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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ome" data-source="post: 259898" data-attributes="member: 2"><h2>5. Fleabag (Fleabag)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25568[/ATTACH]Played by Phoebe Waller-BridgeDry, deadpan, and hopelessly (and, at times, very relatably) addicted to sex, Fleabag, spawned from creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge's one-woman show, is in a class all of her own, absolutely magnetic and charming even when her frequent fumbles in her quest to become a better person often unveil her nastier side. Fleabag contends with a seemingly endless stream of halfhearted hookup partners interrupted by the occasional ecstatic agony of falling in love with exactly the wrong person (Hot Priest, anyone?), while also dealing with her insane and equally self-obsessed family members, often drawn into their own personal problems. Watching Fleabag confront and work to live with her guilt, fear of abandonment, manic-obsessive tendencies -- you name it, really -- is vindicating and enthralling. The series' comedic form makes a lot of the tough pills so easy to swallow you might not even notice them go down. The show is almost unbelievably funny, and yet at the same time able to pin you to the floor, sobbing with disbelief at life's cruelty. Fleabag navigates these many hurdles with fleeting fourth wall breaks so artfully deployed you almost can't wait to see when the next one will pop up, offering an intimate connection to a character you might otherwise write off as a doomed mess. Instead, you root for her, desperately, and though there are times it seems impossible, you love her too much to even consider the fact that she might not be just fine in the end. -- ES<h2>4. Huey Freeman (The Boondocks)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25569[/ATTACH]Voiced by Regina KingNo other character on this list comes in with as hot a series introduction as 10-year-old Huey Freeman, brought to life with the voice of Regina King, taking the mic at a bougie garden party attended by a predominantly white, hoity-toity crowd and announcing plainly, "Jesus was Black, Ronald Reagan was the devil, and the government is lying about 9/11," inciting a WWE-meets-anime style riot of shock and disbelief. It might have just been a dream he was shaken out of by his grandpa Robert ("Making the white people riot... you better learn to lie like me. I'm gonna find me a white man and lie to him right now."), but the entirety of The Boondocks' opening scene impeccably laid out the tone that we'd see in the rest of Aaron Macgruder's adaptation of his (sometimes controversy-sparking) race- and class-challenging newspaper-syndicated comic: frank, irreverent, radically leftist, and funny as hell. The series as a whole is easily one of the most capital-R Revolutionary shows, animated and otherwise, that has ever been allowed to air on TV, and that's thanks to Huey's unwavering mindset as our narrator and guide through the world to sniff out racist and false societal truths that plague the collective consciousness. Named after Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton, the grade-school orator Huey Freeman, inspired by historical world revolutionaries, never sacrifices his hardline ideals, to both his younger brother Riley and grandpa's oft-dismay, in favor of disrupting systems that oppress Black people through his activism. (The same soapboxing as a dissident is also what gets him into absurd scenarios, such as founding 23 leftist organizations or being called a domestic terrorist during a news broadcast on national TV.) Huey tells it like it is; he's also insanely good at martial arts. We're very lucky to be getting more of him in the HBO Max reboot. -- LB<h2>3. Tami Taylor (Friday Night Lights)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25570[/ATTACH]Played by Connie BrittonIn contemporary television, particularly the shows that get written up on websites and celebrated on lists, canny ruthlessness goes a long way. Besides its intimate camera work, naturalistic performances, and small-town West Texas setting, Friday Night Lights -- the adaptation of Buzz Bissinger's nonfiction bestseller, which was turned into a sturdy Peter Berg movie in 2004 -- distinguished itself from the tonally darker critical hits of the '00s by radiating compassion. Not in a cheesy, This Is Us way, either. The show's rugged earnestness was best personified by Connie Britton's Tami Tayor, a school administrator who served as a moral beacon to the searching, flailing f**k-ups of the community. Aspirational but never saintly, Taylor provided folksy advice and hard-earned wisdom, often with a friendly "Hey y'all," while also serving as the backbone to a loving, tender, and nuanced portrayal of a functioning marriage. In a TV landscape where seething resentment and bubbling hostility often gets mistaken for sophistication, Britton and Kyle Chandler, who played the show's hard-charging Coach Taylor, showed that emotional maturity and mutual respect don't automatically lead to dull, smarmy writing. If more dramas had a Tami Taylor, the world might be a better place. -- DJ<h2>2. Omar Little (The Wire)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25571[/ATTACH]Played by Michael K. WilliamsOn a show that prized unglamorous authenticity and moral ambiguity over standard cop drama catharsis, Omar Little, the shotgun-wielding, drug-dealer-robbing stick-up artist in a duster, almost scans as a writerly flourish. Though the character -- like most of the cops, dealers, lawyers, dockworkers, politicians, school kids, and journalists in the show's fictional Baltimore -- was based on a real person that writers David Simon and Ed Burns knew from their previous lives as a reporter and homicide detective, he had a fable-like quality, which was enhanced by Michael K. Williams's carefully modulated performance. Maybe that's why he quickly picked up so many admirers, including then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama. A fearless gay Robin Hood figure with a personal code of honor, Omar was simultaneously in the mix of the show's grim critique of late capitalism and hovering above it all, picking his targets and making his moves. An ensemble series to its core, going so far to sideline its roguish star (Dominic West) in its best season (four, obviously), The Wire has a mind-bogglingly deep cast of beloved characters. (Stringer Bell! Kima! Bunk! Lester! Prez! Bubbles!) But there's a reason why Omar called himself the king. -- DJ<h2>1. Peggy Olson (Mad Men)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25572[/ATTACH]Played by Elisabeth MossIf TV at the end of the 20th century was defined by the male antihero, TV at the beginning of the 21st was defined by a rebuke to that. After the so-called Golden Age of prestige television faded away, a variety of characters (well-represented on this list) were able to take the floor away from the brooding white male that was the typical center before. Mad Men is ostensibly the story of one of those very guys: Don Draper, a genius alcoholic philanderer with a mysterious past. But Mad Men's best argument was that Don was always a dinosaur, and not necessarily one that should be preserved. And that's where Peggy Olson comes in, the best TV character of the 21st century. Peggy begins the series as Don's naive assistant with a squeaky voice and an unfortunate ponytail. She's seduced by office sleaze Pete Campbell, until she quickly realizes that he is threatened by her own ambition. It's that spark that slowly starts to guide Peggy's narrative. She's a naturally gifted copywriter, who is encouraged by Don to pursue a career that's not afforded to her contemporaries, but is constantly forced to navigate the cruel boys' club that surrounds her. Yes, the success of Peggy as a character is due to writer and creator Matthew Weiner, but perhaps even more credit goes to to Elisabeth Moss, whose ability to transform with her character is startling. But Peggy herself is not just a virtuous avatar for girl power. She's angry and demanding and critical of the people around her, especially other women. Her relationship with Joan, the only other woman with any sort of power at Sterling Cooper, is indicative of that. It is not a warm and fuzzy feminist collaboration. But it's also impossible not to root for Peggy's ascent, which is why the most indelible image of the series is of her, cigarette in mouth, walking into her new firm with Bert Cooper's octopus porn painting, facing outward, under her arm. -- EZ</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?