For the main character entry, see HERE
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Madre Linda
Dante Ferguson
Dante Ferguson
Played by: Ben Mehl
Marianne's library assistant.
- Nice Guy: He's such a good guy that even the misanthropic Joe likes him. Joe's high esteem of Dante is what convinces him to leave his son Henry with Dante and his partner. Given his own orphaned background, it's clear this wasn't a decision Joe made lightly.
- Twofer Token Minority: His eyesight is impaired and he's in a relationship with another man.
Matthew Engler
Matthew Engler
Played by: Scott Speedman
Joe and Love's tech genius next door neighbor.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: For all his relationship with Theo may seem broken, they have no issues referring to one another as ‘Dad’ and ‘son’, and Theo openly prefers him to his biological mother. In the finale, he is apologetic that he kicked Theo out and even goes Papa Wolf when trying to figure where he is. Their final scene indicates a stronger relationship is building.
- Broken Ace: He goes to pieces almost immediately after Natalie's disappearance.
- Crusading Widower: He doesn't get confirmation that Natalie is dead, but he's obsessed with finding Natalie even as his neighbors suspect him of being involved.
- Parents as People: He'd be the first to admit he wasn't the best or most attentive parent to Theo due to having him at a fairly young age and being so focused on his career and their relationship is tense and distant even before Natalie's murder made Matthew even colder and more obsessed. But Matthew does love him and makes an effort to be a better father.
- Properly Paranoid: He's absolutely right to suspect Love of having secrets and to not believe the official story on Natalie's murder and to suspect Love of involvement, even figuring out their whole scheme perfectly while admitting it's outlandish.
- Tech Bro: He is a multi-millionaire tech genius who has cameras planted everywhere, believes that nobody has the right to privacy, and has a dickish but initially respected public image.
Theo Engler
Theodore "Theo" Engler
Played by: Dylan Arnold
Matthew's stepson from his first marriage.
- Disney Death: Love accidentally knocks him down the stairs and he looks dead at first, but turns out to be okay.
- Grand Romantic Gesture: He holds a Beats Pill above his head ala Say Anything... to woo Love, thinking that's what people her age are impressed by. Made funnier by the fact that Dylan Arnold is older than Victoria Pedretti in Real Life.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Even after he finds the Conrads in a glass cage and they scream that Love put her there, he still believes that Love couldn't have killed Natalie. A fire extinguisher to the face wisens him up.
- Ivy League for Everyone: He goes to Stanford, despite not seeming either particularly intelligent or focused. His family is wealthy, though.
- Love Makes You Dumb: He's infatuated with Love and believes that Joe's a domestic abuser, blinding him to the fact that they're both killers.
- Replacement Goldfish: For Forty to Love. He also bears a noticeable physical resemblance to James, her first husband.Forty: I mean, I get it though. That kid is pretty cool. Kinda reminds me of me.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Theo seems to think he's the hero of a romance where he's the dashing Romeo who rescues Love from an abusive marriage in boring suburbia. While Love is genuinely attracted to him, she and her husband Joe being serial murderers does throw a wrench in that situation. In the end Love nearly kills him, and it's only Joe's apathy towards his marriage that causes him to save Theo.
Natalie Engler
Natalie Engler
Played by: Michaela McManus
Matthew's realtor wife, and Joe's new obsession.
- Red Herring: She's set up to be Joe's new "You", but gets killed off in the very first episode.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Natalie's murder galvanises Matthew into tracking down her killer. Meanwhile Joe and Love grow increasingly tense having to cover their tracks while dealing with the stresses of parenthood and Joe's wandering eyes. All of this boils over to the point where Joe and Love eventually snap and try to kill each other, with Joe coming out on top. If Natalie had never been in the picture, these two murderers would have been able to fade into the crowd without a second thought and never pay for their crimes.
Sherry Conrad
Sherry Conrad
Played by: Shalita Grant
A bitchy, self-obsessed "mom-fluencer" who lives in Love and Joe's neighborhood.
- Alpha Bitch: She's a toned-down version of Peach, something Joe notices immediately about her.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: With Cary. Although Love expects them to turn on each other after she leaves the gun in the cage and tells them they'll be released when one of them shoots the other, and Sherry does lose her temper and shoot Cary after he accidentally grazes her, the two end up having a tender heart-to-heart where they reaffirm how much they love each other. After they escape the cage they stay Happily Married, write a book together, and start hosting TED Talks about their ordeal.
- Bad Influencer: She runs a mommy blog, passive-aggressively shames Love's weight and parenting style to her face, slut-shames Natalie then pretends to be Natalie's best friend, and mocks Forty's death within earshot of Love (his twin sister).
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She makes a point of being very friendly to Love but is much more caustic and unpleasant behind her back, openly mocking her family's troubles.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Toward Love. Initially she is outwardly friendly while gossiping behind Love's back and making passive-aggressive comments, but after Love defends her from Theo she seemingly changes her mind and becomes a more genuine friend to Love.
- Ethical Slut: She and Cary have an open marriage and are very seasoned at organising bisexual swinging sessions with other couples; they also imply to have brought most of Madre Linda into the fold to try that at least once. However, they live their sexual proclivities with positivity and mutual respect as a way to feel liberated, keep their marriage healthy, and if anything strengthen it. Ultimately, they are shown to genuinely love and care for one another even under severe duress (for the most part).
- Happily Married: To Cary. In spite of their borderline cartoonish picture-perfect affect that causes Joe and Love (and potentially the viewer) to assume their marriage is a façade, they are genuinely well-suited partners who are deeply in love.
- Hidden Depths: The season three finale shows her as much more smart than anyone gave her credit for, attempting to manipulate Love and then realizing that there must be a key somewhere in the cage. She also has scenes with Cary that explain why she behaves the way she does and how the two of them communicate and work together when they are not in the public eye (mostly pretty well, as it turns out).
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed. Although she's mainly presented as a shallow, attention-obsessed Alpha Bitch type, she has a brief heart-to-heart with Love in episode 6 where she actually listens and gives her sincere and genuinely good advice instead of taking the opportunity to be condescending or score social points, showing that she isn't as one-dimensional a person as Joe and Love's black-and-white thinking led them to assume.
- Karma Houdini: In a series where self-absorbed phonies regularly meet gruesome ends, she is an exception. Not only do both she and her husband survive their encounter with Joe and Love, but they even use the experience to make themselves even more successful by writing a book and giving a TED talk about it. Fair is fair though, she did show some Hidden Depths.
- Kick the Dog: Joking about Forty's death and the family's issues in general behind Love's back was a serious dick move.
- Took a Level in Kindness: She becomes genuinely friendly to Love after Love defends her from Theo.
Cary Conrad
Cary Conrad
Played by: Travis Van Winkle
Sherry's testosterone-fueled, fitness-obsessed husband.
- But Not Too Bi: Cary identifies as bisexual, but very little is shown of him and Joe hooking up during their swinging experiment, especially compared to Sherry and Love. Granted that Joe is straight and not genuinely into it, but all of the action boils down to Cary masturbating in front of the mirror as "foreplay", to the point that even Joe lampshades that Cary is probably just projecting his Screw Yourself fantasy onto other men.Joe: Oh, of course. Cary is Cary-sexual.
- Disney Death: During their group hunting trip Cary lets Joe believe he knocked him off a cliff and killed him. He was faking it and uses it as a way to let Joe's feelings out.
- Ethical Slut: He and Sherry have an open marriage and are very seasoned at organizing bisexual swinging sessions with other couples; they also imply to have brought most of Madre Linda into the fold to try that at least once. However, they live their sexual proclivities with positivity and mutual respect as a way to feel liberated, keep their marriage healthy, and if anything strengthen it. Ultimately, they are shown to genuinely love and care for one another even under severe duress (for the most part).
- Macho Camp: Cary's entire lifestyle is based around bodybuilding, camping, and turning himself into the perfect human. He's also insufferably outgoing, can't go more than a minute without ripping his clothes off, and gets very touchy-feely with other men while in a state of undress. It comes as no surprise when he reveals himself to be bisexual and tries to couple up with Joe when their wives are experimenting.
- Made of Iron: He survives being pushed off a cliff, getting stabbed, and getting shot with both a gun and a compound bow.
- Mr. Fanservice: We get a good look at him naked from behind during couples night.
- Narcissist: While not really an unlikeable person, Cary is incredibly self-obsessed, presenting himself as an "optimised" human being. He really enjoys surrounding himself with people who adore him and likes spewing out anecdotes about himself being a hero under completely irrelevant circumstances. More comically, he also masturbates in front of mirrors as his own form of sexual foreplay.Cary: If you don't want to fuck yourself, how is someone else gonna want to fuck you?
Gil Brigham
Gil Brigham
Played by: Mackenzie Astin
One of Joe and Love's new neighbours, an ardent antivaxxer.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Gil's daughters infected Henry because Gil is an antivaxxer who prevented them from getting measles vaccines. As thanks, Love smashes his face in with a rolling pin and she and Joe are forced to lock him up while the dig up blackmail material. Then he kills himself when he learns that his son sexually assaulted his classmate and Love frames him for Natalie's murder, ruining his reputation. At least Joe clears his name by the end.
- Dramatic Irony: He was framed for Natalie's murder, even though he has no history of violent crime himself. His son, on the other hand...
- Driven to Suicide: After Joe and Love reveal that he covered up his son's sexual assault of a classmate, he hangs himself in their cage.
- Innocently Insensitive: Is outspoken about his anti-vaccine stance, not knowing how irresponsible and insulting he sounds to Love and Joe. While he is contrite for getting Henry sick with measles, he can't stop himself from raving that vaccines are toxic and even suggests to Joe that Henry building up natural immunity was beneficial.
- Knight Templar Parent: He is extremely protective of his son, even though he's a violent serial rapist.
- Nice Guy: His views on vaccines aside, he's wholesome and squeaky-clean to an extreme. Joe compares him to Neville Longbottom and Ned Flanders and guesses that he saved his virginity for marriage.Joe: Friendly chatter's a reflex with this guy. You may have assaulted the one person in Madre Linda who might give us a pass for this.
- Skewed Priorities: When Joe gives him one of Love's pastries while he's in the cage, he complains that he can't exercise it off.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Gil and his family are convinced that vaccines can't be trusted, which leads to their own children giving Henry the measles. Once he sees how worried Joe and Love were over this, he apologizes for his part in this, but still believes he's right to be paranoid.
Kiki, Brandon, Andrew, and Jackson
Kiki, Brandon, Andrew, and Jackson
Played by: Shannon Chan-Kent (Kiki), Christopher Sean (Brandon), Chris O Shea (Andrew), and Brian Safi (Jackson)
Two other suburban couples in the Conrads' clique. Kiki is a life coach; her husband Brandon is a tech investor. Andrew is a stay-at-home dad married to Jackson, a lawyer.
- Girl Posse: Andrew is a man with a husband rather than a woman, but he and Kiki otherwise seem happy to play second fiddle to local Alpha Bitch Sherry whenever she's gossiping or judging someone.
- Tech Bro: Brandon is a young and handsome tech investor who made his money young and is now semi-retired. According to the season's "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue he managed to make a successful app (and more money) out of the events.
- Token Minority Couple: Kiki and Brandon are a married couple who are visibly both of Asian descent in the mostly-white Madre Linda.
- Unfortunate Names: Love and Joe have to chuckle at the thought of a married couple being named Andrew Jackson.
Dr. Chandra
Dr. Chandra
Played by: Ayelet Zurer
A couples' therapist who counsels Joe and Love.
- The Shrink: She's a very good couple's counselor who can deftly identify Joe and Love's weak points in communication and give solid advice afterwards. She doesn't quite catch that the two of them are violent murderers, but that's not on her. Even Joe admits that he's impressed by her methods.
Ryan Goodwin
Ryan Goodwin
Played by: Scott Michael Foster
Marienne's ex-husband and a local television reporter.
- Asshole Victim: Every season has at least one of Joe's victims deserve their comeuppance and Season 3 is no exception. Joe pushes him off the upper story of a parking lot where he shatters his spine, before stabbing him to death.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Appears early in the third season as the news reporter covering Natalie's disappearance before becoming a much more important character in the season's back half, when Joe's attraction to Marienne takes center stage.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: He has one of the most brutal and drawn out deaths on the show as he is pushed from a height, shatters his spine and is then brutally stabbed multiple times by Joe, bleeding to death slowly and completely helpless to run or fight back. Of course, given his prior behavior, it's not like the bastard didn't deserve every second of it.
- Domestic Abuse: Inflicts this on Marienne despite the fact that they're divorced.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Abusive bastard he is to Marienne, he seems to treat their daughter Juliette decently, though he mostly leaves his mother (Juliette's grandmother) to take care of her. Not being overtly cruel is probably the closest he's capable of genuine love or kindness.
- Faux Affably Evil: He's always very polite and cheery but is a vile, cruel and abusive person underneath it.
- For the Evulz: The reason why he tortures and abuses Marianne so much and wants full custody of their daughter is basically wanting to spite her for his own sadistic amusement.
- Functional Addict: He pretends to be a Recovered Addict. However, when Joe tries to cause a relapse by sneaking drugs into his morning routine, it doesn't work...because Ryan regularly takes drugs and is just highly functional.
- Hate Sink: He's one of the most loathsome characters on the show thus far. He goes out of his way to emotionally beat down Marienne for no reason other than to assert his dominance. When Marienne takes him to court, it turns out he's anticipated her moves and schmoozed up to the judge.
- Hypocrite: Lords the fact that he got sober before Marienne did over her, to the point of using it to gain full custody of their daughter, but it's revealed that unlike Marienne, he never actually got sober at all.
- Immune to Drugs: He uses steroids and other drugs so regularly that he's exceptionally difficult to dose with anything.
- Kick the Dog: His treatment of Marienne as a whole qualifies and it's made clear he wants full custody of their daughter solely to hurt her.
- Made of Iron: He proves to be harder than most for Joe to kill, getting the jump on him in the parking lot and surviving a long fall like Cary.
- Mr. Fanservice: He's an obsessive workout fanatic and it shows. We even get a scene of him in nothing but his underwear to show off his sculpted physique.
- Parental Neglect: Despite having full custody of his and Marienne's daughter, it's clear that he only wanted custody as a power move, and he leaves his daughter's actual care to her grandmother.
- Psycho Party Member: Aside from Joe and Love obviously, Ryan is shown to be the only Madre Linda resident to be completely unhinged and psychotic.
- Sadist: He takes absolute joy in abusing and torturing Marianne and treats it like some normal extra-curricular activity he enjoys.
- Sugary Malice: He threatens to hurt anyone even when he sounds polite to them.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Ron, from the first season, as they are both well-respected figures but constantly abusive to their spouse/partner, who would be single mothers Claudia and Marienne. The only difference is that while Ron is abusive to Paco as well, Ryan, on the other hand, seems to treat Juliette with decent respect, though he rarely gets to spend time with her.
- Tempting Fate: His last words are mocking Joe, claiming he doesn't have it in him to stab Ryan to death. Exactly what you'd expect to then happen happens.
- Too Dumb to Live: Mocking someone who just pushed you off a building, that they don't have the guts to stab you to death, is not a good way to ensure your survival as Ryan finds out the hard way.
- Villain with Good Publicity: He's a respected local reporter who gets away with a lot due to his friendship with a judge and his white male privilege, according to Marienne.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: He's quick to accuse Marienne of being abusive, both to him and Juliette, when he needs to cast doubt on her credibility.
