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Barry Berkman | Criminals | Hollywood | Other Characters

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Barry's Associates

Monroe Fuches

Monroe Fuches

"You know, sometimes, you just have to shut up and do your fucking job."

Portrayed By: Stephen Root

"I used to think I was a soldier, ignoring the fact that I’d never fought in a battle in my whole life. I was a poser. Yeah. And I fancied myself a mentor, fostering other men’s natural abilities. But it wasn’t until I was in prison and I got beaten to within an inch of my life, day after day, that I finally dropped the bullshit and just accepted who I am. A man with no heart."

Barry’s handler and Honorary Uncle, Fuches arranges Barry’s “jobs” and takes care of the business side of their work.

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• Abusive Parents: He views Barry as his son, and while he does love him in his own twisted way he still subjects him to a lot of emotional and financial abuse.
• Actually Pretty Funny: When Barry curses him out and tells him he's done being a hitman, saying he's like Jason Bourne, Fuches is seen cracking a small smile at the line.
• Ambiguous Situation: Does he die after saving John and having him reunite with Barry or does he live on? While the obvious Breaking Bad reference suggests the former, it is ultimately left up to the viewer to decide if Fuches lives or dies.
• Appropriated Appellation: "The Raven" was a fiction Hank cooked up in anticipation of Fuches being the Chechen Mob's fall guy. In season 4, Fuches embraces the persona while in prison, even getting a raven tattoo across his chest and referring to himself primarily by the nickname.
• Asshole Victim: A non-lethal version. But whenever he gets beaten up, falls, or is humiliated in any way, it's hard to feel sorry for him, considering what a manipulative scumbag he is.
• At Least I Admit It: After his stint in prison, Fuches finally admits to himself that he is an evil man and leaves prison an Obviously Evil gang leader. This leads to him being disgusted by Hank, who hides his crimes behind an aura of civility.
• Bait the Dog: For a moment, it appears that he is genuinely upset by Barry's death at the airstrip. Instead, he's upset that Barry didn't apologize to him for calling Fuches out for his behavior.
• Beard of Evil: He sports a beard and is a ruthless, manipulative reprobate.
• Big Bad: Although Goran has a great deal of power, it's really Fuches who's the true villain of Barry due to his ruthless manipulations. By the end of the second season, Fuches becomes the primary antagonist, actively trying to ruin the new life Barry has gained out of jealousy and resentment. Killing Fuches ends up being one of the driving motivations for Barry from this point on as well.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With Goran Pazar in Season 1.
• Big Bad Wannabe: A rare case where he's both this and the actual Big Bad. Fuches has the most personal enmity with Barry and he's crafty enough to be a genuine threat, but he's also an incompetent coward and he shoots himself in the foot just as much as he scores a win. It's only through sheer endurance that he makes it as long as he does.
• Blackmail: In order to force Barry's compliance, he threatens to expose Barry's real profession to the acting class.
• Break Them by Talking: This is Fuches' special ability, even if he isn't quite as good at it as he thinks he is.
• Butt-Monkey: Over the course of the first season, he's beaten and tortured by the Chechens numerous times, and any plan he makes to save his own skin almost invariably goes south. By the first season finale, Barry has stood up to him, beaten him badly, and only saved him from being killed by the Chechens so he can walk away for good, leaving him nearly powerless. It becomes worse for him in Season 2 and yet he deserves every single minute of it.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Fuches is well aware that his and Barry's work is immoral and downright evil, he just doesn't care.
  Client: I'm not a criminal. Someone could get hurt!
  Fuches: Obviously someone's gonna get hurt. I mean, my guy's gonna kill whoever's in that apartment. That's part of the idea.
• Character Development: In the final season, he grows from a purely selfish and hapless figure into a collected Noble Demon.
• The Chew Toy: Suffers constantly throughout his screentime, but is such a reprehensible guy that the audience loves every second of it.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Fuches tends to betray the people he works for, though admittedly it's often forced by outside circumstances or done to people who would do the same to him (such as Goran and Hank). And in one case he betrays a client by accident, having forgotten to tell him that Fuches sells the services of hitmen.
• Consummate Liar: Fuches can rattle off lies a mile a minute and convince people that he's being totally honest with them with ease. People can catch wise that he's not on the up and up - most notably Jim - but Fuches is still a very good manipulator.
• The Corrupter: Played with. The first season implies that Fuches turned Barry into a hitman by exploiting his PTSD to manipulate him into going along with it. However, Season 2 reveals Barry was always violent - having shot Afghans who could have been civilians without remorse - and associated murder with positive validation due to his platoon's celebration of his skill at it.
• Desperately Craves Affection: He's eager for his mentee's relationship to the point of being outright possessive. He even lies about having a terminal illness in a (failed) attempt to draw sympathy after he tries to sell Barry out.
• Dirty Coward: While Fuches presents himself as charming and confident, his façade always falls apart in the face of danger. He's incapable of defending himself or confronting any kind of threat, instead just running away from it and relying on Barry and others to bail him out of trouble. In the season 2 finale, he offers the Chechens anything they want to hide him from Barry.
• Enraged by Idiocy: Taylor's near suicidal levels of stupidity infuriate Fuches to the nth degree.
• Entitled to Have You: A platonic example. Fuches believes himself entitled to Barry's love and wants to be the only significant person in his life. The knowledge that Barry has stable influences outside of him is what drives Fuches to turn on him.
• Entitled Bastard: Fuches generally expects people to give him whatever he wants without even thinking of paying them back if he doesn't have to. It's most notable in his relationship with Barry; he consistently short-changes him and tries to stop him from pursuing acting, yet Fuches is genuinely surprised when Barry cuts ties with him.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Or in this case, a lesser evil. Fuches genuinely doesn't understand why Barry wouldn't want to kill people and the thought he may feel guilty about it never even occurs to him. As far as he's concerned, Barry is throwing a hissy fit for no reason.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Fuches does ultimately care about Barry, but that affection is possessive, conditional and wrapped in Fuches' own ego. This is best exemplified at the start of season 4, where he finally reconciles with Barry after two seasons of actively trying to sabotage his life, even abandoning a lucrative protection deal with the FBI to do so, but only after Barry has apologized to him first and admitted that his plan to start a new life in LA was a mistake.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Subverted when he believed Barry killed Lily. He empathizes with him over having perform such a horrible action, but as soon as Barry reveals he didn’t kill her, Fuches says they have to and goes in search of her.
  • He's genuinely horrified when he learns Stovka is only 45, laughing nervously and uttering a horrified "Jesus Christ!"
  • He's clearly unnerved when Jim Moss talks about how he convinced an enemy interrogator in the Vietnam War to commit suicide.
  • He's disgusted by Hank's refusal to admit that he killed Cristobal and by his decision to use John as a hostage against Barry.
• Evil Feels Good: Unlike Barry, Fuches gleefully embraces the life of a contract killer. The fact he doesn't have to do any of the real work and gets to keep most of the money doesn't exactly hurt either.
• Evil Old Folks: Fuches' exact age is never specified (Stephen Root was sixty-seven when the show premiered) but he's old enough to be the father figure to a middle-aged man who he's known since childhood and is a selfish lowlife who cares only about himself.
• Evil Is Petty: Fuches often tries to manipulate the people around Barry after he's rejected by Barry out of pure spite, even going as far as to ruin Barry's relationship with Gene by revealing that Barry killed his girlfriend Janice. He also goes back to LA to try and ruin Barry's life more after realizing that Barry no longer cares about getting revenge on him.
• Evil Redhead: He sports Stephen Root's red hair, and Fuches is a ruthless, opportunistic bottom-feeder. He's not particularly competent, but still effective and weaselly enough to be a dangerous operator.
• Evil Uncle: Barry considers Fuches an Honorary Uncle, but Fuches only sees Barry as a money-making tool and is consistently emotionally abusive and miserly towards him. Fuches does have some affection towards Barry, but it's consistently portrayed as being rather warped and focused mainly on Fuches's ego.
• Expy: As highlighted by the first season's illusions to Shakespeare, Fuches bares a lot of resemblance to Iago. Both are villainous yet charismatic manipulators who manipulate a returning soldier who trusts them into committing murder and lead a powerful figure to ruin - although Fuches's role in Goran's downfall is admittedly unintentional.
• False Friend: To Barry. Barry views Fuches as an Honorary Uncle and Fuches is more than happy to play the part, but he views Barry more as a meal ticket than anything else. It's implied that Fuches does care about him, but he's so possessive of Barry that he'll actively try to sabotage him to keep him under his thumb.
• Fat Bastard: He's a well-fed monster of a man.
• Fatal Flaw: For all his boasting, Fuches is incapable of performing his own dirty work. It's this flaw the causes him not to shoot Gene, and instead seek refuge with the Chechen mafia, before Barry guns them all down.
  • Ultimately, his possessiveness and inability to let go of Barry proves to be another of his core flaws and it makes him make a lot of stupid decisions. Many of his problems would be avoided if he simply left Barry alone.
• Faux Affably Evil: Fuches acts like he's Barry's best friend, a chummy and genial guy who's looking out for him. It's pretty transparent from the beginning that he's a manipulative user who views Barry as a tool to make money, and has likely been lying to him for a very long time about the kind of people he arranges for Barry for kill. He shows his true colors in a very chilling moment when Barry excitedly remarks that he wants to be an actor; Fuchs becomes serious and stern, straight-up telling Barry that he's a killer and nothing more.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: He apparently served with Barry's father in the military before moulding Barry into an assassin and arranging jobs for him.
• Gaslighting: He took advantage of Barry's PTSD and depression to turn him into a killer, telling him that the people he's killing are bad people.
• Green-Eyed Monster: He reacts with simmering jealousy over Gene Cousineau becoming a father figure in Barry's life, and his actions don't seem solely motivated by the desire to bring Barry back under his control (although that's certainly a factor).
• Had to Come to Prison to Be a Crook: Not that he wasn't already an utter reprobate working with crime families and all manner of shady people, but "the wizard" reveals that, after eight years, Fuches has finally become what he aspired to be since entering the system: the Raven, a gang boss respected by guards and inmates alike who's gained a reputation beyond the prison walls.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: Sort of? He seemingly starts to make a change once Barry tells him he was right about Cousineau all along. It seems to strike a chord with the old bastard, and he attempts to reconcile with Barry. Only then Barry decides to turn State's Evidence and betray him and Hank to the FBI, which shatters him. Then he ends up getting beaten when Barry escapes and he refuses to give him up...though that has to do with the fact that he has no idea where Barry is or where he would be going. Then in the time jump, he's come to terms with the fact that he's a bad person and decides to roll with it. But decides to save John's life because the little guy reminds him of Barry.
• Hate Sink: A psychological abuser who's turned Barry into a ruthless weapon, with few redeeming characteristics that almost all get subverted. It makes it all the more surprising that Fuches himself realizes what a terrible human being he is in the final season and makes a legitimate attempt to do right by Barry for once.
• Heel Realization: While in prison, Fuches realizes he's always been a horrible person and a poser, and comes to regret his treatment of Barry.

  Fuches: I used to think I was a soldier, ignoring the fact that I'd never fought in a battle in my whole life. I was a poser. And I fancied myself a 'mentor', fostering other men's natural abilities. But it wasn't until I was in prison, and I got beaten within an inch of my life day after day that I finally dropped the bullshit, and just accepted who I am. A man with no heart.

• Hidden Depths: Word of God is that deep down, Fuches genuinely wants a family like Barry does, which is why he marries a barista after getting out of prison following the Time Skip.
• Honorary Uncle: He was a friend to Barry's father, and Barry has known him since the age of five.
• Ignored Epiphany:
  • While leading Gene to Janice's body, Fuches looks genuinely guilt-stricken when Gene tells him about how directionless and depressed Barry was when he met him. However, this is immediately replaced by Fuches's jealous rage when Gene mentions that he's become a father figure to Barry.
  • Fuches thinks of giving up his involvement with Barry and his desire for revenge twice in season 3, but doubles down on it after being reminded of Barry in some way.
  • While watching Rain Man in prison, he's struck by how similar he and Barry are to the characters of Charlie and Raymond — but, instead of learning that he's been wrong to manipulate a mentally and emotionally vulnerable person for his own gain, Fuches seems to realize they're "family" and kindred spirits that need to stick together instead of selling out each other.
• I Just Want to Be Badass: Fuches desperately wants to be renowned as a dangerous badass and does his best to make himself appear more intimidating than he actually is. He gets his wish after the Time Skip, becoming a feared and infamous crime boss known throughout LA.
• Irony: His speech to Hank in the finale about how his experiences in prison led him to the epiphany that he is simply "a man with no heart" and that he should accept and embrace himself as a cruel gangster is followed by the most genuinely empathetic and selfless acts we see him perform throughout the show. He calmly and gently shows understanding when Hank appears about to break down and admit his fault in the death of Cristobal, with no sign of gloating or cynicism, and then rescues John and returns him to Barry without any expectation of reward or revenge.
• It's All About Me: Fuches is entirely focused on himself and is perfectly willing to sell out anyone, even Barry, if it suits his own goals and their partnership has mainly consisted of Barry doing all the legwork while Fuches keeps almost all the money for himself.
• Jerkass: One of the biggest ones in the entire show. He's a deeply self-centered, uncaring, obnoxious, deceitful scumbag who will do seemingly anything to get his own way with no regard for anyone's life except his own.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • As vile as he is, Fuches is absolutely right to point out that Barry's attempts to claim moral superiority over Fuches and claim he is done with his old life are hollow. Over the course of season one alone Barry murdered two innocent people to save his own skin and did so entirely of his own choosing, not at Fuches' prompting. While him forcing Barry to make a Sadistic Choice between confessing to Janice's murder or let Gene take the fall for it is motivated by jealousy and spite, his point is ultimately vindicated when Barry refuses to make the only morally correct choice and turn himself in, instead planting evidence at the crime scene to frame the Chechens for the murder.
  • He also tells Barry that Taylor is an idiot who could get them all killed and that he's more trouble than he's worth. Sure enough, Taylor stupidly tries to bum-rush the (heavily armed) Bolivians and ignores Barry's protests, which gets him and Vaughn killed and leads to a lot of trouble for Fuches and Barry down the line.
  • He bluntly tells Barry that Gene is never going to move past his murder of Janice, and that their relationship is irreparably destroyed.
  Fuches: You destroyed that guy's life! You're never gonna move past it!
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: He is a selfish, manipulative, scheming asshole who only cares about himself and doesn't really take any pains to hide it. However, he breaks down over Barry's alleged death at the airstrip… because Barry never had a chance to apologize to him, despite the fact that Fuches has been using and abusing Barry for his own purposes up til that point. He does develop a hint of a heart of bronze in the final season, finally deciding to prove that he does care about Barry by risking his own life to save Barry's son, John.
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: Fuches goes through a lot of humiliation and suffering, but he deserves all of it and brings a lot of his misery on himself. After getting beaten up day after day in prison, he finally acknowledges how much of the pain he's brought upon himself. After getting out of prison, he ceases to be a Butt-Monkey altogether.
• Karma Houdini: He's last seen walking into the night after letting John go and exchanging one final glance with Barry. Downplayed in that, even aside from all the injuries and humiliations he suffered in the show, he also spent 8 years in prison and is now without any men to support him.
• Kick the Dog: In general, his treatment of Gene is absolutely despicable. Gene knows absolutely nothing of his and Barry’s work, but for entirely petty, jealous reasons, Fuches goes after this innocent man just to get back at his protégé. His most infamous moment of this is when he sadistically makes sure that Gene sees Janice's body, which he really didn't have to do if the goal was to pull a gun on this harmless old acting coach anyway.
• Lack of Empathy: Fuches seems genuinely unable to empathize with people on a meaningful level. His relationship with Barry falls apart because Fuches just fundamentally can't comprehend why Barry would hate killing people, since he doesn't even see that as a problem. It becomes clear later on in the series that Fuches is capable of empathy, but he's so self-absorbed and in denial of his faults that he might as well not be.
  Stovka: As long as I work for them, I am never free. My whole life, ever since a child, is death. There is only one true way out.
  Fuches: Yeah, I caught about half of that, Stovie. If you could take my cell phone out of my- my pocket here, I could show you one gal. She's Cherokee! She's really wild!
  [gunshot]
• Laser-Guided Karma: He tries to manipulate Jim Moss into getting revenge on Barry. His response? He manipulates Fuches into getting himself caught by the police.
• Laughably Evil: Fuches is a terrible person, but he's such an incompetent screw-up that it's hard not to laugh at him.
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste: When Barry escapes from the prison where they are both held, the guards beat him senselessly for any information he might have on Barry. He genuinely didn’t know anything, but the other inmates take this as an adamant refusal to snitch and he parlays this newfound respect into becoming a feared prison gang leader.
• Noble Demon: Again...kind of, as Fuches is just as vicious and cruel when he exits prison as he was before and even brutally kills the men who were sent to assassinate him. But surprisingly, when confronted with Barry's son John, he selflessly shields the boy from getting shot and returns him to Barry, as a sort of way to atone for ruining Barry's life.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: An interesting take on this trope, as Fuches comes to accept that he's a horrible person and a manipulative scumbag after his stint in prison. He's disgusted by Hank's posturing that he's a successful businessman when he's a criminal just like him. He tells Hank after the guy rightfully calls him out as the scumbag he is, that being in prison made him realize that he's an awful person, and that he's come to accept it, before asking Hank why he can't.
• The Load: Taylor points out to Barry that he doesn't actually need Fuches. Fuches barely does any of the work himself outside of handling negotiations - and even then, he's not that good at it - and frequently stiffs Barry on the money. Tellingly, where Barry is able to thrive just fine without Fuches after cutting ties with him in Season 1, Fuches struggles desperately without Barry to back him up.
• Made of Iron: Which is just as well, because he gets beaten up constantly. In one season three episode he gets gunned down before the opening titles and is back on his feet before the halfway point of the episode.
• Manipulative Bastard: Fuches isn't the Hannibal Lecter that he brags about being, but he's still very dangerous once he starts talking. He's turned Barry into his tool, for one thing, and it takes about the space of a day for him to go from being locked up and tortured in Goran's garage to sitting at the man's table enjoying a meal and giving advice.
• Meaningful Name: His surname sounds very similar to "fuchs", which is German for fox. Considering how sly and cunning Fuches is, it's very fitting.
• Narcissist: He has a massively inflated sense of self, consistently refuses to take responsibility for his actions or accept even the slightest bit of criticism, and consistently prioritizes his own well-being over others.
• Never My Fault: Fuches never takes responsibility for his own actions or even considers that he could be wrong. Where even Barry at least acknowledges he has done objectively terrible things even if he never accepts the blame, the thought never enters Fuches's mind.
• Non-Action Big Bad: He's a good schemer, not a fighter, and any situation where he's tasked with physically defending himself tends to end poorly. In the end, he can only scream threats at Barry while he's getting punched, and plead impotently with him as he's driving away. When Barry comes to kill him at the end of Season 2, he runs for his life utterly terrified. Subverted after he gets out of prison in Season 4. Although he uses gang members he met in prison as his soldiers, he's much less shy about violence and ends up starting a shootout with Hank and his men in the series finale.
• Noodle Incident: Fuches says his loyalty to Barry comes from an incident where Barry's father saved his life in Vietnam. Barry corrects him and says the incident took place during Vietnam, at a military barracks in Connecticut. Nothing about this event or Barry's father is ever explained any further.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Fuches can be pretty damn incompetent, and his run in Season 2 has him repeatedly screw up and get hurt, so it's easy to forget how dangerous he is. The reality is that he should not be underestimated, and he's an incredibly ruthless man who'll do virtually anything to snake his way out of a dicey situation.
• Obliviously Evil: Word of God is that he's genuinely unaware of the harm manipulating Barry into being a hitman has caused Barry. To Fuches, it was simply a successful job and Barry is quitting and throwing a temper tantrum for no reason whatsoever.
• Oh, Crap!: While in the car with Detective Moss' father driving, Fuches slowly becomes more and more nervous as Jim ignores all of Fuches' attempts at manipulation to go after Barry and starts rambling about tangentially related subjects to what Jim mentioned. He realizes to his distress that he can't worm his way out after the car has stopped and Jim is staring past him because Fuches has been driven over to the police station to be handed over to the cops.
• Opportunistic Bastard: Fuches jumps at any opportunity he can to benefit himself, regardless of how immoral or self-serving it is. In the first season alone, he proves willing to start a gang war just to save his own neck.
• Parental Substitute: An interesting case where's he views himself as such and sees Barry - who he's known since Barry was a child - as a surrogate son, but he's also an extremely manipulative and abusive figure who gets very jealous when Barry starts seeing Gene as a father figure instead.
• Pet the Dog:
  • One of his few redemptive moments is when he tries to warn Barry about the wire he's wearing.
  • In the finale, he shields John with his own body during the firefight between his and Hank's men and when he finally reunites with Barry, he lets him and John go. He even shields John's eyes from the bloody aftermath of the shootout.
  • In the same episode, he's also surprisingly gentle and empathetic with Hank when the latter seems to be on the verge of breaking down and admitting his role in Cristobel's death.
• Phony Veteran: Downplayed. He actually did serve during Vietnam (as a cook), but he occasionally tries to make his service sound more impressive than it was and frame himself as The Vietnam Vet, when in truth he never saw combat and just worked at a military barracks in Connecticut. In the series finale, he admits to doing this during his last standoff with Hank, stating he was a "poser".
• Prison Changes People: Eight years in prison changes Fuches from a crafty but incompetent and rather goofy small-time crook into a feared crime boss with a perpetually collected disposition. It also makes him surprisingly more reflective about himself, as in the series finale, he has a discussion where he admits to his cowardly and manipulative behaviors, not even defending himself when Hank insults him for those behaviors.
• Psychopathic Manchild: He's probably the most unrepentantly amoral character in the whole show, but what's even more disturbing is that he acts like a spoiled child when he doesn't get his way, often sabotaging Barry out of pure spite.
• Redemption Earns Life: He makes a decision to risk his own life to save John from Hank in order to do right by Barry for once in his life. Consequently, Fuches ends up being the only person to exit the resulting firefight alive and unharmed aside from Sally and John.
• The Scrooge: He's extremely miserly where Barry's comforts are concerned, and tends to reap the majority of the benefits from Barry's jobs and Barry living a fairly spartan existence.
• The Stool Pigeon: When Barry is sent to prison in Season 4, Fuches not only willingly but voluntarily turns state's evidence, wearing a wire and trying to get a confession in exchange for Witness Protection; he dramatically discards the wire when he reunites with Barry and acts like the FBI forced him into it. Whether this was sincere or yet another ploy to manipulate his protege is unclear, as it's promptly inverted — Barry escapes, and Fuches, who doesn't know where he is, is viciously beaten for not giving him up.
• Tattooed Crook: Fuches is already a criminal, but on being released from prison in Season 4 he has many tattoos on his arms, torso and neck. This signals that he's grown more dangerous, as a hardened prison gang leader who's widely feared now with his own criminal syndicate outside as well.
• Too Clever by Half: Fuches is a clever schemer and manipulator, but he's not as good as he thinks he is. Most of his success with wrapping Barry around his little finger is because Barry is already very susceptible to emotional control, not due to any special talent on Monroe's part.
  • His scheme to amass a "Revenge Army", while succeeding in ruining Barry's life, is also fraught with mistakes and missteps that ultimately lead to his downfall:
    • He succeeds in convincing Traci, Taylor's sister and the leader of a biker gang, to kill Barry. After giving them Barry's name and address, Traci promptly has him shot and leaves him for dead in the outskirts of LA, where he almost certainly would have died had he not been found by a nearby resident.
    • His shotgun approach to finding accomplices winds up inadvertently saving Barry's life. After Barry is poisoned by Chris's wife, he's found on the verge of death by George. After some agonizing over whether to let Barry slowly or kill him himself in revenge for his son, George ultimately decides to drive Barry to an A&E and promptly kills himself.
    • He finally contacts Jim Moss and tries to rope him in with information on how Barry was responsible for his daughter's murder. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who you ask), Jim sees right through this charade and tricks him into getting into a situation where he can be arrested.
  • Once he and Barry are in prison, his attempt to declare himself a new gangleader named "The Raven" and recruit fellow inmates to his cause, even giving them nicknames on the spot, is pathetic, and he's considered a complete joke in the yard. He only gains a measure of respect due to circumstances beyond his control — the guards viciously beat him after Barry's escape for information that he doesn't possess and can't give them, and the other prisoners take this suffering as Fuches being a tough son of a bitch who won't crack under pressure — which he then turns into actual loyalty.
  • Once out of prison, he successfully insinuates himself into Hank's new business and blackmails his gang into a security contract. He then promptly ruins it by getting drunk at the celebratory dinner and congratulating Hank on what he perceives as a perfect coup against all of his "enemies", Cristobal included; when Fuches saw Hank's tributes to his former partner, he read them as insincere and a means of covering up the truth, not that Hank genuinely wanted to memorialize him and may not have had any control over his death. Hank, furious and insulted at having this old wound reopened, calls the deal off.
• Took a Level in Badass: Post time skip, he's finally become the feared, respected criminal he's always wanted to be, fully embracing "the Raven" persona and amassing a small army of loyal thugs. One of his first actions upon his release from prison is to immediately and easily seduce a barista into apparent marriage.
• Toxic Friend Influence: The toxic influence in Barry's life. Even when he doesn't want to do killings anymore, Fuches is the one that keeps him going through gaslighting and other tacts.
• The Vietnam Vet: Subverted. He claims to have served in Vietnam, but Barry quickly corrects him that he served during Vietnam and never actually stepped foot in the country.
• The Unfettered: Downplayed, but Fuches has become more vicious and comfortable with violence after his stint in prison, and fully accepts that he's an awful person, asking Hank why he can't accept it.
• Villainous Breakdown: He's not immune to freaking out when things don't go his way, but he's at his most pathetic as he pleads with a fleeing Barry and especially when Barry goes on a killing spree just to kill him.
• Villainous Underdog: Fuches is a hapless screw-up who frequently finds himself at the mercy of dangerous and much stronger opponents, from Barry to the Chechens, and survives solely through his manipulations and a lot of luck.
• Would Hurt a Child: He's perfectly willing to murder Ronny's young daughter Lily.
  • Averted in the series finale, where he shields John with his own body during the firefight between his and Hank's men and covers his eyes to keep him from seeing the aftermath before letting him go with Barry.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Throughout the first season, he's convinced that LA's various gangs are Ruthless Foreign Gangsters when in reality they err more on the side of Pragmatic Villainy.

Taylor Garrett

Taylor Garrett

Portrayed By: Dale Pavinski

A former Marine who's introduced to Barry through Chris, only to end up causing trouble when he forces his way into Barry's business.

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• Affably Evil: He's an Ax-Crazy asshole, but he does genuinely like Barry and see him as a friend. He never seems to intend to make anyone uncomfortable either, but he never realizes how off-putting his behavior to other people around him.
• Arc Villain: The biggest problem for Barry for a few episodes of the first season.
• Ax-Crazy: Due to being a Shell-Shocked Veteran who's too much of a meathead to properly address his issues.
• Bald of Evil: He's a shiny-headed maniac.
• Beard of Evil: He sports a beard and is much more openly violent and sadistic than Barry or Fuches.
• Blood Knight: Very enthusiastic about shooting people. And, provided he doesn't plan the operation, he is very good at it.
• The Brute: He's a burly meathead who winds up mostly being used for grunt work and serving as Barry's
• Cluster F-Bomb: Tends to drop these.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Blood Knight. Taylor deeply enjoys fighting and killing, but while he is good at grunt work, his obsessive need for action winds up making him a liability to Barry and Fuches.
• Dissonant Serenity: His casual mentions of murder in Barry's answering machine messages.
  "Barry, Taylor. You didn't kill those Bolivians yet, did ya? I really wanna kill them with you, so, give me a buzz. Bye."
• Fearless Fool: His tactic of storming headfirst into a firefight and viewing the use of cover as a vague suggestion at best is what eventually ends up doing him in.
• Foil: To Barry. Both are ex-Marines with severe psychological problems and a willingness to kill outside of war (and great skill at doing so). However, while Barry is cognizant of his issues, hates his current life, and handles dangerous situations cautiously and tactically, Taylor is an unpredictable Blood Knight who ignores his issues and recklessly charges into danger.
• Hidden Depths: Played for Laughs, but Taylor accurately points out the manipulative and abusive relationship between Barry and Fuches, and this is after they briefly met.
• Innocently Insensitive: He genuinely doesn't seem to comprehend how obnoxious his behavior is or how it tends to put people off.
• Jerkass: He's quite crass and unpleasant, though a lot of it comes from him not understanding how obnoxious his behavior is.
• Jerkass Has a Point: For as much as an unpleasant jarhead as he is, Taylor is dead on about how toxic Barry and Fuches's relationship is, even advising Barry to cut him off (admittedly by killing him) which Barry comes to agree with.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Although he's capable of following strategic orders, he would much rather rush into battle headfirst. He even shouts "Leeroy Jenkins" as he does this. Trying to do this at the airstrip, where there is no cover and the Bolivians can see his van coming from miles away, gets him killed immediately.
• Odd Friendship: With Chris. Chris is a friendly family man, while Taylor is a brutish meathead with zero impulse control.
• The Millstone: Barry temporarily takes him on as a partner, but Taylor's near suicidal levels of stupidity make him an active detriment that culminates in the catastrophic bum-rush of the Bolivians.
• Mirror Character: He's basically a dumber, more violence hungry version of Barry.
• Multiple Gunshot Death: He's killed when the Bolivians riddle him with bullets during his bum-rush.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: It's mentioned that he was kicked out of his PTSD support group. His incredibly aggressive and nigh-suicidally destructive behavior points to him having some unresolved issues, although he's too dense to really be aware of them.
• Sixth Ranger: He joins Barry and Fuches halfway through Season 1, albeit by forcing his way in and with neither of them really wanting him to be there.
• The Starscream: He never acts on it and it's motivated more by concern for Barry, but he offhandedly suggests that Barry kill Fuches and take his rightful share of the money.
• Too Dumb to Fool: It's plain as day to him just how toxic and lopsided Barry's relationship (both professional and personal) with Fuches has become, as well as how easily Barry could get out from under Fuches if he really wanted to.
• Too Dumb to Live: He takes near-suicidal risks, culminating in his decision to bum-rush the Bolivians despite the massive risk he's taking. Sure enough, he winds up being shot dead.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His suicidal bum-rush on the airstrip doesn't just result in his death - it leads to Chris having to kill a Bolivian to save Barry, and thus to Barry having to kill Chris to stop him from going to the police. Had Taylor just listened to Barry, the rest of the show would turn out substantially different.
• Wild Card: His unpredictability and stupidity means Taylor absolutely cannot be trusted. He's loyal to Barry, but he'll disregard his orders without warning and at one point suggests the two murder Fuches and take his share of the money.

Hitman

Hitman

Portrayed by: Shaughn Buchholz

An unnamed contract killer taken on by Fuches as a replacement for Barry after Barry cuts ties with him.

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• Beard of Evil: He's a hitman who sports a ratty beard.
• Butt-Monkey: In his brief screentime, he goes through a lot of misfortune. He mishandles his rifle, is given the wrong code to a safe by Fuches, inadvertently shoots himself in the leg via a ricochet, and is finally gunned down by the police.
• The Chew Toy: He goes through a lot of brutal injuries, and it's Played for Laughs.
• Multiple Gunshot Death: He's riddled with bullets by the police.
• No Name Given: He's never actually named onscreen, and credited only as "Hitman".
• Stupid Crooks: He proves to be deeply incompetent during his brief screentime. He fails to handle his gun properly, accidentally shoots himself in the leg, and fails to even retrieve the item his and Fuches's client had hired them to get. Though the last one is admittedly on Fuches and their client, who failed to give him the right code.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Humorously Averted. He uses a shotgun for the job, but he quickly proves to be pretty incompetent with it. He screws up trying to shoot one guy who is about 6 feet away from him, and he even manages to wound himself in the leg when he tries shooting the safe in frustration.
• Sketchy Successor: Barry was a veritable One-Man Army who could take out multiple armed combatants. This guy has difficulty shooting an unarmed man and winds up getting himself killed by the police.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He's only around for a single scene before being killed off.

Chechen Mafia

Goran

Goran Pazar

"My daughter is having sleepover and we are being too loud."

Portrayed By: Glenn Fleshler

The leader of the Chechen mob in Los Angeles, Pazar hires Barry to handle an embarrassing situation.

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• Affably Evil: He's very ruthless and not to be trusted, but Goran's an amicable and straightforward guy for the most part. He's even polite to Fuches while informing him that he is going to betray and murder him and Barry at the first opportunity.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Goran is a ruthless mobster, but he's a loving father, spited husband and he spends much of his time being awkwardly put-upon by incompetent or treacherous associates. When he's killed by Barry, the camera holds on his body in a manner that lends his death weight.
• Bald of Evil: He's bald, and the head of the Chechen mafia.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With Fuches for Season 1; Fuches has the malice, Goran has the muscle. He still comes across as far less dangerous due to being a sympathetic Punch-Clock Villain.
• Boom, Headshot!: Barry kills him by shooting him in the side of the head. He doesn't die right away, either, instead floundering for a few seconds as his nervous system goes haywire.
• Brutal Honesty: He's generally quite blunt and makes his feelings known to everyone. One memorable instance has him quite casually inform Fuches he's going to have him and Barry killed.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: He has a habit of betraying his allies, particularly those who have only been hired by him and are not official members of the mob. He orders Paco killed the second he's outlived his usefulness and nearly does the same to Fuches and Barry before the former narrowly talks him out of it.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's quite sardonic and prone to making witty remarks.
• The Dying Walk: After being shot in the head by Barry, Goran takes a few steps forwards before sitting down on a nearby chair and dying.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He dotes on his young daughter.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Goran is ruthless, but he isn't excessively sadistic. He's disgusted when he learns that Barry once stabbed a guy in the balls, and doesn't even want his wife's lover to be murdered in such a way.
  • He finds Vacha way too creepy to be trusted. At least part of this is because he's so Obviously Evil he's not useful for anything that requires subtlety, but Goran seems genuinely intimidated by him.
  • He's genuinely regretful after learning Cristobal would have shared the stash house with him, both because it will lead to a gang war between them and because all the bloodshed was completely unnecessary.
• Expy: Of Tony Soprano. Both are overweight, burly crime bosses who balance their family lives with their profession, are something of a Mean Boss while still being a fair employer, and frequently engage in macho posturing.
• Fat Bastard: He's fairly overweight, and he's a ruthless gangster.
• Fatal Flaw: Despite enjoying Pragmatic Villainy, his desire to be seen as a powerful crime boss is what makes him susceptible to Fuches' manipulations. This eventually leads him to order the raid on Cristóbal's airstrip and demote NoHo for being too polite and "weak," both of which lead to his death and the near-destruction of his mob.
• Friendly Enemy: After actually meeting Cristobal, he admits he's a "super-nice guy" in spite of the fact the two are about to go into a gang war.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: His decision to raid Cristobal's airstrip and his demotion of Hank set off a chain of events that leads to his death.
• Horrible Judge of Character: He believes that Fuches is trustworthy and a reliable source of information, and that Cristobal is a violent maniac. He only realizes how badly he misjudged them when it's too late.
• Kick the Morality Pet: He spends most of the first season treating Hank like his best friend, making his angry outburst and demotion of him all the more shocking.
• Laughably Evil: He's a ruthless mob boss, but the duality between his occupation and him being a loving family man is frequently played for comedy.
• Mean Boss: He's quite prone to belittling his men which even Hank isn't safe from. He never crosses into being a Bad Boss, but he noticeably stops caring about the men that Barry killed when he proves a viable asset to the Chechens.
• No Sympathy: He has absolutely no sympathy for Vacha wanting revenge on Barry for killing his brother, bluntly telling him that he doesn't care and to let it go.
  Goran: Oh my God, no one cares. It's so boring. Every day, "he kill my brother"!
• Only Sane Man: He tends to be the only member of the Chechen mob to use common sense and rely on Pragmatic Villainy.
• Pragmatic Villainy: He's outraged when Vacha reveals he's been stalking and photographing Barry. Not because of any moral reason, but because Barry is both a useful asset and that Vacha has inadvertently supplied a lot of evidence that the police could use to tie Barry to the Chechens.
• Psychological Projection: He believes Cristobal is a ruthless mob boss much like himself who won't compromise with anyone out of fear of looking weak. In reality, Cristobal would have agreed to share his stash house with Goran had he simply asked, sparing a lot of death and misery.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He's a dangerous mob boss, but he's also a loving father who doesn't let his criminal activities completely rule his life. This is used to humorous effect, such as when he conducts a serious meeting with Barry and Fuches while at his daughter's dance recital.
• Technician vs. Performer: The Performer to Barry and Fuches' technician. Goran is fixated on dramatic gestures such as his idea of mailing a bullet to the colleagues of a murder victim, where Fuches and Barry are comparatively more straight-forward and practical.
• This Is Gonna Suck: When Cristobal wages war against him despite his attempts to compromise, he is not happy with what'll come next.
  Goran: "War? Ho ho ho. This is... really not good news for me."
• Unwitting Pawn: Fuches plays him like a fiddle for most of the season, convincing him that waging war on the Bolivians is better than just killing him for Barry's failure. This eventually results in his death.
• Villain Cred: He has a lot of respect for Stovka, practically worshiping the ground he walks on and clearly being in awe of him the entire time.
• Villainous Friendship:
  • With Hank. The two get along like a house on fire, and much of the first season's comedy comes from the two bantering with each other. However, Goran eventually severs their friendship after Hank's obvious concern for Barry's well-being makes him decide that he's weak.
  • He forms a brief one with Fuches, until he realizes Fuches has been manipulating him and simply feeding his ego.
• Virtue Is Weakness: He admits in a fit of rage that he views Hank's polite and obsequious personality as a sign of weakness.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Goran believes he's in a serious crime drama akin to The Godfather and Scarface where grand power plays and extravagant methods of murder are the norm. Unfortunately for him, he's in a dark comedy that deconstructs this sort of genre and where organized crime is portrayed as almost mundane and boring work.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: He's very fond of pulling this trope. He has Paco killed the second he's given Goran all the vital information he has, and he intends to kill Barry and Fuches once they kill Paco until Stovka's suicide forces him to make do with them.

NoHo Hank

NoHo Hank

"Well, what do you want me to do? Go to John Wick Assassin Hotel with help wanted sign?"

Portrayed By: Anthony Carrigan

A Chechen mobster, NoHo Hank is Goran Pazar’s right-hand man.

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• Admiring the Abomination: First seen early on when he has a fanboy-esque freakout over hitman legend Stovka, and as the story goes on he holds this towards Barry himself, even giddily reassuring Barry that he thinks he's "the most evil person I know!"
• Affably Evil: Hank is an immensely likable person, in addition to being the right-hand man to a ruthless mobster. He's genuinely polite, outgoing, considerate, and fun to be around. Even when he's trying to be scary, he's still obviously fixated on being polite. In "The Audition," he admits that his true calling was customer service.
• Alas, Poor Villain: He spends most of Season 4 struggling with the guilt of having led Cristobal, who he admits was the love of his life, to his death after trying to keep the both of them from getting murdered by the Chechen mob. By the end, he's anguished but unable to accept responsibility for what happened, shouting that Fuches is a "fucking liar" for stating the reality of the situation, and provokes a shootout; dying alone, surrounded by dead gangsters, he desperately clutches the hand of Cristobal's statue as he draws his last breath.
• All Take and No Give: His friendship with Barry is incredibly one-sided: Hank idolizes Barry and repeatedly puts himself at great risk in order to help Barry out. Barry at-best treats Hank as an annoyance to be quietly tolerated and only turned to when he has no other options left, and at worst will screw him over without hesitation in order to save himself. This culminates in season 4 where Hank tries to arrange a prison break to bust Barry out at the same time Barry is making a deal to sell Hank and the Chechans out in order to get a protection deal with the FBI. Hank learning of this is what finally convinces him to cut Barry out of his life entirely.
• AM/FM Characterization: The first episode of Season 2 features him listening to a cheery pop song, in keeping with his upbeat and Affably Evil personality.
• Anti-Villain: He's definitely ruthless, but Hank remains one of the more sympathetic members of the cast due to his general loyalty to his friends. This fades in Season 4 as he becomes increasingly ruthless.
• Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: Hank views being a gangster as the greatest thing in the whole world, and doesn't get why anyone wouldn't want to be one. When Barry, in a moment of vulnerability, asks Hank if he's evil, Hank cheerfully tells him he's the evilest person he knows and genuinely thinks it was a compliment.
• Bald of Evil: He's a ruthless mobster and crime lord without a hair on his head, not even eyebrows (his actor has Alopecia Universalis, a condition which causes complete loss of all hair all over the body.)
• Berserk Button: He does not take kindly to anyone even insinuating that he willingly had Cristobal killed. He flips out and breaks off a budding alliance with Fuches as a direct result of Fuches attempting to compliment Hank about it.
• Beware the Silly Ones: He's a sweet, dorky, energetic guy, and Barry feels comfortable insulting him to his face... up until Hank drops his polite demeanor and threatens to sell him out to the Chechens. See Not-So-Harmless Villain, below.
• Big Bad: He's basically the main antagonist of the series finale, as he kidnaps Sally and John and uses them as leverage against Barry.
• Born Lucky: Hank has an uncanny ability to not only survive, but benefit from being in life-threatening situations.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Hank doesn’t view anything about being a gangster as objectionable as all. He’s willing to kill as many criminals as he needs to with no hesitation. However, he is also a very kind and polite individual to pretty much everyone, and he seems to avoid involving civilians in his life of crime and violence.
• Breakout Character: Originally meant to die in the first episode, the crew fell in love with Anthony Carrigan's performance, resulting in Hank just being wounded and becoming series regular, long outlasting his boss Goran as one of the main characters.
• Camp Gay: He's a gay man and very effeminate, though it comes less from his sexually and more from the fact that Hank is fastidiously polite and well-mannered.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He considers being called "evil" to be a compliment.
  Barry: Am I, like, an evil person?
  Hank: Oh my God! I mean. Absolutely! Do I not tell you that enough? You are like the most evil guy I know, man!
• Cathartic Crying: Downplayed. When Fuches tells him to own up to Cristobal's death after years of being in denial, it brings Hank to tears as it seems he's realising what he's done... until he backs down last second and tells Fuches off, causing him to shoot Hank and start a shootout.
• Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: Hank clearly views being a gangster as the best job in the world and deeply enjoys it, even viewing being called "evil" as a compliment.
• Dies Wide Open: After the shootout in the finale, he dies while looking up at a statue of Cristobal.
• Dissonant Serenity: His perpetually cheerful personality means he'll treat even death threats with the same attitude he takes when preparing snacks for guests.
• Disproportionate Retribution: He orders Barry to kill Esther because he's jealous Cristobal brought her into their joint operation and is paying attention to her.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • At the end of season 1, Goran demotes Hank because he's too "weak" and soft. Hank then sells out Goran to Barry, effectively signing Goran's death warrant.
  • At the beginning of season 2, he asks Barry to perform a hit for him but Barry refuses and insults him. Later that night, Hank shows up at Barry's acting class and informs him that he is no longer asking Barry, he is telling him to perform the hit and that he'll have the whole class killed if he doesn't.
  • In season 4 he finds out that Barry is cooperating with the FBI to sell Hank and his friends out. Hank proceeds to give a The Reason You Suck speech over Barry, telling him to rot in hell, and then sends assassins after him.
• The Dragon: Goran's lieutenant and right-hand man.
• Dragon Ascendant: After Goran's death, Hank is left in control of the Chechen mob, and uses the opportunity (and his people skills) to befriend the Bolivians and make their two groups even more powerful.
• Dying Alone: His fate in the series finale; having been fatally wounded by Fuches, Hank spends his last moments alive surrounded by the dead bodies of his and Fuches's men while sitting against a statue of Cristobal, clutching its hand as he takes his final breaths before dying.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • He's pretty weirded out when Barry talks about having once stabbed a guy in the balls; he's also unsettled by Vacha, who he considers too self-consciously creepy.
  • He's also left terrified when Burmese gang leader Esther demonstrates her toughness by stabbing herself through the hand without flinching.
  • In the series finale, he seems genuinely uncomfortable with using a kid as leverage to lure out Barry.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: He sees no problem with forming an alliance with the Bolivian mob, and his hatred towards the Burmese mob joining said alliance comes from jealousy rather than bigotry.
• Fatal Flaw: Denial. By his own admission, Hank would probably be far happier working a legitimate career in customer service, as it's the one thing in the series he's consistently depicted as both enjoying and being good at. Instead, he sticks to his delusion that being a gangster is his life's calling, leading to Cristobal's death and Hank being left alone at the top. This directly leads to his death after the timeskip, as he'd rather continue to live in denial than admit that he regrets what he's done and how he'd caused Cristobal's death, provoking a fatal shootout with Fuches in the process.
• Friendly Enemy: He genuinely likes Barry, although that wouldn't stop him from killing him if the need arose. He genuinely mourns Barry's supposed death, speaking fondly of him over the phone with Fuches. And when Fuches learns Barry is still alive and sells him out, Hank gives him the heads-up that saves him, calling a good guy. This ends after Barry starts talking to the FBI.
• Freudian Slip: A non-sexual version played for drama in the finale. In their confrontation, Fuches offers to walk away from their feud entirely and never trouble Hank again — if Hank will only admit that what happened with Cristobal was his fault and a result of poor decisions he made. Hank appears to be on the verge of doing so, but can't bring himself to, and ends up hissing "You're a liar!" at Fuches before pulling a gun on him. Tellingly, however, since making the offer Fuches has said nothing except to agree with statements Hank himself has made; Hank is unwittingly admitting that he himself is the liar by refusing to admit what he did.
• Gayngster: Confirmed as of Season 3, when he is shown in a forbidden relationship with Cristobal.
• Green-Eyed Monster: He becomes very jealous when Cristobal recruits Esther into their joint operation, feeling that she's taking his attention away from him. This leads to him hiring Barry to kill her.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Hank is most assuredly not a good guy, but he's generally incompetent and very nice to everyone, including the people he plans to have tortured and killed.
• Horrifying the Horror: When he finally has enough of Barry disrespecting him, he shows up to the building of his acting class to threaten him. His deadly serious tone is enough to even intimidate Barry.
• Innocently Insensitive: As Hank himself views being a gangster as the greatest job in the world, he can't at all comprehend that Barry feels remorse and discomfort with being a hitman. This results in attempts at being supportive toward Barry as only making him feel worse, such as when he cheerfully tells him that he's "the most evil" person that he knows.
• Laughably Evil: He's a ruthless criminal, but his perky, upbeat demeanor makes him a blast to watch especially due to the contrast with his occupation.
• Lonely at the Top: In the time skip in Season 4, after Cristobal's death, he is shown to be a highly successful businessman but it also shows that he has no one, and Cristobal's death still hurts him eight years later.
• Malaproper: Hank has a good command of English, but he's not a native speaker, so his attempts at using English-exclusive figures of speech can sometimes come off as awkward or inaccurate ("get out of The Dodge").
  "Well, you know what Sonny and Cher would say: that's on you, babe."
• Manchild: Writes to his contact back in Chechnya as though he were a kid telling his parents about summer camp.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: With Esther, his rival for Cristóbal's loyalties. Esther is tough, stoic, and referenced as a Brawn Hilda by Fuches, while Hank is Affably Evil and into fashion and interior decorating.
• Motor Mouth: Hank absolutely loves to chitchat and when he gets going it's nearly impossible to stop him, even when no one is listening any longer.
• Mutually Unequal Relationship: He views Barry as his best friend and puts himself at risk many times to help him, while Barry considers him an annoyance and doesn't give a damn about him.
• Never My Fault: This ends up being his Fatal Flaw. In their final confrontation, Fuches points out how, unlike Hank, he has accepted and come to terms with the fact that he is "a man without a heart", and offers to give up their feud and leave immediately if Hank is simply willing to admit that it's his fault Cristobal is dead and he hates himself for it. Hank appears to be on the verge of doing so, but cannot bring himself to — instead, he pulls a gun on Fuches and gets killed. Appropriately enough, his very last words are a series of excuses ("I actually loved him", "I didn't think this would happen", "I only wanted to be safe", and finally "you're a liar").
• Nice Guy: Ignoring the whole "career criminal" thing, Hank is an incredibly and sincerely chipper, friendly, and considerate guy who it's really hard not to like.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • His decision to bring the lipstick camera with him while trying to kill Barry in the pilot leads to the camera being confiscated by the police and Moss and Loach figuring out Barry's identity. It would have saved Barry and Fuches a lot of grief had Hank simply not brought it along.
  • He warns Barry of Goran's hit on him and abduction of Fuches, which lead to Barry murdering Goran and several of his men in retaliation. It doesn't turn out bad for Hank, since he winds up taking Goran's position in his stead.
• Noble Demon: He tries to be this, but he's so damn incompetent at being a gangster that he can't do his job very well and ultimately comes off as an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain instead.
• No Sympathy: He's not particularly sympathetic to Vacha wanting revenge in Barry of killing his brother, though he's not as blunt about it as Goran is.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Zig-zagged. For virtually all of Season 1, Hank is an absolute sweetheart who's considerate and sensitive. He's so unthreatening that Barry feels free to tell him right to his face how little he thinks of him regularly, with no fear of reprisal. Come Season 2, when he's facing pressure from seemingly every angle of his life, he shows that even he has limits to what he can tolerate, and exhibits his dark side when he chillingly commands Barry to kill his rival. For all his affable mannerisms, he's still a remorseless criminal who is willing to go to extremes when crossed. With that said, he's still shown to be utterly incompetent as the leader of the Chechen mob throughout the season, so while he is capable of being ruthless, he can't be counted on to effectively follow through with his ruthlessness.
  • In season 3 during his imprisonment in Bolivia, despite being terrified out of his mind he manages to break out of his handcuffs, overpower a guard and steal his gun, take down a panther that had just killed his remaining comrades, and finally escape and kill Elena in order to rescue Cristobal.
  • In season 4's "it takes a psycho," Hank not only heartlessly kills—in an exceptionally cruel fashion—the coalition of gangs he had assembled under the pretense of going legit, but he also allows Cristobal to be executed when Cristobal attempts to leave Hank, as Cristobal knows too much about the Chechens to be left alive.
• Pet the Dog: In the first season finale, Hank secretly calls Barry to warn him that Goran ordered a hit on him and that he should get out of town. It puts Hank - who was already on thin ice with Goran - at risk of reprisal, but he still does it.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Compared to the rest of the main cast, who all have some very dark shades to their characters, Hank pretty much entirely exists for laughs. At least in the first two seasons for the most part. See Not-So-Harmless Villain above.
• Relationship Upgrade: As of season 3's premier, he and Cristobal are in an explicit romantic relationship.
• Sole Survivor: Subverted, while the Season 2 finale made it seem like he managed to be the only member of any of the three crime syndicates present at the warehouse who survives Barry's rampage, it is later revealed that only the Burmese syndicate was wiped out, with there being two other Chechen mobsters who survived as well as Cristobal.
  • But by the end of Season 3, the Bolivian cartel captures the remaining members of the LA Chechen mob and executes them by feeding them to a panther. Hank narrowly escapes, finally playing this trope straight.
• The Starscream: Downplayed. He doesn't actively betray Goran, but he's very happy to realize Barry killed him and allows him to take over the gang.
• Tattooed Crook: Covered in gang tattoos.
• Tragic Villain: Becomes this in season 4, as he becomes wrapped in guilt over leading his lover Cristobal to his death.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Post time skip, he's become a legitimate businessman who is apparently beloved by the community and does charity work, but he still has criminal connections on the side that he taps into for dirtier work.
• Villainous Friendship: With Goran. The two get along like a house on fire, and much of the first season's comedy comes from the two bantering with each other. However, Goran eventually severs their friendship after Hank's obvious concern for Barry's well-being makes him decide that he's weak.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: A one-sided example with Barry. He seems to be convinced that he and Barry are good friends, whereas Barry, on the occasions when he even acknowledges him at all, rather clearly dislikes him. It gets significantly muddier in season 3, when Barry is desperate enough to come to him for both work and advice on his failing relationship with Sally, but Hank barely wants anything to do with him until tensions with the Bolivian cartel force them to team up again. Even then, he treats Barry as an extremely dangerous person he'd rather keep his distance from, in a manner very similar to someone trying to enforce boundaries around a toxic friend or ex. By season 4, Hank ends up cutting Barry out of his life for good over the phone after he learns of Barry talking to the FBI.
• White Sheep: Hank is the only member of the Chechen mob who is friendly, polite, and seems to have interests outside of criminal activity. Goran eventually tires of this, calling him "weak" and demoting him, only for NoHo to come out on top.
• With Friends Like These...: He considers Barry a friend, but also repeatedly tries to kill him in the first season alone and blackmails him under the threat of death.
• Would Hit a Girl: He shoots Elena in the head in the third season finale.
• Wrong Line of Work: Hank is repeatedly demonstrated as being a skilled salesman and charismatic speaker, while being completely incompetent as a criminal. He even admits at several points when under extreme stress that he's deluding himself in to believing he's a great gangster, and that his true passion is in customer service.

Mayrbek

Mayrbek

Portrayed By: Nikita Bogolyubov

Star pupil of the new Chechen army. Barry's protégé/"Baby Barry".

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• Alas, Poor Villain: He sadly dies at Barry's hands during his rampage at the monastery. It's inherently tragic given how he was killed by the man he genuinely looked up to a mentor. Even Barry himself looks like he's on the verge of tears when he looks at Mayrbek's body in the aftermath.
• Boom, Headshot!; How Barry kills him.

Vacha

Vacha

Portrayed By: Mark Ivanir

One of Goran's mobsters, the twin brother of another enforcer Barry killed.

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• Beard of Evil: He's a ruthless mobster with a thick, bushy beard.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He wants to be the one to kill Barry, but his lack of stealth winds up getting him killed before he even gets close to Barry.
• Butt-Monkey: He spends most of his screentime being insulted by Goran and Hank, and ultimately gets shot before he even gets close to Barry.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Obviously Evil villain. As Goran and Hank point out, his insistence on being as intimidating as possible at all times makes him extremely conspicuous and makes him incapable of performing any task that requires stealth. When he tries to make a move against Barry, his obvious suspiciousness gets him immediately exposed to Moss and shot dead.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He wants to kill Barry to avenge his brother, who Barry shot in self-defense in the pilot.
• Even Evil Has Standards: On the receiving end. All of his colleagues find him way too scary, even Goran who otherwise loves posturing as a terrifying mob boss.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: None of his colleagues particularly like him due to him being way too creepy for their liking.
• Obviously Evil: Goran and Hank criticize him for this, noting that thanks to the fact he dresses in dark, menacing clothes and even wears a Torture Technician-style apron for no reason he's way too conspicuous to be used for anything covert.
• Revenge Before Reason: His desire to take revenge on Barry ends up getting him killed before he even has a chance to confront him.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: With Ruslan. Vacha is cold and brooding, while Russian is cheery and upbeat. They're both obsessed with scaring people, though/
• Stalker without a Crush: He follows Barry and photographs him as he goes about his life, hoping to use it to convince Goran to let him kill him.
• You Killed My Father: He wants to kill Barry as revenge for Barry murdering his brother in self-defense.

Ruslan

Ruslan

Portrayed By: Mark Ivanir

One of Goran's mobsters, the twin brother of another enforcer Barry killed.

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• Affably Evil: Unlike his brother Vacha, Ruslan is cheerful, upbeat, and friendly.
• Awesome, but Impractical: As Goran angrily points out, building a stockade to torment Fuches may be a flashy method of torture, but it just wastes time when Ruslan is supposed to just kill him.
• Back Up Twin: He pops up shortly after Vacha is killed to take his place as the resident intimidator of the Chechens, though his attitude differs significantly from his twin.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Sadist. As it turns out, someone who enjoys torturing people is counterproductive as a henchman since they'll waste precious time trying to psych out their victims instead of just killing them on the spot.
• Sadist: He takes a lot of joy in psychologically torturing Fuches and torture in general, though an annoyed Goran points out he wasted precious time doing it.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Where Vacha was cold and intimidating, Russian is upbeat at all times and something of a goofball. He's still just as self-conscious about trying to be scary, though much more cheery about it.
• Torture Technician: He's very into his torture, and starts to build a stockade for Fuches to torment him psychologically.
• You Killed My Father: Subverted. Unlike Vacha, Russian doesn't seem to really care that Barry murdered his brother and doesn't show any personal enmity to Fuches. He just likes torturing people.

Stovka

Stovka

"My whole life, ever since a child, is death."

Portrayed By: Larry Hankin

An assassin and Chechen mob member who is sent to America as additional manpower for Goran.

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• The Dreaded: Subverted. Goran and Hank really hype him up to Fuches before he arrives, claiming he's the greatest assassin Chechnya has ever seen. In reality, he's a feeble and depressed old man who proceeds to promptly blow his brains out.
• Driven to Suicide: Tired and broken from having spent his life killing for the mob, Stovka choses to shoot himself in the head instead of killing Fuches.
• Empty Shell: It's clear a life of murder has left him a broken, apathetic shell of a man.
• Shadow Archetype: He's what Barry would likely become if he doesn't leave his life as a hitman.
• Taking the Kids: He mentions that he once had a wife and a child, but she divorced him and took the child with her.
• Tragic Villain: He's a notorious hitman, but Stovka is so broken and depressed that it's hard not to pity him.
• Younger Than They Look: While he looks like a gaunt old man, he claims to be 45. It is heavily implied that the stress of working as a hitman has caused him to age prematurely.

Batir

Batir

Portrayed By: JB Blanc

Hank's direct superior and contact back in Chechnya.

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• We Used to Be Friends: Hank mentions that they grew up together and were childhood friends, but it doesn't stop Batir from threatening to have him killed if he doesn't take revenge on Goran's killer.

The Bolivians

Cristóbal Sifuentes

Cristóbal Sifuentes

"You killed all my buddies."

Portrayed By: Michael Irby

The boss of the Bolivian cartel that Fuches convinces Goran to wage war against.

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• Admiring the Abomination: He admits to Goran he's been a fan of his, particularly his habit of mailing his enemies bullets before having one of them killed.
• Affably Evil: He's much more like NoHo Hank than Goran, being a genuinely friendly guy who carries on casual conversations about self-help books in the middle of making serious threats. It's this similarity that allows the two of them to unite after Goran's death.
• Anti-Villain: He's the nicest crime lord you could ever meet. He's deeply loyal to his allies, a proponent of cooperation with rivals, and friendly to just about everyone.
• Beard of Evil: He sports a goatee, and is a crime lord - albeit a very nice one.
• Cheated Death, Died Anyway: He’s accidentally caught in Hank’s sand pit massacre, but manages to be the Sole Survivor among the gangsters present. He’s then casually executed by the Chechens a few hours later for leaving Hank as a result of said massacre.
• Closet Gay: Season 3 reveals that Cristobal has a wife and children in Bolivia when more Bolivian gangsters arrive and state they'll wrap things up so he can go back to them, but he has been committed to a romantic relationship with NoHo Hank during his time in California, indicating Cristobal is in the closet on loving men.
• Cure Your Gays: In "starting now", Cristobal is tortured via electric chair by Elena, to prevent him being attracted to men.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: He reveals that he's a nice enough guy that, had Goran simply asked for an alliance and shared use of the stash house instead of getting Barry involved, he would have gladly agreed.
• Everyone Has Standards: Although season 2 saw Cristobal okay with executing Hank and his men by immolation on a schoolbus for betraying him and Esther, in season 4, Cristobal is horrified when Hank has their own men killed in a sand sivo. Apparently the difference is that it is one thing to order the deaths of people who were planning on betraying him, but it is another to betray the trust of your own people.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: He hopes to unite all of LA's gangs as one big crime syndicate, regardless of race or creed.
• Friendly Enemy: He's quite polite to Goran while informing him that, for killing his men at the stash house, he now has to go to war with him as a matter of course. He even recommends him some self-help books.
• He Knows Too Much: In the halfway point episode of season 4, Cristobal is executed by the Chechens when he tries to leave Hank because he knows too much about the Chechens' operations.
• Manly Facial Hair: He has a mustache and goatee, and he's one of the most assertive of the show's characters.
• Noble Demon: He has no compunction about murder and drug-dealing, but he's very much a proponent of cooperation even with his rivals and is extremely loyal to his allies. What drives him away from Hank is Hank's decision to kill Cristobal's men.
• Nice Guy: For a vicious kingpin, he's one of the nicest characters on the show.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He treats the more brutal aspects of gang life as simply an unfortunate necessity and Nothing Personal, and he's quite fond of recommending self-help books and giving life advice as though he were an ordinary office worker.
• Real Men Can Cook: During his and Hank's first date, he cooked a traditional Bolivian meal for him. It was apparently heavenly.
• Supreme Chef: According to Hank, his cooking is heavenly.
• This Means War!: Wages war against Goran as retribution for killing his men at the stash house.
• Too Dumb to Live: Really, how did Cristobal think that walking out on Hank in season 4 was going to end? Bill Hader has said that Cristobal was calling Hank's bluff and that he did not actually believe Hank would go so far as to have him be killed.
• Villain Cred: He cheerfully admits he respects Goran, particularly him having sent a bullet via mail before having had Paco killed.
• Visionary Villain: Cristóbal doesn't see any reason why merciless criminals can't get along and share their territory. He hopes that one day all of LA's gangs will be United and working together.

Paco Zambrana

Paco Zambrana

Portrayed By: Geo Corvera

A member of the Bolivian mob turned informant for the Chechens.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: He begs Barry for his life, though it doesn't do him any good.
• Armor-Piercing Question: While Barry initially doesn't understand Paco's begging due to not knowing Spanish, when Sally translates his last words - "You don't have to do this." - it has a profound effect on Barry.
• Beard of Evil: He doesn't do anything particularly villainous, but he's still a criminal and he sports a beard.
• He Knows Too Much: Goran has him killed both because he's outlived his usefulness and because he has too much knowledge of the Chechen's activities to be left alive.
• The Mole: He secretly informs on the Bolivians to the Chechens.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Goran rewards him for betraying the Bolivians to the Chechens by having him assassinated to make sure no one else finds out what he knows.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He's a minor character who dies at the end of his only appearance, but without Paco Goran never would have learned of the Bolivians' stash house which drives much of the conflict of Season 1.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: As soon as Paco gave the Chechens all the vital information he had, Goran ordered him killed.

Other Criminals

Esther

Esther

Portrayed By: Patricia Fa Asua

The Burmese gang leader.

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• Bond Villain Stupidity: A milder example than most, but still one. After foiling Hank's plans to kill her and take the monastary, she has him and the rest of the Chechen mob put into a school bus that was drove to the desert and doused with gasoline in order to burn them all alive. This allows one of the Chechens to escape from his binds, free the others in the nick of time and retaliate against her gang.
• Boom, Headshot!: Shot in the head by Barry in the Season 2 finale.
• The Cameo: Briefly appears in Barry's beach hallucination in "candy asses".
• Dark Action Girl: She's a crime lord and she makes it very clear that she's more than capable of throwing down. Part of the reason Cristobal allies with her is because she holds her men to the same standard.
• Death Glare: Her default expression is a stoic, intense stare that massively puts off everyone.
• Hidden Depths: She's much more cold and off-putting than Cristobal is, but she shares his love for self-help books and his desire for teamwork.
• Made of Iron; Puts a knife through her own hand to prove a point. Cristobal is impressed, NoHo Hank much less so.
• Satellite Character: Her sole plot importance is that NoHo Hank wants her out of the way so he can have all of Cristobal's attention. She almost never interacts with any other characters onscreen and the only mention she's received after her death has been a non-speaking cameo in Barry's beach hallucination among the other people he's killed.
• The Stoic: She's stone-faced at all times and rarely expresses any emotion.

El Toro

El Toro

Portrayed By: Guillermo del Toro

A mysterious, well-dressed criminal who meets with Hank and Cristobal to discuss an assassination job.

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• The Cameo: He's played by Guillermo Del Toro in what seems to be a one-scene appearance.
• Death Glare: Gives one to Hank when Hank repeatedly questions the validity of a podcast, one in which El Toro has a personal interest.
• Oblivious Mockery: Is on the receiving end of it when Hank laughs about an invention he finds idiotic, to which El Toro sternly reveals he bought said invention.

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