10 TV Shows That Redeemed Hated Characters In A Single Episode

6. Betty Draper - Mad Men

The Episode: Season 7, Episode 14 ("Person to Person")

If you ask most Mad Men fans who their least-favourite main character is, many would say Betty Draper (January Jones), the self-obsessed, hopelessly robotic ex-wife of Don Draper (Jon Hamm).

For as cool and sexy as Don was, his former spouse was alternately dull and annoying, despite her undeniable beauty. Many also felt that actress January Jones played the part too stiffly to be anything more than a Stepford Wife stereotype.

But Mad Men's seventh and final season saw Betty become an increasingly more self-actualised and sympathetic character, standing up to her conservative husband and pursuing a master's degree in Psychology, while also being diagnosed with advanced lung cancer.

Though in a lesser show this grim diagnosis might've felt like a cynical ploy to make Betty more likeable in the series' final stretch, it actually resulted in some of Betty's most potent dramatic scenes across the entire series.

In the show's penultimate ever episode, she decides to forego chemotherapy and accept her fate on her own terms, while writing a heartbreaking letter with wishes and advice for her daughter Sally (Kiernan Shipka).

But the real turning point for Betty comes in the series finale, where in a brutally affecting final phone call with Don, she insists that their children should live with her brother and his wife after she dies, citing the need for both a female influence and a more stable home life, neither of which Don can provide.

After spending so much of the show's run devoid of agency and personality, Betty finally grabbed hold of her destiny following her terminal diagnosis, and ensured the best possible future for her kids in the process.