10 More TV Sitcom Characters With Shockingly Dark Backstories

Moss is the sweet, awkward, adorkable nerd from The IT Crowd everyone loves to love. Sadly, while he brought countless laughs in this classic British sitcom, there was a dark past hidden behind those chuckles. 

Maurice Moss had many running jokes, but one of the most common was his overbearing relationship with his mother. He constantly brought her up, much to the ire of his co-workers, and still lived with her even late into his thirties. 

Yet one particularly mean-spirited joke pointed to the dark relationship Moss had with her, that being the time she sued him. 

Moss was only eleven years old when his mother took him to "court" for breaking the patio window, putting on a trial where she was judge, jury, and executioner in front of their cats. Naturally, Moss lost the case, and was still paying costs over two decades later.

The show made it clear when Moss took to the witness stand in the episodes "Something Happened" and "Reynholm vs. Reynholm" that he was deeply traumatized by this event. Can anyone be surprised by how repressed and socially awkward Moss is given this clearly toxic mother/son relationship?