15 Most Monstrous Villains In Television

The Bucks have run things in Trinity, South Carolina for a long, long time - playing host to a particularly grotesque form of evil for generations. There are those who think that Sheriff Lucas Buck is simply a decent, if territorial lawman. There are those who suspect that he is, in fact, an unscrupulous power player in the town responsible for a string of murders over many years. And there are those who know better: who claim that Buck is the Devil himself.

In American Gothic, the truth is a weird mixture of all of that. Buck protects the people of his town from malignant influences (at least, those that aren’t him) to maintain the status quo that benefits him so greatly, but he’s also got a great deal emotionally invested in Trinity. He might treat the town’s citizens like animals, but some are very definitely favourite pets.

Murderer? Absolutely, and a rapist, a liar, a blackmailer and a b*stard of the highest order, a corrupter of the innocent both out of necessity and sometimes just because he likes it. Lucas Buck is always a scatter of steps ahead of his enemies, both because he’s smart and unprincipled, and because he understands the darkness inherent in the human condition. After all, he probably helped put it there.

Which brings me to the million dollar question. Is Buck the Devil? He’d never say so, but he’d certainly be happy to let people think it. To paraphrase The Exorcist though, every crazy person calls themselves Lucifer - or Napoleon, or Elvis, or Joan Of Arc. It’s the ones that don’t that you have to worry about.

But if he’s not a demon, Buck certainly plays host to the evil in the town of Trinity, which gives him frightening power over the lives of every man, woman and child in the vicinity. You don’t cross Lucas Buck… not twice, anyway