New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ome" data-source="post: 259885" data-attributes="member: 2"><h2>45. Betty Suarez (Ugly Betty)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25528[/ATTACH]Played by America FerreraSafe to say there would be no Ugly Betty if not for Betty Suarez, America Ferrara's brilliantly portrayed ambitious, budding career woman bearing a big, impenetrably optimistic toothy smile with braces (at first) and unmistakable red glasses. As the lone Mexican-American of her office, she's surrounded by an unholy tribunal of shallow, beauty-obsessed (mostly white) people that populate the office of Mode, the high-fashion magazine she's hired at as an unfashionable, clumsy boner killer for the problematic new editor-in-chief, but in spite of every effort made to undercut her, other her, or scheme her out of a job, Betty finds a way forward. On one hand, she's naturally suited and gifted for a publishing gig; on the other, she's more resilient than anyone. That potent combination as she discovers the strength of her own agency while code-switching between her fancy Manhattan office job and modest home in Queens she shares with her dad, older sister, and younger brother is all enough to have you rooting for Betty from the very beginning and feeling personally slighted when others treat her poorly. As a send-up of the unrealistic standards of the beauty industry, Ugly Betty works, but as a character-driven story of Betty's journey to be her truest self, it shines. -- LB<h2>44. Ilana Wexler (Broad City)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25529[/ATTACH]Played by Ilana GlazerThe New York of Broad City was an exaggerated version of the universe occupied by its stars and IRL friends Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson. To that point, Ilana Wexler had all of the hilarity of the comedian she was based on cranked way up to 100. She's the best friend you wish you had: She's own to do hallucinogens on her day off, completely unhinged in her romantic life, and will do literally anything to see that you're happy, whether that means babysitting you post-surgery or trying to steal an air conditioner out of a dorm room. Ilana occupied a strange space where she was both a critique and example of white feminism. She was extremely passionate about various causes, but at times culturally appropriative and insensitive. And while everyone could learn a thing or two from Ilana's no-fucks-given confidence and carefree attitude, she's primarily a paragon of good friendship. -- SB<h2>43. Issa Dee (Insecure)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25530[/ATTACH]Played by Issa RaeIssa Dee is great for many, many reasons -- her impeccable sense of style, her dead-on mirror raps, her intensely relatable man problems, her magnetic some-fucks-given personality, etc. -- but most of all, it's her individuality (plus, Issae Rae's performance, twice nominated for both an Emmy and Golden Globe) that puts her in the upper echelon of 21st century TV characters. Adapted for HBO, with the help of Larry Wilmore, from Rae's hit web series "Awkward Black Girl," Insecure wrote a new playbook for a proudly Black LA-based sitcom that was unlike anything that came before it. The series doesn't shy away from important, current discussions about race -- Issa Dee knows she's the token Black girl at her educational nonprofit workplace -- nor is it joyless or self-serious. Issa is a weirdo through and through, a trait that Black women have not really been afforded on TV before Insecure, cracking goofy, awkward jokes with her (ex-?) BFF Molly (Yvonne Orji) or indulging the kids she works with as they brutally own her. When Issa Dee is unapologetically herself, in happiness or heartbreak, we love her most. -- LB<h2>42. Nathan Fielder (Nathan for You)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25531[/ATTACH]Played by Nathan FielderIn the opening of each episode of Nathan for You, Comedy Central's high-wire act of a reality show, host Nathan Fielder strutted towards the camera in slow-motion and noted in voice-over that he "graduated from one of Canada's top business schools with really good grades," flashing a report card of mostly B's and C's. At first, that's all you needed to know to get the joke, which involved Fielder pitching ideas like a gas station rebate that's only retrievable by climbing a mountain and answering riddles. As the show evolved from a stunt-filled satire of absurd business advice to something slipperier, culminating in the unclassifiable feature-length finale "Finding Frances," Fielder's own hang-ups and neurosis increasingly took center stage. Where did the show's "Nathan Fielder" end and reality's "Nathan Fielder" begin? That became the unanswerable question that makes Nathan for You so enduringly rewatchable, a prank-show with a human puzzle at its center. -- DJ<h2>41. Cookie Lyon (Empire)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25532[/ATTACH]Played by Taraji P. HensonIn the first episode of Lee Daniel's music biz drama Empire, Lucious (Terrence Howard, Taraji P. Henson's Hustle and Flow counterpart) introduces his ex-wife Loretha "Cookie" Lyons as the "heart and soul" of Empire Entertainment, the label she co-founded before getting shipped off to prison for 17 years after taking the fall for their mutual drug offenses so that he could build, well, a musical empire. It's completely fair to apply that phrase on a more meta level: Empire would not be Empire without Cookie's eagle-eyed view of the entire playing field, prodding and pulling wherever she could to get a leg up, and her sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartrending mutable personality. Cookie reentered the world with proverbial guns ablazing at the start of the series and never let up on her fiery ambition, passionately supporting her sons' careers (particularly Jamal, who she knew was gay before pretty much anyone else), commanding attention in each and every room she walked into and demanding viewers pay special attention to whatever unfettered insight she was about to say next. (Plus, Cookie wore some of the most fabulous coats from any TV series ever.) With three Emmy noms and a Golden Globe for Henson's portrayal, it's about time that we got that Cookie spinoff series. -- LB</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?