Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/HBO
It’s not easy to be a professional hater. But with shows like Succession, The Other Two, and Barry, which boast an array of rich scumbags, vain aspirants, and total nitwits, doing my job—abhorring these people in recaps and other essays—has never been easier.
Until: Cut to 2024, when all of these creeps, assholes, and slime puppies were canceled. (No, not in the online sense. In the “their TV show ended” sense. But if this were real life, they’d probably be canceled in the online sense, too.) Now that these characters have been killed off or put to rest, who are we going to hate on TV?
With endearing shows more popular than ever, the answer might be no one. Perhaps our time with you-love-to-hate-’em baddies is coming to a close. Ted Lasso may be ending, but it left behind a legacy followed by the likes of Abbott Elementary, Jury Duty, and Shrinking. Maybe Nicecore is taking front and center stage after all.