stark contrast to one another.
William is a meek but kind first-timer in the theme park, and the Man in Black is a
park veteran who revels in doing horrible things to its animatronic hosts. As the series unfolds,
it becomes clear that the show's story is set in two distinct timelines. However,
since "Westworld" was co-created by Jonathan Nolan, brother and collaborator to the notoriously
confusing director Christopher Nolan, it's not always clear exactly which timeline is which.
The show sets the record straight when its protagonist, robotic host Dolores,
played by Evan Rachel Wood, encounters the Man in Black in the series finale.
He reveals that they've met before and that his first encounter with Dolores helped him
find himself. Dolores remembers who he is, calling him William, and the editors intercut
his monologue with sequences that show the once-gentle William becoming the evil man he
is now. It's tragic that someone so kind could wind up so vile. But in a pivotal
moment to the show, his gutting reveal clearly establishes what's present and what's past.
Not many detective shows leave audiences as shaken as "Broadchurch" did,
and all of that is due to its villain reveal. In the show, detectives Ellie
Miller and Alec Hardy are investigating the murder of 11-year-old named Danny.
Like most detective shows, in the end, the partners get their man,
but by time it's over audiences and protagonists alike will wish the
villain had never been revealed. The show builds up our trust in relationships by
dedicating notable attention to the supportive relationship between Ellie and her husband Joe.
So in the end, when Hardy discovers Ellie's husband Joe is in possession of Danny's phone,
anybody watching prays it's a red herring. But it's not. A flashback reveals that Joe
murdered Danny because Danny threatened to expose their pedophilic affair to the town.
It's awful on so many levels and adds real bite to the series' focus on trust and secrets.
The murder scene's frantic editing showcases just how fast the threat of exposure escalates
things between Joe and his young victim. Once they find out what happened, viewers sit with
turning stomachs waiting for Ellie to discover her husband's secret. Only such a powerfully
depressing reveal can make the audience hope one of the protagonists never learns the truth.
The HBO series "Watchmen" has a bad guy reveal that is quite different from it’s graphic novel
bad guy reveal. When viewers first meet Lady Trieu [TROO], she's a brilliant,
conglomerate-owning, clone-maintaining scientist with a hidden agenda.
However, it's not clear just how dark that agenda is until it's too late.
At first, the show's big bad appears to be an organization called Cyclops [SYE-klahps], a
white supremacist group out to steal Dr. Manhattan's powers.
However, when they attempt their plot in the finale, their leader gets turned into a puddle,
and his followers are teleported away to find Trieu waiting with an even larger evil plan.
Trieu reveals herself as the real puppet-master and the daughter of Adrian Viedt [VITE], the
surprise villain in the comics. It's brilliant because it not only connects
Trieu to a character from the source material, but also connects their murderous motives.
In the comics, Adrian blew up Manhattan to trick the world into agreeing to world peace.
In the HBO series, Trieu murders Dr. Manhattan in an attempt to subjugate the world to her
benevolent will. The comic and TV series are separated by decades of cultural change,
but the latter's villain reveal unites their central questions about wielding
immense power over other people in the service of a personal utopian vision.
Humanizing a murderer is tricky in any medium, but Showtime's "Dexter" managed to do it for eight
seasons — and was eventually revived for a ninth. The show's premise, that Dexter is a serial killer
who only kills other serial killers, is a strong way to hook an audience. As the show goes on,
however, its elaborate twists and turns prove it's more than just its engaging hook.
During Season 1, the show fleshes out Dexter's healthy relationship with his adopted sister, Deb.
It also establishes a rivalry between himself and a serial killer known only as the Ice
Truck Killer. So things get complicated when the audience discovers that the man
courting Deb is actually — gasp — the Ice Truck Killer himself.
In a reveal so casual it demands an immediate re-watch, Deb discusses plans for a date with
her suitor Rudy. Rudy tells Deb he needs to wrap up some housework before coming over.
After he hangs up the phone, the audience gets a look at what
that work is — chopping and packing human body parts in his walk-in murder freezer.
It's an impeccable dramatic irony. The viewers know the truth about Rudy, but Deb and Dexter
remain in the dark — for a long time! For the remainder of the season, the audience watches
Dexter and Deb inch closer to the truth — and the danger, and the tension is tangible. "Dexter" is
engrossing entertainment, and moments like these cement its place in great TV history.
The villain reveal at the end of HBO's "Sharp Objects" is probably
the most audacious on this list, casting the events of the entire show in a new light.
"Sharp Objects" is based on Gillian Flynn's novel of the same name — yep,
the same author behind "Gone Girl," another story with a shocking villain reveal. HBO's miniseries
follows crime reporter Camille Preaker as she returns home to Wind Gap, Missouri.
There, she gets caught up investigating the murders of some local girls. In between sleuthing,
she navigates her complex relationships with her mother, Adora, and teen half-sister, Amma.
Ultimately, Camille discovers evidence suggesting Adora killed the girls and sends her own mother
to prison. Bleak stuff. But this is a Gillian Flynn story we're talking about. It can always
get a lot worse in the most unexpected ways, and moments before the credits roll, it does.
Literally within the show's closing minutes, Camille discovers evidence hidden in Amma's room
that suggests she was the killer all along. Amma appears in the doorway, sees Camille, and whispers
"Don't tell Mama." The show hard-cuts to the credits, but anyone trying to catch their breath
is acting too soon. A mid-credits scene shows Amma definitively committing each murder, including
that of a new friend, Mae, some time later after she and Camille move to St. Louis. It's brilliant
and possibly one of the most depressing endings ever committed to the small screen.
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