Everybody loves a bad boy or girl. There's just something about that devil-may-care attitude, and knowing that you shouldn't be into it, that can draw you in. It's usually not even a hard choice - why would you get with Ted Mosby when you can score Barney Stinson? Sure, he's an abhorrent pig bordering on psychopathic, but imagine someone asking how you felt every ten seconds...it'd drive a girl mad. At least you'd know you'd have a good time with Barney, use him up, spit him out, and know that he won't turn up outside your door with a blue French horn because come on, man, what even is that.
(No Ted, no!)
How I Met Your Mother metaphors aside, in the last few years TV has brought us some of the best bad boys and bad girls to date. Whether they own their badness (it's just a defence mechanism - they can change!) or they're just terribly inappropriate, we know we shouldn't like them but, hot dog, we do. Some spoilers, so if you see a show you haven't finished in the title I'd advise skipping the page!
10. Alex Vause - Orange Is The New Black
It's pretty shocking that heterosexual girls still exist with Alex Vause in creation. Our favourite lesbian (Shane who?) is everything you'd want in a bad girl. She's confident, sexy, and stands up for who and what she believes in. She may have a tough shell, but she's not afraid to show a soft underbelly to those she cares about. Her gentle "I heart you" to Piper was one of the defining moments of her vulnerability and rounded her as a character that has been expertly played by Laura Prepon. Whilst Piper leaves Alex on the day she finds out her mother has died, which is shocking and painful to watch, it makes it easy to forget why she is leaving her. Let us not forget that Alex moves heroin for a living, and will not hesitate to use you as a mule for illegally-gotten money across borders. Piper finally breaks when what is proposed as a romantic getaway turns out to be a one-day turnaround money moving scheme. Not only that, but Alex fingers Piper (chortle) as an accomplice, so is the reason she's in prison in the first place. She then tells Piper the opposite, that in fact she's "done a lot of f--ked up things ... but has never lied to " which was just another lie. Yet despite all the damning evidence most people would still go there - let's be honest, who in their right mind could resist her request to "be my little spoon"? There really is something about a girl in glasses...
