20 beloved characters who actually committed a serious crime

Julia Louis-Dreyfus gave one of her most applauded performances in Veep, where she played Vice President (later President) Selina Meyer. She’s unscrupulous and a pretty terrible person, but with Louis-Drefyus’ performance, one can’t help but almost love her. At the same time, not even her biggest fans can ignore the fact that she is definitely guilty of some pretty serious crimes, even though she avoids accountability by directing most of the blame onto her flunky, Gary. Ultimately, she ends up dying at a relatively young age, having only served one full term in the Oval Office.

Dead to Me constantly asks the audience to engage with thorny ethical questions. One of its two main characters, Jen, starts the series as a grieving widow but develops agency, thanks to her friendship with Judy. Unfortunately, she also commits a pretty notable crime when she shoots Judy’s abusive ex, a crime for which she manages to escape punishment. The audience is led to love and care for Jen despite her actions, and, to be fair, she does seem poised to tell the truth to Steve’s brother, Ben, in the series finale.

Disney’s Robin Hood remains one of the studio’s most beloved films, and its title character has cast a particularly potent spell on generations of viewers. Though he is no doubt a hero — fighting the good fight against the corrupt and tyrannical Prince John — the truth is that he is also a criminal. This is a character, after all, who robs others, and though he might be quite charming and lovable, and his motives might be good, that doesn’t make what he does legal. It’s fortunate for him that King Richard ultimately returns and pardons him for his crimes.

Kathleen Turner gives a truly remarkable performance in John Waters’ Serial Mom, in which she plays seemingly mild-mannered and perfectly proper housewife Beverly Sutphin. In reality, however, Beverly has a dark side that she keeps carefully hidden, but as the film goes on, it becomes ever more evident, until she is killing anyone she thinks violates her sense of ethics or decorum. Despite it all, though, Beverly remains a strangely lovable character, thanks in no small part to Turner’s undeniable screen charisma.

Elektra remains one of the most compelling yet morally questionable characters in the hit series Pose. One can’t help but enjoy spending time with her, despite her spiky personality. Her actions regarding the death of one of her clients, who overdosed on drugs, are particularly questionable, since she hid his body in her closet. Though she doesn’t kill him herself, the fact that she hid the body — and went to great lengths to make sure it stayed that way — puts her squarely into criminal action territory.

The Netflix series Dead to Me excelled at blending comedy and tragedy. It also featured some memorable secondary characters, including Detective Perez. Though she’s a very lovable character, she is also a morally questionable one, particularly since she essentially gives Jen a way out of her murder of Steve. The fact that she’s a cop compounds the offense, and while the viewer appreciates her giving this beloved main character a chance to escape justice, it’s still jarring to watch.

For its first several seasons, ABC’s Once Upon a Time was a clever play on the classic Disney movies. One of the most notable and most beloved characters was Regina, also known as the Evil Queen. Though her banishing Snow White and the other residents of the Enchanted Forest to the real world is not, perhaps, a crime, the fact that she cold-bloodedly kills her lover, Sheriff Graham Humbert, is a felony. Still, it’s hard to deny that she remains a compelling and sometimes even likable character throughout the rest of the series. 

Jane Lynch gives a real star turn in Glee as the venomous and villainous Sue Sylvester. She might be the implacable opponent of New Directions, but one can’t help but love her anyway. Unsurprisingly, she’s quite capable of illegal activity, as when she drugged Principal Figgis and made it seem as if they had sex in order to blackmail him. Of course, she doesn’t actually assault him, but the fact that she went so far as to drug him — and for a very petty reason — shows how even serious crime isn’t too far for her and her desire to destroy New Directions. 

The stuffy Niles Crane of Frasier doesn’t seem like a person likely to commit or abet a crime, but he certainly comes close to it. In one notable instance, he ends up cozying up to a mafia boss, just so he can save his wife Maris from some unpaid parking tickets. This particular action might not be entirely in keeping with Niles’ personality, but he was desperate, so it makes a certain kind of sense. At the same time, there’s no denying that he was associating himself with a pretty significant criminal figure.

The series MASH is very much an ensemble show, but if it were to have a hero, it would have to be Alan Alda’s Hawkeye, who often acts as a moral compass for the show. Even he isn’t above making some morally questionable, and sometimes downright criminal, decisions, as when he performs an illegal surgery on a colonel. As so often in these situations, he has a good reason for doing so — he wants to keep the colonel from causing more needless death — but this leaves the viewer in the uncomfortable position of knowing whether what he does is justifiable or whether it’s beyond the pale.

Doug Judy was one of the most recognizable and consistent recurring characters on the beloved sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine. While he’s affable and has a strong friendship with Jake, he’s also literally a criminal. The show makes it clear that he has made a career out of his misdeeds, having accrued over 600 felonies, and he’s known as the Pontiac Bandit for good reason. Even so, one can’t help but adore him, thanks in part to actor Craig Robinson’s undeniable charm and charisma.

The sitcom The Good Place was notable for a number of reasons, not least was the fact that it used the comedy form to ask some deep questions about morality and the nature of the universe. It also featured some very lovable characters, including Manny Jacinto’s Jason Mendoza. By his own admission, however, Jason was quite capable of committing pretty serious crimes, including theft and drug dealing, which certainly helps explain how he ended up in the Bad Place when the series began. 

If there’s one thing viewers could count on from Steve Carell’s Michael Scott, it was inappropriate behavior. In at least one notable instance, however, his behavior strayed into the illegal when he ended up kidnapping the pizza delivery boy and locking him in the conference room. While it all ended up coming out okay in the end, one can’t help but wonder just how much trauma said delivery boy endured as a result of Michael once again giving in to his worst instincts.

Of all of the members of the Gang in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Dennis Reynolds is arguably the most terrifying. There’s no doubt that he’s committed numerous crimes during the series’ long run. Like Dee, Mac, and Charlie, he’s been known to commit assault, and there are strong hints that he’s done even shadier and perhaps even deadly things. There are even hints that he might just be a serial killer, though this has yet to be completely confirmed.

There’s something endearing about Charlie Kelly of It’s Always Sunny, and, though he’s as deranged as the rest of the Gang, it’s impossible not to love him. Like his compatriots, he is also responsible for several major crimes, including numerous assaults (including an especially violent one against a Santa) and stalking. The latter is particularly egregious, since it’s often shown just how uncomfortable the Waitress is at his repeated attempts to get with her, despite all of her protests and obvious revulsion.

Few characters on current TV are as lovable as the faculty of the fictional Abbott Elementary. This doesn’t mean that they’re above committing a crime or two, at least not when it comes to the present season, in which they take bribes from a local golf course. Their reasons for doing so are noble — they want to give their school the resources it needs, but which it almost never gets from the district — but that doesn’t mean that it’s either ethically or legally correct. 

Mac is, like the other major characters of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, more than a little deranged. Even so, he’s lovable in his bizarre way. This isn’t to say that he hasn’t committed a number of pretty terrible crimes, because in keeping with the show’s general ethos, he most certainly has done so. Among other things, he is guilty of several assaults, animal rights abuse, and, of course, attempted murder. Despite all of this, though, one still can’t help but like him, even if one has to question his essential morality (and state of mind).

There’s no question that the Gang in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia are some of the most dysfunctional people to have ever appeared in a sitcom. Though they’re fun to watch, they’ve also committed quite a few crimes, and this includes Dee. Among other things, she’s engaged in assault (both sexual and otherwise), theft, and giving alcohol to minors. At times, she likes to think that she’s smarter and savvier than the other members of the Gang, but the truth is that she’s just as deranged and prone to criminal behavior as any of them.

Homer Simpson is, in some ways, the paradigmatic example of the schlubby sitcom dad. While he’s quite lovable and has remained an American institution for decades, he’s not above committing a few crimes. Arguably, the most disturbing of these is his tendency to choke Bart, which, in any other context, would be a particularly glaring example of child abuse (even though it’s almost always played for laughs in the show itself). He’s also committed some other crimes during the show’s run, notably drunk driving.

Danny DeVito is undeniably charming, and sometimes disturbing, as Frank Reynolds in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. While fans of the show love Frank, there’s no question that he’s also a reprobate, and his list of crimes — both during the show’s run and before — is quite long. Among other things, he’s guilty of illegal possession of a firearm, numerous financial crimes, and sponsoring terrorism. To his credit, he’s largely managed to avoid consequences for his actions, which is a testament to just how cunning he remains.