10 Amazing TV Shows (With Terrible Lead Characters)

Of course it's Rick and Morty, don't act shocked.

Rick and Morty is, for the most part, one of the smartest TV shows ever made. But its main problem up until recently was that its lead character, Rick Sanchez, was fundamentally unlikable, and the show was nowhere near as good at calling that fact out as it believed itself to be.

Rick is an insufferably nihilistic, self-destructive, irreparably toxic man. He is smart enough to end world hunger and all known diseases, but not only actively chooses to do otherwise, but would probably launch into a drunken rant about the idiocy of trying to use his intellect for anything other than personal entertainment or gain.

And until season four rolled around, the show was always incredibly non-committal about his attitude biting him in the ass to any genuine degree. No matter what it said about him, it would always spend the next episode showing Rick being cool or badass or really really smart, so its callouts of his behaviour always felt more like dodges than actual plot points because it wanted to have its cake and eat it too.

Season four is where we finally see his family grow genuinely sick of his whole first year philosophy class "nothing matters so be a jerk" routine and him actually failing to fix the problem, making it feel all the more solid of a callout.

But considering the length of time between each season, how many fans of the show have actively refused to get that they're not supposed to like Rick, and how long it took them to punish Rick for his behaviour in a way that felt in any way permanent, it wasn't enough to keep the show from the top spot on this list.

Rick and Morty is a great, clever, and hilarious TV show. Rick Sanchez is a terrible main character. Both these things can be true, and it isn't a contradiction.