Every Main Character From True Detective Ranked From Worst To Best

Very few characters in the third season compelled us more than Tom Purcell. As the confused, drunken, stuttering father of the Purcell kids, Scoot McNairy finds a way to make his character simultaneously pitiful and sympathetic.

From every ancillary character the cops meet in their investigation, there's speculation and doubt in their stories and we as an audience feel it in Tom Purcell too. He's drunk, he's bitter, unreliable and seems to have something of a temper. But through incredible acting and great dialogue we realize we're watching a man grieve for the loss of his entire family.

In the 1990 segment, Tom is reformed sober man and seems to have struck up a friendship with Roland West. His grieving process is hijacked when news surfaces that Julie Purcell might be alive, and so begins the next sequence of events that eventually lead to Tom being killed for finding the Pink Room.

Tom might not be everyone's cup of tea; especially when during his drunken episodes he makes poor remarks about Wayne Hays' race. But he retreats on his words immediately, and while that doesn't excuse him it does remind us that he's a man not completely in control of himself.